Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
Stumble
Ted S. Warren / AP
Jake Dimmock, co-owner of the Northwest Patient Resource Center medical marijuana dispensary, waters plants Oct. 10, 2012, in Seattle.
By Anjeanette Damon (contact) 
Thursday, March 14, 2013 | 3:03 p.m.
Assemblyman Joe Hogan, D-Las Vegas, said his measure to legalize marijuana possession will be introduced in the Assembly on Friday, making Nevada the sixth state to consider decriminalizing pot.
"We've wasted a tremendous amount of money spoiling teen-agers lives, chasing them around until we can arrest them for something," Hogan said. "And marijuana is not just a harmless plant. The medical benefits are remarkable."
Hogan, a retired naval officer and Department of Defense employee, said he does not smoke pot.
"Maybe 45 years ago someone gifted me a few puffs, but I have not been a user at all," Hogan said.
Rather, he is more concerned with the societal benefits of legalizing marijuana, he said.
Hogan is working with a Las Vegas doctor who has been pushing the issue. Dr. Stephen Frye, who calls himself Dr. Pot, has been pushing marijuana legalization.
Voters in two states, Colorado and Washington, decriminalized marijuana possession in November. Lawmakers in Oregon, Hawaii and New Mexico are considering pot legalization measures.
Nevada already allows for medical marijuana use. But patients who have a medical marijuana card have no legal way to obtain it. Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, has sponsored legislation to create a dispensary system in Nevada.
Segerblom said Thursday he is not cosponsoring Hogan's measure.
"I'm sticking to medical marijuana," he said.
Hogan said Assemblymen Andrew Martin and Paul Aizley are cosponsoring the measure. He's also hoping for some Republican support.
"I'm really hopeful" it will pass, Hogan said. "It would benefit a lot of people."
Andrew Doughman contributed to this story.
And tax the s**t outta it, marijuana could really help the Las Vegas budget..
Next they will argue that it's ok to drive just being a little "stoned". If you keep your "stoniness" below a certain level then go ahead and get behind the wheel. Have a good time! Unbelievable assanine drug addicts...God help this country!
Prohibition didn't work. Making Marijuana illegal has not, does not and WILL NOT WORK!
What part of that do these big heads don't understand?
Pot is more easily obtained than alcohol. And you have dimwits who accuse people of being "drug addicts" despite the OBVIOUS FACTS?
What world are these blind people living in?
Legalize it, tax it and regulate it! The marijuana drug war has failed miserably.
Driving will intoxicated is illegal now and will be illegal even if marijuana is legalized.
The fact that someone decides to drive intoxicated has little to do with the fact that marijuana is legal or not since it is already illegal to drive while intoxicated!
Reason help these dimwits!
Washington state and Colorado chose to legalize and tax not just so people could stoned but so kids wouldn't.
All the money for weed control and war on drugs has just alienated folks, wasted time, money and lives. Ban water! Ban sex! Ban music or shoes or smiling and check out how popular
Uruguay started this a year ago, owing to the wisdom of the report from the International group of world leaders, psychologists, drug enforcement, law enforcement types that basically said we are hurting ourselves and enriching the bandito culture, encouraging hard drug enslavement and screwing the pooch.
http://www.examiner.com/article/uruguay-...
Agree with WBTerry.
Since it's illegal under NV law to drive with even a trace amount of cannabis metabolites in your system, it should also be illegal to drive with a BAC of greater than 0.00. After all, if you've had a drink in the last month, you're drunk, right?
What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Finally a politician with some common sense.
I applaud this measure. Sadly, democracy has failed the citizenry in Nevada. Medical marijuana patients have been forced into the streets to actively participate in black market, illegal activity. All thanks to our courts and the legislature. We the people voted for medical marijuana not once, but twice. You can see how much these people care for their constituents.
"Nevada already allows for medical marijuana use. But patients who have a medical marijuana card have no legal way to obtain it. Sen. Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, has sponsored legislation to create a dispensary system in Nevada."
Damon -- you should have done your homework. Nevada voters first changed our Constitution for this in 1998. The legislature deserves nothing positive said about this 15 years later.
"Medical marijuana patients have been forced into the streets to actively participate in black market, illegal activity. All thanks to our courts and the legislature. We the people voted for medical marijuana not once, but twice."
EasyAndy -- so glad to see someone else paying attention to this! Ever hear of the LaGuardia Report?
The profound stupidity of anti-marijuana laws is proven by hemp being criminalized with them. Nature's #1 botanical gift to this planet outlawed so government can plunder its people and their property.
"Tobacco, hemp, flax and cotton, are staple commodities." -- from Thomas Jefferson "The Works," vol. 3 (Notes on Virginia I, Correspondence 1780-1782), "A Notice Of The Mines And Other Subterraneous Riches; Its Trees, Plants, Fruits, &C."
This is good news for Nevada. Hopefully it will go all the way to full legalization. Freedom and Liberty, that's all we can hope for.
It's pretty difficult to change the direction a society is going, but this is one of those times.
Asbestos and tobacco, like many mistakes, aren't alone in having winners and losers.
The losers with a bad cannabis law are the disconnected families where people lied to the kids, where distrust and disenfranchisement multiplied, and prison stigmatized.
Our record is clear: Wasted resources and misdirected energies have split our populace and dimmed the lives of millions, but the greatest resource depletion lies in the realm of what was once termed Human resource - that valuing of individual traits, of individual choice, of personal respect and for the freedom to concoct one in the first place.
Dumb pot laws screwed a lot of people a lot of ways.
This needs to pass! It should have been done years ago. Not only is it the right thing to do, it will be a tremendous boost to our economy.
If we are going to be "sin city" then by all means embrace it and run full speed with it!
Why Marijuana is Legal to Possess, Consume, Grow, and Distribute by all Citizens of the United States:
Cannabis and the psychoactive substance, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) are both scientifically proven to have medicinal benefits and have been accepted by many patients in the United States of America for treatments such as; ADD/ADHD, Arthritis, Glaucoma, Pain Relief, Reducing Anxiety, Restoring Appetite, and for some patients has Prevented the Spread of Cancer Cells while Promoting Autophagy. Thus, neither Cannabis nor THC can be arbitrarily classified as a Schedule I Drug (no current accepted medical use in treatment in the United States) by the United States Federal Government under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 enacted by the 91st United States Congress as it infringes on the Constitutional Rights of all Citizens of the United States.
All satisfied users of Cannabis and/or THC in the United States have the right to print this document, to alter it, and to keep it for personal protection from Government and State employees attempting to infringe on their Constitutional Rights.
The awareness of this collective knowledge retroactively frees every Citizen of the United States wrongfully convicted of a federal offense solely involving Marijuana and also null and voids any and all Marijuana-related charges against them.
Preamble of the United States Declaration of Independence
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
Amendment V of the United States Constitution
"No person shall"be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
Section 1 of Amendment XIV of the United States Constitution
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
boftx mentioned the "E" word. Gawd!
The economies of Denver and Seattle are expecting a rush, so to speak. Screw medicine; they all voted for RECREATIONAL use of cannabis. 5 to 4 or better
And the story on the street as these two states are making this law crap up as we go forward to get caught up with what was goofy about our past is clear - it's gonna be BIG! BIG like Vegas at night compared to Reno or Elko or Empire or Baggs.
We're gonna make old Amsterdam look like Orange Peel Junction. You should see our menu lists, our baked goods, our savories. Tours. Shops. Bed and Breakfasts with Bongs, blunts and brownies. Poetry slams inside and sidewalk salmon slammin out in the gentle rain with peanut sauce and tinctures. Capanada salads with enabled eggplants, activated onions and sun-dried greened-up tomatoes and glorified garlic in a green-buttered penna bed...g'night..
Legal to smoke it for fun here and there but not everywhere...hey there Vegas, wanna have some fun?? Why doncha come over sometime?! XOXO Seattle, Denver, et al..
Churches and schools, cops and parents, lawyers, judges and firemen all came down on the side of legalizing and regulating the greenery to benefit all of us instead of just a handful of outlaws, Dang!!...what were they thinking?
Joe,
I believe I have mentioned in the past that I am pragmatic. That includes being a bit of a mercenary. Or is that all just part of being an old-fashioned Classical Liberal? :)
The Swiss Guard that protects the Pope are mercenaries. Are they liberals?
SunJon,
Depending upon what aspect you wish to address, yes. :)
I'm against it in large part that marijuana advocates refuse to attribute any negatives to it's use. And unless you are on chemo treatments or a real medical problem medical marijuana is a farce. They put marijuana on the same plate as aspirin. Which to any sane person is ridiculous. Medical marijuana is a red herring, studies have proven that. It's just an excuse to smoke pot.
The other farce is that kids won't get marijuana if it's legalized. They get pot now, how would legalizing it stop that? At least with booze it's a little harder hiding a 750ml and then there is the suffering that comes afterward.
Personally if you are an adult and you smoke pot at home, I really don't have a problem with it. But if it is legalized, it needs to be restricted to someone's domicile not out in public.
Also it would adversely affect tourism. We would lose convention business. Amsterdam is actually a lovely canal city but that is overridden by pot and prostitution.
What someone needs to do is make an herbal supplement of marijuana- like Echinacea and ginseng. Marijuana 500 mg./ standardized extract containing 2% thc in each capsule. And then put the allegory and incidental claims regarding the benefits of marijuana on the bottle- the FDA will then slap one of those warning labels on the bottle. It will then not be a drug or medication- it will be an herbal supplement. ;)
I don't smoke anything because I believe in protecting my lungs. But marijuana has many medical benefits. My late mother's doctor gave her one of the first prescriptions for marijuana over 20 years ago. She never used it because of the social stigma. Also, she did not smoke. But it would have helped her sickle cell disease greatly for appetite loss,anxiety and pain. She would have enjoyed it on occasion as I do made as a tea with raw honey or in coffee. Lastly, in california you can obtaian a medical marijuana card easily. But once you DO, you CAN NOT purchase a firearm any longer. That's why I won't get a medical marijuana card in California.
We had another "noble experiment" with alcohol prohibition last century and all it did was give rise to organized crime and gangsterism. Any similarity to our experience with marijuana prohibition is more than just coincidental.
Assemblyman Joe Hogan will certainly get my support in the future.
Robert Hess hit the nail on the head in his post.
All these cries about medical marijuana is just an excuse for most people to smoke pot.
If you are legitimately sick, then by all means they should have everything available to them.
I agree, I think if adults want to smoke in the privacy of their own home, then leave them be.
I am worried if it is legalized, you won't be able to walk down the street without smelling it emanating from people smoking in their backyard or on the patio, because there will not be any repercussion. Do you want you kids smelling it from the neighbors??
We shouldn't be throwing people in jail for smoking, but legalizing it and putting it out in the open is not a good idea. You pot-heads advocating for this, just because you like to smoke, are not thinking this all the way through.
This is an important step in doing the right thing.
Of course, when is the right thing ever done anymore?
Brian Hess is wrong. Pot is real. It can be effective. Let's try to talk about how things are, rather than how you think they are.
No one is forced to use marijuana. Those opposed are voting to restrict the access of others. The prospect of taxing sales to adults is not insignificant, whereas money lost pursuing adult recreational users is a waste to taxpayers. It is time to reassess policy.
airweare, nobody said pot is not real, and nobody said it was not effective. Yes, try and talk about how things are and not how you think they are.
Making it legal opens the door to a whole host of problems. Driving while high, driving with marijuana in the car, driving while another in the car is smoking. Smoking out in the open in backyards, and patios. If you don't think these are real issues, and real problems, then you are kidding yourself.
I agree, adults should not be arrested for smoking in the privacy of their own home. But putting it out in the open will have consequences...and as usual, people just do not think that far ahead.
About time. Hopefully the sensible people of Nevada will do right and vote to decriminalize this harmless plant (plant, not a "drug"). Think of the added benefits. Weed tourism would skyrocket, especially in this town.
About time. There is probably more grass consumed in Vegas than any city in the world of comparable size. I was a narcotics investigator for years and know what I am talking about.
Prostitution should be next. It's a party town. We shouldn't pretend otherwise.
Mr. Hess is correct. It is wrong to compare cannabis to aspirin or alcohol. Aspirin kills 52 people per year. Alcohol kills 24,518 per year. Cannabis kills 0 per year. Who is beliving the hype. http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/02/b....
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_o...
Mr. Hess....the bulk of tourists come from California. Californians consume grass by the ton. We would lose convention business??? The party atmosphere is why we have convention business to begin with. Why do you think they come here? Intellectual stimulation. The conventions are why we have thousands of hookers. Whores and grass go together like soup and sandwich.
All part of a well balanced convention.
My husband and I live where growing marijuana is legal, and we grow our own at home. I would not recommend this in a state/country where it is illegal. HomeGro sells this SixShooter LED growing system that uses the same technology NASA uses to grow food for their astronauts in space. It was worth a try since they offered us a 30-day money back guarantee. We decided to invest, and it has been well worth every dime. http://www.home-gro.com
Liz... In the interest of full disclosure are you one of the employee owners of Home-Gro?
I want the state to see some tax revenue. Growing at home takes away from that.
Wow, I might be able to get off my prescribed Hydrocodone pain pills...great! I don't take them as often as I should and just deal with the pain because I don't want to get addicted to them.Now if this becomes legal I won't have to put off medication.
Looks like 99.99% are in favor of this! This guy seems to be confused!
" They put marijuana on the same plate as aspirin."
Actually aspirin is more dangerous!
"It's just an excuse to smoke pot."
None should be needed, it's a "pursuit of happiness" and protected by our Constitution!
"The other farce is that kids won't get marijuana if it's legalized. They get pot now, how would legalizing it stop that?"
Kids get is so easily because they get it from the black market you idiot! If it's legal, regulated and taxed the black market will disappear (unless they get greedy and over tax it) it will be just as hard for kids as booze is now, not perfect, but about a 100 times harder to get then pot is now!
"Personally if you are an adult and you smoke pot at home, I really don't have a problem with it. But if it is legalized, it needs to be restricted to someone's domicile not out in public."
So you are for it! You just like those that enjoy it to be criminals and have to buy it from the black market that's supported by the Mexican drug gangs. The strip is about the only place in the USA where you can walk down the street with a beer if you are of age, I think adults walking down the strip with a joint would be way less dangerous, no bottle to throw and it tends to calm people as opposed to the effects of liquor.
The biggest obstacle will be the multibillion dollar para-military/police prohibition enforcement industry that has been built around this prohibition, half of these forces will no longer be needed but they will fight back hard to keep the statuesque and billions of dollars that feed this industry.
"Also it would adversely affect tourism. We would lose convention business."
Are you totally disconnected and UN-informed? It would quickly double our tourism! Who do you think is buying the billions upon billions of dollars in pot that is now produced in every neighborhood across the country and the semi-truck loads that come into country every day from Mexico? It's the vast majority of Americans, that who! They will flock to Las Vegas by the millions!
Only medical drug use, no more green zombie-threats.
Legal medical marijuana use would be a medical necessity and should have a tax abatement. All other use should be taxed.
Prohibition did NOT work. Just decriminalize, legalize, regulate, and TAX marijuana.
Seems like now is the time, especially with an aging society in need of alternatives for pain relief, and, as other Commenters have well explained, the use of it is so wide spread, it might as well be legalized. While we're at it, get those gridlocked politicians in Washington, D.C. to decriminalize it as well.
Green Blessings and Peace,
Star
I think it's a good idea. Maybe if everyone could get high legally, everyone will be more relaxed, have a good laugh, and subdue the gigantic Las Vegas rat race!
It's almost 4:20 so see ya later.
"Maybe 45 years ago someone gifted me a few puffs, but I have not been a user at all," Hogan said."
Ya Right,
Now we know who Bill Clinton was getting high with at Oxford!
I must be getting old, had to Google the 4:20
I would say "Wake up!" but it's a bit cliche.
Don't look now, but pot is growing.
It is being made into budder, into hashish, and then brownies, bacon and jam, salads, veggie dishes, desserts, entrees, corn bread, pot pies, pizza and pecan pie.
It is inside the raspberry drink in my glass and the chicken/peanut sauce wrap on my plate.
Biologists and Big Pharma alike are in this industry to develop special strains to carry pain relief where none would go before.
Sure, go ahead and discount nature's nuggets. Go ahead and cheap shot your momma too. What big pharma and the liquor lobby were hating on was just a simple organic combo that treats people like we like it. Ya can't blame them for trying like hell to protect their income. they know what the legalization means to them - the kitty cat is out of the bag.
If you think laws from the 1930s suit your style, well go on ahead and try to bring back all the prohi-goddamn-bition you can drum up!
Truth is... Washington and Colorado residents voted FOR recreational use of pot. They said in absolutely no uncertain terms "We want our buds, and we want 'em fer fun!"
Stay stodgy Vegas. Go have a cocktail!
Okay history buffs,
let's peak back a few decades...
Look! It's Tricky Dick. "And I think we could pull this off guys. It's called the 'War on Drugs!'
We've got backing from our friends in law enforcement, from corrections and from the prosecutors. We get to look like we give a sh*t! And we got backing from Pedro and Juan and the El Nortes too. Liquor lobby, chamber, Pharma, media and the NRA.
We can manage to whitewash, err, what's that new word, Launder, yeah, LAUNDER some excellent revenues!
That Joe Kennedy had nothing on us.
Hell, with our friends, we can manipulate the price and 'invest' it as we see fit.
Any body wanna drink? Darla, get that group a yer gurls out an servin' It's damn near noon!"
Well,
Call me crazy,
but the most valid point of view on this entire issue arrives by way of the concocted perspective of a kid growing up in Amsterdam.
She has seen it all and smelled it coming and going; first the happy travelers, coffeeshops with love grass, the smoky nights and moonlit howling music jams.
Then the drunks and fights and hookers slithering away with the drunkest.
And then the thugs and the hard drug guys.
Then the teenagers that are sex slaves from other countries strung out by their pimps, pumped full of silicone breasts and round booties for quick profits, yep
Blame the pot, hess
Since the change in pot laws went into effect in Holland, what we have found is a shifting of focus on WHO, not what...
"In Amsterdam there are tourists going to visit the museums and the canals who go to the Bulldog or some other coffee shop to smoke some weed. Here you had people coming in just to visit four or five coffee shops and buy up the maximum amount of weed," explains Gertjan Bos, the mayor's spokesman. "They were noisy, unruly, a nuisance."
Bos says the weed pass has successfully halted the flow of an estimated 1.6 million foreign visitors a year who came to the city for pot.
Although the coffee shop association calculates the decline in dope-smoking visitors has wiped out income of about $185 million, Bos denies there's been any significant impact on the city's wider economy."
So in other words, since they said no to their foreigner influx, the pot is still there and locals enjoy it and some places like Amsterdam tolerate foreigners, as they choose to do and have chosen to do for the last few centuries that I can recall.
Diversity is everywhere; it's just more diversified some places than others!
Ooops, I left a little pertinent info here.
Bos is from Maastrich, a town close to the border.
Amsterdam is still impacted, however because many coffee-shops have closed just as local 'For Locals Only' clubs have multiplied.
What their new law says is that pot is okay, but whether or not foreigners are allowed to partake is a decision made on a place-by-place basis instead of uni-goddamn-versally!
What a concept, huh?
When I started researching outcome-guided pot growing techniques, of course I had a lot to learn.
And looking back on experiments in Holland and discoveries since those early days, I am still blown away by the progress we have made as scientists and human beings.
Once research began to unveil the links between this naturally-occurring but variable experience with the psycho-active effects stemming from ingestion through various routes and measured digitally and referenced psychologically and in workplace productivity research, we have gained a modicum of control over time of how we can enjoy the beauties of controlled cannabis evolution while weeding out the downers.
Several outcomes from the research are abundantly clear:
* It's not the quantity of THC, but the blend of quantity and deliverability.
* Eating and drinking are preferable to smoking for long-term health, but with good buds, quantities are quite tiny and bubblers, effective. It's the stink, the carbon monoxide and the tars
* Several blends enable both sociable 'sativa' effervescence and intense 'indica' pain relief
According to this article from the LA Times, the DEA has created their own ignorance by treating this awful weed a horrible demon.
To the contrary stands a mountain of hidden understanding of an otherwise noble source of pain relief. The US has "just said 'no'"
Gosh do you think there might be some research somewhere that indicates something other than what the liquor lobby and big pharma would have you believe??
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jan/25/...
And by contrast to civility, has anyone been to Indonesia lately??
Those 17,000 islands in paradise where they have gold, silver, oil, natural gas, massive poverty and starvation, excellent sun and growing conditions for all kinds of crops and seafood and fruit, but a layer of cronyism and dictators?
You know, where if you are caught with what appears to be an ounce of weed or more, well they SHOOT YOU where you stand or sit or whatever. It's law! It happens all the time. So do pleas, also known as shakedowns. You get the drift, eh?