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State Street Has Gone to Pot
updated: Oct 28, 2012, 7:37 PM

By Edhat Subscriber

Has anyone noticed the number of people smoking marijuana on State Street in the last 5 days?

Comments in order of when they were received | (reverse order)

COMMENT 336513	2012-10-28 07:43 PM
It's about time!
COMMENT 336517	2012-10-28 07:50 PM
I wouldn't mind a doobie after the constant barrage of super-pac money funding Abel Maldonado. Charles Munger's "Spirit of Democracy America" alone has spent $750,000 on pro-Maldonado ads that even Abel is too ashamed to put his name on.
COMMENT 336519	2012-10-28 07:56 PM
Good for us!
QUAD-LIX	2012-10-28 08:00 PM
I usually smell it when walking State street, but I forget to count. Maybe we should have an edhat game to guess the number of people.
COMMENT 336522P	2012-10-28 08:00 PM
It's been going on for a while and seems that more and more areas are very stinky. I am not happy to walk past those areas with my kids and have them say "oh people are smoking pot right there"... nope, don't like that at all.
COMMENT 336524	2012-10-28 08:07 PM
Don't bogart pass it on.
COMMENT 336526	2012-10-28 08:13 PM
I don't believe it, no one would dare light the evil weed on state. Delusional olfactory, I say.
COMMENT 336527P	2012-10-28 08:22 PM
Good for us!! I'm a medical cannabis patient and I've thought of smoking when I've been downtown on State when my asthma was bad, but I've never gotten around to it or smelled cannabis. Second-hand cannabis smoke won't hurt your kids. Worry about tobacco smoke. It's good for them to know the truth, too.
COMMENT 336528P	2012-10-28 08:24 PM
Pit bulls, pot smoke, and poop......just another day downtown!
COMMENT 336530P	2012-10-28 08:28 PM
528 you forgot panhandlers
COMMENT 336531	2012-10-28 08:44 PM
No
COMMENT 336532	2012-10-28 08:44 PM
I am outraged. Next.
COMMENT 336533	2012-10-28 08:45 PM
Where are they and will they share?
COMMENT 336534P	2012-10-28 08:46 PM
Second hand pot smoke can get you high and I don't have good marijuana highs and I don't want my kids getting high either... so yes, second hand smoke from pot CAN hurt, it kills brain cells, can cause depression and personally it makes me have panic attacks. I don't want my kids subjected to it.
COMMENT 336535P	2012-10-28 08:48 PM
530 touche'
NATURE BOY	2012-10-28 09:07 PM
Getting high from OUTDOOR second-hand pot smoke? Not likely. Car exhaust walking down State Street is WAY more harmful.
COMMENT 336539P	2012-10-28 09:25 PM
Asthma and smoking ANYTHING? Dude, your doctor is trying to kill you.
COMMENT 336541	2012-10-28 09:26 PM
534, I understand your concern about your children being exposed to second-hand smoke, but in an open and well ventilated area the exposure most likely will not reach them. I have seen smokers on Upper State. Some skateboarders were openly sharing a joint and then went their separate ways. "Your choice is who you choose to be and if your causin' no harm then you're alright with me."
COMMENT 336545P	2012-10-29 12:18 AM
This is only going to become more prevalent. I used to notice the clouds of pot/hash smoke as I skated along Cabrillo Blvd. (It was wafting off the beachside homeless gangs.) Never smelled it on State. I often see and smell the High High Schoolers sneaking their puffs at Alice Keck Park. There is no way that pot smoking can help with asthma. With lungs already compromised, you've got to be a real dopey-dora (pun!) to be inhaling any kind of smoke. Ever see the inside of a pipe bowl gummed up with m.j. tar? Just imagine what it is doing to your lungs . . . I used to smoke it all, back in the 70s: best homegrown, Lebanese hash, Thai stick, hash oil. It was fun, but I was young and stupid. No more smoking for me. I prefer breathing well to polluting my lungs with smoking dope.
COMMENT 336548P	2012-10-29 02:50 AM
Escapisms like pot and alcohol only mask the sickness not cure it. Yes our society is very sick right now but this is not helping.
COMMENT 336549P	2012-10-29 02:55 AM
Interesting. My last post to this thread was at 3:50 am but the post time says 2:50 am. Did someone at Edhat fallback a week early? This post is at 3:55 am.
ROGER DODGER	2012-10-29 05:57 AM
I got asthma too and it helps me..If someone gets high from passing smoke outdoors while walking pass someone they better quit driving. Works wonders on my depression and brain cells too I think oh I forgot what I was saying...
COMMENT 336555	2012-10-29 06:13 AM
... must be harvest time!
COMMENT 336556	2012-10-29 06:15 AM
No. I never go downtown these days if I can avoid it.
COMMENT 336557	2012-10-29 06:20 AM
You're just smelling me when I go for a walk downtown after finishing a productive 8-hour shift and lighting one up in my nice apartment.
COMMENT 336559P	2012-10-29 06:34 AM
October 2012 study said there are trace amounts of cocaine, marijuana, caffeine, and nicotine in the air of many Italian cities: Bologna, Florence, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Rome, Turin and Verona ... not enough to have mind-altering effects on people breathing the air -- even though the amounts are enough to be measured. (Thanks to the OP for letting us know about Downtown SB.)
COMMENT 336560P	2012-10-29 06:34 AM
Where are the Segue Patrols on State Street? Non-existent.
ROGER DODGER	2012-10-29 06:41 AM
Where is this downtown? Maybe I could save alittle...
COMMENT 336565	2012-10-29 06:50 AM
Hate to break it to you naysayers, but marijuana has many proven health benefits. While I also believe it hasn't been studied enough to overturn all the negative and positive effects, denying that benefits have already been found and proven is ignorant. Look up prohibition. Read the story of what happened when the government tried to make alcohol illegal. Then draw the parallels - there are too many to count. Marijuana dealing has gone under gang control, much like alcohol became controlled by the mafia. It's a slippery slope, and we have already slipped; it's only a matter of time before it becomes legal. Cannot WAIT to see what this world is like once the baby boomer generation is gone. No offense to you all, but there are stark differences in perspective between that generation and all generations younger than that. Times are in for a-changin'.
COMMENT 336567	2012-10-29 06:56 AM
Still waiting/hoping for regular police patrols that will get the losers off State (not that I care about the pot smoking, its the panhandling/ loitering that bugs me). We need to reclaim our downtown!! I don't feel comfortable walking on State street anymore, it is a pathetic representation of SB, and I don't want to bring visitors there when they come. Please, City Council, DO SOMETHING!!
COMMENT 336568	2012-10-29 06:57 AM
Amazing to me that people are so concerned about happy marijuana smokers littering up their downtown bar area. Goodness forbid they smell the funky aroma of burnt leaves as they negotiate there way rhrough sticky sidewalks .full of sports bar yahoos socially acceptably swilling alchohol on tables that spill out ionto sidewalks where my teenage girl can talk to them as though they were standing outside ....... We don't go downtown any more because of the bars not because someone may be smoking ....in the fresh air ...does anyone see the irony in the socially acceptability,,,in alchohol ..you can't drink one tall beer or one glass of wine without being over the legal limit ....how do they get home? Be real you know there not all taking taxis. Why is that socially accepted ...?
COMMENT 336569	2012-10-29 07:00 AM
Last 5 days? This has been going on for a long time. I get sorta jealous when I see it because when I was a big pot head we had to be so sneaky about it. It is so open to the general public these days. It basically seems like it is legal already.
COMMENT 336570P	2012-10-29 07:01 AM
My irish grandma used to put a "touch" of whiskey in the babys mil (including mine) to help us sleep.....sure, it worked ...did that make it "medicinal"....or, simply, "alcoholics" (as most of us struggled w that disease) . To mistake relief from symptoms as somehow beneficially healing, whether from whiskey or marijuana, is a risky gamble and not one that i would advocate. Lets be pragmatic and stop romantacizing the high.
COMMENT 336572	2012-10-29 07:07 AM
OP you should try riding a motorcycle. It's amazing how many drivers are blazing away while motoring down the freeway. But I know you're just trying to stir up indignation against the street urchins hanging out on State St. You should open your windows more and see that there is a lot of MJ consumption all over town and it's been going on for quite a while.
COMMENT 336575	2012-10-29 07:14 AM
If you can't live life without drugs or alcohol you are lacking backbone,morals, or a sense of responsibilty. So they pass the bottle/pot and wonder when they wake up what the world is coming to. All the while they denegrate and snicker at the "old people' who were taught to live life differently...head on and sober.
COMMENT 336578P	2012-10-29 07:27 AM
The 4 P's. Love it, 528P & 530P Whoops, guess that makes 6P's actually counting you two. ;-)
COMMENT 336581	2012-10-29 07:33 AM
522 Ever wonder how your kids know?
COMMENT 336582	2012-10-29 07:39 AM
I cannot believe people are still quoting "it kills brain cells". When you say that you disprove your ability to research anything before you speak. That was a political campaign that was long ago dis-proven (they were blowing smoke into monkeys mouths, any smoke would have that effect), and to the contrary, it has been recently proven that CBD (one of the active cannibinoids in cannabis) actualy repairs brain cells (in one study it showed that it kills previously cells that cannot repair themselves, and protects the once that can.) They key factor is to drink the cannabis juice raw, at which point it has NO high whatsoever and you can take a massive dose with no side effects or high. Watch the documentary lead by Dr. William Casey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xPmR8j4plw
COMMENT 336588	2012-10-29 07:48 AM
MMJ has some positive affects on people with health issues. But the kids these days want to use it at will whenever and wherever they want. Morning, noon and night. Out in public.... no. In your own home... yes. Maybe a thousnad of us should go Downtown and crowd the people loitering and panhandling. It would certainly have an affect on them, maybe make them leave. Lord knows the mighty midget (Cam Sanchez) is not taking care of this problem.
COMMENT 336593P	2012-10-29 07:51 AM
39P, 45P: U.S. Department of Health and Human services owns a patent on the use of cannabinoids for treating a wide range of anti-inflammatory conditions, including asthma and inflammation resulting from strokes, which can cause brain cell death. Other inflammatory conditions mentioned in the patent are cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, Down's syndrome, arthritis, and glaucoma. Thousands of MD's prescribe it for treatment of inflammatory disease. Some other common demonstrated therapeutic uses of cannabis or its components are based on its antibiotic, antiviral, fungicidal, and carcinogenic properties. Cannabis is asthma medicine, and its efficacy is independent of ignorance and bigotry.
COMMENT 336605	2012-10-29 08:06 AM
I CANNOT stand the smell. I'm normal, college graduate, grew up in the 60s/70s in Santa Barbara and think weed and all other forms of freaking out the brain are bad for you. Simple intelligence.
COMMENT 336607	2012-10-29 08:17 AM
Get real, I've been smoking pot for 30 years, I'm degreed, have a good job, good credit, no criminal record, and good friends. Some folks just like to judge things they don't understand.
COMMENT 336611P	2012-10-29 08:31 AM
Better to smell MJ than the normal urine smell.
COMMENT 336612	2012-10-29 08:36 AM
Actually there is scientific evidence that smoking pot can help with asthma. THC is a broncial dilator - it clears your airways helping people with asthma to breathe easier. Interestingly, there is also strong scientific evidence of cannabinoids inhibiting lung cancer - so much that it resolves any issues from the pot smoke, and can reverse lung cancer from other sources. Google that - you will find very legitimate sources verifying this. Please DO GOOGLE it - so you can learn something. Too bad there is no money in that cure, otherwise it would have been green-lighted many years ago.
COMMENT 336619	2012-10-29 08:48 AM
I'd like to think that it's as simple as waiting for all the ignorant boomers to die off. However, as a millennial I see a correlation between parents' conservatism/liberalism and the political development of their children: First we have young adults who dumbly regurgitate their parents' conservative talking points, perhaps the most well-recognized conservative tradition. Similarly, I grew up with children of conservatives who now identify as strongly liberal. But those kids with super-liberal parents? Many of the ones I know live the most disaffected, misled, apathetic existences I can think of. You may have heard of the "edge" sub-scene. Many of the kids I know who identify as edge, or with related musical genres, have developed personal/political ethics directly at odds with progressive or even moderate ideals -- and often even with rational thought. Is militant punk atheism really any different or less shortsighted than fundie christianity?
COMMENT 336621P	2012-10-29 08:58 AM
612: Right on! - with the exception of your statement regarding money. There's lots of money in medical cannabis use. The feds are restricting it to the pharmaceutical companies and researchers they've granted patents to, and have altered the US Patent database to prevent access by new users to patents relating to cannabis. Smoking isn't the best means of delivery of the medicine, but it's much better than no cannabis use during an asthma attack.
COMMENT 336622	2012-10-29 08:59 AM
yawn... nothing new under the sun...
ROGER DODGER	2012-10-29 10:08 AM
You know I'm a Baby Boomer and way back when Baby Boomers were lighting up al l this ignorant talk about Baby boomers dying off etc...? I was smoking this stuff when your Grandaddy was a twinkly in your great Grandaddys eye so WATCH IT! Baby Boomers invented the Power Hitter!
COMMENT 336633	2012-10-29 10:20 AM
The is ABSOLUTELY ZERO scientific evidence that pot help ANY of the above listed diseases. Just a bunch of drug addict rhetoric.
COMMENT 336647	2012-10-29 10:34 AM
good
COMMENT 336650	2012-10-29 10:36 AM
633 has a proof reading issue. In '77 my two new friends in the s.f. valley regularly smoked pot in their car on the way to school!
COMMENT 336653	2012-10-29 10:40 AM
But there is no evidence that it made any of those diseases worse. And In the end someone was just happy and hungry. Our brain makes a canabanoid ( or how ever you say it ) naturally. Helps us destress. Just watched a national geographic thing on weed last weekend. Had doctors saying the same thing. If you don't like it fine,I don't like your vallium and zanex, but you don't hear me crying about how you take them 6 times a day. And then have a " glass of wine " Your doing a similar thing
COMMENT 336655	2012-10-29 10:42 AM
I had an EXTREMELY painful surgery earlier this year that took three months to recover from. I was prescribed the highly addictive Vicodin, which I was not a fan of. I asked my doctor if it would be alright if I tried to smoke pot instead. GUESS WHAT? My doctor, a long established medical professional at our very own Sansum clinic said "go for it!" Why would my doctor tell me this? I quote, "I've had to help many people addicted to painkillers get off but I have NEVER had to get somebody off of marijuana. Our bodies have something called cannabinoid receptors that respond to marijuana and help alleviate pain." No I am not some stoner making this up. And when I stopped needing it, I stopped using it, just like that. Everything was fine. And before you judge me understand that this is coming from a very conservative, straight-laced girl. I have a harder time giving up coffee.
COMMENT 336658	2012-10-29 10:47 AM
There are plenty of Edhat commenters with terrible grammar. I guess they all smoke pot.
COMMENT 336661	2012-10-29 10:49 AM
336655 - 99% of the people screaming for legalization DO NOT need this medically...they simply want to get stoned. The medical issue is a smoke screen.
COMMENT 336665	2012-10-29 10:54 AM
655 - were you able to get it legally? just curious. I might try it if I run into a similar situation.
NATURE BOY	2012-10-29 11:04 AM
565: But it was the baby boomers who were the original free-love potheads. It's not the times that a-change, it's people's attitudes as they get older. What makes you think that the liberal kids of today won't do the same thing, i.e. grow up to be much more conservative? It's just a fact of life. Wait & see.
COMMENT 336679	2012-10-29 11:15 AM
@665 Yes I was able to obtain it legally and I wouldn't do it any other way. I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be legal without a prescription. Besides my primary physician. I also asked my surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurses about it and they were supportive because they've seen first hand the effects of marijuana use compared to addictive painkillers and I wanted to be sure.
COMMENT 336697	2012-10-29 11:36 AM
Rather smell a little mj than the horrible stench coming from Abercrombie. I say it's time to legalize.
ROGER DODGER	2012-10-29 11:44 AM
Vicoden will kill your liver quicker than alcohol..I took 7 of those one time after JP got done workin on my teeth all it did was give me an ulcer..
COMMENT 336702	2012-10-29 11:47 AM
This stuff cracks me up. There are more harmful vapors from the household chemicals you use to clean your house, run your car, heck even those that you put on your body than one could ever ingest outside via second hand smoke. its amazing to me how much ones prejudice affects their judgement or ability to rationalize. Perhaps one should stop parroting the billion dollar War on Drugs industry and start opening your mind and your heart to the realities of marijuana and farce that is the War on Drugs...
COMMENT 336704	2012-10-29 11:53 AM
As a cancer survivor going on 6 years post-diagnosis, I can attest that marijuana is indeed one of the most under-rated, wrongly demonized (by the ignorant) natural medicines available. My doctors are all aware that I use it in place of the nasty prescription anti-nausea drugs they prescribe and to counteract the effects of toxic, debilitating conventional treatments. It's an appetite stimulant, a pain reliever, nausea reliever, and sleep aid. Those who beg to differ are just uninformed and should remain silent on the topic. And hope they never need it themselves.
COMMENT 336713	2012-10-29 12:05 PM
Marijuana should totally be legal. Signed - by all of the bums in front of Hamburger Habit.
COMMENT 336716	2012-10-29 12:06 PM
I agree, it is so disappointing that the smell is masking the classic alcohol perfumed people exiting the bars. Good thing they quickly get in their cars and drive home instead of hanging out on State St...makes me feel safer somehow.
COMMENT 336738	2012-10-29 12:42 PM
Even using recreationally is medicinal. There are so many uses for the plant aside from cancer and other serious issues. It is not for everyone but some people get relief from stress from it, just like someone does with tea or something else. What we choose is our choice. Although state street may not be the best place until it is legalized, most frustrated and stressed out people commenting here could actually benefit from it, despite their predetermined ideas not to.
COMMENT 336785	2012-10-29 01:41 PM
@336575 Aren't you the one doing the denigrating here? Meanwhile, the evidence that anyone is denigrating or snickering at old people is lacking. Also, the notion that old people were taught to live sober is a fantasy ... old and young people alike are diverse; you represent no one other than yourself.
COMMENT 336859P	2012-10-29 04:17 PM
Raphael Mechoulam, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, is one of the pioneers of medical cannabis research, and one of the researchers holding US patents. The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Department of Media Relations. www.huji.ac.il/cgi-bin/dovrut/dovrut_search_eng.pl?.
SCEPTIC	2012-10-29 04:46 PM
I think posts by readers denying medical uses of cannabis in preference to drugs approved by the federal agency that gave us thalidomide, the same FDA that has withdrawn over 2200 previously approved drugs due to their adverse or potentially fatal effects on patients since 1996, the year the Compassionate Use Act was passed in California, are an excellent example of social Darwinism, and should be viewed as an indicator of social progress by rational members of society. (Write-In) Vote Libertarian Gary Johnson for president, former governor of New Mexico, medical cannabis patient during recovery from a sports injury, Judge James Gray, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition activist, former federal prosecutor, retired Orange County Superior Court judge. Legalize and regulate cannabis, save billions of $$, treat drug problems as drug problems, not crime, the same as we treat alcoholism. Support the international Red Cross in advocating legalization of drugs as a policy of harm reduction..
COMMENT 336890	2012-10-29 06:22 PM
Convert alcoholics to pot heads: Spousal abuse falls, traffic accidents fall, families get better and stronger, and the only thing we have to do is post minimum speed limits as opposed to only maximum.
COMMENT 336936	2012-10-29 08:23 PM
This post HAS NOTHING to do with "Medical Marajuana"! This is about the blantant recreational use of people who do not work and spend their time smoking and loitering on State St,
COMMENT 336942	2012-10-29 08:38 PM
Haha no its not about that either, you don't even know if they spend all day on state
COMMENT 336945P	2012-10-29 08:41 PM
@565 - Interesting and self-revealing that you aren't contributing anything financial to help support the edhat community! Boomers do tend to have a strong committment to community. Boomers were the first generation to challenge the establishment War machine. We were also the first to champion the Environment, (you know, the mentality of not just taking, but trying to give something back too), Are you more "enlightened" or just too self-absorbed to be bothered with having a social conscience?) It's probably totally irrelevant to you, but Boomers were the young people who made possible the most massive Rock festival ever, at Woodstock, in 1969, not to mention almost the entire Sexual Liberation movement. It was boomers who were the first generation to actively confront and challenge the outmoded and hypocritical laws in America, regarding Civil Rights, Women's Rights, and Gay Rights, not to mention our totally wrong-headed Marijuana laws. And for being so deficient in meeting your standards, or lack thereof, you "can't wait" for us to die off? How pathetically and abysmally ignorant, not to mention unappreciative can you be?
COMMENT 336974P	2012-10-30 06:00 AM
Not that anyone is still reading this thread . . . but I just have to let you know that smoking pot IS bad for many people. It adversely affects emotional growth and maturity especially if the smoker starts at a young age. If you think to deny this fact, I suggest you ask any female who lives with or is married to someone who smokes it more than once a week. Generally, it is the male of the species who tends to rely on pot to get him through the day or week. Speaking from personal experience, I have seen, since my teen years, many a good man become less motivated and less mature and less of himself as he aged, due to too much dope smoking. Also, marijuana is not recommended for anyone who may suffer from borderline personality disorder. Coming down off the high of marijuana can and does make such people extremely anxious and negative and paranoid. I currently live with a pot smoker who fully acknowledges his "addiction" to pot. While many deny that pot is addictive, I know for a fact that it is a nasty little habit that, once taken up on a regular basis, is not easily given up. My dope smoking boyfriend likens the effect of pot to "a wet blanket." He says it dampens his mind. It makes the reality of life less harsh. Not for one minute do I believe that pot doesn't contribute to lung cancer. As an earlier poster wrote: just look at the bowl of a pipe used to smoke m.j. or, I say, check out the water in your hookah. When you take that smoke deeply into your lungs, you are coating your lungs with that sweet, sticky tar. Medical marijuana is an entirely different beast. When you need pot to help alleviate pain, nausea, insomnia, then anything that helps you ----I'm all for it. But to say that smoking pot, a lot of pot, is okay and helps your health . . . I just don't buy it. Not at all. Not from what I have seen and experienced with pot smokers. And why no mention of memory loss? As one previous poster wrote: freaking out your brain is bound to have bad consequences in the long run. Doesn't matter if it's pot or alcohol or meth or crack or even something as natural as mushrooms. The animal brain doesn't need to be played with... [ more ]
ROGER DODGER	2012-10-30 07:03 AM
@974P That explains it I'm going to start smoking twice as much now...
COMMENT 336996	2012-10-30 07:50 AM
Pot's not dope, please stop referring to pot as dope.
COMMENT 337001	2012-10-30 08:06 AM
as a casual recreational toker 974P....i disagree with many of your points....but as far as your boyfriend is concerned...perhaps you could help alleviate the harshness in his life....maybe he cuts back on his usage. i'm always bemused by these pot threads as they garner the most comments, mostly with strong opinions on both sides with data, fatcs, figures......when in fact my personal reality is like most casual users or at least how i imagine most users are. we run productive lives, with happy families, well adjusted contributors to society, college grads all through the bloodlines both prior, present and future...we just enjoy getting baked every now and then as part of life's pleasures......no biggie.
COMMENT 337039P	2012-10-30 09:12 AM
336655 _ Your post is EXTREMELY interesting. Thank you for the (current = 2012 = medical) information. Never having tried marijuana (or tobacco), I found your post to be neat-news -- for reference -- should a similar (personal) situation pop-up in my future. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

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