Obama is going to have to buy a lot of carbon offsets for his California buds.
Massive Yosemite blaze may have been sparked by illegal marijuana growers
The massive forest fire that has scorched 333 square miles in and around Yosemite National Park may have been sparked by illegal marijuana growers, according to one fire official in Tuolumne County. The San Jose Mercury News reports that Todd McNeal, chief of the Twain Harte Fire Department, told a community meeting that it was “highly suspect that there might have been some sort of illicit grove, a marijuana-grow-type thing.”
McNeal, who has 23 years of experience with Forest Service, the National Park Service and other agencies, said at the Aug. 23 meeting that investigators know the fire is human caused since there was know lightening in the area.
Massive Yosemite blaze may have been sparked by illegal marijuana growers | Fox News
Looks like the writer might have inhaled a bit too much smoke.
h/t to Marc Morano
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2403754/Chiles-Atacama-desert-hit-SNOW–fears-FLOOD.html Must be making that Snow in the South?
So it was liberal potheads — the same demographic who believe in AGW!
Like we always say, the left is their own worst enemy. The saga continues..
“Liberal potheads” is a false stereotype, as political affiliation cannot be determined by drug usage. Also, though 20 or 30 years ago there may have been some truth to the idea that a larger minority of liberals than conservatives opposed the drug war (despite Milton Friedman, William F Buckley and others), now a a HuffPost / Youguv poll shows near identical numbers of Republicans and Democrats believe that the drug war is not worth the costs. Repubs felt the drug war wasn’t worth the costs by a surprising 45 to 26 margin (the rest was unsure). While Independents opposed the drug war by a dramatic 65 to 11 margin! And Tea Partiers are probably in line with Independents.
Also, just two days ago, Brian McQain, a blogger for hotair, the most popular conservative blog in this country, and owned by a Christian broadcasting group, wrote this: “It [Obama not going after CO & WA for legal pot] may herald the beginning of the end to the freedom sapping War on Drugs. We’ve learned in the past that prohibition only creates criminals and huge profits for them. Profits they’re willing to protect through violence and murder. Here’s a chance, in two of the ‘laboratories of freedom’ to see if we can manage to find an acceptable answer to the problem that ends up defunding and deincentivizing the criminals while winding down the War on Drugs.”
As a libertarian who attended tea parties, and studied the deadly cluster of Prohibition brought on by progressives, I am for legalization. Every country that has legalized pot has seen reductions in crime, usage and addiction to harder drugs. When Prohibition ended here, the US saw similar results. Alcohol is actually a more dangerous drug, and yet we still manage with its legality.
“Findings from the U.S. study, showing that alcohol use in teens causes more irregular brain function than marijuana, would seem to square with efforts in the U.K. to encourage new drug classification. In the Lancet, David Nutt at Bristol University, along with his colleagues, asked psychologists and scientifically or medically trained police to rank different substances according to how harmful they are. The study purports that experts rank alcohol (and tobacco) as more harmful than marijuana. In a list of 20 substances, alcohol came in at number five, tobacco came in at number nine, and marijuana/cannabis came in at number eleven.”
http://m.phys.org/_news157280425.html
Time to leave ‘feelings’ behind, and use logic.
Marijuana and other drugs are far from harmless, but alcohol seems to create a lot more problems and deaths than even the “hardest” of drugs. Nevertheless, when people start making the point that “drugs are bad” in order to support the drug war, I say “yes, drugs are bad, but the cure (police state etc) is worse than the disease.” Btu actually the police state and huge spending $ isn’t a cure. Look at Portugal, they ended their drug war by decriminalizing ALL drugs in 2000, and since then addiction rates have dropped dramatically, apparently. The Portugal case suggests that if you get it out in the open, people become educated, people think for themselves, people just say no.
It’s not just Portugal, it is every country that has legalized drugs.
I was adamantly against legalization until I educated myself. I am a pragmatist, and will go with whatever plan works best and still allows for individual liberties.
The US could balance the budget in part by stopping this insane, unjust and unwinable war. Law enforcement would no longer waste billions on drug raids and lose good men to unnecessary violence, they could focus on real violent crime. Our overcrowded prisons would see a huge reduction in population, the court system would be freed up for real problems, nonviolent ‘offenders’ would be at work and paying taxes instead of siphoning taxes, the sales would be taxed and it would create a whole new industry that would employ untold numbers. We would have fewer border issues, and the few we would have would not be violent.
It is the very same issue we encountered with Prohibition, which only made America a more dangerous place to live and funded the Mafia. Legalized drugs would mean that gangs would suffer massive defunding.
When the Eighteenth Amendment was repealed, America did not devolve into a drunken stupor. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Are they on drugs? 😉
I think the tide is turning. At conservative hotair, I noticed a couple of years ago to my surprise that many of the commenters were against the drug war. A year later, a majority of the commenters were against it. Now, the hotair bloggers themselves are coming out against it. When a clear majority of conservatives are against the idiotic drug war, liberals will start turning their heads in confused disbelief.
I too have seen signs that our current prohibition is weakening. The sign that really got my attention was when Glenn Beck, a Mormon (they do not even consume caffeine) and reformed alcoholic changed his tune and sided with Penn Jillete, calling for the legalization of all drugs.
Even Watts had an interesting take on the subject, and its history.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/22/how-global-warming-research-is-like-pot-research/
Liberal also means libertarian. Libertarians are more enterprising and capitalist than liberal social engineers. I think the fire was started by libertarian weed growers.
I’d almost agree with you, Jeff, except that we concluded below that the fire was caused by illegals working for the Mexican cartels.
Fifty years ago the environmentalists ran the timber industry out of business in the US. They used every dirty trick you could think of. From dumbasses living in trees to spotted owls. What do we have as a result? Fried owl.
Mmmmmmmmmmmm…. Fried owl. Tastes almost as good as smoked eagle.
So the blaze was started by “illegal marijuana growers”. Does that mean they were “illegals” who were growing marijuana, or does it mean they were just growing legal marijuana illegally (no permits?) Could it also mean they were growing “illegal marijuana”, perhaps some strain that hasn’t been approved?
Lol. Probably it was illegals growing illegal marijuana, as i’ve heard that the Mexican cartels are now growing a lot of their pot in the US, to sidestep importation issues. So the drug war is now a big magnet for illegal immigration, as they need in the US: growers, managers, pickers, distributors, gun toting security, and others to carry out the operations. So, end the drug war to get this violent element out of this country, and to start to heal the drug war ravaged Mexico so that maybe more illegals will want to stay in their own country.
That’d be “undocumented cannabis”, George. 😉
Marijuana, an innocent weed, strikes again.
The only things bad about weed are its odor and its lack of federal tax collection. Washington wants taxes. Bit will the rest of us have to put up with the odor?