Would Legalizing Pot Help the Economy?
Now's your chance, marijuana. The economy is bleeding jobs and businesses. The world's greatest Olympian who's ever lived smokes you. Our government could use the tax revenue after becoming a Wall Street ATM. You've turned furry Seth Rogen into a supa-star. So if you've ever had a time to shine, pot, it's now.
There is a chance, and it's a window that will last as long as Grapes of Wrath 2.0, to legalize marijuana in the name of industry and creating jobs.
The backlash against Kellogg's for pulling the plug on Phelps' endorsement deal over the bong smoking pic is being fueled by a Facebook group and pro-legalize it lobbying groups, like Marijuana Policy Project. These people will be the ones leading the charge.
It could happen. I dug around on the internets and pulled together some numbers on what we stand to gain if marijuana is decriminalized. They look pretty good. Sure, the tax revenue will be a drop in the bucket compared to how much we're giving our i-banker friends.
Hey, if legalizing it makes sense to a Nobel laureate, then it's good enough for me. Check out the nitty-gritty stats and figures here for some fun party trivia and inspiration for political action.
I really do think now's the tipping point for Mary Juanita.
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Pot smoking is cultural to a large US population which is tired of the war.
The two major parties have made it BIG business to incarcerate users.
munchies.... this article makes me want a Chalupa...
See Andrea Chalupa's Profile
Chalupa comin' atchya! A CA trip is loooooooong overdue. Wuv woo, Lurkaturk!
I don't smoke pot but I do think it is a good idea to legalize it like they do in Amsterdam etc..
Legalizing pot is a terrible idea. We need to criminalize smoking tobacco not increase tobacco consumption by legalizing another drug.
As somebody who smokes both i strongly disagree. i like being able to purchase tobacco at the store instead of from high school kids
anyone care to address the public-health side of this equation? legalization presumably would lead to increased consumption; would that also lead to increased lung disease?
Why not go to the site where all the scientific abstracts are published, and see for yourself the over 500 studies showing that marijuana molecules kill cancer cells without harming healthy cells.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez
People don't smoke one joint every ten minutes like cigarette smokers. Therefore, they will have little lung damage. I know many people who have smoked pot every day for four decades now, and not one has lung cancer.
Legalize pot!
We can save the forests, increase tax revenues, save billions on jails, prisons, and state legal fees. It will put more cops on the street to fight real crime, because states wont have to waste the money on low level drug dealers, and arming police uints with weapons better suited for the military, than stopping your neighbor's hydroponics garden!
YES WE CANNABIS!
YES WE CAN.....
Ask your doctor if cannabis is right for YOU.
There are real criminals out there and yet we are focused on an Olympic champion and how he spent a Saturday night. The marijuana laws are an assault on personal liberty and freedom. With alcohol being legal there is no justification for keeping marijuana illegal. It is a completely hypocritical law. I suspect it is merely an easy point for lazy law enforcement to bolster its statistics. It also is a windfall for asset seizure. In short it is more predatory government policy intruding on the people it should serve. Maybe someday we can have a system which does not prey on its citizens.
"The marijuana laws are an assault on personal liberty and freedom. "
No. allowing opeople to smoke in public places is an assault on personal liberty and freedom of everyone around that person.
Legalizing another drug which increases smoking is absurd unless we also make it legal to publicly urinate on any person smoking in your presence. After all fair is fair. '
Then don't hang out in public places where there's smoking!
Fair is fair.
Why don't you contact the EPA about our lack of effective air quality laws, it would be time better spent.
I believe you discount the economic benefits some derive from the status quo. A big chunk of our economy is involved in servicing the "war on drugs".
For one thing, would the economic benefits from free trade in marijuana even be enough offset the job loss in the money laundering industry, aka the banking system?
Why would we want the drug companies to eventually coop this and package and market it for cooperate profit?
Oooh, touche.
because that would be preferable to the current system, which leads to rampant corruption, criminality and death in mexico.
....just think about this...it is the LARGEST cash crop in california....a friend that was in the growing biz once told me that if the farmers ever knew how much $ per acre they could make, they would never grow anything else...and he's right....let's get real, we have many more serious problems to deal with in this country....and this doesn't even take into account the possibilities of industrial hemp....
If we legalized marijuana usage:
1) We could save money on the useless "war on drugs."
2) It would become a government controlled substance, so black market dealers would be out of business. As such, our teenagers would have less access to it.
3) Tax revenue
4) Young teenage lives wouldn't be needlessly ruined by serving prison time for non-violent crimes (teenagers who would otherwise go on to be productive taxpaying citizens).
Well that's just off the top of my head...
dont forget how much clothing, shopping bags, and any other real products that can be created and save trees in the process since weed grows MUCH faster!
As a retired citizen, my pot smoking days ended long ago, so the legalization is no longer my battle. Unfortunately, those in congress would have a fit to even suggest it - I can see BillO almost having a stroke. That being said, as the government has outsourced prisons and almost simultaneously supported the war on drugs via the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program and what if anything has that done?
As CA enacted the "3 strikes and your out" program and various other states have similar programs that were financed by the Grant Program, they now have prisons that are filled to way past over capacity.
The recently rebroadcasted report by PBS showed how states participated in this program and interestingly, the more arrest and convictions...the better for the state coffers!
So, before anyone starts this campaign, they need to do some research about the amount the states received, the number of individuals prosecuted via this program and the waste of human capital -that includes all the prosecution and defense attorney cost as well as those prisoned for ONLY possessing small amounts of pot.
The argument is : THE WAR ON DRUGS has failed...and the government needs to have an exit plan... sounds just like Iraq and Afganistan....NO PLAN - (just do something that gains political brownie points).
Too many indoctrinated old people like my parents have to die off before this becomes a reality. They believe Pot = The Devil. Our politicians will never go for this as long as that elderly demographic has such a staunch aversion to Marijuana. Eventually this country will come to it's senses regarding prohibition but I fear it's just too early for common sense to prevail.
It is not healthy like people say it is. If people could adopt a less is more way of thinking vs a bigger is better mentality, then maybe it should be legal, but barring a societal change, pot, alcohol, designer drugs are all unhealthy-they do real damage in healthy people, it just doesn't show up on day one. The government should have laws against it, but just not enforce them. That way it wouldn't be promoting it, wasting time chasing everyone, and more money could be spent on health care education.
Marijuana prevents damage from nerve gas. The government has suppressed the data showing it's neuroprotective attributes.
Besides tax revenue, think of all the lives and money saved over smuggling and sting operations when growing pot in the garden is no longer a risk.
Contrary to popular belief, drugs are illegal in Amsterdam. BUT if you buy and consume them in the designated part of town, or at home, and do not cause a ruckus, the police aren't worried. But if you buy your drugs and do them in a family park, the punishment is swift and unforgiving.
Amsterdam decriminalized "soft drugs" and prostitution, because there is no way to stamp them out; but there is a way to control them. By doing it this way, Amsterdam has some of the lowest mafia activity in the world, reduces crime, reduces wasted police efforts, reduces incarcerated people, collects license fees and dictates safety practices.
Pot is illegal in America because of tobacco and liquor lobbies. If you can get high, who wants to get drunk or smoke a cigarette?
Pot is illegal in America because of religious and racial intolerance. Read some history.
The federal drug laws were enacted at the behest of racist preachers because marijuana was the drug of choice for poor blacks and Mexicans. It's also links into the Palmer raids and red baiting of the 1920s, primarily focused on east European immigrants, and labor organizers; and links to the prohibition movement.
It's a part of the ongoing class warfare being waged against the poor and working class in this country since before the turn of the 20th century. The rich and powerful pass laws to restrict the freedom of the working class.
The tobacco and liquor companies don't care if pot is legal or not. If anything, they'd favor it.
Legalize pot and the tobacco and liquor companies would be advertising their brands on Nickelodeon before the week was out.
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