Back on the 26th of March 2009 Barrack Obama was asked by an online audience member at a conference: “With over 1 out of 30 Americans controlled by the penal system, why not legalise, control and tax Marijuana to change the failed war on drugs into a money making and money saving boost to the economy? Do we really need that many victimless criminals?” Obama replied by saying “I don’t know what this says about the online audience…” and went on to say how he did not feel that this was a good strategy to grow the American economy. In a western world, where people smoke cigarettes everyday and drink beer (or other dope substitutes) at 8:00am, why not legalise some weed and make some money?
You don’t even have to make this a money thing. The police no longer want to police it and many other countries do not see that it has any serious medical implications, this includes the argument that weed leads to lots of other heavier substances. We could let the police do other things and not fill up the jails with people, like weed dealers, who do not need to be there to be honest. Of course, its frustrating because we knew what Obama had to say, considering the intense scrutiny he was under, but now he’s heading towards his final years in office. He’s becoming a lame duck so why not try achieve something along these lines?
Afghanistan hasn’t got an economy but it does grow opium. We’ve been saying to the afghans that they can have all the profits and popularity that comes from growing this crop. This stuff does, though, create painkillers. Opium is one of the ways in which you can make an analgesic. We (the west) pay turkey to grow opium so that painkillers can be made. But why don’t we give this contract to the afghans? While you are fighting the taliban, we will give you this contract. What’s wrong with this?
Of course we must be slightly careful here. The afghans have been known to double crop the field to the point that there is an opium crop and a heroin crop. What we would be doing is creating 40% of the world’s heroin in this area. We would therefore need to remove the monopoly that they would have. We could say that it has to be pure, won’t be cut and would be available on a prescription basis. A national health system could then be built, both in America and Afghanistan, on the revenue.
Financially speaking let’s look at how much this current policy is costing. Inmates incarcerated on marijuana-related charges cost U.S. prisons $1 billion annually, according to a 2007 study. Including lost tax revenues, a 2007 study found that enforcing the marijuana prohibition costs tax payers $41.8 billion annually.
Lets look at how much this legalisation policy is worth. It’s estimated that Washington’s legalization of marijuana could bring the state an additional $500 million in tax revenue. Colorado’s pot legalization legislation, Amendment 64, is estimated to create $60 million for the state in combined savings and additional tax revenue. Marijuana users could see substantial savings due to marijuana legalization, as prices could fall by up to 100 times, perhaps freeing up some cash to spend on other things. Marijuana growers account for $14 billion a year in sales in California, making it the state’s most valuable cash crop. It’s estimated that illegal marijuana is a $36 billion industry in the U.S.. The Sacramento News and Review saw a big boost in ad revenue when it offered advertising space for more than 60 medical marijuana dispensaries, enabling the publication to hire three additional employees. Mendocino County, California’s zip tie program aimed at regulating medical marijuana growing by charging permits for each plant raised$600,000 in revenue in for the Sheriff’s department in 2011. The city of Oakland, California raised $1.3 million in tax revenue from medical marijuana dispensaries in 2011, 3 percent of the city’s total business tax revenue. In 2011, Colorado pulled in $5 million in sales taxes from medical marijuana businesses. Economist Stephen Easton estimated in 2010 that legal marijuana could be a $45 to $100 billion industry. When hydroponic marijuana growing supply chain weGrow opens a new store it creates an estimated 75 jobs indirectly.
With it being common knowledge that alcohol is more dangerous than weed, is it really enough now to say that this is because of social convention, and therefore it is acceptable? If alcohol is acceptable then weed should be. If weed is not acceptable then alcohol shouldn’t be either. The healthiest thing i’ve heard about alcohol was the New England Journal of medicine advised that people should have at least 2 drinks a day. This is for the heart and the blood stream (i’m told) and the wine should not be white but red. However this is, of course, a bull***t statement. It is obvious that any amount of poison is bad for you. The reason why we have advice like this is because we live in a culture of great stress and so the guy who comes home and has a few drinks is more likely to live than the guy who comes home and doesn’t and has a heart attack at 59 because he was not able to alleviate any of the stress he had.
Marijuana is well known to cure glaucoma and is an effective method of dealing with the nausea that comes from Chemotherapy. Nonetheless booze is at least water based.
beyond the Edge of reason 