"The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade—and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity. Some claim that they would only move into other illicit enterprises, but they are more likely to be weakened by being deprived of the easy profits they can earn with marijuana."
George Soros, promoting the legalization of marijuana in the Wall Street Journal.
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«सर्वात जुने ‹थोडे जुने 258 पैकी 201 – 258I guess maybe everybody has their own sends-them-right-off-the-rails-batshit-crazy topic, but it's always surprising to me that marijuana legalization is that topic for so many otherwise rational people. If and when it does become legal, I think many will be shocked (and maybe outraged!) at the number of seemingly upstanding and productive people they know who have been occasionally or routinely poisoning themselves with the dangerous and evil! devil weed for as long as they've known them.
And what will become of the children (the children!) then!?!?
Revenant wrote:
That being said -- do I think it should be legal to take any and all drugs a person feels like taking? Absolutely. I believe in human freedom and personal responsibility. I do not believe in the nanny state. That's why I'm neither a Democrat nor a Republican.
Should doctors be allowed to give out drugs without prescriptions?
Revenant wrote: I got involved in this conversation because prohibitionists (El Pollo Real, specifically) were claiming that legalizing marijuana makes no sense unless you legalize the other drugs.
Revenant, You can reread my comment in context and see what you thought of it. What I meant was that the argument for legalizing pot, specifically, to cut down on the drug violence logically implied that it could be applied to other drugs.
Suppose for example that we do legalize pot and cocaine and heroin violence remain unchanged and we find ourselves still in a drug war, still incarcerating people "unfairly." Would we ramp up the war or simply cede to the logic that we must legalize coke and heroin too? Of course, being the hardcore libertarian that you were, you piped right and argued, yes, legalize everything. :)
The need for product safety antedates government regulation. For over a century, a private nonprofit organization has been assessing the safety of various products sold to every American household. They test samples, and visit factories to make sure that everything is up to snuff. Companies are allowed to apply the organization's mark to products that pass.
I'm sure that, if asked, Underwriters Laboratories could provide the same assessment and certification for toys.
El Pollo Real wrote:
Would we ramp up the war or simply cede to the logic that we must legalize coke and heroin too?
Isn't the problem the laws itself? We have laws, and yet despite having laws people still commit crimes. We have laws against burglary and yet people still do it. If we ceased making burglary an issue the problem would simply go away.
El Pollo Real wrote:
Would we ramp up the war or simply cede to the logic that we must legalize coke and heroin too? Of course, being the hardcore libertarian that you were, you piped right and argued, yes, legalize everything. :)
I don't understand how this would work in the REAL world. Could you go to a pharmacy and self medicate yourself on highly addicting drugs. Would pharmacies simply give you the drug sight unseen? Drugs, even prescription drugs, can be really nasty and cause a lot of side effects. Wouldn't they open themselves up to lawsuits if they gave people drugs when they didn't even have maladies (not talking over the counter ones you can buy without prescriptions). I don't see how that wouldn't open pharmacies up to endless lawsuits. As in, you gave the patient a drug for something, and he had no reason to take said drug and now he had a heart attack, or now he's psychotic or addicted to pain killers. And why did he get the drug in the first place? Merely because he asked for it?
Shouldn't doctors and pharmacies bear some responsibility for doling out drugs to people because they genuinely need them and not because they want ot get hight or because its a persons absolute right to do whatever they want without any interference from any agency on any action they might ever do?
I don't think we want doctors to be pushers of addictive substances merely because the patient wants to get high. Why not then just have doctors give patients heroin, since it's a drug and patients want their drug of choice.
What world does this absolute freedom exist in?
Revenant said: "You bore me. I don't think I'll deign to address your straw man argument."
Well, I don't know if you'll return to this aged thread and read this, Revenant, but I didn't mean to argue in bad faith. Or to bore you.
I exaggerated what appeared to be your position (that marijuana is relatively safe to use) for (attempted) comic effect, in an effort to AVOID boring you. I wasn't trying to erect a strawman.
My point was that there is evidence out there (no, I can't site it, and yes, some of it might be of arguable merit) that marijuana can cause physical and psychological problems. I've seen this sort of thing with my own eyes.
Just wondering if any of you prohibitionists see the line from prohibition to Obamacare, and if you're cool with it.
Blake -- sorry, I don't see a connection, you'll have to spell it out.
Your argument was probably the best on your side, imho. If you framed it in a constitutional way, I could probably be convinced: I'm sure that the only way that the federal government derives the power to regulate product safety is through the infinitely elastic commerce clause.
I'm not a libertarian, but I do think that our government should be limited by the constitution. I also think that two of the most important aspects of our constitution were these:
1) That it's plainly worded in language easily understood by everyone, and that no "interpretation" of its true meaning is necessary. If it says "...the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", then that right shall not be infringed, for any arms, by any level of government, for any reason.
Now, maybe it's not a good thing that an individual could keep a howitzer in their garage; and we could discuss this, and agree to amend the constitution to prevent this, if we so decided, according to predetermined methods of amendment. Which is the second aspect:
2) That the constitution should only be changed by amendment, and not by judicial fiat.
So I reject the modern use of the commerce clause to extend government beyond its enumerated powers. So if you argue that the government hasn't the authority to regulate drugs, then maybe I'd agree with you.
However...I think that it should have this authority. So I'd support a constitutional amendment to enable the government to monitor product safety. This, to me, seems to be one of the few legitimate roles of government.
On a practical level, however, we both know that we don't live in such a world. The constitution says whatever SCOTUS wants it to say. And I don't think that a move back toward constitutional republicanism begins by legalizing pot.
I certainly wouldn't want to hand the left (and mary jane legalization is a cause of the left) this powerful bargaining chip, legalization, without getting something for it. If they get pot, then goddammit, I want my howitzer.
Jennifer wrote:
And what will become of the children (the children!) then!?!?
Well, when they legalized pot in Alaska the number of kids smoking pot was double the national average. So, it didn't actually curtail use, and led to an increase in kids smoking it. As pot could be a gatway drug, it could lead kids into harder drugs. And while it's not phsyically addictive, for many it's psychologically addictive, and can impact,most especially kids brains, their hormones, and potentially their lungs.
By the same token, why not let ten year olds smoke cigarettes and drink if they want? If you're going to be blase about the impact of drugs on kids, and think drugs should be legal regardless, then we shouldnt' hold society responsible for protecting kids from smoking. Let camel market to kids and let kids go into 7/11 and purchase cigarettes without needing a grownup to do it for them.
And lower the drinking limit to whatever. If you want to drink you drink. It would be kind of funny watching 10 year olds get shit faced. If they can't handle their liquor, well that's the price of freedom
I think you oughtta be able to have your Howitzer, Pasta. This country was created by citizens with muskets and frigates, even.
And, yeah, it ain't Constitutional at the federal level; it ain't smart at any level.
The basis of your argument is that "Drugs are bad. The government should stop people from using them." This puts the government in the role of policing adult behavior. It gives them the power to enact whatever they want to stop "bad" things.
In the process of failing to stop people from using drugs (even in prison) the government accrues to itself the ability to violate every provision of the Bill of Rights. (OK, the 3rd amendment still stands.) Most notably, they can take anyone's stuff on suspicion, and keep it.
More relevantly, we've moved care of adult health into their hands. "We can't be trusted," we say, "to not use drugs. You must stop us." And the government says, "We can't trust you to eat right, either. Or to drive at the right speed. Or to go to the doctor. Or to have health insurance."
It's not the only issue, obviously, but it's all part of the same mindset.
Here's an example for you blake. My neighbors recently adopted two young brothers, aged 2 and 10 months. Same mother. Crack mother. The state leveraged a drug violation on her part to wrest control of them from her (she still has visitation rights). Actually the original trigger was a hospitalization following serious physical abuse of the 10-month old by a "boyfriend," but it was the on going drug screening and subsequent charges against the mother which ultimately got the boys the hell out of there. Now you could argue that the state should make special exceptions, i.e., make it illegal for just parents to use crack. Or, if crack were just legal, we could just wait until the physical abuse presents.
@blake My last comment was meant for Jennifer too.
EPR--
I'm not sure what your point is.
Bad things will happen if we drop all the drug laws.
But bad things are happening now, as you relate.
There will be casualties, either way.
But with my way, one of the casualties won't be our freedom.
Blake, should roads have guard rails and stop signs in addition to not having speed limits, or is that too nanny state for you?
Blake, should roads have guard rails and stop signs in addition to not having speed limits, or is that too nanny state for you?
First incorrect assumption: Governments have to build roads.
Second incorrect assumption: Stop signs help. They don't, at least, not always. Stossel did a fascinating report on this company that has advised the state on extremely complex and bogged down traffic throughways--and advised them to remove all controls. The resultant traffic flows faster and with fewer accidents and pedestrian incidents.
Not applicable everywhere, of course, but the point is people aren't as stupid and helpless as the statists need to believe. In fact, we're pretty good at working things out.
In fact, I get to blame the media here, because it's always the so-called "journalists" who exaggerate problems and demand gov't intervention, while ignoring all kinds of other issues (particularly ones the gov't creates).
Blake,
Suppose I want to set up a meth lab where I can cook my meth that I will sell to people. Im not particularly scrupulous so I'm mixing whatever I found that's cheap. It's kind of hazardous,and their is a possibility that I might start some serious fires, and I don't have any ordinances that say I can mix chemicals in the room, but its a free country and who needs the state telling me what I can and can't mix in the room. Now, the fumes from my operation might affect some peoples health, but there will be casualties whether drugs are legal or illegal so I'm not too worried. Plus, after I'm gone I'm not going to worry too much who stays in the room after I leave, so if they breathe in anything or get anything on their skin that gets them sick technically that could be my fault, but who's going to know?
Should society step in and stop my meth lab?
Blake wrote:
First incorrect assumption: Governments have to build roads.
Second incorrect assumption: Stop signs help. They don't, at least, not always. Stossel did a fascinating report on this company that has advised the state on extremely complex and bogged down traffic throughways--and advised them to remove all controls. The resultant traffic flows faster and with fewer accidents and pedestrian incidents.
They don't have to build guard rails on the roads. And if people are smart enough to not need stop signs, surely they are smart enough to not drive off the side of a cliff. So again, whats' the need for guard rails and should society do away with them? YEs, there may be casualties if someone were to drive off a cliff, but by putting up guard rails society is impigning on the right to drive off cliffs, so isn't it better in the interest of maintaining freedom to not have guard rails? (Besides, if we didnt' have guard rails, think how much money we'd save)
blake- my point was that the drug laws allowed the adoption. Is being sarcastic about waiting for more abuse.
El Pollo Real wrote:
"Suppose for example that we do legalize pot and cocaine and heroin violence remain unchanged and we find ourselves still in a drug war, still incarcerating people 'unfairly.'"
Cocaine and heroin violence wouldn't remain unchanged though. The power of the criminal syndicates that engage in the illicit trade of those drugs would be diminished. It's a certainty.
Since all criminal syndicates deal in drugs like cocaine, heroin, and meth in addition to marijuana, their operations would take a hit. There'd be less money to buy and secure land for poppy fields to make black tar, clandestine labs to manufacture meth, and so on.
Then, there would be trickle down effects, as well.
The trade in illegal firearms is fueled largely by the need that criminal syndicates have for more firepower. If we reduce the size of their private armies and the number of dealers on the streets, that demand would evaporate.
To the extent that marijuana is a gateway drug, it is a gateway drug because marijuana dealers also sell heroin, cocaine, and meth.
Legalizing the marijuana trade would not only reduce the total number of drug dealers, it would reduce the number of interactions between marijuana users and the dealers of hard drugs and make it much harder for the latter to try to sell their products to the former. (After all, my local beer distributor doesn't try to interest me in smack when I go to buy a six pack, and my local convenience store doesn't ask me if I need a little nose candy when I pick up a pack of cigarettes).
Just as the legalization of alcohol broke the backs of the criminal syndicates of the day, the legalization of marijuana would break the backs of today's criminal syndicates.
Should we have lines on the highway? Don't lanes restrict our freedoms telling us where we can and can't drive? If people don't need stop signs or guard rails, why would they need lanes? And why restrict the way you can drive. What if I want to drive in the opposite direction. Society has set up separate lanes that go one way, but why should society limit our freedom to drive whichever way we please?
And what about stoplights? Clearly people are smart enough to stop when needed, and at any rate, isn't telling people when they can stop and when they can go and infringement on our freedoms to go whenever we please?
jr--
It's not rocket science, dude: Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose.
Same with your right to make toxic fumes.
Find a way to make your meth without harming unwilling bystanders, and the government should have no recourse.
Society, of course, should shun you as the vermin you are.
Society <> Government
Youngblood wrote;
Since all criminal syndicates deal in drugs like cocaine, heroin, and meth in addition to marijuana, their operations would take a hit. There'd be less money to buy and secure land for poppy fields to make black tar, clandestine labs to manufacture meth, and so on.
No, you'd simply reward their criminal behavior by giving up try to get them to stop. Which would make them easier to continue. So there'd be more money for poppy fields to make black tar, and clandestine labs to manufacture meth wouldn't be clandestine anymore. who would own the poppy fields? The drug dealers? Why would they somehow lose the poppy fields if their product suddenly became legal?
Of course if you legalized meth, you'd then need to regulate it. And how do you regulate a meth lab? How do you make meth safely? Are we going to have meth licenses where people make meth? If you make meth but don't have a license are you going to be hounded by the cops, or is that nanny statism too?
And suppose you get your product to the market? How are you going to protect your customers from meths effects?
if you think of drugs as an insurgency in Iraq,and you decide to give up in Iraq (or Afghanistan) and decide to stop policing the streets and fighting the insurgency, will insurgents go home? Or will insurgents continue doing what they're doing and take over the streets? If you're in a tug of war and decide to stop pulling on your side, does that make the other side stop pulling on the rope or does it make it easier for them to pull the rope to their side?
Your fatuousness knows no bounds, apparently.
How about this? We have competing private road builders. You can drive on the ones with or without guard rails. Up to you.
My dad used to take the Rim of the World drive at 50 miles an hour. There weren't guard rails for a lot of that. He managed never to need them.
Come to think of it, I never have either.
This isn't a freedom issue, of course. It is another example of how our mindsets are so totally captured by the state protecting us.
You couldn't decide to drive on a road with guard rails over one that didn't, jr? You need the government to mandate it?
In other words, you need the government to put a gun to someone else's head to keep you from being an idiot?
I doubt that.
In the case of drugs, the gun doesn't even help. It goes off. People use drugs anyway.
Maybe the very nature of addiction is such that the coercive force of the government is useless.
Ever consider that?
Blake wrote:
y dad used to take the Rim of the World drive at 50 miles an hour. There weren't guard rails for a lot of that. He managed never to need them.
Come to think of it, I never have either.
This isn't a freedom issue, of course. It is another example of how our mindsets are so totally captured by the state protecting us.
And there have also been drivers who've driven off the road and died, and probably the last thing that went through their minds was "Crap, why were their no guard rails".
Also, it's not always stupidity that causes accidents. Sometimes the road is slick, sometimes it's another driver driving recklessly that causes you to veer out of the way and into traffic. Sometimes there's a drunk driver or a high driver who gets behind the wheel and destroys your life with their recklessness.
If you're in the middle of a snow storm and driving recklessly, or there's ice on the road causing you to veer off the road into a ditch, should society send out police cars and tow trucks to make sure that people driving are ok?
Actually, should the state even require you to get a license to drive at all?
You keep conflating "society" and "government".
And, yeah, I'm against driver's licenses. But then, I live in California, where only legal residents have to have them.
jr565,
You must have me confused with someone else. I am not arguing from the position of an absolutist libertarian. I am a pragmatist arguing from the position that the war on pot has been an unmitigated failure.
Marijuana was made illegal in 1937. In 1969, we amped up the war against marijuana significantly. Then, in the 1980's, we did it again.
The result has been something like a 4000% increase in marijuana use and the rise of bloodthirsty criminal syndicates who engage in murder as a matter of course.
We have devoted millions of man hours, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives to the eradication of those gangs and they have proliferated and grown -- largely as a result of profits from the importation, production, distribution, and sale of marijuana.
The reason that they have proliferated and grown is simple:
Despite the fact that marijuana use has become more socially acceptable and the trend has been toward increasingly lower penalties, we continue to offer the criminal syndicates a state-enforced monopoly on the production, importation, distribution, and sale of marijuana.
Marijuana use carries no real social or legal stigma. In many jurisdictions, you're not even going to get a slap on the wrist for the casual use of pot.
Even though we don't care enough about the use of pot to police it anymore, we're still telling users that they have to go to the criminal syndicates to get their pot.
That is absolutely insane!
According to the best estimates available, meth and heroin combined have well under a million users and cocaine has about two million.
Marijuana has about 15 million. (And 41% of the population admits to having tried it!)
Current law enforcement estimates suggest that 60% of the Mexican cartels' profits come from marijuana alone. All of their other criminal activities (and there are many) account for only 40% of their profits.
Because marijuana is so popular and profitable, the other criminal syndicates are likely similar.
Legalizing marijuana would starve them for funds. Who would bother buying pot illegally when they could grow it legally in their homes at minimal cost or pop down to the local convenience store?
Your assumption that the criminal syndicates would be best poised to take control of the legal market is simply wrong. We've actually been here before, with Prohibition, and the alcohol gangs of the era had their backs broken when it was legalized.
We did not end up with Al Capone & Co. Brewing or Lucky Luciano's Liquors, nor did we end up with Coors Brewing Co. and Anheiser-Busch machine-gunning each other for the right to sell beer in Harlem. Bathtub gin, moonshine distilleries, and shoddy backroom breweries all went away.
I'm arguing for the legalization of marijuana and the legalization of marijuana alone. However, to answer your question about whether or not it's possible to make methamphetamine safely, it most definitely is -- pharmaceutical companies have been doing it since the 1890's.
Blake...I've added you to my list of must-read commenters. Do away with stop signs...You, sir, are one hardcore principled libertarian. I've never heard that stop sign argument before.
I don't agree with it, but it's certainly interesting and well-presented.
Now, the notion of privately built roads: I will take violent exception with that. If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's a goddamned toll road. The Indiana Turnpike is the biggest ripoff there is. $7 to go from one end to the other with a passenger car; more highway patrolmen per mile than any road in the state, so you can't even go much faster than you can on other roads; and any time you save with a stop-free trip is lost at the end, waiting in line, sometimes to pay a toll as small as $0.75. You can sit there for 10 minutes to pay them their damned 3 bits.
Roads are another one of those very few functions that government is best at.
jr565, Youngblood, you've also made some excellent points. This has been one of the best discussions on here in quite some time.
Pasta--
Thanks.
The point is not "take all stop signs away, they crush our freedom, omg". I imagine stop signs and traffic lights probably do improve traffic in some cases.
But, if there weren't any, would traffic come to a screeching, bloody halt? Chaos in the streets?
I don't think so.
And, hey, I'm from the land of the freeways. I was appalled when I saw my first toll way. (Though it was kind of funny being able to get to Jersey from Philly--but having to pay get OUT of Jersey.)
Recently, though, I've had occasion to take one of The Toll Roads. I thought it was pricey, but it was well worth saving the time of taking the freeway.
As for roads being something the government does best, I point to The Big Dig and the recently scuttled road in New Jersey.
Government may do it best--for a time. But government never does anything well for very long.
Next up, privatize the armed forces!
Youngblood wrote:
The result has been something like a 4000% increase in marijuana use and the rise of bloodthirsty criminal syndicates who engage in murder as a matter of course
You're not making a libertarian argument but the argument requires legalization of everything. I'm not sure of too many violent cartels that just deal with marijuana. So if you simply decrininalize pot it won't make cartels dissapear (if the argument would be that crime would somehow go down due to decriminilaztion). In california wherever there is a pot center, crime actually went up. But at any rate, cartels are not going anywhere because they have their hands in multiple cookie jars.
Pastafarian,
Thanks!
If you happen to stop back in and read what's likely to be my final comment in this thread, allow me to leave you with a final thought:
The fact that something is illegal doesn't mean it is completely unavailable. About 41% of the population is willing to admit to government survey takers that they have used marijuana at least once. About 6% are willing to admit to the same survey takers that they have used it in the last six months.
We've been fighting marijuana for 73 years and yet I could walk out my door and into the bar across the street right now and find at least one person who is holding.
The war on marijuana doesn't stop people from using the drug at all. It's readily available across the nation. Acquiring it is, at best, a minor inconvenience.
While the war on marijuana hasn't stopped the drug from becoming ubiquitous or socially acceptable, it has given a monopoly on its production, importation, distribution, and sale to criminal syndicates, it has enforced that monopoly with violence.
If you really think about it and do the research on it, I'm pretty sure that you'll see how perverse and crazy that is.
"You're not making a libertarian argument but the argument requires legalization of everything. I'm not sure of too many violent cartels that just deal with marijuana."
Marijuana has about 15 million regular users (people who use it about once a month). Cocaine, heroin, and meth have under 3 million between them.
If any business, even an illegal one, shrinks from 18 million customers to 3 million, it's going to have less money.
It's simple math.
You don't have to legalize heroin, cocaine, or meth. In fact, you can combat them more effectively since you no longer need to devote half of your law enforcement assets to busting people for marijuana.
"So if you simply decrininalize pot it won't make cartels dissapear (if the argument would be that crime would somehow go down due to decriminilaztion)."
I have said that organized crime will not disappear more than once in this thread, and I'm not going to repeat myself over and over because you want to insert your own strawman in place of my own position.
I'll only repeat what I said above:
If any business, even an illegal one, shrinks from 18 million customers to 3 million, it's going to have less money.
It's simple math.
"In california wherever there is a pot center, crime actually went up. But at any rate, cartels are not going anywhere because they have their hands in multiple cookie jars."
I am talking about legalization, not decriminalization. Decriminalization reduces the penalties for the use of marijuana and possession of small quantities, while continuing to give criminal syndicates a monopoly on the drug's production, importation, distribution, and sale.
If you decriminalize marijuana, effectively telling users that there are few or no penalties for using the drug, then more people will smoke it. But if the production, importation, distribution, and sale remain illegal, then crime is guaranteed to go up as criminal syndicates ramp up production and importation to distribute and sell more.
If the production, importation, distribution, and sale were also decriminalized (making the drug legal), then I can grow pot in my basement, or RJ Reynolds can grow pot in the Carolinas and ship it to my local convenience store.
That has actually been the core of my point since I entered this thread.
Youngblood wrote:
If any business, even an illegal one, shrinks from 18 million customers to 3 million, it's going to have less money.
It's simple math.
The cartels are not going to lose 15 million customers. It's not going to happen. Even if you don't buy from a dealer you'll be paying money to a cartel either through the front end or back end.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/10/12/101935/california-pot-legalization-wont.html
Legalizing pot may cut into the profits of the cartels, but it will in no way cripple the cartels nor end the violence. As envisioned it looks like people will be alowed to grow their own weed on a 5x5 plot. Despite the legality of it, why couldn't dealers simply go to those owners and demand a cut of their profits or they'll get their asses kicked,just as organized crime gets kickbacks from legitimate businesses.Are those individual pot growers goingto take on violent cartels?
The study’s lead author, Beau Kilmer of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, said that if the initiative passed, Mexican cartels might lose as little as 2 to 4 percent of their revenue annually, rising to 13 to 23 percent if legal California marijuana were smuggled all over the United States and at prices that led the Mexican gangs to quit the illicit market. The study says that too little is known about how growing and marketing may evolve after a legalization of marijuana, including how aggressively California growers would attempt to export marijuana to states where it remains illegal and what methods the federal government would use to block that.
Note that cartels might lose only 2-4% if they legalized pot in CA, BUT that they might lose more if those growing the pot start smuggling it into states that still don't allow pot to be sold? So, the cartels would lose more power, if the small drug dealers become illegal smugglers? Isn't smuggling a crime? How would this then reduce crime? And as already discussed, since individual dealers have only a tiny bit of weed and can't grow more than their allotment and because they are individuals they can easily be bought out or threatened by the cartels to give them the profits from their sales or die. Then the cartels can smuggle the drugs to the other states. So individual sellers could end up working for cartels with all that implies.
Further, if the small legal dealers are smuggling their pot to states where it's illegal they're not going to declare the taxes on said transactions. So it won't even give the needed tax dollars to the state that they expect.
Further, dealers connected to Cali living in california now could grow their own plots. Are they not going to know the guy down the street selling his pot? Isn't that local dealer then competition to someone working for a crminal cartel? If he has no compunction taking on cops and other dealers now, why would he have a problem taking on the guy who owns a tiny 5x5 plot? He could simply let the guy grow everything and then intimidate him and take his product (just like he'd take on the competition in the neighborhood now).
Further, if people know there is pot being grown on 5x5 plots down the block, won't that increase burglaries by people who want to get their hands on pot to either smoke or sell themselves?
Even if you are for legalizing pot, this as envisioned seems like a REALLY stupid idea.
You don't have to legalize heroin, cocaine, or meth. In fact, you can combat them more effectively since you no longer need to devote half of your law enforcement assets to busting people for marijuana.
So under this bill you'd now have to have cops protect the poor drug dealers being threatened by the cartels.
Though, perhaps those calling for legalization shouldn't ask for cops protections. Yes, there will be casualties, as they say, but its the cost of freedom.
Blake -- sorry, I don't see a connection, you'll have to spell it out.
You believe that the government has not only the right, but the obligation, to dictate to you what is best for your health, and imprison you if you disagree.
That would be "the connection" between your beliefs and ObamaCare.
So under this bill you'd now have to have cops protect the poor drug dealers being threatened by the cartels. Though, perhaps those calling for legalization shouldn't ask for cops protections.
We already have to pay cops to protect "the poor drug dealers". Did you think there was an "its ok to murder pot dealers" exception to the homicide laws?
The difference between the current environment and a post-legalization one is that in a post-legalization environment the profit margin on marijuana drops to almost nothing -- thus, there is no incentive to murder rival dealers.
jr565,
You're not even reading what I've written anymore, and as far as I can tell, you're being deliberately obtuse.
Here's my final thought here, which I hope you seriously think about:
When prohibition ended, the gangsters of the era didn't go and blow up legitimate breweries, wineries, distilleries, or legitimate importers of alcohol. They didn't assassinate the owners of the Coors Brewing Co. or Anheuser-Busch.
What actually happened was that every criminal syndicate that relied on profits from alcohol collapsed overnight. The illicit alcohol smuggling operations in Atlantic City and Detroit collapsed, as well. The murder rate dropped like a stone.
As I've said before, I don't live in California. I don't support that law, and it would be irrelevant if I did.
I support decriminalization of marijuana at the federal level. Allowing Californians to grow pot will mean that the criminal syndicates will still have a state-enforced monopoly in the rest of the country.
The syndicates will be able to grow marijuana in California more or less legally, and then they will export the pot to the other 49 states (exporting it from California will still be illegal after all, so it'll be the criminal syndicates that do it).
Such a law would only enhance the power of the syndicates even more by making it easier for them to produce and distribute marijuana.
My goal, as I have said from the beginning, is to knock them out of the pot game altogether in the same way that we knocked the criminal syndicates of the 1920's out of the alcohol game.
And, until you're willing to acknowledge the fact that we have been there before with alcohol, and that Prohibition and its repeal had certain effects, there's no reason to continue with this discussion.
You will keep asserting, with no evidence or historical precedent whatsoever, that the criminal syndicates will maintain their stranglehold on the production, importation, distribution, and sale of marijuana.
And I will keep banging my head against the wall pointing out that when Prohibition was lifted and the criminal syndicates of the day no longer had a state-enforced monopoly on the production, importation, distribution, and sale of alcohol, they effectively ceased to exist overnight (and the murder rate dropped).
Interesting that Dianne Feinstein opposes it. A cornerstone of the opposition is that the law as written would not allow employers to enforce the federal "drug free workplace" requirement, and so endanger federal funding.
The opposition also claims that there are no means to enforce "DUI."
As a CA voter, I see so much spin and hyperbole in the voter's guide, yet.. I'm not a lawyer, and so feel a bit unqualified to dredge through the actual text.
We have to find a way to debate the issues openly, not just see who is better at tricking the voters.
Youngblood,
The problem is that you won't get the decriminilization.
Marijuana is still an illicit drug, and there is a stigma attached to it as well as problems with it being a drug that is linked to crime and dangerous to use. Granted it's not as bad as meth, but its not going to be politically wise for politicians to legalize without a detrminent to their careers.
You'll have half steps like in CA which only make the cartels sronger. Pot is a tiny portion of the profits, and even if you could find a way to remove pot from their hands entirely they will not be weakened at all as they have their hands in plenty of other drugs.
Also, if you legalize it, but keep it in the hands of inidviduals you will open them up to being regulated by the govt. Most guys selling their pot from their basement are not going to have the funds and time to get into the pot game, so what would happen is you'd have large agri businesses that sold all the pot (any competing pot would contnue to be black market). Only, everyone says that doing so will drop the price so that cartels couldn't make money, but if the profits are so low, why would agribusinesses spend millions to produce it if they lose money all the time?
and alcohol,prior to prohibiition was a vice shared by like 90% of the public. It was wildly ingrained in society. Which made it exremely hard to prohibit. There were 50,000 or so speakeasies in ny alone during prohibition (so despite the illegality plenty of people drank freely).Pot is popular, but its still a niche product, so it's going to be a lot harder to get people to view it as anything other than the drug that hippies smoke.
Besides, govt and scientists will take THC and come out with the acceptable version of pot adn say people can use that instead. Which no one will want.But that will be the product that gets pushed through over marijuana, produced by drug companies which have a patent on their drug. Right or wrong, that's how you'll see pot legalized.
Marijuana is still an illicit drug, and there is a stigma attached to it as well as problems with it being a drug that is linked to crime and dangerous to use.
Oh, please. Our last three Presidents did drugs. We're long past the point where people took Reefer Madness seriously. Pot is "linked to crime" because, duh, it is illegal to sell it or use it. It is not linked to crime other than that.
And the notion that it is "dangerous to use" is without any scientific basis at all. It is less harmful to the health than iced teas is.
Besides, govt and scientists will take THC and come out with the acceptable version of pot adn say people can use that instead.
"Government and scientists" figured out how to do that years ago; synthetic THC has been patented for decades as "Marinol". But of course a marijuana expert such as yourself must already know these things.
Right or wrong, that's how you'll see pot legalized.
In reality, one quarter of the US population already lives in states where medical marijuana is legal. The federal government has neither the money nor the manpower to enforce the prohibition on marijuana; it relies on local law enforcement for that. California will be legalizing it either this year or a few years from now, and that'll be the end of the problem so far as we're concerned.
jr565,
Not to be flip, but did you step out of a time machine from 1958 or something?
Our last three presidents smoked pot, and hardly anyone batted an eyelash. The most recent NSDUH survey suggests that over 50% of adults aged 18-25 are willing to admit that they've tried pot, and 17% are willing to admit that they've done it within the last month. (The percentages for the over-12 population are 41% and 6%, respectively.)
Seventeen states have medical marijuana laws on the books. Marijuana has been formally decriminalized in a number of states and cities, and informally decriminalized in many, many more.
There must be a lot of hippies out there in Montana, Alaska, and Columbia, Missouri!
And, y'know, the US military routinely gives waivers to enlistees who have marijuana-related misdemeanors on their records.
Having been caught using marijuana before joining the military isn't a barrier to enlistment or promotion. The crazy hippies at the Department of Defense waves a magic wand and everybody ignores it!
I hope that this information about the prevalence of marijuana use doesn't completely shatter your worldview, but pot use isn't a really that big of a deal these days.
Since marijuana was made illegal in 1937, we have seen a 4000% increase in its use! Pot use is not only common, it has been almost completely destigmatized, and there is an ever increasing trend toward its decriminalization.
We might as well finally admit that, after three-quarters of a century, it's time to revoke organized crime's state-enforced monopoly on marijuana trafficking.
Revenant wrote:
And the notion that it is "dangerous to use" is without any scientific basis at all. It is less harmful to the health than iced teas is.
That's silly. Pot contains some of the same cancer causing agents as cigarettes. It contains tar, and they've done studies that show it has produced tumors in animals when applied to skin and examination of human lung tissue of long term smokers has shown metaplasia.
Ohter than making you mellow there are very littlle medical benefits that couldnt' be achieved by taking drugs or even other herbs that don't require you to inhale smoke into your lungs (despite what Peter Tosh says).
In their day cigarettes were also promoted as healthy and now look at them.
Revenant wrote:
Besides, govt and scientists will take THC and come out with the acceptable version of pot adn say people can use that instead.
"Government and scientists" figured out how to do that years ago; synthetic THC has been patented for decades as "Marinol". But of course a marijuana expert such as yourself must already know these things.
Yes, Eric Holder mentioned Marinol in his argument against legalizing marijuana. That's where the govt will go. They might decriminalize, but if you want legal they'll say there's already marinol so use that.
Right or wrong, that's how you'll see pot legalized.
In reality, one quarter of the US population already lives in states where medical marijuana is legal. The federal government has neither the money nor the manpower to enforce the prohibition on marijuana; it relies on local law enforcement for that. California will be legalizing it either this year or a few years from now, and that'll be the end of the problem so far as we're concerned.
Medical marijuana is a sham. It provides very little actual medical benefits and the delivery system requires you to breathe and hold smoke in your lungs, which is not good for your lungs. It affects peoples heart rate, their minds, makes many long term users psychologically dependent. In addition it causes rise of suicidal thoughts in teenagers and there is link between pot and schizophrenia (much increased risk). It's like a Cymbalta ad. All that needs to happen is to have studies show that medical marijuana actually causes additional health problems and doesn't actually provide any significant benefit and then show that everywhere medical marijuana has bee legalized has only led to more criminal activity and not less, and govt will rethink it's position, just like they did in Alaska.
Youngblood wrote:
Since marijuana was made illegal in 1937, we have seen a 4000% increase in its use! Pot use is not only common, it has been almost completely destigmatized, and there is an ever increasing trend toward its decriminalization.
We might as well finally admit that, after three-quarters of a century, it's time to revoke organized crime's state-enforced monopoly on marijuana trafficking.
So it's common and destigmatized and an increasing trend towards decriminalzation. And what has happened with the cartels? Have they gotten weaker or stronger.
Youngblood wrote:
I hope that this information about the prevalence of marijuana use doesn't completely shatter your worldview, but pot use isn't a really that big of a deal these days.
Since marijuana was made illegal in 1937, we have seen a 4000% increase in its use! Pot use is not only common, it has been almost completely destigmatized, and there is an ever increasing trend toward its decriminalization.
We might as well finally admit that, after three-quarters of a century, it's time to revoke organized crime's state-enforced monopoly on marijuana trafficking.
While touching, it's kind of hard to take seriously the idea that pot smokers and drug takers want to take on the vicious cartels and get them out of the drug business considering they're the ones who put them in business and made them rich cartels. For 30 years while pot was becoming ubiquitous everyone knew what the cartels were all about and didnt' care that cartels were murderous thugs so long as they got their drug of choice.
If you watch the movie Blow, the very first time George meets Escobar he watches Escobar's men execute a guy, and then does business with the guy knowing what a ruthless thug he actually is. So while he (jung) seems like a nice guy to be around, it's hard to have pity for him when he gets taken down selling drugs again. You lie down with dogs and wake up with fleas.
?
"So it's common and destigmatized and an increasing trend towards decriminalzation. And what has happened with the cartels? Have they gotten weaker or stronger."
I've already covered this about half a dozen times, so I know this is a waste of time, but here goes:
Decriminalization makes the criminal syndicates stronger by removing the penalties for use (which means that more people will use it) while still handing organized crime a monopoly on trafficking (the people who are using it still have to get it from the criminal syndicates).
This isn't even simple economics, it's simple math.
"While touching, it's kind of hard to take seriously the idea that pot smokers and drug takers want to take on the vicious cartels and get them out of the drug business considering they're the ones who put them in business and made them rich cartels."
You're not getting it.
I don't give a fuck if pot smokers want organized crime out of the marijuana business.
As a rational and patriotic American who doesn't even like pot, I want the criminal syndicates out of the marijuana business.
Criminal syndicates challenge our national sovereignty, erode our borders, turn our inner cities into warzones, terrorize and murder innocent citizens, and kill our law enforcement personnel.
I see no reason to continue to reward them for that by giving them the benefit of a monopoly on the production, importation, distribution, and sale of marijuana.
But, hey, if you think empowering murderous gangs that kill innocent Americans is worth it because some people who smoke a lot of pot might get lung cancer somewhere down the line, that's your own fucked up moral calculus.
If pot were legalized we would just grow our own.
So profiteers like Dupont, who made sure it was illegal, could have the strongest fibre known to man. Sleaze Bags.
Don't think pot was forced into illegal status for some noble reason. It was simply for profit for judges, unscrupulous lawyers, jail guards, and don't forget the growers, and on and on......
How much money we waste on incarcerating the innocent. Here is absolutely where our country can save some money.
And it would make a more peaceful country. Peace, not war
Pot was forced into illegal status by sleaze bag toxic companies like Dupont - who wanted the strongest fiber.
Don't think it was made illegal for some noble reason.
The profiteers are sad, when it is made legal we will simply grow it. No more money for all those unscrupulous lawyers, judges, highly paid guards, and don't forget the growers. They could loose billions.
It MUST be made legal for the responsible cause keeping it illegal is costing our country tons of money, foolishly.
It is guaranteed to create a more peaceful country. Peace
Legalize marijuana because Big Pharma's toxic drugs kill 100,000 misled people every year, when "properly taken".
Big Pharma wanted to monopolize the market on anti-depressants, one of the proven benefits of pot.
Legalize pot so we can all grow it and use our hard earned money for something worthwhile, not giving our tax dollars to judges, lawyers and all those connected & profiteering from keeping this non-toxic substance illegal.
Pot does what the chemical, toxic, deadly PRESCRIPTION DRUGS fail to calm.
Make a peaceful world and smoke the peace pipe with your neighbor.
We should all grow it, now.
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