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Yep, we’ll do the logical and right thing when we have no other options.
Speaking of which, there really should be an upfront recognition that a good % of that revenue should be targeted at drug rehab programs for those that decide to quit or never start==and not just MJ but all drugs/conditions of consequence.
I’ll probably never see a humane social safety net finally legislated for America. “We coulda been contenders!!!”
Government/Politicians as pushers?
The snowball of decline is decidedly growing larger and picking up speed as it rolls down the hill.
The one thing that should be made clear from the start is WE will not make any money from legalizing Pot. Only pushers gain financially.
What a world.
It’s alcohol prohibition all over again, only more idiotic.
If legalized, we’d make money, reduce crime, save money (by lower spending on law enforcement), prison over-crowding would stop, and we’d be able to slow down the use of stronger and stronger strains of it since it would be much more controllable as a substance, and lastly strangle the Mexican drug cartels’ money supply and help Mexico with their nasty problem.
There simply is nothing bad about legalizing and taxing it. Heck, even the cost of weed would drop. Since the current effect of the drug is like a very strong drink but without as much long term cancer risk I think there’s not even an argument that it’s leading people into bad moral situations. Besides, prohibition proved what a terrible joke the current policy is. Anything that Nixon started should be punted out the window anyway by default.
#2–Dr Dodd==Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics===leave people alone and have a rational tax policy. There is no morality issue requiring legal nexus regarding free human choices that don’t interfere (legally) with other free human choices.
I don’t care if its in the bibble, or arguably in the bibble, or made up from some other source.
Lets be rational, pragmatic, and libertarian for a change?
#1 Bobbo,
MJ doesn’t require drug rehab, no need to ween off slowly or offer drug substitutes, just enough counseling to change habits. Tobacco in fact is more addictive.
It could be argued that all vices are ‘bad’ and therefore should be prohibited, but it’s obvious that a great number of us are gonna go ahead and enjoy them anyways. It’s like when I have the ‘drugs are bad chat’ with my kids, I know that once they’re out that door and down the street there’s nothing I can do. Prohibiting an adolescent from doing something is exactly the same as encouraging him to do it.
Also a society with a 3rd of it’s population stoned, would probably be much more peaceful, relaxed, and laid-back. I’d say there’d be a reduction in violence and crime in general. It would be great to spend less on cops and prisons and still have a safer more pleasant society.
Yeah good luck getting money out of us weed smokers. Well grow our own. Taxes are for pussies.
Oh and this map is so inaccurate.
Maine is the big smoker state. so is Vermont.
Our states are the major routes for the canadian supply. We love it.
Maine we are allowed 2.5oz and its less of a punishment than a parking ticket. 3 parking tickets you get a boot. 3 weed tickets well you just get a forth etc.
Main Entry: vice
Pronunciation: \ˈvīs\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin vitium fault, vice
Date: 14th century
1 a : moral depravity or corruption : wickedness b : a moral fault or failing c : a habitual and usually trivial defect or shortcoming : foible
2 : blemish, defect
3 : a physical imperfection, deformity, or taint
4 a often capitalized : a character representing one of the vices in an English morality play b : buffoon, jester
5 : an abnormal behavior pattern in a domestic animal detrimental to its health or usefulness
6 : sexual immorality; especially : prostitution
I would not include drug use as a vice, you would. You would not include religion as a vice, I would.
We would both agree “excessive” use of either is a vice? AND we arrive right back at having to define what we mean, “vice” as circular as it is adds NOTHING to the conversation.
Again==COYOTE. Don’t you read these posts before responding????
I think every idiot should be allowed to kill themselves. As long as it’s done in private.
#5-bobbo-Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics
Yeah, you’re right bobbo. No since having old tired ethics when it’s much easier to live like animals.
With the employment rate increasing I can see the advantage of government using Pot to help keep the sheeple docile.
After all, a sedated populous is a happy populous, right?
#11–Dr Dodd==hah, hah. Thats right:
1. “Its a Vice!”
2. “Its being an Animal.”
Got any more totally vacuous dogma to spew?
Now, I agree YOU might behave like an animal commiting all kinds of heinous vices if you slip the bonds of your imagined limitations, but others would not.
Why should those who can be limited by those who can’t?
Wake me up when I can go get some pot seedlings at my local garden supply center.
Yeah, I will take half a dozen BC bud seedlings and some fertilizer. Thanks.
#11 – I believe the word that you seem to consistently misspell is “sense”, not “since”.
#7 – collecting the tax is the real trick. OTOH by not having to spend $billions on DEA and prisons to enforce marijuana drug laws, I think there’s be significant $savings.
There are also 1000s of “drug-paraphernalia” businesses that are quite happy to pay taxes.
California is is ready!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And a tax for returning all of that carbon to the atmosphere, I am sure.
And a pot use tax
And a pot growth tax
And a green pot tax
And a water 4 pot tax
And an oxygen 4 pot tax
And a pot distribution tax
And a pot sales tax
And a pot waste disposal tax
Psst, if you promise the Evangelical church 10% of the pot taxes then the Republican party will support legalizing marijuana.
AND.
The law is against HEMP. not JUST MJ.
Which can be used to create…
Paper products
Cloths
Wood type products.
OILS
FUEL
ALCOHOL
Medicines
You Asked: ” We’d Make How Much In Taxes If Pot Production Were Legal? ”
More than we make now. And it would be going into the pockets of AMERICAN entrepreneurs, rather than any other nationality.
So, thats why its bad. 😉
You have to remember employers could still screen for cannabis use, if the employee signs a contract. You would see a spike in use at first for the novelty, but usage would probably level off near current levels. The delivery method by smoking still puts a lot of crap in your lungs. There is a large mass called middle America that takes a lot of inertia to move. If I remember at the end of prohibition over 90% of Americans was against it. You would get no were near that with decriminalizing cannabis with current polling.
That doesn’t include the increased healthcare costs.
Oh now that is THE perfect graphic!
Hey people, what ya think..
I control this domain: http://legalizeandtaxit.com/
Last year a friend and I thought about the whole taxation thing and figured lets reg the domain for now, and will come up with a theme later. He’s was working on a t-shirt selling idea for the interim, however recent family events have consumed all his time. -and i’m kinda lost studying pre-history and re-educating myself in learning the “real” science of everything. (universe, etc)
-should ask for permission to use that graphic? it’s almost perfect in relation to the domain. or just upload this pic of an errant seed that sprouted, -sitting out front by the car?? http://soundwash.net/urban/pics/the_lonely_plant.jpg
-s
If anyone has any better (real) suggestions for the domain, i’m all ears..and no i wont sell it. contact: my email is in the whois info of the domain.
IMO, the primary reason pot is not legal is that there is no field sobriety test that can be done to establish whether someone was under the influence of weed *at the time they were driving*. Further, what do you do about underage smokers? The day they devise a field sobriety test for weed that will hold up in court is the day it becomes legal.
#22
that is incorrect. They measure a rratio between thc and the canabonoids and can determine if you were high at time of testing.
The problem with Legality, will be that the price will drop.
WHICH will make ILLEGAL pot harder to sell, unless they DO something to make it WORTH buying.
the growing of MJ, has its pitfalls as well.
As MJ isnt a dominant plant in the hemp family. And cross pollination with OTHER Hemp turns it Inert.
It is called WEED, for a reason, and what would stop ANYONE from growing their own?
I find it interesting that the USA wont listen to ANY, information gathered by other nations and studies on the USA of MJ. They do NEW studies every 20-30 years, and STILL debate over it.
99.999% of the problem with MJ comes with CONTROL over the product. ITS NOT easy to control WHERE it grows, HOW its grown or anything else about MJ.
With HEMP we know what could be done with it, and HOW it would affect the market, in MANY ways. And also it would KILL a couple corps.
IF MJ is allowed in the USA, HEMP will also be allowed. THAT wont happen.
There are only a FEW real markets in the USA.
Wood/paper
SOAP
chemicals/drugs
HEMP, and products from HEMP would make MAJOR changes in all 3 of these markets, and a few others OUTSIDE the USA.
I would also say that it would impact farming VERY MUCH. A crop of hemp can be raised every 3 months and 3-4 crops per year, and ALL of it having a USE and being sold.
Wall board products
Clothing
Drugs
Plastics
Oils-Food soluble soaps replacements for SOY/canola/peanut.
Fuels
Alcohols
it will NOT be allowed. its a total SHIFT of who gets the money.
This is a big issue in Mendocino County, California, where I live, and as these comments show, there is no consistent and factual information or opinion about marijuana in the US. All our Agricultural Commissioners have been forbidden to include marijuana in the annual Ag Reports so nobody has any idea how big the pot crop really is. ALL numbers being bandied about in current discussions are total fabrications in support of their author’s arguments and have no basis in fact. The truth is simply not known by anybody.
We do know all governments are desperate for money and don’t want the public to know how close to total collapse our whole society is. There is no doubt marijuana is a Large New Source of income and our greedy pig legislators want to get their hands on it.
Real numbers have never mattered in American politics before, why should that be different now.
I can see how some people would over-use and suffer social and medical problems as a result. But would that be so different tom or worse than what happens today with alcohol? You can over-dose on the Internet, or doughnuts, or exercise, yet when it comes to marijuana, you only hear about the extreme cases.
(This from someone who doesn’t smoke anything, and doesn’t intend to, but who doesn’t care what people do as long as they don’t get any of it on him.)
Once again, a disingenuous use of statistics to bolster ones objective.
How much of that $14 trillion is attributed to marijuana?
Where’s that BS meter when you need it….
I doubt it will be 14 billion..
Maybe 1/4 of that value.
3.5 billion.
But think of WHAT it will take away.
For those that use Substitutes like alcohol and Tobacco..MJ is not as harsh.
And IF the Gov. places it under its SOLE control, insted of as Tobacco and alcohol are sold. the money goes STRAIGHT to the gov.
Marijuana only leads to Fritos and Oreos.
The biggest threat from legalization of marijuana would be to kill the baggie industry.
Love the money thing. How much $$ to be made if we legalize other stuff too, like prostitution, beastiality, extortion… It’s like the Catholic indulgences. Pays your money & wipe out the sin. But that’s ok as long as the money goes to support good causes. And how much does it cost our system anyway to keep extortion at bay?
RBG