Smoking Dope, Drinking Wine and Paying 90% Income Taxes
The power of ideas is nothing against the power of the purse.
Those of us born in the mid-Sixties can be forgiven for not understanding this. I was seven years old when the oil-embargo started; I was thirteen when Iran seized the hostages. My formative years were spent watching the Republican revolution in action -- Reagan, Bush (the elder), Clinton (Democrat but not leftist) and and Bush (the prodigal son). Throughout that period, the Republican playbook set the rules: the Laffer Curve, family values, No Child Left Behind and mission accomplished. If you were a fundamentalist -- someone who believes in making what you dislike illegal -- or a fiscal conservative -- someone who does not understand that taxes a necessity of free society, then this was the golden age. Of course, it was also a house of cards built on dogma.
Liberal thinking is not going to remedy any of that, but the requirement for change brought upon by economic collapse will make a difference. Naturally, this will be in the name of counter-counter-revolution; and it won't be linear or always produce a sensible outcome. Just watch the farce in action. Hence, the very same Republicans that complain about a war on the rich on Fox News joined Democrats to pass a ridiculously piece of legislation to punish the AIG bonus recipients. The intent is right, but Congressional action at this point is all about finding a scapegoat, other than Barney Frank. If Congress wants to make a grand gesture, I'd suggest mass resignation.
What we need to do is get realistic, which will be fun in some ways. Cannabis is on the verge of legality: not because of its proven medical benefits for cancer patients nor its limited harm (when compared to alcohol). Not even Bill Maher's begging and pleading can be credited. The reason that this overdue, sensible change to national mores will occur is that the country needs the tax receipts. Fortunately, fuller coffers won't be the only benefit: we'll suspend one segment of the drug war, which will save a whole lot of wasted money and effort. Of course, smugglers will require fewer illegal arms! Meanwhile, the very same people who are already smoking black market weed will be forced to switch to more expensive, safer marijuana, which is produced in regulated conditions. "Conservative" prejudices aside, does all of this really sound so bad? (And no, legalizing pot does not mean that heroin is next.)
And from there, we're only a short-step to other practical steps like the lowering of the drinking age. I hadn't thought much about this until I watched the Colbert Report last night and saw John McCardell, the former president of Middlebury College talk intelligently about the fact that raising the Legal Drinking Age did a lot of harm. Yet, it lowered the number of teens who drive while drinking, which is good thing. (MADD is to be credited with the pragmatic idea of the designated driver.) But it also drove the problem under ground, making teen drinking just as prevalent but less regulated and perhaps even more risky. And so, it's perhaps time to admit that changing the law didn't eradicate the problem; it made it just made it harder to see. Perhaps there is a better way. Maybe we should discuss it.
Change is always scary, but if confronting reality is one of the outcomes, we may end up better off.
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What's funny is that the same people who complain about the tyranny of the politically correct will actually threaten members of their own party for the audacity to explore new thinking. That's more Orwellian than Libertarian.
shouldn't it say, "...does NOT mean heroin is next"?
Yes, indeed...
"national morays" -- national mores, actually. Good ideas, especially the suggestion of mass resignation in Congress.
Thank you.
Aren't the people who make so much money clandestinely off marijuana the real lobby against the legalization of the marijuana plant? They would be put out of business and they would pay politicians to keep that from happening. Wasn't it the cotton lobby that demonized marijuana production in the first place? They knocked out the competition, thus creating a market for cotton based products and eliminating the useful and very strong fibers that could be obtained from the marijuana plant. It sure would save a lot of trees if the fiber from the marijuana plant was used in paper production and give us a alternative to plastic bags and synthetic fabrics.
I do know that the US military used as lot of hemp during the Second World War, which they bought from US farmers. As to whether it was the cotton lobby, the petroleum lobby (nylon) or a precursor to one of our drug czars, I cannot say.
What I can say is that vigilantism is a whole lot more common in DC than conspiracies. The former doesn't have to be kept secret.
Although, I like most of your article, statements like this, "Meanwhile, the very same people who are already smoking black market weed will be forced to switch to more expensive, safer marijuana, which is produced in regulated conditions," only serve to make you look ignorant about marijuana, which you very well may be (and I don't hold that against you). However, the comment implies that the marijuana smoked today is somehow less safe than it would be if it were produced in regulated conditions. I will assume that you know at least a few basics about plants and with that in mind I must ask, what exactly you think is less safe about black market marijuana? The growth medium? The water? The lights? Lets get real, the only thing you are safer from with legalization is arrest, period. Now that I'm already posting I also take issue with your assertion that prices would increase. Since almost all of the price of marijuana is derived from the risks involved in its production and transport, legalization is much more likely to reduce prices for the average user. Additionally, the government would not be able to place too high a tax burden on it since taxes for a plant have a natural limit. To illustrate, how many backyard tomato operations would pop up around the country if the government put a fifty dollar-an-ounce tax on tomatoes you buy in the store? The same rule applies for marijuana.
Peace
Peace
First of all, thank you. Not so many people comment on what I write, which somewhat defeats the purpose of blogging. To my mind, the intent is not supposed to be substitute form of journalism but a means of sharing thoughts, eliciting response and encouraging debate. In short, I appreciate good comments.
Having said that I believe that I both disagree with all of your assertions and can explain why.
While I'm not an expert on the cultivation or pharmacology of marijuana, I know that the following are true. The THC concentration has increased dramatically over the past couple of decades, but the strength varies according to grower. If you don't know the source of supply, you really don't know you're getting.
With respect to safety, we need to consider not just the end user but the people who handle the growth, import, transportation and sale of an illegal product. Their jobs are dangerous and violence permeates the trade, particularly as a result of the strengthening of the Mexican drug cartels. The risks, in other words, are not purely economic.
Finally, I think that its worth pointing out that the government treats some plants differently from others. The most obvious example is the humble tobacco plant. We tax the hell out of that while leaving tomatoes alone.
I'm not for joint in every hand: rather, I'm motivated by FDR's repeal of Prohibition. It made liquor legal, safety and lucrative for the government. Let's do the same for pot.
I feel I need to educate you a little in regards to how a pothead judges quality. A person selling bad quality pot would soon find it impossible to give away his product in a legal market.
The first thing, obviously is appearance. Good weed will be a variety of colors but never brown or gray. it might be sticky with "crystals" which are actually tiny glands that contain THC. But powdery is bad. That's usually mold. It should smell nice, maybe skunky
Then you smoke a little. Does it taste good? Is it harsh? Pot that has been grown with chemicals and not flushed will taste nasty, leave black sticky ash and give you a headache, whereas something grown CLEANLY will have hardly any ash at all and it will be a clean white/gray ash. The taste of properly grown and cured organic bud is wonderful and complex. Some strains taste exotic and peppery. Some have a very strong evergreen note and all sorts of flavors are possible. Even blueberry and bubblegum.
The market WILL regulate itself. Once the criminal monopoly is ended then people will HAVE to provide quality bud or go under.
The argument that Pot has gained strength over the years really is a non-issue since one cannot die from a pot overdose. The lethal dose for any human would be around 1500 pounds ingested in 15 minutes.
Thanks for the response, I think it's the first time an actual author has replied to one of my posts. I can live with everything you have written with the notable exception of your paragraph on the potency of marijuana. I understand that it seems like it makes sense on it's surface but the potency issue is moot as soon as one understands the concept of hash. Hash, hash oils, and other various tinctures have been distilled for thousands of years specifically to increase potency of marijuana. If you were as into the subject as myself you would know that even today very high grade marijuana only occasionally reaches into the 40% THC level, by contrast hash can be distilled to a 90% or greater THC level. So it stands to reason that even if we were to get THC levels to 90% in a plant (which I'm pretty sure is physically impossible since at I'm guessing at least 50% of a plant would have to be plant matter, right? Anyway ,since hash and hash oils are also included when they talk about there never having being a death in the recorded history of marijuana I am not too worried about it. There are also plenty of government tests where they subjected animals to more smoke than would be possible to ingest in a real world scenario..
Michael--I appreciate your article and furthering the discussion on cannabis legalization. I think that the proposed taxes on marijuana are, however, out of proportion to the actual costs of growing and processing the plant. I'm not an expert on tobacco cultivation, but it's very likely no more expensive to grow marijuana, regardless of potency, than it is to grow tobacco. If that's the case, shouldn't retail prices be similar, all taxes included? Isn't that how the free market works?
I realize that the idea of abundant, cheap pot is shocking at first, but this plant has been grossly overvalued after decades of prohibition. There is no ecomomic reason for a half ounce of marijuana to cost more than half ounce (one pack) of tobacco. Even if cannabis was twice as expensive to grow as tobacco, which I doubt, a half ounce of marijuana should retail for only $12-15, all taxes included.
What's particularly sad is that simply smoking a little legal cannabis would likely lead to less strident discourse. Legalization, of course, would likely cut down on, although not eliminate, some of the violent criminal activity along the border.
Your last point is really the key, I've heard estimates that 60 to 70 percent of cartel money is specifically from marijuana shipped across the US southern border. Imagine if this source of revenue dried up.
Unfortunately, even discussion is shut down. When the city councils in Texas border towns had the audacity to bring the matter up for discussion, their (Republican) representatives in the Congress threatened to cut off federal aid to their cities, just for asking for a discussion on decriminalizing pot.
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