truthout.org
This fall Californians will go to the polls with a chance to make history. They will be able to cast a vote to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol or cigarettes. California’s Proposition 19 is one of many similar initiatives cropping up on state ballots across the country.
Whether it calls for decriminalization or medical marijuana, the end of cannabis prohibition has never seemed closer. In this short animated parable, “The Flower,” award winning artist Haik Hoisington contrasts a legal marijuana economy with an illegal one, to show how everyone stands to benefit from ending the war on weed.
Found by ECA.
Good Find ECA
Why does it have to be taxed? I pay enough taxes already, damn it.
Taxing a weed is almost as stupid as trying to ban it.
I am all in favor of all users being relocated from X to California. This of course will have no downside in California.
and whats needed is to BALANCE those pro’s and con’s off each other. Legalize it or not? Tax it or not? Pro’s and con’s to all we do.
Its only moralists or those who profit from it that take only one side of the question.
And what of the value of personal freedom? The freedom to suffer from your OWN choices, not those choices made by other people.
I’ve only had one interaction with USA drug policy: my business was broken into by a druggie looking for money to buy drugs. I have been injured by the laws against drug possession, and never harmed by drugs themselves.
How often in our society has this been repeated? More harm caused to druggies themselves by the laws against it rather than the drugs themselves==even for the “worst” of drugs. BushtheRetard was coked out of his mind. Should he have been thrown in jail, or allowed to go AWOL and be born again as Cowboy in Chief?
Like I said===pro’s and con’s.
Pot is far less harmful to the human body then smoking cigs and drinking alcohol. It’s ridiculous that it’s still illegal in this day in age.
#2 the reason why pot is illegal is because it isn’t taxed, everything else is. Legalize it, tax it, help fix the economy, instead of borrowing more money.
California leads the way again!
In other news, Mississippi and Alabama declared a ban on wife beating.
Great little video. Love the 8 bit soundtrack.
Yeah, why not bring back the opium pills and sticks of the 1800s?
How bout over the counter Quaaludes again. Don’t stop people from getting codene cough syrup, let’s have some purple drank!
Purple drank never killed as many people as cigarettes.
The logic of addicts.
Dopamine monkeys.
Cursor_
I never knew something as simple as legalizing marijuana would solve so many problems with no downside.
Why doesn’t “medical” marijuana come in pill form, at least it seems it’s only smoked?
# 10 “Why doesn’t “medical” marijuana come in pill form, at least it seems it’s only smoked?”
Google Marinol.
The error in this short is that the tax money would go to help build hospitals and schools. In reality the tax money would just disappear into the void where all tax money goes. It should go to the benefit of society but rarely does. In CA the gasoline tax alone is .18 cents per gallon. Now imagine how much money daily that is. (If you’ve never seen the 101 and 405 interchange at 5pm on Friday you won’t completely understand. So more tax revenue from pot would help how? Where does it all go now? I would love a chance to go over the actual books and see just how the gasoline tax alone is being spent.
Weary–money always and only represents “potential.” “Your willingness to be irrelevant troubles me.”
Why not give a free tattoo with each pack of dope, as a promotion.
Looks like the video creator was dancing with Mary Jane while creating the cartoon.
Sure. Just like the California Lottery was going to solve the school’s revenue problems. “And Our Schools Win, Too!!” Remember that, dummies??
What a great state it will be when everywhere yyou go in public you will be smelling pot smoke, and thousands and thousands of Californians will be walking around loaded, with the blessings of Tom Amiano.
This won’t pass this year. The economy will have to get MUCH worse first. It won’t be until most people are worried about being cold and hungry before they will give up their fetish for telling other people what they can and can’t do to themselves. It’s the curse of an affluent society.
Dangerously simplistic…
OTOH legalizing it would do more good than harm.
#19. i want some of that.
I always find it strange for people to advocate for MORE types of legal intoxicants. And that they will risk going to jail to use these additional types.
I think a rational person would think that no intoxicant is a good thing.
Yet, so many argue that intoxicants are a right.
Just isn’t logical.
#21–Father==I feel the same way about religion, but you know what? FREEDOM===means other people doing things you disagree with.
But take the other end of the equation: why should people go to jail, families be broken up, for an activity that on its own harms no one?
Like everything else, intoxicants have their place==always in moderation.
Keeping pot illegals keeps the fake “War on Drugs”(tm) going. That’s hard to give up. And to be fair, the anti-legalization movement does have the argument that marijuana is magical and mystically evil on their side. Of course they’re crazy and total wingnuts. They’ll argue that cancer causing cigarettes should be legal, and I should be able to buy a crate of wine and a crate of vodka. They tell me I should put up with drunk driving deaths and bar violence, domestic abuse, and drugs wars…but NEVER legalize marijuana. Why? Because it might cut into the profits of the other (worse) currently legal drugs like alcohol and cigarettes. Science and rational thought be damned. We’re told to live by magic and superstition. I’m tired of it. Legalize marijuana. Outlaw cigarettes. If not, then you’re not arguing on the basis of health or whats best for consumers, but magic and lies.
#7 California has led the way however they currently seem to be doing an economic melt down. I don’t want to go there.
The best argument in favor of legalization is to get the money back into the legal, known economy and reduce corruption and crime.
Unfortunately that isn’t going to change the fact that California is spending much more than it takes in.
Would my school system be willing to hire anyone that tested positive? No. I suspect the same is true of many businesses. Who needs a pot head? They may be smooth with the world but they aren’t the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Haven’t you heard? The SCOTUS has already ruled that growing pot inside the state interferes with the Fed’s ability to regulate commerce between states. If you can grow your own pot in California, you don’t have to buy from other growers who might reside in Arizona, and thus you’ve bypassed the Federal regulatory mechanism.
Thanks to this kind of insane legal logic, it doesn’t really matter what Californian’s want.
It’s a pity that somewhere less whacked that CA can’t try this first.
But I hope they do and hope they succeed.
We can’t afford to hold on to the idiocy of prohibition much longer.
#4 I heartily disagree that this is, in general, a not a black and white issue.
Alcohol is a much more dangerous substance, both in terms of toxicity and in social effect. Alcohol prohibition was ended because of BOTH the generative effect revenues had on organized crime and because more people were hurt by restriction.
This situation is exactly congruent. Weed accounts for, popularly estimated, half of the cashflow of Mexican cartels. This is a major national security problem on our southern border.
No way does the harm caused by marijuana use, even a generous post-prohibition estimate of use, equal the harm caused by prohibition itself.
Oh, and I would strongly suspect that the user that broke into your business was not in search of cash for weed. Just a totally different mindset between types of users.
#26–SL–SCOTUS ruled that the ICC gives the feds jurisdiction over private growing and use of pot, which all sane people disagree with HOWEVER, Ca further legalizing it does make a difference as CA Cops will not be arresting its citizens for Federal Crimes and might even decide not to help the Feds in same. Its all political and the more politics weighs in on the side of legalizing drugs, the more pressure there will be to do so at the Fed level. Small baby steps.
#28–Chris==while I mostly agree with you, we have to not engage in stupidity. There are pro’s and con’s to every choice made, some black and white in every moral choice. If you can’t see it, then you are being simplistic. Think about it, and if you can’t imagine some harm ((not a balance of harm)) that would come from legalizing drugs, then post back and I’ll walk you thru one example. And one is all it takes.
#29 If the balance is remotely close then I agree with you, here it is not. Pot users are generally harmless. Legalizing this takes a HUGE flow of money out of the underground economy.
I’m not arguing for total legalization of all drugs, although I think there would be no wide appeal for crack and heroin even if legal.
Weed is a huge business, and it would go legit as soon as the papers are signed.
It is also a low cost business, so government could tax at a very high rate and not encourage black market sellers.
There is no case on the other side. The US is going to be the last “western” country to change the policy, but it will eventually get changed.
Too much potential money on the other side. It just has to wait a bit.
I am not a market fundamentalist, but no force on earth can stop a sufficiently large consumer group willing to pay vastly inflated prices.
Considering this would also occasion a major rapprochement between counter-culture types and law enforcement. Maybe it will be a future, and more severe, economic crisis that causes a reevaluation of policy.
Everything is a balance. Nothing stands forever unbalanced.
Chris–are there pro’s and con’s to legalizing MJ or not?