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.
Let’s not make the mistake with made with cigarettes — let’s be sure to tax for the lung disease AHEAD of time, rather than suing the pot companies years from now after the users are already sick.
Are Californians laid back enough (compare with the rest of the states), without giving the weed they need to be even more so? On the other hand, while they’re all being “baked” in the brain, we can come in and take them over. (sinister laugh follows). So smoke away, CA.
Glenn E,
Wow, you have a lot of stereotypes about California!
I checked… California isn’t nearly the top state for pot use. That would be Alaska followed by the New England states.
California comes in at #18 just below Minnesota.
Oops. I meant to give you the link about pop usage. http://tinyurl.com/ybro62j
The CA law ought to have some provision that only the small time farmers can produce MJ. And not some corporate agro-giant, connected with the Tobacco Industry. Or else they’ll be dictating term of law, that nobody but them can provide or sell the product. It should be the same as any other farmed herb on the market. Though come to think of it, McCormick has had the supermarket distribution of spices, sewed up for years. So I suspect it’ll only be a matter of time before somebody dominates the market, somehow. Can you see McCormick bottling Weed?
I just noticed one more interesting factoid — California usage is very close the the national average of about 11%
It will be interesting to see what the federal governments reaction to this will be, since it violates federal law. If they do nothing after suing Arizona (for passing a law which upholds their support for federal immigration law), and openly let Californians break federal law, their true political motives for the lawsuit will be revealed. If they try to challenge California this debate will get major national attention and – well, that will be interesting. Whoever has majority after the November election will either lose or gain a large block of the voters for whom this will be a single issue.
Also remember that putting non-violent drug offenders in prison provides jobs to the prison industry. I guess we’ll see who’s lobbying effort is stronger.
While I agree there would be many benefits to legalizing marijuana, honest people can see that its effects are not as bad as some people make them out to be, but are worse than the type of people who make a video like this would have you believe. Studies have shown consistently that continuous marijuana use decreases mental capacity and damages neurotransmitters.
I think half the reason many people would never go for legalizing marijuana is because of the statements to the contrary that marijuana users make. ( Marijuana must have made you pretty stupid if you are oblivious to the fact that it causes brain damage )
Now, to be fair, so does alcohol, but I would argue that alcohol does not change the brain long term in the same way that marijuana does, unless you have been a heavy drinker a very long time. Most alcoholics will admit alcohol is harmful – they just don’t care.
Now, take a person who is smoking pot vs. a person who used to smoke pot, but stopped. The person who stopped will always say that after they stopped, they realized they had changed mentally (attention levels, motivation levels, etc). The person who is still using will never see or admit these things.
Having said all of that, I would like to see a test case in a state other than California. They can’t go much more downhill than they already are. Lets take Connecticut or Vermont. If their test scores, accident rates, graduation rates, don’t get worse, then it will be a success, and legalization will probably gain acceptance nationwide.
But first, we have to figure out a quick, legally permissible test for recent use other than blood tests. I don’t know what they do in places where it is legal, but stoned drivers are almost worse than drunk drivers. They are harder to spot from far away, but are just likely to sideswipe you. And doing blood tests on the side of the rode is not going to go over too well.
#23
“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?”
Now who is the silly hooman?
Harms no one? The user is harmed by pot. From the altered brain chemistry down to the lung damage over time it causes. Then WE have to PAY for their medical treatment with higher medical costs passed for those potheads that can’t pay their bills because they spend most of their cash on pot.
They drive and they are just as bad as a drunk. People get killed.
Any drug used for recreation and not for treatment of illness is wrong and harms people.
And to say that one drug causes more problems than another is the same fallacious argumentation that fails in debate.
It is selfish and without thought for your fellow man.
Cursor_
#25 “…California …currently seem to be doing an economic melt down. I don’t want to go there..”
Yeah yeah, typical Repuke lather but its economy surpasses all but a few industrialized nations. It created the semiconductor industry and the state’s economy was attracting the highest educated workers force into the 20th century.
Never mind those minor facts, the real future of America lies in Mississippi!
The people that say its harmful: Then don’t use it. Don’t buy it. Problem solved.
Don’t interfere with others lives. Just because YOU don’t like something, doesn’t mean others don’t find it useful.
To those arguing that the tax money disappears: Why haven’t you been screaming about the tax monies BEFORE now? Why does this one topic make you rally and come forward?
And for those still thinking that MJ is a ‘Scary and Addicting” substance…try it. You might like it. Or you might not. But at least after trying it, you have at least had the experience of it before making your Judgment.
People want control. Over their lives. Trouble is, some people feel they know better “just cause’. Simply out of ignorance and conditioning.
Look at what we lose because of ignorance. HEMP is the wonder plant. It provides food, fuel, and (in non-industrial cases) fun.
How do we measure pot strength and BTC (blood THC level)?
When I want a beer, I have a pretty good idea what I’m getting into….but imagine going to the bar and being handed a drink not knowing if its 6 ounces of ‘Lite’ beer or 6 ounces of Bacardi 181….and it all tastes the same. We need a measurement for pot strength.
Most of us can drive home from the bar after a couple lite beers and BAL is just fine. To my knowledge there is no roadside measurement for BTC, no amount that is legally allowed or considered a safe level of impairment. Add to that that you have way to know if a few hits become a nice mellow buzz or they knock me over. And if it knocks me over, who’s fault is it, and how the hell am I getting home safely?
IMO even if legalized, there’s a lot of work to do before this can work.
Back to the video… it makes some very good points:
a) Taxes are not being collected on a product that is regularly consumed, on the contrary, the state is diverting taxes that could be used elsewhere into enforcing bans on the product.
b) Taxes are being spent on incarcerating people unnecessarily, and building more prisons when we run out of space in the current ones. Those taxes could be spent on maintaining or improving other services.
c) Violence is created by the very illegality of the product, in a similar way that making alcohol illegal created the great mafiosi of 1930’s. Legal products do not create that kind of violence.
d) Choice… when they were passing the ‘flower’ a couple of people skipped ‘inhaling’. It was their choice.
e) Tyrannical government. One official decides that something is not going to be allowed, over the will of the people.
All in all, the video is a great little summary of the waste, lost opportunity, big government, and violence that the current ban brings upon our society.
While the video’s first half is sickeningly, cloyingly optimistic, I find the video’s second half freaking hillarious. Little blob thing with a Hitler ‘stache? Fantastic.
I also find it funny that a lot of the con arguments are essentially the exact con arguments made during Prohibition in the 20s-30s. When alcohol became legal (again), the streets were not flooded with amber waves of brew.
Good facts to know:
Q1: What’s spent by California (for instance) on all the police, DEA, incarceration, and anti-pot activities of all kinds every year?
Q2: How many lives are lost due to criminal behavior surrounding pot?
Q3: How many lives would be lost to the extra load of stoned drivers if it were legal? (subtracting out the number that would have been otherwise simply drunk instead)
Q4: What would the loss be to the alcohol industries if pot were legal?
Q5: What would the tax implications of legal pot be?
Q6: What would the criminals do –instead– if pot were not available for them to exploit?
#42–Cursor==you are right. I got lazy not spelling it out each time the pro-pot/drugs position is mentioned. Put too much emphasis on “on its own.”
So–whats better for the individual, families, society? Toke up on Fri and Sat night for a pleasant buzz harming no one but the one who chooses to do so OR be put in jail for 20 years for your rear seat ash tray having a seed?
So we have established: intoxicated drivers are bad; sin taxes are OK; weed isn’t good for you; alcohol isn’t good for you; the federal govt is incented to keep it illegal; local cops enjoy a revenue stream from its illegality; large transnationals will likely take its production over if legalized; and prohibition is largely ineffective. What’s effective is pre-employment screening; if even medically legal use prevents being hired, then legality is irrelevant. Think I’ll go indulge in the #1 American soporific, TV – brain cells be damned.
#44
“Don’t interfere with others lives. Just because YOU don’t like something, doesn’t mean others don’t find it useful.”
Then keep your reprobate ass out of the emergency rooms and go elsewhere for healthcare when you get sick from it.
Don’t go anywhere in a vehicle that must be driven by you. I don’t want our trauma centers clogged up because you swear that billboard was talking to you “man”.
#49
If you want a buzz monkey man, stay the fuck home, lock yourself in and don’t go out at all while you are high. And don’t come crying to the hospital when you find out smoke inhalation is not that great for ya.
My stance has nothing to do with the useless criminal justice system. That is a WHOLE other debate. Stay on track. Focus. If you allow this as easily as booze you are only going add more people in wrecks and more lung and other organ illness as they age.
This is only going to enable even more dopamine addicts to fuck up everything for the nation.
Cursor_
I’ve never met anyone who smoked pot regularly who was operating at anything close to 100% of his/her IQ. Most of the people I know who smoke heavily are clearly impaired, even if they only do it at night.
But I don’t think its any of my business to tell anyone what they should do with their body/mind. I don’t tell women if they should use birth control, nor adrenalin junkies that they shouldn’t go snowmobiling in the mountains, even if it costs me tax money because they get caught in an avalanche because they didn’t check the proper sources.
I don’t drink, I don’t smoke tobacco and I don’t do pot, but I don’t think its anyones business to tell me what I do with MY body. If I want to, I will. I feel its my decision, not some politician who goes out and has a three martini lunch then passes legislation high as a kite.
I drive my car with care and attention, even though many around me drive like idiots, putting my life in danger. Before putting pot heads in jail they should be arresting people who drive like idiots, placing others in danger. If those pot heads drive a car after smoking a joint, arrest them too.
Its called personal responsibility.
Alcohol makes people feel/look beautiful.
LSD makes people feel they can fly.
Pot makes people feel they are intelligent.
Cursor – Were you scared as a child by a ‘pot-head’? You call me ‘reprobate’, and you don’t even have a clue what that word means.
Keep your little mind to yourself. Or, smoke some and allow it to open up…just a bit.
And for the record – I have never in my life hallucinated on pot. So, I guess those after school specials had it ALL WRONG….
Chris–you should get together with do-ill asap. He too enjoys making a sport of looking as stupid as possible.
Well, you set it up so I will bite: So, what of those who choose to smoke?
#57 You asked.
As you requested of someone recently. Prove me wrong.
It is so much easier to call people names than come back with something substantive.
I stand by my characterization of the issue, as well as the ultimate political endgame of this solution.
Do you have anything more than calling me names? You said you would walk me through it.
I will give you something STRANGe to think about..
SAFETY LAWS.
SLOW DOWN..
DONT DO THIS..
DONT TAKE THAT..
DONT drug yourself..
DONT SMOKE..
And all this..and complaints that there are TO MANY that reach retirement age to get social security..
Its also what I tell the religious persons..
IF its your concern over my soul, fine. But ITS MY FAULT, If I want to goto hell.
IF I want to be an IDIOT, FINE, its my choice. IF I kill myself doing something AFTER I know the facts, is it YOUR CONCERN?
What amazes me is that the right-wing douchebags who want to regulate anything that deals with the individual are adamant about not regulating companies and industries that destroy and pollute and steal and cheat and…
The right is just plain evil.
Michael – Sign something? Can I have you sign something that says I won’t have to support your kids with my tax dollars? Or that I won’t have to support you with my tax dollars? Or that you PROMISE to be a decent upstanding member of society who will contribute to the forward movement of thinking and progress? If not, then why don’t you crawl away and sulk?
Dennis,
Is this a free country? Your arguments are specious.
If you want to be free, you have to allow others to be free. Many here can’t see the forest for the trees. If my smoking pot affects you, then you should have to prove it first. If you can, then I should be liable to pay restitution. Example, I smoke pot, then I get in a car accident. Does it really matter that I was smoking pot? No. what matters is I got in the accident and I owe you or your next of kin (in case of death) restitution. If you feel unsafe on the road with pot smokers, buy a more crash resistant car. If I get sick, I should pay my hospital bills. That is a flaw of law, not of the pot smoker.
The “War on Drugs” and “Getting Tough On Crime” is just COSTING TOO MUCH MONEY !!! Even the “Fiscally Conservative” Repukes will have to admit it !!! We have MORE PEOPLE IN JAIL THAN ANY OTHER NATION !!! The majority on “Drug Crimes” …