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noname's comments:
on Measure 74
The polls* are showing legal cannabis will soon be available in California. Whatever we do with 74, we may have to contend with commercial cannabis crossing the border into Oregon. This will be interesting.
posted 2 years, 8 months ago
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on Suggest a Show
There is a strong possibility that cannabis will become a legally sold recreational drug in California. If this happens, what should Oregon do? Will pot shops open in Weed (couldn't have a better name!) that cater to cross border shoppers? Will Oregon set up a border crossing checkpoint similar to California's agricultural inspection? Illegal shipments of commercial cannabis out of California are simply going to happen. It will become a simple matter of economic opportunity.
Or, will Oregon follow suit with California? The costs and benefits of illegal or legal cannabis are well overdue a rational reassessment.
Oregon, and other border states, will have to react to legal pot from California. What will that reaction be? We need to sort this out in advance.
posted 2 years, 11 months ago
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on Chief Sizer Speaks
Come on, Sizer! The police are supposed to be very highly trained professionals. Citizens have the full right to expect conduct of a very high standard. We pay them to take risk and mitigate threats with every possible means before they blow them away with lethal force.
We have still not gone beyond "smoke'm, don't choke'm." Have we?
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Chief Sizer Speaks
A shoplifter stealing to feed a hungry family has graver consequences than a cop killing an unarmed, non-threatening fellow human being. It has happened again and again and again. It is stunning how much the citizens have put up with. Someday this all will change.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Can You Trust Law Enforcement?
Japanese police have a hell of a lot more skill, courage, and patience than Portland police.
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Headline: Policeman shoots boy in knife attack in Chiba
Sunday, October 19, 2003 at 00:50 JST
CHIBA A policeman on Saturday shot and seriously wounded a 15-year-old boy who stabbed him at a police box in Ichihara, Chiba Prefecture, after pretending he needed help, police said.
The boy approached the police post alone and suddenly tried to stab the policeman around 2:40 p.m. with three knives he had concealed. The boy was shot in the leg by the 36-year-old policeman, who suffered light injuries to his neck and face in the attack. (Kyodo News)
Comment on the original news site: Don't Japanese police officers have to go through a training course in unarmed combat? If not, why not? I find it very hard to believe that the only course of action open to a supposedly trained 36-year-old attacked by a 15-year-old BOY, even one with a knife, is to shoot the kid. If he had time to draw his gun, he had time to disarm the boy.
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I heard this story right after it happened from someone who lived in Japan. It went something like this. The boy approached the cop with a knife and cut him. The cop told him to "stop it" and took the knife. The boy pulled another one and cut him again. Again, the cop told him to stop. It was finally on the third knife attack that the cop shot the kid, and even then shot him to incapacitate the kid in the knee, not kill him.
Police in Portland are out of control. It is time to reign them in before the citizens get fed up. The time should be long past for cowboy justice.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on New Drug Czar
The classic arguments against smoking marijuana are it is bad for learning, it leads to stronger drugs, it hurts productivity on the job, it creates dangerous drivers, and so on.
I am retired. I smoke a tiny bit of pot daily and have for years. None of the classic arguments apply to me. I smoke to improve my mood, ease my aches, enjoy gardening in my own yard, and enjoy listening to and playing music.
Drinking alcohol does nothing positive for me. No prescription has ever helped as much as my tiny toke a day.
I do not have a medical permit because I don't trust the government with this information. Pot is my private business, not the government's.
Why on earth do I still need to fear the police when I am doing zero harm to anyone? Where is the rationality of our pot policy?
It makes no sense that the government would consider it better for society for me to be in prison than enjoying a simple and harmless end of life in retirement improved with a tiny dose of daily marijuana.
posted 4 years, 2 months ago
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