I think the time may finally be ripe to legalize marijuana.
Let me say clearly that I do not use it. I think it makes people act stupid. I see no appeal in it personally. And my kids would still be in big trouble if they used it.
I feel pretty much the same way about bourbon.
The nation tried a great national experiment in prohibiting alcohol. It failed. Kentucky is now proud of making bourbon. The nation is now trying a great experiment in prohibiting marijuana. It failed. Kentucky already produces a great deal of marijuana. If it were legal, the state would be proud of producing that, too.
I think "sin taxes" are a good idea. When we legalized, regulated, and taxed alcohol production, the product got safer, most of the criminals were driven out of the business, and the state got lots of revenue. The same would happen with marijuana.
Legalize pot now. And tax it hard.
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17 comments:
It's not an uncommon train of thought, but still a gutsy post; especially with the link via Twitter to give it a Centre connection.
Marijuana is already KY's #1 cash crop, so why not legalize it and tax the hell out of it. Give the money to education and save KEES while you're at it please...
I think it is a bit flawed for so many people to continually say things like "marijuana is no worse than (insert substance here)."
Marijuana is indeed no worse than bourbon... but it is far from being even close to as bad as bourbon.
Simply put, marijuana is no worse than green tea or any other herbal, non-toxic substance which can be used without fear of harm or adverse health affects for the vast majority of people.
Don't get me wrong, I am agreeing with your ideas, just not with your terminology/wording.
http://www.showmethefacts.org/myth-grave/myth-1-marijuana-dangerous-drug/
I think that marijuana is a "substance" that, like many others out there, can be quite damaging to an individual if used to excess and without discretion.
Much like bourbon.
I do also think that a dependency / heavy habit of using marijuana is less physically damaging in the long term than a comparable dependency / heavy habit of using alcohol-- even if immediate use of both certainly has similar effects on one's GPA.
I've always thought it kind of silly to have an "everything that alters one's state of mind that's not alcohol" mega-category. Marijuana is far, far from cocaine or X or mushrooms or other "harder" drugs, and so should be legally treated as such. Irresponsible people will abuse it-- but they will do so whether or not it is legal, and whether or not money from its production is going to the state instead of criminals.
Pot is way too easy to grow. You won't get the taxes from it that you might think.Google "cannabis seeds" you'll see what I mean. Prices start at $25.00 for ten seeds. In four months you'll have enough for you and your friends for a year or more. One can use a credit card and have the seeds delivered from overseas in one week.I think the tax argument is over sold. More information is available from CNBC's "Marijuana Inc." it is currently their highest rated documentary.
Tobacco is easy to grow, too, yet people are willing to pay billions, including heavy taxes, to buy it from professionals.
Tobacco is not easy to grow Beau. Pot is.
I know nothing about pot, so I can't contribute any kind of personal opinion to this discussion, but I did remember reading a news article last year about pot triggering psychotic epidsodes. I tracked down one article about the study: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070501/marijuana_psychotic_070501?s_name=&no_ads=
Just food for thought...
Ditto that tobacco is not easy to grow. It's one of the most labor intensive crops in the US.
However, just because people could grow marijuana freely and easily doesn't mean they would. I could easily make my own sandwich for lunch and it would cost me a fraction of a cafe meal, but I'm going to buy one while I'm out because it seems easier. So I agree with Gruntled--legalize and tax.
Tobacco is not easy to grow in commercial quantities. A small crop for personal use is as hard as the average garden crop.
As for the possible bad effects of marijuana on some people, we could multiply that by millions for alcohol and tobacco.
i grew up on a tobacco farm, and though i never personally had to do anything, i live(d) right next to a plot. i can't speak about marijuana production because i've never seen it... but anyone that says that tobacco is "easy to grow" should go work in stripping it some day.
and find out why it's almost impossible to hire anyone born in the US to do so.
I don't have personal experience with cultivating much of anything. I do know that many garden crops require lots of work while growing and then in harvesting. People can manage it because the number of plants they grow for personal use is small. A commercial farm of any kind, including tobacco, is not really an apt comparison, but that has more to do with the number of plants than the care that each plant requires.
If anyone knows the plant-to-plant comparison of hand raising tobacco and marijuana, that would be useful.
one problem with the tobbacco/pot comparison is that tobacco smokers consume much more of the product.
It's been a long long time but I seem to recall that an oz of pot could last a couple of weeks or more if carefully rationed. I'll assume that a typical tobacco smoker goes thru more than an oz in a day.
Does anyone even grow a few plants of tobacco for personal use.
Tax and tariff the seeds.
I agree wholeheartedly, with one caveat - that driving after smoking result in a DUI. I'm not worried about what anyone's doing high, as long as they're at their houses and not on the road.
"Tax and tariff the seeds."
You can buy seeds on the internet right now silly. No tax no tariffs. Why does the left turn to taxes as a solution to almost evey problem?
We've got enough trouble with drunk drivers on the road, without them taking a bong hit after 6 beers.
Personally, I like a good cabernet after two bong hits. At my age I'm becoming a light weight. And besides where is fun in everything being legal?
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