Medical Marijuana

Nice to read from you again, PrintSmith. Your points are well made. It is unlikely to put an end to black market issues, but it would provide a viable avenue for those who truly need the medicinal benefits. I'm for that. The rest becomes an individual's responsible judgement. Humanity excels in poor and irresponsible behavior. I'm unconvinced that legalization will create the doomsday I read you painting.

Hey there BA. Nope, the final sentence doesn't need an edit as it is a statement based in reality and rationality rather than false utopia. When marijuana is finally legalized, as I believe it one day will be, all of those who extol its virtues will face the reality of what they have helped create. There are so many fallacies within their arguments that it would literally take weeks to discredit them all.

When marijuana is legalized, you will have more intoxicated motorists sharing the road with you. Now, they might be going slower than everyone else because their motor skills are diminished, but a driver moving slower than the traffic flow is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than a driver moving faster than the traffic flow in our impatient world. The vast majority of people that I have met over the years that use marijuana also smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. It is not the either or situation that is continually portrayed by those seeking legalization. College kids will not stop binge drinking alcohol simply because they can now smoke marijuana legally - they will indulge in both vices, likely simultaneously. You won't have a driver high on marijuana or on alcohol, they will more than likely be impaired by both. You won't stop or slow the illegal importation of marijuana into our society, it will simply be less expensive than that which the government taxes and allows to be sold at the store. Cigarettes in New York, which sell for roughly $10/pack including all the taxes, are sold on the black market for half that amount and the demand has been growing, not lessening, as the taxes on tobacco continue to rise. The criminal element of black market tobacco sales is just a violent, just as dangerous, as the criminal element that sells marijuana, meth or crack. Turf wars are fought for territory, competition is "eliminated". It's the same game, just played with a different colored ball. You think the drug cartels in Mexico are going to forgo their ill gotten gains simply because we pass a law legalizing marijuana? The amount of "product" that is shipped won't diminish at all from these sources, nor will their contributions to lawlessness in our nation.

You think a federal government that won't allow you to distill your own whiskey or plant your own tobacco is going to allow you to grow your own pot? Please. Not even "medical" marijuana will be allowed to be grown by individuals once the drug is legalized, taxed and regulated at the federal level. The only positive outcome of federally legalizing marijuana will be the addition of hundreds of thousands of people who all of a sudden found a reason to support states' rights and the 10th Amendment when their hopes of growing their own are destroyed in a 2,000 page omnibus piece of federal legislation.

"You think a federal government that won't allow you to distill your own whiskey or plant your own tobacco is going to allow you to grow your own pot? Please. Not even "medical" marijuana will be allowed to be grown by individuals once the drug is legalized, taxed and regulated at the federal level. The only positive outcome of federally legalizing marijuana will be the addition of hundreds of thousands of people who all of a sudden found a reason to support states' rights and the 10th Amendment when their hopes of growing their own are destroyed in a 2,000 page omnibus piece of federal legislation."

In this we will assuredly find agreement.

For someone who is interested in the facts behind repealing drug laws, this should be something to read:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893946,00.html

Those who feel that the legalizing of drugs will destroy our country (and often use the Netherlands as an example) tend to be misinformed in a few places:
1. The Netherlands did not legalize marijuana, they simply choose not to enforce existing drug laws.
2. They have never seen whole families riding their bikes, safely and merrily, through downtown Amsterdam streets.
3. Fewer people try marijuana or other drugs in the Netherlands than they do here.
Not to mention:
4. Portugal has Europe's most liberal drug laws. By decriminalizing it and replacing jail time with therapy they have cut new rates of HIV infection, cut the number of teens trying illegal drugs and have seen a remarkable increase in people who undergo drug therapy.

The funny thing is I have never considered Portugal to be a flaming liberal paradise. Admittedly I have never been there but I had always heard it was a conservative Catholic country.

In our case, following Portugal's example would also allow us an extra $2.4 billion which is not going to the DEA..... Which in turn causes more people to go underground..... Which in turn causes higher drug prices, more dangerous drugs on the market and more violence in the streets.

If we want to be adult and tackle our nation's drug problems, we would be better off addressing our drug culture rather than throwing away billions trying to enforce unrealisitc drug laws and additional billions for prisons to house people with sickly and addictive personalities. With over 2 million people in our prisons and jails (this is the same number of people as is in Houston), surpassing even China though we have a fraction of their population, clearly our system is broken. Unfortunately, the DEA spends part of its $2.4 billion budget on propaganda against legalizing drugs, often resorting to outright lies. The corporations winning contracts to build for-profit prisons certainly don't want to see their need diminished by having fewer people arrested. The drug cartels absolutely don't want to be put out of business. Therefore, as is usually the case, the rest of us are caught in the crossfire while hoping our families and friends aren't among the casualties. In the meantime, our culture will continue to market pills for every potential problem, including pills to hamper the side effects of other pills, while more and more people are pushed to the fringes and self-medicate with street drugs.

Rockdoc wrote: Nice to read from you again, PrintSmith. Your points are well made. It is unlikely to put an end to black market issues, but it would provide a viable avenue for those who truly need the medicinal benefits. I'm for that. The rest becomes an individual's responsible judgement. Humanity excels in poor and irresponsible behavior. I'm unconvinced that legalization will create the doomsday I read you painting.

Hey Doc. I was typing a response when you posted that covered the likelihood of the viable avenue of which you speak. Sure, someone wanting it for truly medicinal reasons will be able to obtain it as easily as they can a Tylenol (as long as they have reached the proper age that is), but economic reality is that 50% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

Our entire society is constantly looking for the less expensive alternative. The reason all the manufacturing has left our nation is that few are willing to spend the amount of money for one of something made by a fellow citizen when they can get 2 or more of the same thing made somewhere else for the same price. Once the euphoria of legalization wears off, the driving force of purchase will be the cost of purchase just as it is for every other commodity sold in our stores. There is a reason that there are more cigarettes sold on the black market than there are sold legally in the stores. The taxing authorities in New York have made it profitable to purchase cigarettes elsewhere and illegally sell them in New York. The amount of cigarettes sold by the Native American Tribes would mean that every member of the tribe was smoking 44 cigarettes a minute if they were all sold legally. You think the state and federal government is going to have more control over marijuana than they do tobacco on the lands that belong to the Native American Tribes?

Why anyone feels that this reality wouldn't apply to marijuana if only it was legalized is truly beyond my ability to comprehend. Sure, you won't have the DEA knocking down your door anymore for the grow operation in your basement, they'll simply be sending in the Treasury Department agents in their place.

Always seemed logical to me that instead of spending a trillion dollars on the failed war on drugs, We could have spent a fraction of that to develop a safe recreational drug for people who choose to get high.

Oh JMC, you know that would make way too much sense.

JMC wrote: Always seemed logical to me that instead of spending a trillion dollars on the failed war on drugs, We could have spent a fraction of that to develop a safe recreational drug for people who choose to get high.

Soma anyone? :thumbsup:

And I hear what you say that the underground market would continue, but I think it would be less profitable, and less dangerous.

I guess the profit margin would be determined by the ultimate cost associated with purchase and how that relates to the current cost on the street. Right now, the "medicinal" variety is, according to what I have heard, more expensive than what you purchase in the back alleys of the urban areas. I'm certain that, as with all things, it is more expensive if the local cost of living is higher than elsewhere and the taxes are as obscene as they are for tobacco in NY.

At $10 a pack for cigarettes with all the state an local taxes added in, it is no wonder that folks can purchase them elsewhere, add in the shipping, and still find a way to make a profit significant enough that it is worth (to them at least) killing someone to protect their business.

PrintSmith wrote: I guess the profit margin would be determined by the ultimate cost associated with purchase and how that relates to the current cost on the street. Right now, the "medicinal" variety is, according to what I have heard, more expensive than what you purchase in the back alleys of the urban areas. I'm certain that, as with all things, it is more expensive if the local cost of living is higher than elsewhere and the taxes are as obscene as they are for tobacco in NY.

At $10 a pack for cigarettes with all the state an local taxes added in, it is no wonder that folks can purchase them elsewhere, add in the shipping, and still find a way to make a profit significant enough that it is worth (to them at least) killing someone to protect their business.

Pot should cost about as much as quality head of lettuce