I support legalizing pot and getting the federal government off our backs in many other similar situations.
Kill the income tax in favor of a national sales tax on goods and services, including a 1% tax on all stocks, options, and securities purchases and the like; and a 2% tax on necessities like food, clothing, electricity, communication, yes even medical care, no exceptions; tax the rest at 20%. That way everyone pays a share.
This would rid us of almost all of the IRS, eliminate billions of hours of time wasted doing tax returns and at the same time put a huge damper on the low margin speculative day-trading nonsense and bundled securities deals like those that caused this whole current recession. If everytime a company purchases securities they must pay 1% tax, then they won't be likely to get into a buy and sell bundling scheme, they won't be able to make money doing so.
I say legalize it. Regulate the sale of minors like alcohol.
The revenues from pot taxes could be just the ticket for California.
The long term effects are no worse than alcohol.
Pot is only a gateway drug because it is illegal. You meet drug dealers with access to harder substances while buying pot. Take the dealer out of the mix and sell pot through the 7-11, and the link to harder drugs is broken.
Confiscation of illegally grown pot sold to commercial suppliers could provide much needed income for smaller rural communities where illegal pot is grown.
Legalizing pot reduces the demand for Mexican importation. Starve the cartels out. The largest smuggled drug is pot with 1300-1500 metric tons (6,600,000 lbs).
There is NO linkage between Pot and lung cancer. There is NO linkage between Pot and Pot addiction like cigarettes.
Odd that no one frowns on floating a keg on the weekend but a pot party with shorter lasting intoxication is somehow frowned upon.
I could care less who uses it and if they ruin their live without making anyhting out of heir lives, but i have to say that if a relative got runed over by a pot ot drunk hear. i expect nothign but execution for dumb f, none of this bulsshit 100 years in jail an eye for eye
Oh yeah, and the decline in quality of Mexican weed hasn't been an issue for at LEAST 10 if not 20 years. When Mexican weed was $1200 (retail) a pound people lost their taste for residual diesel fuel and ponied up the $3100 (retail) a pound for Canadian. Now, Mexiweed is $200 (wholesale) a pound and you can hardly give it away. Mexican drug dealers can blame themselves for the hole in their underground economy. They drove the prices up while stomping all over the quality. Not that they really ever had quality.
Nobody buys that stuff except for crackheads who get a veinte of the blanca with a diez of mota in the alley behind 7th and Hellman in Long Beach from the homie Bullet. Especially not when you can get chronic for $10 a gram at the "clinic".
i think most border patolers are on pot, when they can't stop all the illega aliens crossing out border.' i don't know whay we even give them guns they are worthless aim.
Spent/wasted my youth with C&C cassettes and several movies. Great comedians, too bad Chong had no clue about marketing his "invention"...
On a serious note: Had a dear aunt who fought cancer twice- she was prescribed Marinol, but hated it because pill form THC was much harder to moderate dosage than just smoking a doobie. She got a little help there.
Also had a close friend, hemophiliac long before anyone knew to really test blood plasma for the AIDS virus- I watched him slowly wither away and die from that Gdammned bug. A great friend, with an uncanny sense of humor and love for life, gone way too early. Only good smokage kept him from complete and total misery.
Aside from the pharmacological aspect of cannabis, how's about the industrial uses of hemp? Once upon a time hemp was big biz, before the drug stigma and rise of the cotton/textile industries.
Matter of fact, I think Joe Rocket has a shweet looking hemp fiber riding jacket- when I need another good jacket, I may have to look this one up...
Good thread, pass the dutchie to the left hand side...
I never got the "Watch this!" attitude while smoking weed (way back in the day)... all I wanted to was "look at that pattern in the carpet"..... two hours later... "what where we doing?".... "How many times do ya think we can listen to In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?...."hee hee hee hee" "why am I laughing?".... "I want some toast" "with sugar on it" "and some milk" "yeah" "what was that?" "ssssshhhh" "heee heee heee" "look at that pattern in the carpet"
They'll stone you when you're trying to be so good. They'll stone you just like they said they would. They'll stone you when trying to go home. They'll stone when you're left all alone. Well I would not feel so all alone-everybody must get stoned.
There is NO linkage between Pot and lung cancer. There is NO linkage between Pot and Pot addiction like cigarettes.
That's because the tobacco company hasn't loaded it up with toxic addictive chemicals yet. Let them start making it, and it'll be just as bad.
I'm all for legalization, and I'm not entirely sure I even know what it smells like. Why not? It's gotta be better for you than meth.
I didn't see where anyone mentioned this side effect of legalization: how many spots would we free up in our overcrowded jail systems if we turned out all the habitual violators?