marijuana, revisited

ok, nevermind. Start your own thread.

Its fairly simple, the drug lords dont want it legalized. Would lower the value of the crop and anyone could raise their own. As usual its all about money and dont think that only the mexicans are involved in the drug trade.

From the linked article:

Nope, the really good stuff comes from way further up north..

Humans have been pursuing altered states of conciousness since long before history began.

They will be doing so long after history ends.

While a smile may be considered a universal expression of human emotion, drug use is not considered a universal expression of depravity --- far from it.

I entirely appreciate a view that discards drug usage as a source of false perception, but there is no sense of morality in this view, only the chance of finding the truth. Never-the-less, there are quite a few cultures that believe that drugs are as much a gift of God as reason. God provides corn for the body and peyote for the soul.

Abuse is always the problem , and never one which can be solved. We're only humans afterall.

Drug use (booze included) can not be ended through legal prohibition. The evidence for this fact is overwhelming.

So...since many people are bound and determined to use drugs we seem to have three major choices:

1) Legal Prohibition - Maintains some theoretical control over usage but drives the commerce underground and reliably results in enormous profit for a few and extreme violence to protect such profit.

2) State run legalization - A methodology applied to alcohol sales throughout this country. It provides no greater level of control over usage than free market legalization but a greater revenue stream for the state. Inevitably it leads to less choice and higher prices for the consumer.

3) Free market legalization - Youth usage of alcohol is not appreciably greater in states which allow private sector sales of booze than those that limit them to "state stores." Either way, youth will abuse alcohol, just as they will abuse other legalized drugs.

The benefits of legalized pot (let alone all other drugs):

1) Vastly increased tax revenue
2) Vastly decreased involement of crime - and particularly violent crime
3) Increased revenue for anti-usage education
4) Increased revenue for addiction treatment
5) Increased limitations for usage by youths - It is easier for a 13 year old to get a joint than a six-pack.

The downside:

1) The stigma of drug usage will decrease. Specious. Very few people refrain from using drugs because they are illegal.
2) Drug usage will explode. Specious. Alcohol usage did not explode after prohibition was ended. There is a point of equilibrium that will be reached. Certainly there will be lives lost to drugs, but that happens today. Government cannot regulate pleasure.

There are choices we all need to make in our lives, and the power of government to influence those choices is very limited. Despite age laws around the sale of alcohol, there are very many teenage alcoholics. Despite the absolute prohibition of heroin use and sale there are very many heroin addicts.

If you, as an individual, can not understand why you should not let alcohol or drugs consume your life, laws will not teach you and, at best, you will find another way to destroy yourself.

Self-destruction is a choice which can very rarely be prevented --- no matter how much money is spent in the effort.

I've glanced over some news articles from my last hometown area, the famous Humboldt County, and am watching the vote in the California elections, but truthfully, I'm not up to speed on all this, as I really do just glance.

Good post, Finn, thanks.

I read a good article about marijuana now - or now, in 2008 California - from which I learned a lot at the time.
Dr. Kush
How medical marijuana is transforming the pot industry.
by David Samuels

Admit I didn't access the link, but it's only partially about industry,

There was a huge alcohol industry pre-Prohibition.

It's about people understanding that individual choice trumps governmental edicts.

This is not to say that that a society cannot express its collective will about drug usage through law, but it will only be valid when the scope of "society" is quite limited, and "society" acknowledges that it cannot impose it's will upon those who choose not to accept its benefits.

Currently, no one can claim a place outside of society no matter that they don't benefit from the association one whit.

This is a fundamental disagreement with which few have the intellectual capicity to engage.

So which drugs should be illegal ?

Tobacco!

Why?
How?
When?
Where?

Definitely ! And does it make sense to legalise maryJ whilst trying to make tobacco illegal ?

Dont panic Spendi, I am sure you will be able to buy it off some black kid who is selling it for some rich white guy who had it smuggled in from South America.

why should tobacco be illegal?

Ask your doctor or medical teck.

should lead be illegal?

or cars that go 150 MPH...?

or fast food...???

Because it helps the medical profession to expand as tens of millions start reaching the 90s and, here I admit speculating, many illnesses previously held in check by nicotine, begin to assert themselves in a population at peace and more than well fed and comfortable.

It helps many business interests too. Like this-- if there's £5.50 tax on a pack of 20 costing £6 the buyer of it is only spending 50 pence with business. Probably less if the details are gone into. If the buyer stops smoking the £6 can be used to buy other things which are taxed at a much lower rate thus leaving a larger proportion of his expenditure with business than with government. If everybody did stop smoking the goverment, in order to keep itself in the manner to which it has become accustomed, would have to raise taxes on the sort of thing non-smokers buy with their surplus income. Flowers on certain important days, scent, chocolates, candle-lit dinners, pharmaceuticals--that sort of thing. And so non-smoking agitators in this sphere are to be admired for their altruism in turning up their nose at the large subsidy they get from smokers.

And alcohol is in the same category. But Media can still advertise alcohol so the pressure isn't as powerful.