Comments on: Legalize Marijuana, save the economy? http://artstin.com/blog/economybusiness/legalize-marijuana-save-the-economy/ Everything you could ever want, in a blog. Fri, 10 Sep 2010 06:47:40 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7.1 hourly 1 By: Snowy http://artstin.com/blog/economybusiness/legalize-marijuana-save-the-economy/comment-page-1/#comment-1087 Snowy Sun, 26 Apr 2009 23:24:45 +0000 http://artstin.com/blog/?p=29#comment-1087 Greetings cubd, While I do agree that alcohol, cigarettes and other substances are much more dangerous than marijuana, I don't believe that it will be as easy to tax and regulate it. Nor do I believe that it will slow down teen possession. Regulating substances such as dipping tabacco and cigarettes, does not keep it out of teens hands any easier than if it were not regulated. If someone wants to get weed, tobacco, or anything else, they'll get it. Doesn't matter if it's regulated, has an age restriction, or is down right illegal. As far as it creating millions of new jobs, doubt it. There's only so much supply/demand. You're right, prohibition doesn't work. It didn't work back with alcohol, and it's not working now. The only thing that works is education. Put that $70 billion/year into our education system instead. I'm not saying that marijuana is bad, but I'm saying to the people that think the economy would turn around just on one product is a bit silly. Could it help? Maybe. Help enough? Definitely not. Keep it illegal? No idea. Legalize it? I'll leave that decision up to those that have done further research. Greetings cubd,
While I do agree that alcohol, cigarettes and other substances are much more dangerous than marijuana, I don’t believe that it will be as easy to tax and regulate it. Nor do I believe that it will slow down teen possession. Regulating substances such as dipping tabacco and cigarettes, does not keep it out of teens hands any easier than if it were not regulated. If someone wants to get weed, tobacco, or anything else, they’ll get it. Doesn’t matter if it’s regulated, has an age restriction, or is down right illegal.

As far as it creating millions of new jobs, doubt it. There’s only so much supply/demand.

You’re right, prohibition doesn’t work. It didn’t work back with alcohol, and it’s not working now. The only thing that works is education. Put that $70 billion/year into our education system instead.

I’m not saying that marijuana is bad, but I’m saying to the people that think the economy would turn around just on one product is a bit silly. Could it help? Maybe. Help enough? Definitely not. Keep it illegal? No idea. Legalize it? I’ll leave that decision up to those that have done further research.

]]> By: Cubd http://artstin.com/blog/economybusiness/legalize-marijuana-save-the-economy/comment-page-1/#comment-1084 Cubd Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:37:55 +0000 http://artstin.com/blog/?p=29#comment-1084 If you look at its history, it is very unfortunate that marijuana was ever made illegal in the first place. Basically, hemp (other name for the marijuana plant) had so many uses that certain industries felt threatened and began pushing for criminalization. A couple of these uses were an alternative form of paper (lower cost than traditional paper made from trees) and fuel (imagine your car running on hemp gasoline). So instead of trying to compete, the industries lobbied for marijuana to become illegal and through much propaganda (blaming pot on Mexican murders, Reefer Madness, etc.) eventually forced the government to outlaw hemp. This is a good read: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/pot/blunderof37.html TL;DR: Industries felt threatened by the usefulness of the hemp plant so they lied to people and made it illegal. While legalizing marijuana will not save the economy alone, it certainly would not hurt. We spend about $70 billion/year on the war on drugs. Imagine now reversing this trend and making an entire industry out of the legalization of marijuana (think an industry similar to alcohol and tobacco). If you think about it, there is an insane amount of jobs that would be created (advertising, quality control, growing, selling, etc.). Think about how many jobs involved in alcohol and tobacco there are. If we created this industry and taxed and regulated it, it would actually decrease availability to teens (pretty much any teen right now can buy pot from a dealer if he knows the right people). It is a lot harder, however for that same teen to get a hold of alcohol simply because it is so strictly regulated. Another argument that naive people tend to bring up is that everyone would just grow their own, but if it is not illegal to grow your own food, why hasn't the agricultural industry gone out of business? Simply put, most people don't have the time/interest/resources to grow their own food. Another reason to legalize marijuana is that it would take a lot of power away from the drug cartels. The cartels use marijuana as a major funding resource. If we taxed and regulated the product, it would either force them out of business or force them to become a legitimate business in which millions of new jobs would be created and billions of dollars in taxes would be collected from those businesses. I see absolutely no reason for prohibition to continue and I think we should look to our past to decide how we should deal with those currently in prison (what did we do to the moonshiners?). The war on drugs is over 30 years old and is a complete failure. There is a saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After all these years, you'd think we'd wake up and decide to do something different instead of bankrupting ourselves. Sry bro, just wanted to make sure you get at least some facts in before you call legalizing marijuana "downright silly". Do some research on the effects of marijuana vs. alcohol or other drugs and I'm sure all the brainwashing that is still going on in school will start to wear off. If you look at its history, it is very unfortunate that marijuana was ever made illegal in the first place. Basically, hemp (other name for the marijuana plant) had so many uses that certain industries felt threatened and began pushing for criminalization. A couple of these uses were an alternative form of paper (lower cost than traditional paper made from trees) and fuel (imagine your car running on hemp gasoline).

So instead of trying to compete, the industries lobbied for marijuana to become illegal and through much propaganda (blaming pot on Mexican murders, Reefer Madness, etc.) eventually forced the government to outlaw hemp. This is a good read: http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/pot/blunderof37.html

TL;DR: Industries felt threatened by the usefulness of the hemp plant so they lied to people and made it illegal.

While legalizing marijuana will not save the economy alone, it certainly would not hurt. We spend about $70 billion/year on the war on drugs. Imagine now reversing this trend and making an entire industry out of the legalization of marijuana (think an industry similar to alcohol and tobacco). If you think about it, there is an insane amount of jobs that would be created (advertising, quality control, growing, selling, etc.). Think about how many jobs involved in alcohol and tobacco there are. If we created this industry and taxed and regulated it, it would actually decrease availability to teens (pretty much any teen right now can buy pot from a dealer if he knows the right people). It is a lot harder, however for that same teen to get a hold of alcohol simply because it is so strictly regulated. Another argument that naive people tend to bring up is that everyone would just grow their own, but if it is not illegal to grow your own food, why hasn’t the agricultural industry gone out of business? Simply put, most people don’t have the time/interest/resources to grow their own food.

Another reason to legalize marijuana is that it would take a lot of power away from the drug cartels. The cartels use marijuana as a major funding resource. If we taxed and regulated the product, it would either force them out of business or force them to become a legitimate business in which millions of new jobs would be created and billions of dollars in taxes would be collected from those businesses.

I see absolutely no reason for prohibition to continue and I think we should look to our past to decide how we should deal with those currently in prison (what did we do to the moonshiners?). The war on drugs is over 30 years old and is a complete failure. There is a saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. After all these years, you’d think we’d wake up and decide to do something different instead of bankrupting ourselves.

Sry bro, just wanted to make sure you get at least some facts in before you call legalizing marijuana “downright silly”. Do some research on the effects of marijuana vs. alcohol or other drugs and I’m sure all the brainwashing that is still going on in school will start to wear off.

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