could pot save california?

Sounds good on paper but you know the next step is one hell of a huge tax on snack chips and candy.

I think it's a wonderful idea. Everyone here smokes pot already! It would be nice if we could have the freedom of Amsterdam.

It would be a hell of a boon to Alaska, Alabama, Connecticut, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia too.

A problem might arise because marijuana is an easy crop to grow and that guerilla gardeners may make commercial crops worthless. Somehow the government must suppress self supply hile encouraging commercial supply and distribution. This may be difficult because 12 mature cultivated plants could concieveably produce a pound of skunk weed. This amount could be grown on a small condo deck in most of the temperate parts of the country outdoors and be grown indoors under lights on a gonstant rotation in a small closet.

Would it really save California? I don't know, but lots of folks would have fun finding out.

If they legalize it the price will go down (along with the revenues). Not a bad idea anyway.

Sure. Get all the stinking ignorant demokkkrats stoned enough on the day of the next election, that would have to help things.

Yo! You could change you nic to gaungasnake.

In might make the I smoke and I vote crowd a lot more more reasoned.

Rap

I'm sure da Goffanato woult approve of zis. I remember seeing him in Pumping Iron, with a huge joint in his hand. I think he's even on record as admitting he inhaled.

Sure. But then again, you can also grow your own tobacco and brew your own beer. Very few, however, choose to do so, when the commercially available alternative is cheap and plentiful.

Growing the high-quality stuff takes knowledge and precision. It's far more profitable to grow large amounts at the same time in a controlled environment, and sell them at a good discounted price, than it is to invest in the kind of setup you would need at home to grow the good stuff.

Cycloptichorn

there certainly might be a lot of happier people .
"economic crisis ? what economic crisis ? " puff , puff ; "everything looks just peachy to me - never felt better ! " .

Tobacco is not an easy crop and is very labor intensive. Besides the tobacco that most are addicted to is cigarette cut short fiber, which is tobacco pulped and drawn into sheets before shredding. Cigarette tobacco is very much like paper is to trees.

n temperate areas, however, marijuana is very much a weed (pun not intended)' It grows easily and without much maintenance. The biggest present difficulty with growing marijuana is security from the constabulary or from thieves. If legalized these problems would evaporate.

Rap

Pot laws are like "numbers games" used to be. The government can ban them and pay money fighting them or legalize them and make money--the lottery--or from taxes on pot sales. But you can expect conservatives and drug dealers to put up a fight.

If pot could save california, they would already have such a budget surplus the feds would be looking to them for a bailout.

Pot can save the world, so why not California?

It makes sense on so many levels to legalize all drugs and not just pot, and yet they remain illegal.

The economic meltdown is bound to produce a few benefits; maybe this will be one of them.

The tax revenue the government is losing is astounding, and what is worse is that the vast majority of the money being made on drugs is going to criminal organizations and corrupt officials.

Think of all the respectible, tax producing jobs that would be created by a legal drug industry.

As someone else suggested, enormous amounts of money are being spent on drugs irrespective of the degree of criminalization. The only tiny piece of the drug economy that flows through the legitimate economy has to do with law enforcement.

Bootlegger drug producers will have about as much of an impact on a legal industry as moonshiners now have on the spirits industry.

Deprive the criminal element of its primary source of income, generate incrediblen, clean economic energy, and make people happy. What could be wrong with that?

Yes, drugs often factor in the ruination of lives, but so does alcohol, gambling and sex. The problem isn't drugs, alcohol, gambling and sex, but that some people, for whatever reason, are unable to rationally moderate their behavior.

I'm all for taking a big chunk of legal drug revenue and spending it on education, and research that might find a scientific answer to some aspect of addiction, but the notion that drugs cause addiction is a very stilted one.

Drugs can be a means of expressing addictive tendencies. So can booze, sex, gambling, shopping, eating and Bingo.

Don't be so sure that the opposition to legalizing drugs is entirely conservative in nature.

How close are we to criminalizing fatty foods? Which ideological group is in favor of the obese being able to sue McDonalds?

True, there is an element of the Conservative "movement" that wants to dictate what individuals can and cannot do, irrespective of the actual impact on society, but the same sized element exists within the Liberal "movement."

The desire to tell people how to live is not unique to Conservatives or Liberals.

Sure, but outdoor weed grown without much maintenance is ditch weed that no self-respecting person would smoke. Especially when the alternative is available at a reasonable price.

Also, forget about thieves - you have to look out for birds, deer, raccoons, cows, and squirrels, all of whom will eat your buds right off of the plant

Cycloptichorn

That's it, I'm moving to California!!!

Come on down Kicky. The waters (pot) fine!

I read a long, fascinating article (Dr. Kush, in the New Yorker, maybe a year ago now) on the changes in marijuana growing and selling in california after med marijuana jumped the shark. Lots and lots of amazing (an overused word, but I'll use it here) variety in product, much more sophisticated than in my day. I'm not interested in smoking but that's because I'm now more crazed to have clear lungs than I was years ago. Still, I'm for legalization, for sure. As far as saving california, in many places it already has, man.

watched the last few minutes of larry king last night - should be on youtube .
ron paul (pro) debated stephen baldwin (contra) about legalizing the weed .
imo ron paul came ahead by miles !
baldwin tried to trip up paul by asking him about his use of the weed .
paul responded that he ha dnever tried it and didn't even think he'd ever be in a room where it was being used .
he thought that it was sheer lunacy to throw joung people who had been caught with the stuff three times into jail for long periods of time when even rapists and other major crimininals are set free after short periods of time served .
he compared it - quite well imo - to the prohibition time . he suggested that drug dealers and organized crime would be the biggest obstacle to decriminalizing of the weed - they would fight it tooth and nail .
hbg