Monday, November 26, 2012

Can I Smoke My Weed?


With the recent passing of some form of legalized Marijuana in three states on Election Day, it got me wondering how much of a colossal mess this has the potential of being.  Massachusetts passed the legalization of medicinal Marijuana, which is a back door way of legalizing it.  Whereas Colorado and Washington voted for a straight out legalization of marijuana.  But since there are only a handful of states that have legalized some form of the drug and there is still a Federal ban on it, the only question that can be asked is, Can I Smoke My Weed?

I truly see no issue with legalizing Marijuana and I just wish the Federal Government would come to their senses and legalize it throughout the nation.  The laws that were voted in by the people three weeks ago will undoubtedly be challenged in Federal Courts to be deemed unconstitutional.  Now you would think this would have been reviewed before the people were set to vote on it.  But that is only part of the problem.  Just think of all the different scenarios where the grey areas of the laws could be challenged and interpreted a different causing legal issues and backlogging the courts.

Let's take Massachusetts for instance. If I have a prescription for marijuana I am allowed to grow.  Can a landlord not rent to me because I grow on their property?  Will their insurance cover them if anything happens in their building due to an accident caused by the growing?  Will landlords be able to discriminate against pot growers?  

Another scenario could be traveling out of state.  I travel for work often.  So if I am traveling and I am taking prescribed medicine on business with me and I go to a state that doesn't have the law, am I now considered an outlaw?  Will an officer respect the prescription from another state even though it is not legal in his state?  He has every right not to.  If he does respect it, then in hindsight we are technically lifting the Federal ban indirectly. So, can I smoke my weed?

I'm not sure how medical marijuana works, meaning if it needs to be taken at specific times or the daily frequency of it, but if I am on the "T" and I need to smoke my weed, can I?  Will I be violating smoking rules, is the T violating my civil right to take my medication in public?  What about work?  What if I need to take a "pot" break at work?  Will my employer have to reprimand me for being stoned at work for simply taking my medicine?  I mean these medicinal scenarios can be viewed as far-fetched or even extreme, but we also live in a society where McDonald's was sued because a customer claimed that McDonald's food made them obese.  Look at your coffee lids and read what it says. It lets you know that the coffee is hot, because someone sued McDonald's because they spilled their coffee on themselves and got burned.  So, if I am sick will I be able to smoke my weed when I need to?

What about the Washington and Colorado laws?  I mean I guess these can be more contained and could be technically treated like fireworks.  However, we have a scenario where people will be going across state lines to buy marijuana.  If so, are we potentially giving illegal marijuana dealers a legal avenue to get marijuana?  Does that put pressure on those state law enforcement to police the state jumping and how many resources will that take? So if I live in Utah, Kansas, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Wyoming, Oregon, Idaho and Montana can I buy my weed?

What about personal transport?  If I am a Colorado resident and I am traveling to a state that does not have legalized marijuana am I within my rights to bring it, most likely not, but you could see a question in the interpretation.  What if I am traveling from Colorado to Massachusetts?  Talk about grey area.  One state it's legal to have and the other is legal to have only with a prescription.  Can I grow it in Colorado and send it to someone with a prescription in Massachusetts, or vice versa? Can I bring my weed?

Maybe I am being a little extreme with the scenarios, but I am a simple minded person.  If I came up with these scenarios, what about someone with a wilder and more creative imagination?  Let's not forget about the lawyers, who will dissect these laws with extreme precision.  I am a proponent of legalized marijuana not because I use, because I don't, but because it is a form a prohibition that could be a giant revenue resource in a country that is looking for new ways to raise revenue.  I feel the same way about gambling, for the record.  Just think about resources that this country uses to combat the outlaws on the street and in the courts for marijuana dealers.  All you would need to do if you legalize the substance is hand their names over to the Internal Revenue Service.  I do think that it is a time that has come.

3D
If you don't take it from me, ask my wife.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Road Trip to Clarity

I want to start off by saying that this is my favorite week of the year.  It’s a short work week, even though I took this week off this year.  Come Monday we start our high school basketball season and can begin practicing and it’s Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday, by far.  There isn’t even a second favorite holiday.  If there was it would be a distant second.  I can’t wait to get to my in-laws and eat up whatever my mother in-law serves up.  If she feels unappreciated at Thanksgiving, she can rest easy because her favorite son-in-law appreciates her efforts immensely.

Outside of Thanksgiving I am pretty much a bah-hum-bug when it comes to holidays.  I’m not Irish so I don’t get the St. Patrick’s Day.  Even though St. Patrick wasn’t Irish either.  I’m always coaching on Valentine’s Day, so my wife and I celebrate it our own way.  Easter is what it is.  I can’t stand Halloween and Christmas gets started way too soon and I always seem to be sick at that time, so I have never been a fan.  But I am starting to get in the spirit.

This past weekend we took a family trip to Hershey, PA.  My mother finally retired this summer and my parents sold the first house they ever owned when they came over from Italy.  They both have nice pensions and money saved.  So they decided to buy a motorhome.  My dad has always wanted one and he worked hard and deserves what he wants.  So they wanted to do a maiden voyage and asked me and my family to come with them.  Mostly so they can get comfortable with traveling it but also because they like having me, my wife and kids around.

Why Hershey?  Well, it’s pretty simple really.  Hershey was the closest enough place to go where there was attractions for both adults and children that had campgrounds open without having to go as far as South Carolina.  I had looked up things to do and it was amazing what we can do this time of year down there.  My dad is obsessed with the Amish so we made a trip to Bird-In-Hand, PA to take an Amish Country horse and buggy tour.  My dad was in heaven, he even got to ride up front with the driver who had grown up Amish but never joined the Amish church.  The tour was great and very informational and shed a lot of light on things that I did not realize about the Amish.  We even saw several of the Amish walking about and riding through town on their horse and buggy’s.

How did this trip get me slightly into the Christmas Spirit?  It was our trip to Hershey Park for Candylane, a Christmas lighting display with rides.  Watching the look on my three year olds face was worth the price of admission.   You would have thought it was Christmas morning.  My wife and I are not big on amusement parks so our daughter has never been, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to hit every ride in the park and pose for pictures with every character.  Priceless.

But it was a ten minute skyline ride with my daughter that grabbed me.  It was just me and her, and the ride took us through half of the park.  While Bruce Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” was playing throughout the park, I was listening to my daughter point out every light display at a rapid pace as if she was going to miss one.  As I looked around the park and see the rest of my waiting family and listening to my daughter it made me smile so much I was almost giddy.  Once we got off the ride my daughter ran with open arms of her grandmother and recount what she saw.  I looked at my wife and said “It’s a place like that this, that could get me into Christmas”.

In the end, I would have to say I had a fabulous time with my family this past weekend.  I am not going to go and say that I am in the Christmas spirit.  That feeling pretty much faded on the ride home.  It had to have been in the moment with my daughter and how excited she got about it that gave me that feeling.  As the weeks pass by and we get closer to Christmas I will be more in the holiday spirit as I watch my children’s excitement build.  It was great family vacation that overcame me and that is something that I will always have.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

3D
If you don’t take it from me, ask my wife.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Florida, Really???

I am going to assume that most of you are like me and are ecstatic that the Presidential Election is over.  I had written an article a couple months back on how the election process has been ruined for me, because it had become too darn personal.  I will admit that the two guys I supported (Romney and Brown) did not win, but two of the three ballot questions went the way I voted.  Was I bitter that President Obama won re-election? Nope.  Will I respect him as Commander-in-Chief? Yep.  Will I voice my displeasure's with him or Senator-Prof. Warren if I feel they have made a mistake, ABSOLUTELY!  But this is not what this article is about.

Last Thursday during lunch I had turned on the news, I think it was CNN, and there was the story of how Florida had still not completed their counting.  For some reason that story just set me off, and I can't even explain why, but I will try.  The fact that Florida is once again a story at election time absolutely aggravates me. For twelve years there have been issues with this state come election time, and it does not look like it is going to get better.  We only know of twelve years of issues because that is when it finally became a national issue.  Seriously, what in the world is going on down there?  Why can't they get it right?  There are a lot of factors that are being blamed for it this time around and I say they are all hogwash.  There is no reason for it other than incompetence.

Courtesy of theweek.com
People blame that the ballot was too long.  Well boo-hoo.  Ballot measures and other elections are going on at that same time and if you didn't know that, that's your fault.  If you only went to vote for President then to be honest you shouldn't be voting anyway.  I was able to pull up the ballot on-line and look at and I am assuming your state department sent out mailers with what was on the ballot, and possibly what it looked like.  It wasn't too long, you just didn't care about the other voting measures.

People said the ballot was too confusing.  This one may have some legs but it’s not an excuse.  I am in the camp of if you can't read English you shouldn't be voting, but I was swayed when I talked to my mom (An Italian Immigrant like myself), and she said that she didn't vote on the ballot questions because when reading English she sometimes mixes up the words and she didn't want to vote against what she truly believed in.  But at least she tried.  But that is a different argument for a different day.  The Florida ballot had three languages, English, Spanish and French Creole'. So this goes back to my previous point, if you really care about the elections you would have found a way to get informed on the ballot.

No wonder it takes so long to count!
Lastly, was the early voting was too short, what???  I'm sorry that Election DAY is an inconvenience for you but you had an additional eight days prior to the election to vote, that's not enough???  I but if there was a 75% sale at Target those people would have made time in their day to get to it, or if the iPhone 14 was going on sale that day there would be no issues.  Are you kidding me, too short??? There is no Federal Law determining that Election Day has to be the first Tuesday after the First Monday in November.  In 1845, it was established to aid farmers and church goers and to avoid winter weather.  Now, early voting back then made sense because it would normally take a day for voters to get to the polls, but to say that you don't have enough time eight days out is just lazy.

So now comes the real issue, why does counting take so long?  If it's such an issue then they need to start planning now for 2016 on how to be more efficient in their counting.  Even the Supreme Court, in Gore v. Bush in 2000 did not have faith in their counting abilities.  The decision, which there were two of, and is usually misrepresented, stated that Florida should be able to continue the recount.  But the decision in which ended the election was that had to have it done by the deadline (essentially the next day).  All that decision said was "Sorry Florida, you ran out of time".

If any of you follow me on social media you may have seen me pop a brain vessel last week over this subject.  My true aggravation about this is really that the debacle in 2000 is true reason for the division in the United States.  It wasn't Pres. Bush, it wasn't Pres. Obama and it wasn't the Democrats or Republicans, they just added fuel to the fire.  It was the recount in Florida.  Thankfully this time, the results did not factor in the decision.  Florida, get cracking, you have four years to try to get it right.

3D
If you don't take it from me, ask my wife.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

My Voting Thoughts


By now if you are anything like me you are sick of the political rhetoric that is going on with the Presidential or Senatorial races.  If you haven't made up your mind by now, then you are a glutton for punishment.  I have tried to keep politics out of my blogs this election season, other than my campaign to get informed on your own rather through the television, I think I have done a pretty good job.

One thing I would like to talk about today that I believe are being ignored  through all of the political mudslinging, are the ballot questions.  I am going to give my opinion on the questions and which way I will be voting.  This is in no way meant to entice you or persuade you.  This is just a guy writing a blog the day before the election.

I feel the ballot questions do not get enough play in the public, and I am not sure why that is.  Is it because ballot questions are usually a result of a petition from special interest groups, and then those interests groups scare voters into voting that way?  For instance the vote on banning dog racing a few years back.  I voted no on that question because I apparently understood what would happen if race tracks closed more than the MSPCA.  The only ones that would have their jobs spared in such a ban would be, you guessed it, the dogs.  They would just get shipped off to states that had dog racing.  Jobs and tax revenue gone from Massachusetts, because the MSPCA spent a large amount of money scaring the public into thinking they were saving the lives of these dogs.  Wrong!

Anyway, this year’s three ballot questions are three pretty good ones and to be honest I really went back and forth on these as two of them really test your view on values.

Question 1:  Right to Repair - this one is a no brainer for me.  I don't take my car to the dealership anyway.  The fact that an industry that needed a huge taxpayer bailout 5 years ago should not be able to dictate where I bring my car, (which I paid for, to make AND drive) to be serviced.  Not to mention the fact that GM also has in their warranty that if you don't used their specific "dexos" oil when getting oil changes, then it voids the warranty.  Guess what, they make you pay for that too. I will use whatever oil I so choose.  My Vote: a resounding YES

The next two weren't as easy.

Question 2: Prescribing Medication to End Life - Before reading the proposed law, and I am not quite certain I got the whole thing, I was on the fence with this.  But in the end my Pro-Life stance overcame me.  Now I have no problem with Do Not Resuscitate orders because that isn't speeding up death.  If people want to go home and die, that's fine too, but getting a drug to do it is no different than buying a lethal mix of something off the street.  The law has way too many holes in it and the fact that there is no psych consult and physician administering the medication just turned me away from it.  There needs to be more physician involvement on this for me to even consider it.  My Vote:  NO

Question 3: Medical Use of Marijuana - 
This question is the one where my beliefs truly don't come out in this law.  Like Question 2, this law also has holes in it.  However, I honestly feel that gambling and marijuana should be legalized.  They are two large tax revenue streams and could possibly eliminate some illegal activities.  But this law is too wide open and vague for its intent.  It allows people to grow their own marijuana for medicinal purposes.  In a time of serious economic down turn, isn't that just adding to the criminal element?  According to the studies it helps and I am all for a drug that helps.  My Vote: a reluctant YES, but could be a NO by tomorrow morning.  That's how on the fence I am with this one.

So, there you have it, 3D's take on the ballot questions.  If you disagree with me on these, then check the other box.  If you are not sure, then there is still time to get informed and I urge you to do so.

3D
If you don't take it from me, ask my wife.