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Saturday, September 15, 2007


From The Print Edition:  Vice Mayor Crowley - Decriminalize Marijuana!

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

by Vice Mayor David Crowley

In March of this year I, along with former Vice Mayor Tarbell, cast the two lone votes against an ordinance that criminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Just to be clear, the vote in March of 2007 made the law permanent after it was instituted on a trial basis the year before—a decision I also opposed.

Though many who claimed I was being soft on crime viewed my position as unpopular at the time—I stand by my vote. In fact the recent debate over the new jail plan only affirms in my mind that I made the right decision.

My position on the matter is not a philosophical statement about illegal drugs. As a politician I am happy to “go out on a limb” and say that I am against the buying, selling, trafficking and use of illegal drugs. They hurt those who use them and the families and friends who care about those involved with illegal drugs. Rather, my position on the matter of criminalizing small amounts of marijuana is a practical one.

Unfortunately, throughout the City, many violent offenders are arrested on a regular basis for a myriad of heinous offenses. Many of them are let out of prison early because of a shortage of jail space.

Given this problem it makes little sense to me to pass a law, or rather make a law permanent, which inevitably will crowd our jails with non-violent offenders.

Generally I view those caught with less than 200 grams of marijuana as less violent that those who are caught with large amounts and are likely trafficking. This also applies to those who commit more serious crimes such as rape, robbery, or assault with a deadly weapon.

This logic is a big part of the movement in the 60’s, which sought to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. I would rather spend our limited resources going after those trafficking the drugs on a large scale. These are the folks most likely to be involved in violent activities in the first place.

Regardless of your position on the matter of the new safety plan, which includes a tax increase, I do believe that there is a jail space problem in Hamilton County.

It is incumbent upon us as City leaders to help the problem in the short term.

One way we can do this is by focusing our enforcement activities on finding the most violent criminals and making sure they are locked up for long periods of time.


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  1. The Singing Press Secretary says:

    Crowley, congratulations for thinking rationally.  You may be the only incumbent I vote for.  Your first name helps too.  David….has a great ring to it….

    Actually I may also vote for Berding, but only if he pushes for 2 Night Stand’s new Bengals song to be played at home games and on Bengals promotions, hence turning me into a local rockstar. 

    In fact I’m offering all City Council members the opportunity to provide me with the personal favors they need to earn my vote.  Let us be honest about the self-serving nature of politics.  Politicians, it’s time for you to ask yourself, “What can I do for Dave Rothfuss?”

  2. David E. Gallaher says:

    How frightening is it that, even though Crowley doesn’t get it, he still comes closer to getting it than 7 out of 9 Clowncil-persons?
    To understand why I say that, read my below which was published in the Enquirer Sep. 4.
    “Of all the inanimate objects and substances in our world there are just a few, fortunately, which hinder many people from thinking clearly, even without these people coming into direct contact with them. Their mere proximity causes a form of hysteria. Let’s take two as examples: drugs (inclusive of alcohol) and guns.

    How many times have we heard so-called gun “advocates” say: “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people”? That is simply and obviously true to those able to rise above the hysteria, but a sizeable minority will never get it.

    In the same way: Drugs don’t abuse people. People abuse themselves. Once again simply and obviously true, but an even larger minority, and possibly a majority, will never get it.

    But there is a problem much greater than hysteria-afflicted thinking and greater than people killing people with guns and greater than people abusing themselves with drugs. And that problem is the war on drugs itself.

    You will need to be able to rise above the hysteria over the hysteria to recognize it, but the war on drugs is far worse than a failure, far worse than a huge waste of money. Wherever the war on drugs is waged, it breeds terrorism. Think of the Taliban protecting poppy growers in Afghanistan. Think of the low-level civil war in Colombia.

    But even more significantly for us in Cincinnati, come to grips with the fact that it is the war on drugs that is directly responsible for breeding and sustaining the terrorists right here in our inner city. Stop trying to conflate drugs with the “drug-related violence” that our Police Department acknowledges is a major source of violent crime. It’s similar to conflating Iraq with 9/11.

    The drugs are emphatically not causing our violence. Rather, the cause is the war on drugs.”

  3. Ric Ricland says:

    I sometimes take my nieces and nephews out for pizza. In the summer time it’s almost guaranteed that we’ll pull up to a stop light and some pot head will being going at it full bore. The fumes get into my car and children breathe them in. In an instant the kids turn from happy to argumentative and moody.

    I snap into action.

    I dial 911 on my cell phone, report the car, and follow it until the police arrive. I’ve sent about 10 people to jail this summer and only wish the weather stays warm enough to bust a few more.

    Years ago when I’d move into a new building and see a cloud of pot smoke outside someone’s door, I’d leave an anonymous note asking them to please stop polluting the air everyone has to breathe. It rarely worked, so now I don’t even bother.

    Instead, I wait until it’s really bad than call 911. The cops arrive, see the cloud and go right into the apartment without a warrant because the cloud is evidence of a crime in action.

    Try it sometime, it works like a charm.

    THC is an illicit drug. There’s nothing to discuss. Fuck you. If use it around me, you’re going to jail.

    ricland

  4. anon2000 says:

    LOL ricland - what a joke and liar you are.

    I’ve always been a chicken and don’t drink or smoke pot because I’m too insecure - but I have never in my life seen ANYONE smoke a joint and get rowdy, NEVER.

    The biggest problem pot heads present is they supply the drug lords and gangs reason for their violence.

    Just make the stuff legal and tax it as much as you tax my cigarettes then we can solve the world’s problems and start a real conversation about the drawbacks of smoking pot.

    The War on Drugs harms more people than it helps.

  5. cincysue says:

    Ricland you are a true psychopath. Are you wearing a tracking device on your ankle? Do you stay the appropriate distance from a school? If there was ever a reason for me to reconsider my stand on the jail issue, it would simply be that being on the same side of an issue with you has become too unbearable. Not like those that can, without pangs of conscience form a “diverse coalition” with the likes of a, say, Tom Brinkman, without firmly and publicly distancing themselves, I have to say, I rebuke you! (and of course Si Leis and Tom Striecher). But that aside:

    You sound like one of those “funny uncles” that people spend their adult life trying to forget. The real question is who on earth would allow children in your presence unsupervised? You must be able to contain your anti-social tendencies to this board otherwise anyone that would let you take their kids for pizza—and spew the filthy hatred and prejudice the vomits out of your mouth—should get a 241 KIDS call because they obviously are not fit parents. 

    Everyone on this board also drives the roads of Cincinnati and I would venture to say that no one agrees that there is a risk of inhaling and getting a buzz from another car. This is all in your mind. You want to smoke pot but you’re too scared and too cheap. Stop trying to bogart somebody’s else’s investment.

  6. CincyJeff says:

    I actually agree with Crowley on this despite his unpersuasive argument.  The fact that this law is being applied in such a racist manner means it needs to be shelved.  I’m not a supporter of legalizing pot but if we’re going to put people in jail for it (which I’m also suspicious of) then it can’t target only black people.

  7. David E. Gallaher says:

    “The biggest problem pot heads present is they supply the drug lords”

    anon2000,
    Permit me to clarify what you said.
    The war on drugs creates the drug lords, which, in turn, create the street corner dealers.
    The war on drugs causes the Taliban to protect poppy growers in Afghanistan.
    The war on drugs funds terrorism.
    The war on drugs ultimately causes ALL the violence abroad and here.

    The war on drugs must simply end.

  8. The Singing Press Secretary says:

    I’m suprised the council members who support this law haven’t recieved a medal of honor from the Ku Klux Klan.  Cecil Thomas included.

  9. Ric Ricland says:

    Crowley is wrong on pot, and I’m surprised. I would expect a mature councilman like him to understand the real problem with the drug.

    First, it IS a “gateway” drug; let’s be perfectly clear about that. No one starts out shooting-up heroin their arm. They start out with pot, then graduate to harder stuff.

    Second, the ghetto is a pot nightmare. I know. I once lived on Race street and just the act of walking home from work was something I couldn’t do without breathing in gallons of pot.

    And right there in Washington Park next to the Washington Park School, hop heads smoke until their eyes pop-out while school children play around them.

    And then there’s life in a tenement building peopled with pot heads. You walk through a hallway where you can actually see the pot cloud hovering just over your head. I used to go in and out with a wet cloth over my nose and mouth.

    And what about the children forced to breathe in these fumes? Pot heads will tell pot is harmless; unfortunately, this ghetto Urban Myth is not borne out by decades of research that show pot is a recipe for bad health and mainfold psychological problems in later life.

    Hell, I’m an ex-pot head myself and look how screwed-up I am.

    To sum up, there is no way to treat pot but as an illegal substance and anyone who advocates anything less needs to take a trip to Amsterdam and see how the legalization of pot has turned the town into the most paranoid town in Europe.

    The kids in Amsterdam don’t sneak cigarettes, they sneak pot. Ever meet a 13-year old pot head?

    Meet one once and they’ll be no question in your mind that pot—in any amount!—must remain illegal.

    Got a 13 year old son or grandson?

    Decriminalize pot and when all of a sudden there’s a reason you and the kid can’t talk to each other any more, you won’t have to guess what the reason is.

    ricland

  10. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:

    ric,

    You don’t know how to make a single logical point, ever, do you?  Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug.  That is a fallacy known as the “Slippery Slope.” 

    Maybe that first sip of Mountain Dew encouraged you to seek a more significant high!

    Maybe marijuana being illegal brings users into contact with a criminal elements, thereby increasing one’s likelihood of doing other illegal things.

    Do you even know the history of Prohibition?  How the outlaw of beer heightened the trade in liquor, because it was easier to transport?

    Please provide some documentation regarding the “decades of research” you referenced.

    Besides, stop changing the subject, another of your favorite fallacies.  Why are you talking about Amsterdam?  We’re talking about whether a pot law should be used to racially profile and target Black men while giving them permanent criminal records—especially since that does not happen in the rest of the state of Ohio.

  11. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:

    Ric Ricland said:
    “Hell, I’m an ex-pot head myself and look how screwed-up I am.”

    Phil Burr-ass was addicted to porn.
    He turned out okay.
    Not.

    Move along here.  Nothing to see ...

  12. Ric Ricland says:

    Besides, stop changing the subject, another of your favorite fallacies.  Why are you talking about Amsterdam?  We’re talking about whether a pot law should be used to racially profile and target Black men while giving them permanent criminal records—especially since that does not happen in the rest of the state of Ohio.

    It’s not changing the subject, Jason, it’s using a anecdote to support a point, which is yet another writing device you’ve yet to get your head around.

    And why not cut to the chase and join Gen. Nikki X and her pals in demanding all black men and women be allowed to break our laws with impunity?

    I lived in Over-the-Rhine for five years and saw first hand how the hands-off policy in places like Washington Park turned it into one of the biggest open air drug markets in the county. Go in there any day of the week and see if you can sit on a bench for five minutes without breathing in a lungful of pot, crack, whatever.

    There’s a schoolyard attached to the park. Talk to the principal one day about whether she thinks the pot fumes the kids breathe in while playing are harmless.

    Crowley, who generally is on the right side of things, is dead wrong on this.

    In my book, anyone who smokes dope while his children are close enough to breathe the shit in, is guilty of child abuse.

    Pot heads really believe their “pot is harmless” junk science, you know. They think it’s perfectly fine to light up a blunt while rocking a newborn in their lap.

    And let’s be crystal clear on one thing, Mr. Crowley: the instant we decriminalize small amounts of pot, there won’t be anywhere you’ll be able to go in Hamilton County without breathing in a lungful of the shit every time you inhale.

    The cloud of pot that hangs over Washington Park will extend to every corner of Hamilton County. Visibility will be so bad you’ll have to drive with your fog lights on 24-7.

    You don’t know how to make a single logical point, ever, do you?  Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug.  That is a fallacy known as the “Slippery Slope.”

    The term isn’t my invention, Jason, it’s the term referenced in the American Association of Medicine Journal (JAMA) to be found here:
    http://www.marijuanaaddiction.info/news-left.htm?aid=49

    And I understand this is your blog and you can throw your weight around, Jason, but your repeated assertion of screwball opinions as fact, is starting to get a little tideous.

    You’re not a deep thinker. Complex ideas make smoke come out of your ears which is why you’re always whining “stay on topic!”—you can’t follow the thread of the conversation.

    I mention a place like Amsterdam, and you draw a blank slate. You get pissed that I’ve introduced a concept into the discussion you have no way of referencing.

    And with all due respect, Jason, you’re not a quality poster in any event. Your comments never rise above ordinary; after which you become a petty martinet as the discussion races past your limited references—“Stay on topic!”

    Ever been to Europe? Asia? Caribbean? South America?

    I’ve lived in each of these places for very long periods of time.

    Ever write a novel? play? screenplay?

    I’ve done each.

    Ever work as a professional news reporter?

    Yep, been there too.

    So don’t tell me about staying on topic, ok?

    Especially since it’s clear you don’t know what the topic is REALLY ABOUT most of the time.

    ricland

  13. Ric Ricland says:

    Besides, stop changing the subject, another of your favorite fallacies.  Why are you talking about Amsterdam?  We’re talking about whether a pot law should be used to racially profile and target Black men while giving them permanent criminal records—especially since that does not happen in the rest of the state of Ohio.—the Dean

    Sorry, but I still find the above amazing.

    I’m trying to figure how anyone is supposed to discuss anything in this forum when the guy who runs it thinks referencing Amsterdam when talking about pot laws is “changing the subject.”

    Referencing Amsterdam elevates the discussion to a higher level. It cites one of the few places in the world where pot is legal. It’s the kind of reference any well-read person would make and readily understand, yet the Dean calls it “off-topic.”

    I guess the idea is that you’re supposed to check your brain at the door when you come here.

    You’re not supposed to reference anything beyond Cincinnati.

    You’re not supposed to make a connection between Smitherman’s present and past.

    You’re not supposed be against the anti-jail tax hysteria.

    You’re not supposed to be against the decriminalization of marijuana.

    You can’t be for the Hamilton County Commission or Sheriff Leis.

    In short, you’re not supposed to have any kind of divergent view that collides with Big Brother’s.

    Is that the idea, Jason?

    ricland

  14. Ric Ricland says:

    Honestly, Jason, you really need to get a grip.

    The harassment campaign you conduct against people who don’t share your views is outrageous. If I get into an exchange with Patton or Jeffre, before they even have the opportunity to respond, you rush in to defend them.

    If I ask questions about Smiterman’s past, you threaten to ban me from the group for “smearing” him.

    And then there’s your catch-all “off-topic” charge when I attempt to add something other than local references to a discussion.

    Pure harassment.

    You’re running this supposed “forum” like a fascist dictator, belittling and weeding out anyone who doesn’t smoke pot, hate the Hamilton County Commission, or think Smitherman is the greatest defender of Justice since Batman and Robin.

    And the kind of sustained trashing of public officials you encourage is disgusting.

    How many front-page articles do you have throwing Sheriff under the bus? Where’s your sense of proportion? How can you call yourself fair and balanced when you have four lead articles attacking him each running at the same time?

    And, as I write above, if anyone dare questions the candidates you support, there you go accusing him of being “off-topic” and threatening to boot him from the forum if he continues.

    Why do you think that kind of crap is necessary?

    Where’d you learn your trade, man?

    ricland

  15. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:

    No, ricland, you openly admitted in another strand that you are not trying to have a logical debate.

    You could learn much by advancing your agenda in a manner that makes sense.  Instead, you illogically hop from topic to topic, holding your own self to no accountability to whatever point you pretend to have.

    So the real question, ricland, is to learn where you learned your “trade.”

  16. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:

    BTW, I never called myself “fair and balanced,” nor do I intend to call myself that.

    ricland wrote:

    I’m trying to figure how anyone is supposed to discuss anything in this forum when the guy who runs it thinks referencing Amsterdam when talking about pot laws is “changing the subject.”

    Who are you responding to when you mention this?  Maybe that is your problem—your total in ability to make clear what, specifically, you wish to discuss. 

    If you are responding to Vice Mayor Crowley (and the first line of the comment in question suggests you are), then please show me where he discusses legalizing marijuana?

    Amsterdam would be perfectly logical when responding to someone’s call to legalize marijuana.  Crowley made no such call.

    Are you really this dense?

  17. Ric Ricland says:

    You really are hopeless, Jason. I wrote this:

    I’m trying to figure how anyone is supposed to discuss anything in this forum when the guy who runs it thinks referencing Amsterdam when talking about pot laws is “changing the subject.”

    and from that you respond with this:

    If you are responding to Vice Mayor Crowley (and the first line of the comment in question suggests you are), then please show me where he discusses legalizing marijuana?

    Honestly, Jason, if you’re dyslexic, just say so and we’ll all understand. And I’m not trying to be flip, but as shown above your issues with reading-for-comprehension are manifold.

    Crowley need not discuss “legalizing marijuana” in order for my Amsterdam reference be on-topic; that’s just your confusion about how debate ebbs and flows.

    Your thinking is so narrow and linear that when given an ink blot and asked what does it look like, you say, “An ink blot.”

    Shrinks have a word for that—“cognitive dissonance.”

    Introducing Amsterdam into the debate is tremendously relevant which is why whenever scientists discuss pot, Amsterdam is always cited.

    Also, it’s clear you know nothing about Amsterdam, or for that matter, much of anything beyond Cincinnati.

    Your reading is as shallow as your intellect. If it didn’t appear in the Cincinnati Enquirer or on Star Trek (“That’s not logical!”), you know nothing about it.

    And yet you put yourself forth as an authority on pot (as well as everything else). You use the Cincinnati Beacon to advocate pot as some great balm to mankind. Your source? Urban legend and the lyrics from your Marley collection.

    Nevermind the impressionable kid out there reading your blog thinking, “Hey, the publisher of the Cincinnati Beacon thinks pot is cool. Let’s go out and get some!”

    You’re thinking doesn’t extend that far. Worse still when a person whose thinking does extend that far cites how an entire generation of youth in Amsterdam are becoming drug addicts because of legalized pot, you say, “that’s off-topic!”

    Read my lips, Jason:

    1. You shouldn’t be playing forum cop to begin with.

    2. You possess neither the education, intellect, or common sense to play forum cop in any event.

    ricland

  18. cincysue says:

    Dean - why do you let this shit with Ricland keep going? Doesn’t he have a blog? Can’t you forward everything he wants to post back to his blog, maybe with a note that says: See Ricland’s blog. I’m voting him off the island.

  19. Ric Ricland says:

    The thing about pot no one disputes is that it’s “mood-altering.”

    Why would anyone take it if it weren’t?

    But what pot heads refuse to own up to is that the guy who lives in the apartment above, may not want to have his mind altered.

    Pot heads offset this with “pot is harmless,” but this isn’t the point.

    The point is if you live in my building and smoke the crap, everybody in the building, to varying degrees, is having his mind altered every time you light up.

    It’s like getting a little drunk every time the town drunk guzzles another bottle of wine.

    Breathing pot fumes offers THC instant passage into your blood-brain membrane. Rule of thumb, if you can smell it, it’s in your blood speeding to your brain.

    Will you get cancer from this second-hand smoke? No. Will it cause you to graduate to hard drugs No. But that’s not the point.

    The point is the idiot in the apartment below is altering your freakin’ mind—he’s dumping THC into your bloodstream!

    And your wife’s and your kid’s too.

    ricland

  20. cincysue says:

    The chemicals in the building, the lead paint in those tenements you claimed to have lived, the filth in the air, the pollutants in the water, the additives in the foods are far more dangerous to our health than a stray whiff of marijuana and I say, not even a stray whiff. I’ve known a lot of peaceful, healthful, productive potheads that have smoked, recreationally but continuously, since the hippy days and they’re in better mental and physical shape than the happy hour and evening cocktail crowd. Rickland - just because you had a bad trip doesn’t mean everyone has to pay.

  21. Peter Deane says:

    Man… the pain was like a hundred pound weight on my chest.  Last Friday, it took me awhile to decide to go to the hospital.  I sat in my apartment wondering if I should call the fire department or not.  I decided to go on my own.  And when I arrived at Mercy Anderson they gave me a room right away.  And the doctors came in and checked on me and took my vitals and blood for tests.  I was tired because I was up all night, it was all because of the pain. And when I finally fell asleep with a little help of the drug morphine I saw darkness with floating tiny specks of light.  That’s all nothing more.  It was a good sleep.

    The next thing I knew the nurses and doctors were yelling above me. I just yelled at them to calm down.  I wanted to go back to the sleep they had removed me from.  I wanted too go back until the nurse told me that I had just died.

    Well to make a long story short they placed a couple of stints in my heart and I was in the hospital for a couple of days.  I was dead but now I’m alive again… and I’m reading this thinking that we only live once and the other side that I saw wasn’t a real high at all… just a good sleep.  Maybe I should have stayed dead a little longer… maybe I would have been able to smoke a fatty with Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Moses, and Bob Marley. Who knows maybe we could have saved the roach for Mr. Pepper, Cecil Thomas, my brother Mike,  Mr. Cranley, Ms. Ghiz, Mayor Mallory or Mr. Crowley when their time had arrived…

    Anyway,  keep on living and enjoy life while you’re here… that marijuana law in Cincinnati needs to end.  There are some things that just need to die and some that don’t to tell you that.

  22. Ric Ricland says:

    I’m not sure where you’re getting your scientific data, cincysue, but here’s where I’m getting mine. Also, to avoid one of those endless forum discussions that can go on for years, please provide cites for your opinions in the future.

    http://www.marijuanaaddiction.info/harmful-effects-of-marijuana.htm

    Harmful Effects of Marijuana

      * The harmful effects of marijuana on the Brain and Central Nervous System
          o Impaired thinking, mood, memory, and coordination
              + Marijuana (THC) is an extremely powerful and pleasurable intoxicant. It affects, alters, and damages brain cells controlling thinking, emotion, pleasure, coordination, mood and memory. The pituitary gland is also damaged which regulates hunger, thirst, blood pressure, sexual behavior, and release of sex hormones.
              + Clogged synapses, brain damage and addiction
              + Marijuana accumulates in the microscopic spaces between nerve cells in the brain called “synapses.” This clogging interferes by slowing and impairing transfer critical information.
              + Long term use causes the brain to stop production of brain chemicals necessary to “feel good” - a negative feedback condition. And, the user becomes chemically addicted to marijuana.
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Heart
              + Speeds up heartbeat as much as 50%, increases blood pressure, and poses great risk to those with hypertension and heart disease.
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Endocrine System
              + Marijuana damages the network of glands, organs, and hormones involved in growth and development, energy levels, and reproduction.
              + Organs and glands affected:
                  # pituitary gland
                  # thyroid gland
                  # stomach
                  # duodenum
                  # pancreas
                  # adrenal glands
                  # testis
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Reproductive System males and females
              + Marijuana use can decrease and degenerate sperm, sperm count, movement, and cause lowered sex drive. Females can have egg damage, suppression of ovulation, disrupt menstrual cycles, and alteration of hormone levels.
              + Regular use during pregnancy can lower birth weight and cause abnormalities similar to Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (small head, irritability, poor growth and development.
              + Can destroy the number of chromosomes, resulting in cell abnormalities and impaired function.
          o Other affects on the central nervous system
              + distortions of perceptions, thinking and reality
              + Difficulty in forming concepts and thoughts
              + Poor concentration
              + Mental confusion
              + Loss of motivation
              + Wide mood swings
              + Aggression and hostility
              + Depression, anxiety and paranoia
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Eyes
              + Sleep looking, blood-shot eyes with dilated pupils.
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Throat
              + Irritates membranes of the esophagus; increases chance of developing cancer of larynx and esophagus.
          o The harmful effects of marijuana on the Lungs
              + Significant damage and destruction of the air sacs of the lungs, reducing the lungs ability to bring oxygen and remove carbon dioxide - Emphysema.
              + Causes bronchial tubes to be inflamed, thickened and to produce more mucus; resulting in narrowing of the air passages - Chronic Bronchitis.
              + Marijuana smoke has twice as much “tar” as cigarette smoke and significantly increases chance of lung cancer, inflammation and infection.

  23. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) says:

    There are so many issues swirling here, now is a bad time to bring this up, but ricland is spreading misinformation about the youth of Amsterdam.
    (I was hoping someone else would have noticed already.)

  24. Anon says:

    David,

    I think everyone recognizes Ricland for the mental midget he is. Tolerance lasts only so long.

  25. Ric Ricland says:

    The only misinformation being spread around is “pot is harmless” and you hop heads have been spreading that lie for years.

    The quote and link I give above are just the tip of the iceberg. The health hazards of pot are thoroughly documented and there’s little question those hazards are transmitted to the mother who lives below you and her kids.

    Of course you could provide cites showing pot is harmless, but you fellows never do this; instead, you keep repeating that tired old mantra, “Pot is harmless.”

    Fine, then put up or shut up—document it.

    Show me the peer-reviewed studies from JAMA.

    Either that or stop spreading your urban myths.

    ricland

  26. Janlock says:

    Getting back this topic back on track….

    Smoke a joint in the county and pay a fine.  Smoke it in the city and serve time.

    Why on earth would Hamilton County residents vote to raise taxes for hundreds of millions of dollars to make room for people committing an offense that is jailable only in the city but not in the rest of county or state?

  27. Ric Ricland says:

    Please note:

    I have no intention of engaging in group masturbation with you fellows. Therefore, please respond only with your science or not at all.

    The question of whether pot is harmful is a purely scientific one. This means it cannot be answered by what your drug supplier tells you or what urban legend or Bob Marley or some other backwards hillbilly said about it in a song or interview.

    That won’t do.

    If you mean to argue that pot is harmless come to the table with your peer-reviewed science such as the following:

    The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA - Vol. 289 No. 4, 289:427-433) reported on a study of 311 young adult twin pairs conducted by Michael T. Lynskey, Ph.D. in their 1/22/03 issue:

      “Individuals who used cannabis by age 17 years had odds of other drug use, alcohol dependence, and drug abuse/dependence that were 2.1 to 5.2 times higher than those of their co-twin, who did not use cannabis before age 17 years….

      In particular, early access to and use of cannabis may reduce perceived barriers against the use of other illegal drugs and provide access to these drugs.”
      (1/22/03) JAMA

    Thanks,

    ricland

  28. Ric Ricland says:

    Why on earth would Hamilton County residents vote to raise taxes for hundreds of millions of dollars to make room for people committing an offense that is jailable only in the city but not in the rest of county or state?

    So we can take back places like Washington Park from the dope smoking low-life who’ve claimed it as their own. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, spend a few hours in Washington Park and you will.

    Or anywhere in Over-the-Rhine where pot-smoking used to be done openly. These are the parts of the city where pot head thugs have declared pot smoking all but legal. The children who play in the Washington Park playground or walk the streets breathe pot fumes all day.

    I’ve listed the reasons why this second hand pot fumes are are a serious health hazard. The City is absolutely correct in throwing bums who pollute our air with this drug into jail regardless how the County treats the same crime.

    THC is a drug; what part of that don’t you hop heads understand? It affects the low birth weight and over-all health of the unborn. Research has shown pregnate women exposed to pot fumes expose the unborn to the same risks associated with fetal-alcohol syndrome.

    Are you aware of this?

    Will it cause you to stop smoking your dope?

    Would you like the cite?

    If I gave it to you, would you stop smoking your dope?

    ricland

  29. janlock says:

    I don’t smoke it, ricland.

    It would be nice if:

    a) you would make an comment without personal attack
    b) actually read the comment you are resonding to.

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