E-Democracy builds online public space in the heart of real democracy and community. Our mission is to harness the power of online tools to support participation in public life, strengthen communities, and build democracy.
Tonight is a great opportunity to listen to a great candidate, Rebecca Otto, right here in St Paul. Rebecca showed courage in standing up for financial responsibility in mining. She has won 3 statewide elections as state auditor. When she speaks, she inspires and leads. Grab a Lake Monster brew and listen to Rebecca yourself! Take the Vandalia exit off of 94 to immediately and easily park behind 550 Vandalia. Great brews, good friends and fascinating political conversations. Come and enjoy.
Ironically, Otto, who apparently favors continued prohibition of a plant that has been used industrially, medically, and recreation-ally of many 1000s of years, is apparently pitching her âscienceâ expertise. While single-issue voting may not be a good idea in all cases, when a single issue provides a clear indication of a gubernatorial candidate's unwillingness to challenge vested interests in law enforcement, pharmaceutical, chemical dependency, health care and other industries, and an unwillingness to accept the fact that prohibition of cannabis and hemp has been a failure resulting in enormous public expense, enormous waste of public resources, and many unnecessarily ruined lives, then I think that single issue provides ample reason not to support Rebecca Otto.
When I went to this event, I used the opportunity to ask your question about legalizing marijuana from Rebecca Otto, candidate for governor. This is my interpretation of her answer. My words to describe Rebecca Otto's answer is "Smart Responsible Legalization". No one should go to jail for using or having Marijuana. We should have a broad conversation about using marijuana safely and responsibly and then include those rules into law. Rebecca said we should be smart and use what has been already learned in other states.
Here are examples of what I think that means:
What would be the standard for illegally driving while intoxicated with marijuana? A driver is going 20 MPH through 35W at rush hour for no particular reason, causing huge traffic issues. When the officer stops the person, the person speaks and responds very slowly. There is a distinctive smell. What can the officer charge this person with? How do we set a legal standard? Currently there is a Ipad app called Druid that measures slow reaction time. Should we use that?
What are the legal responsibilities of a marijuana user from ensuring that others do not get exposed, particularly children? Can the local restaurant be filled with Marijuana secondary smoke? Is OK if a neighborhood boy swipes 6 brownies made with marijuana, each with an adult dose? Who is responsible if the boy is distracted on the way home? What if he is found sitting under a tree gazing at sun patterns on the ice, in 10 below zero weather?
What are the standards for work? Would you like to know that surgeon operating on you is not actively under the influence of marijuana?
For full disclosure, I am for legalizing marijuana - with rules and laws for using it safely and responsibly. And I especially like Rebecca Otto's answer because she is displaying leadership with courage instead simply giving the expedient "Yes" to legalization. Rebecca's answer says she is fully considering it, expecting it to become law and figuring out what should be in that law. She is using the foresight that we expect in our highest state executive, the governor. And wouldn't be nice if laws were done better the first time. After all, it might be you or me in the examples above. Here in Minnesota, we can do it and we can do it better - the first time. And we should have a leader, a governor, who makes sure that happens.
Grace Kelly nicknamed Kelly Still Fabulous in Frogtown
I think Grace's imaginary scenarios sound more like a script for a re-make of the 1930s comedy-classic Reefer Madness than anything remotely resembling the real world.
An imaginary weed smoking driver going 20 mph on the freeway is not the problem. If Rebecca Otto, or any of her supporters, has any interest in reducing the amount of impaired driving, the simplest, most practical, and most effective way to do it would be to ban all cell phone use while operating a motor vehicle. According to the insurance agent who taught my defensive driving class, any cell phone use, and not just the button pushing addicts sending and receiving text messages, while driving, is equivalent to being legally impaired.
Unlike anyone who has had any significant experience with a wide variety of cannabis plants, Grace Kelly, and apparently Rebecca Otto as well, have apparently swallowed the Reefer Madness propaganda hook, line, and sinker. In the many thousands of years that the many 1000s of varieties marijuana have been used for many purposes, nowhere, ever, as far as I know, has there ever been a child, after binging on a batch of brownies, found âsitting under a tree gazing at sun patterns on the ice, in 10 below zero weather.â
I think Grace's imaginary concerns serve to magnify just how loopy the spineless shills for the failed Drug War really are. Unless Grace Kelly, Rebecca Otto, and the other âwe can do it better - the first timeâ mealy-mouthers favor a return to alcohol Prohibition, or outlawing tobacco, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. If, after many decades of a failed policy, Rebecca Otto still needs to âfully considerâ what makes sense right now, then Rebecca Otto promises to provide leadership to nowhere.
Itâs human nature; if you ban something people want, you *will* create a black market. The black market will almost inevitably cause more damage than whatever was banned. It happened during prohibition; people wanted booze and were willing to pay; people were willing to break the law, even kill, to get that payday. In the thirties, the murder rates were the highest in history - almost entirely due to prohibition. The war on drugs has been no different.
But Rebecca Ottoâs stance reflects that thereâs something a lot more important than public health or crime at stake here; the endorsement of the Police unions and the other parts of the political class that get funding, jobs and power from carrying on the âdrug warâ. How many police union members, junior prosecutors, corrections workers and other DFL-donating union members will get laid off if all those criminals are suddenlyâŚnot criminals?
Lots.
Itâs not about safety, health or community. Itâs all about the graft.
Glad we could settle that.
Mitch Berg The Midway
> On Sep 18, 2017, at 12:37 PM, Sheldon Gitis <<email obscured>> wrote: > > I think Grace's imaginary scenarios sound more like a script for a re-make of the 1930s comedy-classic Reefer Madness than anything remotely resembling the real world. > >
> > An imaginary weed smoking driver going 20 mph on the freeway is not the problem. If Rebecca Otto, or any of her supporters, has any interest in reducing the amount of impaired driving, the simplest, most practical, and most effective way to do it would be to ban all cell phone use while operating a motor vehicle. According to the insurance agent who taught my defensive driving class, any cell phone use, and not just the button pushing addicts sending and receiving text messages, while driving, is equivalent to being legally impaired. > > Unlike anyone who has had any significant experience with a wide variety of cannabis plants, Grace Kelly, and apparently Rebecca Otto as well, have apparently swallowed the Reefer Madness propaganda hook, line, and sinker. In the many thousands of years that the many 1000s of varieties marijuana have been used for many purposes, nowhere, ever, as far as I know, has there ever been a child, after binging on a batch of brownies, found âsitting under a tree gazing at sun patterns on the ice, in 10 below zero weather.â > > I think Grace's imaginary concerns serve to magnify just how loopy the spineless shills for the failed Drug War really are. Unless Grace Kelly, Rebecca Otto, and the other âwe can do it better - the first timeâ mealy-mouthers favor a return to alcohol Prohibition, or outlawing tobacco, there's no need to reinvent the wheel here. If, after many decades of a failed policy, Rebecca Otto still needs to âfully considerâ what makes sense right now, then Rebecca Otto promises to provide leadership to nowhere. > > Sheldon Gitis > Roseville > About/contact Sheldon Gitis: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/sheldongitis1 > > > * Saint Paul Elections #stpaul17 - Get Friendly 2017! > Volunteer to create 2017 version of http://e-democracy.org/stpaul2015 > http://bit.ly/saintpaulelectionsfacebook > > * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured> > > > ------------------------ > Reply: Reply-All or visit http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/7rKbSQQI6ZjQfywKykZJ9Q
I scanned Kelly's post and saw nothing about continuing the ban, so Mitch's post confuses me.
Sheldon's post confuses me further because he won't tolerate a colorful example but seems not to understand the effects of pot. My full disclosure: I used pot (we called it grass) happily for perhaps 4-5 years. It does indeed affect one's senses and intoxication could be dangerous for others, depending on what the intoxicated person is doing.
I stopped using because I got a responsible job and couldn't afford to get caught, even though the chances were unlikely. More important, it stopped being fun. One never knew just what might be in it and I didn't like some of the acid-like effects of the unknown additions. So I approve of legalization, approve of controls on the purity of the product, approve of laws regarding driving and dangerous activities. Just like alcohol. I would love to use it for pain control now and if it made me happy, so much the better.
If Otto approaches marijuana as thoughtfully as she does other issues, we'd get a good law.
Rebecca Otto's absurd approach to ending the failed policy of Prohibition would be laughable if she wasn't being seriously considered as a candidate for Governor. We know Prohibition is a failure. We know how we've managed to tax and regulate other comparable, if not similar, substances, like alcohol and tobacco, for better or a for worse, for decades. We also know the so-called âtreatmentâ industry is a key player in the continuation of the failed Drug War, and far from being any sort of remedy for the failed policy, the âtreatmentâ industry feeds on Prohibition.
So what is Otto's âthoughtful approachâ to ending the failed Drug War? Rather than simply enveloping cannabis regulation and taxation into already existing agencies already set up to deal with alcohol, tobacco, gambling etc., Otto appears to be advocating some new agency of âgraftâ as Mitch aptly puts it, including funneling even more money into Minnesota's âtreatmentâ industry â the same big business that's now pissing away public funds, in more ways than one, pee testing for weed. And then, to make matters even worse, when a âclientâ shares a joint with some friends while hanging out watching a football game or at some other social gathering, and a week or 2 later tests positive for THC, the public gets socked again for even more court costs and incarceration.
Handing more money to an industry that thrives on the threat of incarceration, while proclaiming âNo one should go to jail for using or having Marijuanaâ is the height of hypocrisy. If Rebecca Otto is what the Dems are calling thoughtful, then they must be measuring thoughtfulness by one's ability to spew double-talk.
If the DFL Party manages to pull off another Margaret Kelliher debacle and nominates Rebecca Otto rather than a pro-Pot candidate like Tom Rukavina who could win, then whatever sleazeball the Republicans manage to throw up will end up looking like a straight-shooter in comparison.
Making something legal means you will get more of that behavior.
We as a society are starting to get a handle of drunk driving. It's still there, but in far less numbers than it used to be. We now have a rising problem of people using their phones while driving. If you legalize pot, you will get more pot smokers, and more people driving stoned, and probably looking at their phones too.
Americans are getting fatter and fatter. Just what we need is more people with the munchies.
We also have a large amount of able bodied people that cant or wont work, add some more lazy stoners to that group.
If we legalized pot, we'd have more room in our prisons for the gun criminals we don't fully prosecute.
And, the illegal pot industry is alive and well in Colorado. People buy the illegal stuff because they don't want to pay the high taxes on the legal stuff. Go figure.
Yes on medical pot, maybe on pot for all. Just remember there will be unintended consequences.
Thank you Gary for your selection of thoughtful reminders regarding the path toward legalization of marijuana uses in Minnesota (concluding with the straightforward summary: "there will be unintended consequences.")
What Kelly observed in her initial posting - was that Rebecca Otto was _not_ against the legalization of pot - but recognizing that we need to prepare thoughtfully and awarely for a wide range of possible "unintended consequences" and not be caught off guard by things that we didn't think about. People have been shaking the "beer bottle" of "legalization" for a long time in this country - and we know when the cap is finally removed that things are likely to squirt in all directions!
We all need to engage in thoughtful discussions about the range of unintended consequences of marijuana legalization (a number of which you touched on - thank you) just as candidate Otto was suggesting. We don't need to waste time - on this listserve or elsewhere - responding to sweeping accusations, denunciations, or stereotypic (and sexist) characterizations - and other incoherent rantings - that attempt to shoehorn complex, interconnected issues into simplistic "Right/Wrong", "Good/Bad", "Us/Them" boxes.
Simplistic solutions are a reflection of simple-mindedness on the part of the person offering them. Such "easy answers" just work to stifle the rich kind of open discussion that social groups absolutely require to really grapple with all the challenges of living in an amazingly complex world!
Colorado and now Washington and Oregon - are all in the process of cautiously prying off those caps on the bottles that have been building up pressure for generations! We in Minnesota don't need to be so hell-bent on jumping into the process that we can't afford to take a little time to learn from the successes and failures of others. We don't need to reinvent the wheel; when three (fairly liberal) US states have already taken up this challenge of trying to apply principles of licensure, regulation, effective addiction treatment, etc. etc. to marijuana.
The voters of those states have said that they are willing to take on the additional costs of all of the early trial and error work that the implementation of legalization will entail. Candidates for office in Minnesota can therefore afford to suggest that we _not_ burden our state's taxpayers with duplicating those same struggles - when we can benefit from letting those three experiments run a bit longer to see what effective strategies emerge to handle the transitions.
In the meantime we also need to be looking at other areas of public policy which inevitably are and will be intertangled with marijuana issues: namely the rapid increase in prescription opioid addiction, the crystal meth and fentanyl epidemic sweeping rural and poorer urban communities, and the burgeoning designer street drugs that can be manufactured and marketed easily in our internet connected world. Criminalization has proven to be a failure in these realms as well. (That is for all but those who profit from black market trades in things "illicit" - or those who still believe that their class privilege can somehow protect them from the stigmas and scars of drug addiction - or of other similarly potent addictive behaviors!)
Hurray for thoughtful political candidates who aren't willing to "shoot from the hip" with quick, ill-considered stereotypic answers - but who instead offer cautious, well-reasoned approaches to complex social and political problems! (With an additional observation that these candidates are more likely to be women!)
-Demi Miller
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard Feynman
"Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' - you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' - they mean they are going to make money out of it." --Brigid Brophy
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." --Anais Nin
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." -- Frederick Douglass
"The life of the individual only has meaning in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful." -- Albert Einstein
"We know how to transform this world to reduce our impact on nature by several fold, how to provide meaningful, dignified living-wage jobs for all who seek them, and how to feed, clothe, and house every person on earth.
What we don't know is how to remove those in power, those whose ignorance of biology is matched only by their indifference to human suffering. This is a political issue. It is not an ecological problem."
--Paul Hawken, from a speech at the Bioneers conference in Oct. 2002
On 09/19/2017 07:40 AM, Gary Fischbach wrote: > Making something legal means you will get more of that behavior. > > We as a society are starting to get a handle of drunk driving. It's still there, but in far less numbers than it used to be. We now have a rising problem of people using their phones while driving. If you legalize pot, you will get more pot smokers, and more people driving stoned, and probably looking at their phones too. > > Americans are getting fatter and fatter. Just what we need is more people with the munchies. > > We also have a large amount of able bodied people that cant or wont work, add some more lazy stoners to that group. > > If we legalized pot, we'd have more room in our prisons for the gun criminals we don't fully prosecute. > > And, the illegal pot industry is alive and well in Colorado. People buy the illegal stuff because they don't want to pay the high taxes on the legal stuff. Go figure. > > Yes on medical pot, maybe on pot for all. Just remember there will be unintended consequences. > > > > Gary Fischbach > Highland Park, Saint Paul > About/contact Gary Fischbach: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/garyfischbach > > > * Saint Paul Elections #stpaul17 - Get Friendly 2017! > Volunteer to create 2017 version of http://e-democracy.org/stpaul2015 > http://bit.ly/saintpaulelectionsfacebook > > * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured> > > > ------------------------ > Reply: Reply-All or visit http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/43qM1S2UTO3Eh2Eg1N4WK
As a Facebook friend just posted today, "it's a little early" as he was commenting on the smell of marijuana on the 22 bus.
Kelly asks, "What are the legal responsibilities of a marijuana user from ensuring that others do not get exposed, particularly children? Can the local restaurant be filled with Marijuana secondary smoke?"
Apparently no one is currently worried about that answer. Take public transit, walk around the city, read neighborhood pages. It is already an every car occurrence on the train, frequent at bus stops, and per my social media friends, frequent on the actual buses as well. It is also frequent at parks and other public spaces. I've heard people laugh, comment about the smell, but this is the first I've read anyone question the second hand exposure.
Rebecca Otto, where does she fit into the mix with appealing to the out state DFL'er and the metro DFL'er?
I can't see Chris Coleman getting many votes from the out state DFL'ers and even though Tim Walz is moving left, will the inner city folks vote for him?
Check them out. Hard data vs. the anecdotal perceptions that have routinely tended toward a media (and male) bias against her.
-in Love and Peace, -Demi Miller
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard Feynman
"Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' - you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' - they mean they are going to make money out of it." --Brigid Brophy
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." --Anais Nin
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." -- Frederick Douglass
"The life of the individual only has meaning in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful." -- Albert Einstein
"We know how to transform this world to reduce our impact on nature by several fold, how to provide meaningful, dignified living-wage jobs for all who seek them, and how to feed, clothe, and house every person on earth.
What we don't know is how to remove those in power, those whose ignorance of biology is matched only by their indifference to human suffering. This is a political issue. It is not an ecological problem."
--Paul Hawken, from a speech at the Bioneers conference in Oct. 2002
On 09/19/2017 12:34 PM, Gary Fischbach wrote: > Rebecca Otto, where does she fit into the mix with appealing to the out state DFL'er and the metro DFL'er? > > I can't see Chris Coleman getting many votes from the out state DFL'ers and even though Tim Walz is moving left, will the inner city folks vote for him? > > Interesting election for governor in 2018. > > Gary Fischbach > Highland Park, Saint Paul > About/contact Gary Fischbach: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/garyfischbach > > > * Saint Paul Elections #stpaul17 - Get Friendly 2017! > Volunteer to create 2017 version of http://e-democracy.org/stpaul2015 > http://bit.ly/saintpaulelectionsfacebook > > * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured> > > > ------------------------ > Reply: Reply-All or visit http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/gh2KnJ3Mb9e6tRZpdi1pz
Will out state MN vote for a lefty progressive? They didn't vote for Hillary.
Tim Walz used to be endorsed by the NRA. Now he is aligned with the billionaire Bloomberg backed anti-2A groups like Everytown. He's moving left for the endorsement and probably back to the center for the general election.
On 9/19/2017 1:40 PM, Gary Fischbach wrote: > Will out state MN vote for a lefty progressive? They didn't vote for Hillary. = = = = = [KB] That's hilarious. If Hillary Clinton is progressive, I'm the next Pope.
/"Will out state MN vote for a lefty progressive? They didn't vote for Hillary."/
I urge you to dig deeper into Greg Laden's blog piece; he really addresses these arguments head on. I, like you, had my doubts about a "lefty progressive" doing well in greater Minnesota. Laden reminds us that Wellstone did very well and other progressive champions from Minnesota regularly got statewide support. After reading his arguments I was convinced that Rebecca Otto really is the best person not only to have in the Governor's office - but to win that office in the next general election.
Laden points out that the "they" in your above statement (the folks who didn't vote for Hillary) was not an example of the general populace shifting away from DFL values and toward Republican (or Trumpist) thinking. The data shows that Republicans showed up at the polls in 2016 in the _same_ numbers that they did when Romney was running in 2012.
Democratic successes four years ago were due to the large turnout of younger progressive democrats - who came out for Obama in 2012 and whose presence made the difference in _all_ the statewide races. They were also the DFLers who came out in huge numbers (statewide) for Bernie in the caucuses in 2016.
Unfortunately, these progressive DFLers were really turned off by the ways that the Clinton campaign dismissed their concerns and failed to seek their participation in her campaign in meaningful ways.And the totally understandable response of these passionately progressive DFLers, was to be lukewarm about her campaign in Minnesota. Consequently, too many of them stayed home on voting day. And the impact of their lukewarm participation was felt most strongly in greater Minnesota where enthusiastic DFL turnouts are needed to overcome the loyal GOP regulars who vote in similar numbers from year to year. [Ken B. made the point nicely - DFLers didn't come out to vote for Hillary precisely because she _wasn't/isn't_ a Progressive.]
But Greg Laden's blog piece is especially convincing in his analysis of just how well Rebecca Otto (the woman who works hard and wears her Progressive values right there on her sleeve) has performed in greater Minnesota in the past elections. Better than Mark Dayton; and better than Rick Nolen (in his own 8th district - and better there even in the election _following_ her public stand on requiring proof of performance from sulfide mining companies!) It's those numbers (actual vote tallies - not polling numbers which the Clinton campaign relied on in ways that were self-deceptive) that show Rebecca Otto's strength as a winning candidate.
Bernie (and Wellstone -and Humphrey and Eugene McCarthy and Jeannette Rankin as well - were popular and won precisely because of their boldness in standing for progressive values.) Boldness gets people elected in Minnesota (and elsewhere) - timidity does not fare as well.
So I urge you (and anyone else with similar questions about the current State Auditor's ability to win elections in greater Minnesota) to read Greg Laden's piece very thoroughly. The strongly positive picture he lays out - and backs up with hard data - is very impressive!
-in Love and Peace, -Demi Miller
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard Feynman
"Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' - you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' - they mean they are going to make money out of it." --Brigid Brophy
"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." --Anais Nin
"It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." -- Frederick Douglass
"The life of the individual only has meaning in so far as it aids in making the life of every living thing nobler and more beautiful." -- Albert Einstein
"We know how to transform this world to reduce our impact on nature by several fold, how to provide meaningful, dignified living-wage jobs for all who seek them, and how to feed, clothe, and house every person on earth.
What we don't know is how to remove those in power, those whose ignorance of biology is matched only by their indifference to human suffering. This is a political issue. It is not an ecological problem."
--Paul Hawken, from a speech at the Bioneers conference in Oct. 2002
On 09/19/2017 01:40 PM, Gary Fischbach wrote: > Will out state MN vote for a lefty progressive? They didn't vote for Hillary. > > Tim Walz used to be endorsed by the NRA. Now he is aligned with the billionaire Bloomberg backed anti-2A groups like Everytown. He's moving left for the endorsement and probably back to the center for the general election. > > I know the out state folks wont vote for Coleman. > > Its going to be an interesting election. > > Gary Fischbach > Highland Park, Saint Paul > About/contact Gary Fischbach: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/garyfischbach > > > * Saint Paul Elections #stpaul17 - Get Friendly 2017! > Volunteer to create 2017 version of http://e-democracy.org/stpaul2015 > http://bit.ly/saintpaulelectionsfacebook > > * Questions about rule violations? Contact: <email obscured> > > > ------------------------ > Reply: Reply-All or visit http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/3YRk7DZRnnHhzBrW3gY0Jm
It is early, but I see nothing unusual or unthinking about having early leanings. I hope early leanings won't cause candidates to give up, though.That certainly happened in the 2016 election, when candidates were dismissed as also-rans far too early - blame cable news for that!
I'm leaning toward Otto, but other candidates may yet declare. We'd be foolish not to expect Swanson to throw her beret in the ring. The series of emails she's sending out clearly show her taking up issues that could attract adherents and develop into a platform. I'm not so sure of Bakk.
Today's brand of GOP doesn't deserve attention. And as for a party dedicated to legalization of marijuana, we can appreciate a touch of comedy in what will be a tough race.