COVID-19 vaccine discussion

I'll try to find it, but I thought I remember one of the legalization bills from a recent TX lege session was written by a hardcore Christian who argued marijuana was created by God, so it was fine.

I could've been high at the time though.

Edit:. Found it. From 2015....

"Everything that God made is good, even marijuana" said state Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, who filed the bill. "The conservative thought is that government doesn't need to fix something that God made good."

I would think that the current Texas conservative government would be clamoring for a non-vaccination way to stop covid.   But in reality it's not like it's hard to get with so much of it legal within a days drive. 

6 hours ago, Incredulity said:

It doesn't seem remotely tenable to expect double vax'd with break through case individuals to be really motivated to keep boosting.  Full disclosure that's me personally, my concern over catching covid is literally zero at this point.

This is me. It would be interesting to see the breakdown in America of unvaxed, vax no booster, and vaxed + booster.  Would guess the middle group is the largest.

44 minutes ago, midtown said:

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

Friend of mine who is a big Texas weed proponent/lawyer/lobbiest/etc. told me that once Texas was surrounded (neighboring states and Mexico) with legality or one sort or another or decriminalization, it'd be a matter of a few years give or take.  I like her optimistic view.

Texas already allows low level thc use for a few medical conditions. Imo the cat has its head out of the bag.

Possession is a civil fine in most metro areas in Texas, right?  And in the rest of the areas, they've pretty much given up since testing to distinguish the real deal from the .3% Hemp that is legal is both impractical and too costly to bother with.

Edited January 13, 2022 by dcbc

Yeah, you try asking off work for 2 business days so you can go buy weed in New Mexico.  I dont know if you know this, but New Mexico is far from Austin/San Antonio.

But yeah, you'd think a non-vacc solution with so much promise would get more of a "buzz" here in Texas.  I got an easier time getting a jug of horse piss or bleach paste or whatever the fuck stupid people are recommending this week than I do of a quarter ounce of quality weed.  

1 minute ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, you try asking off work for 2 business days so you can go buy weed in New Mexico.  I dont know if you know this, but New Mexico is far from Austin/San Antonio.

Come on man.   There are people that will do this for you.   The proper term is drug dealer

2 minutes ago, midtown said:

 The proper term is drug dealer

Some of us are losers with 3 friends.

 

 

My wife, my dog, and derka.

3 minutes ago, midtown said:

Come on man.   There are people that will do this for you.   The proper term is drug dealer

I'm sorry I'm not down with your hip insider lingo.  I don't have a marijuana courier on my fax machine speed dial, okay?  

3 hours ago, justhookit said:

Is this sarcasm? We aren’t ever doing that.

Texas sure isn't but it's already like that in New Orleans, New York and I'm sure much of California.  All these vaccine passport policies were put in place pre-Omicron when vaccine stopped transmission against Alpha and a little against Delta.   They make absolutely zero sense now obviously.  But no idea what it will take for some of the govt. officials that are dug in to actually admit the policy is no longer supported by science.  It's shouldn't be hard to pivot as needed with new data but we don't live in rational times.  Both federal and local govt messaging on all of this is and has been so fucked. 

32 minutes ago, htown85 said:

This is me. It would be interesting to see the breakdown in America of unvaxed, vax no booster, and vaxed + booster.  Would guess the middle group is the largest.

37.5% of fully vaccinated are boosted. Now it doesn’t say many of those fully vaccinated are even eligible for them, but it’s most I would assume. 
 

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/

 

33 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Yeah, you try asking off work for 2 business days so you can go buy weed in New Mexico.  I dont know if you know this, but New Mexico is far from Austin/San Antonio.

 

About 5 quotes from smokey and the bandit come to mind.  

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

About 5 quotes from smokey and the bandit come to mind.  

You thinking what I'm thinking?  When the grid invariably shuts down again next month, we make the run...the Alamo to Alamogordo.  Bring back as much Coors Banquet beer and high-THC weed as the dispensary will sell.  But you gotta make it to/from with no tickets.  I'll drive the blocker car.  

DELETED - thought I was responding to something more recent.  Don't want to mess up the flow of the thread.

Edited January 13, 2022 by Samson's Wig

I don’t know about a 3 month delay, but my wife says it fucks with hers and it is a known side effect for some women. She’s not looking forward to her booster this week

So does chlamydia. Let’s just jump to conclusions while we’re jumping to conclusions.

1 hour ago, Lobo said:

You thinking what I'm thinking?  When the grid invariably shuts down again next month, we make the run...the Alamo to Alamogordo.  Bring back as much Coors Banquet beer and high-THC weed as the dispensary will sell.  But you gotta make it to/from with no tickets.  I'll drive the blocker car.  

It ain’t never been done because we ain’t never done it

48 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

So does chlamydia. Let’s just jump to conclusions while we’re jumping to conclusions.

What conclusion did I jump to?  

Friend of mine who is a big Texas weed proponent/lawyer/lobbiest/etc. told me that once Texas was surrounded (neighboring states and Mexico) with legality or one sort or another or decriminalization, it'd be a matter of a few years give or take.  I like her optimistic view.

To your friend, I just say “casinos”..

Same situation and nowhere near a few years away.

Possession is a civil fine in most metro areas in Texas, right?  And in the rest of the areas, they've pretty much given up since testing to distinguish the real deal from the .3% Hemp that is legal is both impractical and too costly to bother with.

The private labs that my office uses charges $250ish for the necessary test, the cost of which, can be passed on to the Defendant.

1 hour ago, scottsins said:

The private labs that my office uses charges $250ish for the necessary test, the cost of which can be passed on to the Defendant.

We're getting off topic from vaccines, and I apologize in advance for the threadjack.

I know they just recodified in the Local Government Code with how all of the court costs can be assessed.  What section authorizes a percentage to reimburse lab fees?  I'll be honest, I don't remember that one.  They ordinarily use DPS labs for criminal cases.   The court costs defendants have to pay ($147 on a Class A or B misdemeanor) get divided up among a lot of different outstretched hands of the government, and I don't recall the DPS Crime Lab being among them, and if the entity isn't listed in the statute, those court costs (or a percentage thereof) can't be assessed to reimburse it  For a while, some counties  would try to assess DPS lab fees as restitution (as opposed to costs).  They were like $140 (might be $180 now).  But those generally were struck by appellate courts as not appropriate restitution (because the DPS lab isn't a crime victim). 

 

With marijuana prosecution, in the past, it was sufficient for the arresting officer to get on the stand and identify the substance as marijuana.  Obviously, it can't be eyeballed anymore with the hemp legality. If DPS can't collect the fees as court costs, that expense falls on the individual county, and those budgets don't allocate a lot to trying minor possession cases.  $180 doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up and the small time pot busts just aren't worth it to most counties.  They'd rather pay the crime lab to identify meth.

Edited January 14, 2022 by dcbc

51 minutes ago, scottsins said:

To your friend, I just say “casinos”..

Same situation and nowhere near a few years away.

We'll see.

5 hours ago, Lobo said:

And you call that, the tractor story?  

8 hours ago, Skipper said:

Texas sure isn't but it's already like that in New Orleans, New York and I'm sure much of California.  All these vaccine passport policies were put in place pre-Omicron when vaccine stopped transmission against Alpha and a little against Delta.   They make absolutely zero sense now obviously.  But no idea what it will take for some of the govt. officials that are dug in to actually admit the policy is no longer supported by science.  It's shouldn't be hard to pivot as needed with new data but we don't live in rational times.  Both federal and local govt messaging on all of this is and has been so fucked. 

Yeah I got confused and thought I was replying on our Texas thread. It’s (Omicron) crashing everything and everyone no matter how many shots they’ve had now as you know. As the Texas thread starter I’m happy to say I don’t give a shit anymore. Won’t be popular with some people but I was that way after my 2nd shot. We aren’t responsible for idiots that won’t get vaccinated. I’m vaxxed, boosted, and living my life.

i am also living my life. enjoying my current CRON status while finishing my coffee

 

We're getting off topic from vaccines, and I apologize in advance for the threadjack.
I know they just recodified in the Local Government Code with how all of the court costs can be assessed.  What section authorizes a percentage to reimburse lab fees?  I'll be honest, I don't remember that one.  They ordinarily use DPS labs for criminal cases.   The court costs defendants have to pay ($147 on a Class A or B misdemeanor) get divided up among a lot of different outstretched hands of the government, and I don't recall the DPS Crime Lab being among them, and if the entity isn't listed in the statute, those court costs (or a percentage thereof) can't be assessed to reimburse it  For a while, some counties  would try to assess DPS lab fees as restitution (as opposed to costs).  They were like $140 (might be $180 now).  But those generally were struck by appellate courts as not appropriate restitution (because the DPS lab isn't a crime victim). 
 
With marijuana prosecution, in the past, it was sufficient for the arresting officer to get on the stand and identify the substance as marijuana.  Obviously, it can't be eyeballed anymore with the hemp legality. If DPS can't collect the fees as court costs, that expense falls on the individual county, and those budgets don't allocate a lot to trying minor possession cases.  $180 doesn't sound like a lot, but it adds up and the small time pot busts just aren't worth it to most counties.  They'd rather pay the crime lab to identify meth.

I have brought up the exact argument about restitution, but those in charge don’t really care.

Bell County.

My way of dealing with it is to just reduce or dismiss every POM assigned to me, which is usually several hundred of them.

What matters in Bell County misdemeanors is mostly the letter that your last name starts with, since that’s how the various prosecutors are assigned.

Also, to be fair…there might be one or two attorneys in the whole office that would ever take a POM case to trial, so the significance of this issue is relatively minor, which is kinda your point.

* Importantly, all of this is somewhat irrelevant since our LEA’s are still making the same amount of weed arrests as before, we accept virtually all of them, and deals are cut with no testing being done/forced.

Who are these one or two attorneys that would take a POM case to trial? They need to be publicly shamed.

4 hours ago, scottsins said:

I have brought up the exact argument about restitution, but those in charge don’t really care.

About 10 years ago, just about every criminal appeal filed by the appointed appellate counsel in our district challenged DPS lab fees assessed as restitution, and they usually were successful unless it was someone who cut a deal, was placed on community supervision, and as a part of the agreement, the defendant agreed to pay DPS lab fees as restitution, before getting revoked.  So that's one way they get around it.  The offending county has since stopped with that nonsense outside of conditions of community supervision.

Edited January 14, 2022 by dcbc

16 hours ago, midtown said:

Come on man.   There are people that will do this for you.   The proper term is drug dealer

Yea Oklahoma has really helped me get it cheaper. Love it. 

Also put me in the vac + booster group and now I have gotten pretty lazy giving a fuck anymore. 

Just took antibody test, only 2 shots moderna almost a yr ago, but had a hellacious virus around Thanksgiving but never tested. Results came back 1166 u/mL,  makes me think I had the roni then. 
 

not sure if the antibody dick measuring was on this thread or somewhere else so curious to hear the experts. 

Edited January 14, 2022 by bluto

5 minutes ago, bluto said:

Just took antibody test, only 2 shots moderna almost a yr ago, but had a hellacious virus around Thanksgiving but never tested. Results came back 1166 u/mL,  makes me think I had the roni then. 
 

not sure if the antibody dick measuring was on this thread or somewhere else so curious to hear the experts. 

Test should have differentiated between vax antibodies and infection antibodies. Did you get 2 numbers as results?  

6 minutes ago, bluto said:

Just took antibody test, only 2 shots moderna almost a yr ago, but had a hellacious virus around Thanksgiving but never tested. Results came back 1166 u/mL,  makes me think I had the roni then. 

Did they test for S-antibodies or N-antibodies? 

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Test should have differentiated between vax antibodies and infection antibodies. Did you get 2 numbers as results?  

Those look like S (spike) antibody numbers from vaccination.  The N (nucleocapsid) antibodies tend to be a much smaller number.

Edited January 14, 2022 by dcbc

One number only. Roche elecsys anti sars-cov-2 s report

 

sars-cov-2 semi quant total Ab 1166 with negative range <.8 as only reference. 
 

sars-cov-2 spike ab interp Positive 

17 minutes ago, bluto said:

One number only. Roche elecsys anti sars-cov-2 s report

 

sars-cov-2 semi quant total Ab 1166 with negative range <.8 as only reference. 
 

sars-cov-2 spike ab interp Positive 

That won't tell you if you had a prior infection.  That's just from the vaccine.

Edited January 14, 2022 by dcbc

22 hours ago, Lobo said:

You thinking what I'm thinking?  When the grid invariably shuts down again next month, we make the run...the Alamo to Alamogordo.  Bring back as much Coors Banquet beer and high-THC weed as the dispensary will sell.  But you gotta make it to/from with no tickets.  I'll drive the blocker car.  

 

12 hours ago, StruggleBus said:

Who are these one or two attorneys that would take a POM case to trial? They need to be publicly shamed.

Bell County

Shame don’t live there.

1 hour ago, dcbc said:

That won't tell you if you had a prior infection.  That's just from the vaccine.

So is 1166 a decent number for being 10 mos after second shot? Thx for info, clearly clueless

1 hour ago, bluto said:

So is 1166 a decent number for being 10 mos after second shot? Thx for info, clearly clueless

Yes.

So there is no discussion anywhere of the SCOTUS decision to block Biden’s vaccine mandate for private companies? 

Just now, XYZ said:

So there is no discussion anywhere of the SCOTUS decision to block Biden’s vaccine mandate for private companies? 

There is in the Cloak Room

13 hours ago, Don Johnson said:

There is in the Cloak Room

So is 1166 a decent number for being 10 mos after second shot? Thx for info, clearly clueless

It's nearly tree point fitty tree fiddies. So yeah.

There is in the Cloak Room

But I want to talk about it here!

22 hours ago, Don Johnson said:

There is in the Cloak Room

Where in the cloak room? I scanned the covid thread and didn’t find anything about it.

Where in the cloak room? I scanned the covid thread and didn’t find anything about it.

Maybe the Supremes thread? Just spitballing.

7 minutes ago, XYZ said:

Where in the cloak room? I scanned the covid thread and didn’t find anything about it.

 

I think the Supply Change issues have a lot to do with unavailability of home tests.  

 

 

 
 

Mexico: miles smarter than the US.

Mexico: miles smarter than the US.

For sure. We're still measuring intelligence in miles.

19 minutes ago, dcbc said:

11 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Mexico: miles smarter than the US.

For sure. We're still measuring intelligence in miles.

In the UK, happiness is measured out in miles.