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Post by Don on Aug 10, 2017 21:29:17 GMT -5
As I explained on Facebook:
In the age of the Berlin Wall, I often wondered how it would feel to cross an imaginary line and suddenly be under threat of incarceration, or worse, for exercising freedoms that were recognized as innate on the other side of the line.
Today, As I crossed the line from Washington to Idaho, I revisited that question. I now know the answer to that question.
The answer is, it's insane to live under that threat.
We'll be selling the Florida house and returning to the world of sanity as soon as we can work out the details. When other states, and Fedgov, regain their senses, we may return.
Anybody want to buy a house?
We're going back on the road full time as soon as we can arrange it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2017 21:39:08 GMT -5
you're moving for legal pot?
I loathe the smell of it, so I wouldn't move for that, but the being on the road seeing the country sounds pretty awesome. Congrats!
I might move from Florida (if I lived there) to get snow. I'm a freak -- I like snow, and I like having four seasons
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Post by Don on Aug 10, 2017 22:12:34 GMT -5
That's one way to look at it. We full-timed for 5 years, but this time we'll spend our time and money in states that don't want to lock us up and take our stuff because my wife prefers THC/CBD to opioids for pain relief and I prefer THC to alcohol for social lubrication.
As more states decide that's none of their damned business, we'll spend less time on the Left coast and spread the love around more.
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Post by Christine on Aug 10, 2017 22:14:32 GMT -5
Hey! We have four seasons too. Cool, warm, hot, and hot as fuck.
Aka green, greener, greenest, and brown.
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Post by Don on Aug 10, 2017 22:15:04 GMT -5
As for winter, I haven't suffered through one for seventeen years. We live in perpetual spring/fall when we full-time, snowbirding with the seasons.
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Post by Don on Aug 10, 2017 22:30:31 GMT -5
The most interesting aspect of this, to me, was the emotional impact of crossing that line today, and of going the other way a month ago. I grew up under the ever-expanding war on drugs, so I was the proverbial frog in hot water. Crossing those state lines was like compressing five decades into a heartbeat. Both ways. I'm still feeling today's, obviously.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 11, 2017 8:31:59 GMT -5
Laws against pot are loosening up almost everywhere, but I don't see them easing up on harder stuff anytime soon. I mean, I'm with you about the way the whole "War on Drugs" is being waged, but I still have a hard time seeing a legitimate case for crack, meth, heroin, etc. Yeah, yeah, autonomy and people can do what they want with their bodies, fine, except that people on those drugs do an incredible amount of damage to the surrounding community, and only some of that would be mitigated by legalizing it so they can just crawl into a crackhouse and die. That said, enjoy your travels. I don't think I'd want to live on the road, but for sure I am retiring somewhere without winter.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 9:07:44 GMT -5
Despite disliking the smell of pot, I'd absolutely make it legal.
Not crack, meth, and heroin, though. I know lots of recreational pot users who lead productive lives, not to mention the medical uses. I don't know any productive recreational meth, heroin, or crack users, and the users I've seen are scary.
Winter is awesome. Boots, scarves, sweaters. Festive fluffy white piles of snow. Curling up with hot drinks in front of a fireplace. No sweaty bodies and exposed unpedicured feet. Go winter!
I might be due for a trip. Don's post had me dream about being on a road trip last night.
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Post by Don on Aug 11, 2017 9:24:08 GMT -5
I've got no use for hard drugs either (and I include liquor in that category), but treating drug addiction as a crime is itself criminal. I'd see Nixon, Reagan and Clinton in prison for war crimes before putting someone with a physical addiction in jail for it.
Hard liquor has done far more harm to far more people than any other hard drug. I won't even qualify that with an IMO. The only reason it's treated differently is because the working class long ago told the political class where they could shove their Prohibition. We see the same thing playing out today with the prohibition of cannabis.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 11, 2017 9:27:04 GMT -5
I don't think we should treat drug addiction as a crime. I do think we should treat theft, burglary, assault, fraud, and various other crimes people commit to feed their addiction crimes. And no, I don't think all that would go away if we legalized everything.
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Post by Don on Aug 11, 2017 9:35:45 GMT -5
I don't think we should treat drug addiction as a crime. I do think we should treat theft, burglary, assault, fraud, and various other crimes people commit to feed their addiction crimes. And no, I don't think all that would go away if we legalized everything. Not if they taxed hard drugs to near their black market price today, as seems to be the case with cannabis. At realistic open market prices, there'd be considerable impact. Drugs are expensive because of gatekeeping, not for any scarce resource reason. Slash the price and offer treatment instead of prison, and hard drug use collapses like the USSR.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 11, 2017 9:39:07 GMT -5
I don't think we should treat drug addiction as a crime. I do think we should treat theft, burglary, assault, fraud, and various other crimes people commit to feed their addiction crimes. And no, I don't think all that would go away if we legalized everything. Not if they taxed hard drugs to near their black market price today, as seems to be the case with cannabis. At realistic open market prices, there'd be considerable impact. Drugs are expensive because of gatekeeping, not for any scarce resource reason. Slash the price and offer treatment instead of prison, and hard drug use collapses like the USSR. You mean, like alcoholism in the former USSR? Seriously, legalization might get rid of the violence problem (which is no small thing), but considering how much damage (legal) alcohol does today, I still shudder to think of legal meth, heroin, PCP, crack, etc. I honestly do not know what a solution that ends the drug war but also doesn't leave heroin addicts and crackheads littering the streets might look like.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2017 9:42:27 GMT -5
I dunno. I know lots of people, including me, who sip scotch recreationally, and rarely even get buzzed.
My late cousin was a crack addict. She went from a beautiful, healthy woman to a physical and mental wreck prostituting herself to dead in a shockingly short period. I don't know that it's possible to do it socially and harmlessly. It is certainly possible to do scotch and bourbon that way.
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Post by Amadan on Aug 11, 2017 9:46:14 GMT -5
I am not saying you can't drink alcohol socially/recreationally or that it inevitably leads to alcoholism. I drink very rarely, but I do on occasion. So yes, it's different from hard drugs in that respect. And I certainly don't advocate going back to Prohibition.
Still, I can't help but think the net effect of alcohol on society is overwhelmingly negative.
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Post by michaelw on Aug 11, 2017 10:19:55 GMT -5
I mean, I'm with you about the way the whole "War on Drugs" is being waged, but I still have a hard time seeing a legitimate case for crack, meth, heroin, etc. Yeah, yeah, autonomy and people can do what they want with their bodies, fine, except that people on those drugs do an incredible amount of damage to the surrounding community, and only some of that would be mitigated by legalizing it so they can just crawl into a crackhouse and die. Well, autonomy is only one possible angle here, of course. Keep in mind that many places in Europe now offer prescription heroin. I don't think it's so much about autonomy as it is about trying to manage the public health risks.
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