Comments on: Legalizing and Taxing Marijuana

By: cheese

cheese — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:56:52 +0000

@ ashpelham2 just because you don’t try, doesn’t mean they aren’t floating around easy to obtain.

By: ashpelham2

ashpelham2 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:50:49 +0000

Man, I’m late to the game from yesterday. I got a bit busy trying to make money the legal way, so I didn’t get back to follow up on comments following my post.

I’m just strongly against making it easier to access something simply because we need the tax revenue from it. And that will be the main selling point by Pols who wish to see this happen. Because, what we really are saying, is that we need to make marijuana, green leaf, chronic, what-have-you, legal to raise revenues. For what? For schools, streets, civil service, etc….Blah. Give me a break. If we begin to legalize one drug that is a scientifically proven hallucinagen (sp), we start down a slippery slope of legalizing it’s variants, and it’s methods of dosing.

To everyone that is in favor of it, I just respectfully disagree with you on all levels. I don’t see an America that is orderly and productive if hallucinagenic (sp) substances are floating around easy to obtain.

I would like to see the legal drinking age dropped to 19, however. Discuss if you wish.

By: Benh

Benh — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:53:43 +0000

Socionomics forecasts deregulation and more tolerance towards marijuana possession: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327204.100-could-recession-end-cannabis-ban.html

By: Low Budget Dave

Low Budget Dave — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:51:25 +0000

Wait a minute. That graphic says California can only get $100 million or so from taxing pot? If so, that is chump change. California has a $30 billion structural deficit. $100 million is like coming across some guy who is starving in the street and giving him one penny. (“Here you go. Have a meal on me.”)

By: dussasr

dussasr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:22:33 +0000

I was referring above to the civil rights act that made it easier for blacks to exercise their right to vote, not the 15th amendment ratified in 1870.

By: dussasr

dussasr — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:16:01 +0000

I think it is interesting that there is a substantial minority on this board that favors legalization yet no one can imagine it being actually legalized. I bet people in the 40s had a hard time imagining black people voting too. Maybe this isn’t as far fetched as everyone assumes.

@Jojo – I agree about needing the thumbs. I like this feature over at marketwatch.com, but hate those boards since my IQ drops every minute I spend there. Much smarter class of people over here (even if they disagree with me from time to time!.

By: Jojo

Jojo — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:01:16 +0000

Subjects like this lend themselves well to thumbs up/down functionality. Is it possible to add this?

By: cheese

cheese — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:29:33 +0000

I apologize if someone has already mentioned this…I read through most of the comments, but not all…………This is an economic blog and no one mentioned supply and demand?

Once you eliminate the risk involved in manufacturing mary jane……..the costs will decrease dramatically. Therefore, these estimates are probably wayyyyyyyyy too high.

Unless, for some reason, the straights suddenly find themselves getting high, and wanting to get high more and more………..once the cache has been spent……..I wouldn’t bank on it.

And while I am one of those “Ayn Rand a$$h@les” this current round of “progressiveness” is merely more evidence of how bankrupt our political class is………….literally, and morally.

Because when the deciding factor is money……..your basically a whore. Very few are making the argument based on liberty or even humane reasons (prison for a lil weed? really?). No, the overwhelming majority of the arguments are made to plug the holes of their various state and local budgets.

One has to ask………where will politicos venture for the next holes in their budgets?

By: philipat

philipat — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:21:38 +0000

Not to mention the cost savings in medical costs by being subject to quality control and Good Manufacturing Practise (GMP)

By: albion tourgee

albion tourgee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:47:13 +0000

As several people have already said, the main effect of the war on drugs, aka Prohibition, Jr., is to put billions of dollars into the pockets of every more violent and dangerous criminal organizations. Anyone who thinks that drug use is reduced by these laws, well, it only goes to show, you don’t need drugs to hallucinate! America is the world’s largest consumer of all sorts of drugs. Anyway, for an excellent account of the foolish and sometimes vicious decisions that led to the current disaster, read Mike Gray’s Drug Crazy, which is available free online at http://www.libertary.com/books/drug-crazy.

And danm, those same white collar criminals kids don’t go to jail either. When it comes to drugs, the court system is certainly not color blind. It not only deals out harsher punishments to Blacks, but it’s the long green that buys a high powered lawyer who can work miracles in the courtroom.