End the War on Pot - http://www.nytimes.com/2010...
Oct 28, 2010
from
Tudor Bosman,
April Buchheit,
Jeanette Bosman,
Dennis Jernberg,
Alex Scrivener,
Andrew Terry,
Jeff P. Henderson,
Chieze Okoye,
LANjackal,
Big Joe Silenced,
iTad,
imabonehead,
eugenio,
Jenny,
OCoG of FF, Jimminy,
Scoble, Alex Scoble,
Peter Fedin,
WoH: Professor MOTHRA,
and
Victor Ganata
liked this
"Our nearly century-long experiment in banning marijuana has failed as abysmally as Prohibition did, and California may now be pioneering a saner approach. Sure, there are risks if California legalizes pot. But our present drug policy has three catastrophic consequences. ... The third problem with our drug policy is that it creates crime and empowers gangs. “The only groups that benefit from continuing to keep marijuana illegal are the violent gangs and cartels that control its distribution and reap immense profits from it through the black market,” a group of current and former police officers, judges and prosecutors wrote last month in an open letter to voters in California."
- Paul Buchheit
Lies! Vicious lies! It's not just gangs and organized crime that profit from marijuana being illegal. What about all the poor alcohol and tobacco companies that are already on the verge of going out of business? And what about the bars, liquor stores, and such?
- Gabe
Yes, won't someone think of the liquor stores!
- Paul Buchheit
Finally. It's only taken 40 years. It was that long ago I gave a talk to police officers asking them if they thought anti-drug laws were worth the death and endangerment they often suffered in the enforcement of them. When I finished I thought I might get shot for suggesting such a radical idea.
- Jack&Cleo
And what about all the Corrections Officers who will lose their jobs when have the prison population just disappears out from under them? Do you just want their families to starve?
- Gabe
cristo - the same argument could have been made for alcohol. Sometimes you realize the criminal activity never should have been considered criminal in the first place. It would reduce lots of other crime, too. I'm voting for it. I think Mexico should decriminalize it too.
- Mr. Gunn
Have you ever noticed that any kind of hemp is illegal -- even the kind that doesn't produce THC? That's because of the cotton lobby. It was King Cotton that used marijuana to demonize hemp in order to get all forms of it banned and eliminate competition. Legalizing the growing of hemp on an industrial scale could put whole cotton plantations out of business. Won't somebody think of the cotton growers' children?
- Gabe
paul, i'd like to drop you a short mail. can you please mail me at [email protected] so I can reply with mine?
- Tzury Bar Yochay
I have yet to ever see any reason at all that pot should be illegal. I don't think, though, that legalizing it will cause a huge reduction in gang violence. To accomplish that we'll need to decriminalize all victimless vices. I don't think that'll happen any time soon.
- iTad
This will save millions in tax dollars that would otherwise have been spent on useless enforcement.
- LANjackal
Someone once told me that the only reason why it's still illegal is because the war on drugs is quite profitable. The federal government makes more from seizing the assets of busted drug dealers (bank accounts, expensive homes full of expensive stuff, nice luxury cars, etc) than they could ever make off legalizing it and taxing the hell out of it. (and even if states legalize it, it's still illegal at the federal level and while you won't be prosecuted at the state level in any state where it is legalized, you can still be prosecuted at the federal level in those same states)
- April Russo (FForever!)
April Russo: Don't worry; there's plenty more to be made in taxes than what they can confiscate from drug dealers. What they get now doesn't even pay for the resources to track down and confiscate it.
- Gabe