# Any reason why marijuana is still illegal? Any GOOD reason? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 13, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704 "2003-12-13T01:29:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/41 "2003-12-13T21:00:52Z")
One has to wonder when some bold seeker of national office will gather the courage to call for federal decriminalization. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/42 "2003-12-13T21:05:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by spoke- \* > \*\*One has to wonder when some bold seeker of national office will gather the courage to call for federal decriminalization. \*\* When that seeker has no chance of getting elected to that office, and no further greater political ambitions. ---
**Author:** ![Ryle\_Dup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Ryle\_Dup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryle_Dup)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/43 "2003-12-13T21:09:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thea Logica \* > Cannabis being grown for its psychoactive properties is fairly labor intensive relative to tobacco. A big corporation with its eyes on the bottom line (not to mention stock values) isn’t going to want to invest in hiring the people they would need to go out into the fields and tend the plants, uproot the males before they can pollinate the females, carefully harvest the plants, clip the excess leaf from the buds, etc. They want to grow things that can be grown on huge plantations and harvested by machines that don’t want health care benefits for themselves and their baby machines. MJ is best grown in small patches, or even in indoor grows, by people who have the time and inclination to look after the plants. It’s probably one of the few crops that would be more profitable for the small family farmer than it would for a big agricultural corporation. \*\* This isn’t neccesarily true, a large corporation can afford the best growing techniques, and there is a lot of automation that can be done, but you are right that it would require a lot of manual laborers. I’ve seen some pictures of the government grown MJ(they grow it in labs for studies, etc.) and my god, these people use top equipment and latest technological stuff. A big corporation can and will still dominate over “small farmers” with pricing to the avg consumer, however, people will be able to grow their own personal stash if it’s legal. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/44 "2003-12-13T21:09:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Gyan9 \* > \*\*When that seeker has no chance of getting elected to that office, and no further greater political ambitions. \*\* Probably true for the moment, but I would imagine the numbers are shifting with each new generation of voters. The consensus in this thread is a foreshadowing. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/45 "2003-12-13T21:11:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > \*\*There really aren’t that many. > > My husband works in a huge prison. Once, I asked him how many people were in there for possession of “personal use” amounts of pot, and he laughed at me. > > In our state, it’s a misdemeanor. You get a ticket, and a fine. > > The only people he has in that prison incarcerated for drug possession are people who were imprisoned for having vast amounts-- dealers, in other words. > > Sure, miscarriages of justice happen. We’ve all heard the stories of a kid going down the river because an over-zealous judge sentanced him harshly for having a joint in his pocket, but it’s certainly not the _norm._ \*\* Your husband’s laughter notwithstanding, there are an AWFUL lot of nonviolent drug offenders in prison. Here are some numbers from the Human Rights Watch website: > [@](#): > > “Punishment and Prejudice” also documents how drug law enforcement has fueled the exploding U.S. prison population. During the 1990s, more than one hundred thousand people were admitted to prison on drug charges every year. Over 1.5 million prison admissions on drug charges have occurred since 1980. The incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders has propelled the nation’s soaring incarceration rate, the highest in the western world. [Here’s a link to the site.](http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/06/drugs0607.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/46 "2003-12-13T21:18:33Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lissa \* > \*\*There really aren’t that many. > > My husband works in a huge prison. Once, I asked him how many people were in there for possession of “personal use” amounts of pot, and he laughed at me.\*\* A [recent study](http://www.mpp.org/arrests/fas61699.html) estimated that 15,400 people were incarcerated in the United States solely for possession of small amounts of marijuana. This is not a huge number in the context of a total inmate population of about two million, but even one is too many. \*\* > [@](#): > > In our state, it’s a misdemeanor. You get a ticket, and a fine.\*\* I wish your state were the norm, but only 11 states have decriminalized marijuana. In the other 39, even if you don’t get sent to jail, you can get arrested and tagged with a criminal record. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/47 "2003-12-13T21:24:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Julius Henry \* > \*\* > As a further argument to this point of view, the next time you are in the supermarket, take a look at the bottled water. It has the nutrition information label on it. It tells you how many calories are in water. It tells you which vitamins are in water. Now head over the the beer. See how many calories are in beer. Or how much vitamin A. Or sodium. In case you don’t already know, you cannot get this information. \*\* Don’t attribute this to malice or campaigning by alchohol & beers companies. The simple things is that alchoholic beverages are not allowed to display any nutritional information on the grounds that no alchoholic product may advertise iteself as being healthy in the slightest way. Even the companies that claim their light beer is “less filling” or has “fewer carbs” are pushing their luck. This was actually a problem a few years back when some folks wanted to add nutrients to fortified wines to prevent developmet of dementia in hard core alchoholics. It was a catch 22, they could put it in with listing it and they weren’t allowed to list it. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/48 "2003-12-13T21:29:44Z")
Is the NORML web site really a good place to cite in this debate? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/49 "2003-12-13T21:31:36Z")
> [@](#): > > The simple things is that alchoholic beverages are not allowed to display any nutritional information on the grounds that no alchoholic product may advertise iteself as being healthy in the slightest way. That’s even MORE idiotic. Beer may not be a great source of calories, but how could knowing how many calories are in it be a bad thing? There are way worse things for you, nutritionally than beer, that have to list their info. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/50 "2003-12-13T21:50:25Z")
> [@](#): > > Alcohol too. We started out being the nation that drank the most, and alcohol was a HUGE industry for a long long time. I’m not sure what America’s international drinking status is, but alcohol is definitely still a huge industry. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/edb3f5/32.png) [@The\_Asbestos\_Mango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Asbestos_Mango)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/51 "2003-12-13T21:59:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*Is the NORML web site really a good place to cite in this debate? \*\* Why wouldn’t it be? The alternative would be to slog through thousands of websites in search of information that they’ve hunted up and condensed for us. They document and cite their sources quite well, (I actually used a couple of the same sources they use for my term paper), so there’s no reason to doubt their credibility. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/52 "2003-12-13T22:01:50Z")
Okay. I’m just saying it’s not an objective source, and sometimes you need to take those with the requisite grains of salt. ---
**Author:** ![II\_Gyan\_II](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/bbe5ce/32.png) [@II\_Gyan\_II](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/II_Gyan_II)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/53 "2003-12-13T22:27:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*Okay. I’m just saying it’s not an objective source, and sometimes you need to take those with the requisite grains of salt. \*\* Please cite one “objective” source for any illicit drug information. Everyone has an agenda. See my related [post](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&postid=4212427&highlight=marijuana#post4212427). ---
**Author:** ![Monkeypants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@Monkeypants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monkeypants)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/54 "2003-12-13T22:45:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Thea Logica \* > I think the Marlboro Green story is most likely a myth. It is. For all the reasons you stated as well as the fact that it would be a trademark, not a patent. You can’t reserve trademarks – that would be counter to American policy on intellectual property. You have to show use. And they can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/55 "2003-12-13T22:49:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Monkeypants \* > \*\*It is. For all the reasons you stated as well as the fact that it would be a trademark, not a patent. You can’t reserve trademarks – that would be counter to American policy on intellectual property. You have to show use. And they can’t. \*\* Ok, thanks. Sorry for the hijack. We now return you to your monthly GD thread about marijuana legalization. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mhernan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mhernan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mhernan)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2003, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/56 "2003-12-13T23:50:03Z")
Thea Logica, what a nice name. If you mean by good reason, I assume you mean justification. I do not know about rationalizing the policy, but I do have a slant that I believe is strongly biased, though it does contain a significant shot of truth. I want to use just marijuana as an example of a policy that extends to the creation and enforcement of a vast Controlled Substance Policy that is an extension of the American foreign policy designed as a tool used to amass and implement political controlling structures world wide. If the paragraph above sounds insane, it is, and you should congratulate yourself at seeing this. Give me a second to justify your observation of that insanity. Marijuana, as an object of social harm is many, many times so small in proportion to that caused by use of alcohol by the young and old alike. It is laughable when we see the disproportionate application of penal sanctions directed at the marijuana culture (that includes of course millions of alcohol users), balanced with the penal sanctions directed at only alcohol users. No one overdoses on grass. Death and disease in the most socially ugly form can be traced to the pathological intake of alcohol. Neither of the effects of grass or booze is criminal behavior per se, yet that is what the political forces have decided to direct against the people. For instance, agree that there is always some potential; for harm to the individual and/or the society that we can unambiguously attribute to grass an/or alcohol. The option of treating that harm as a form of “disease” when so expressed, other than as criminal activity is consciously and overtly excluded as an option as decided our governmental forces. What we get by the application of penal sanctions is a huge bureaucracy that justifies and operates as an incentive to create an ever-growing police state, which is always a necessity for the maintenance of a totalitarian government. Draw the picture thus: A hypothetical country similar to ours has a large drug culture with the difference being there are no penal sanctions. Millions of people are using all the drugs we see presently. This is 40 years ago, lets say. Then one day the government enacts all the controlled substance statutes we see presently. Fast forward 40 years and what do you see? Well, we see a 40-year history of a society that has artificially created a huge criminal culture the country. Many millions have criminal histories all enforced with an armed police state, dutifully managed by a cooperative judiciary and prison system. This ersatz criminal culture has been educated over and over again and again and many hold PhD degrees as graduates of the prison system. The millions include broken families, lost employment and education. Most are bitter, angry and prone to a lack of any respect for the system that smashed their lives. The civil rights of the drug culture are expressly and casually ignored. All sense of constitutional limitations on governmental power is ignored, without being mediated by an aware public. Add to this the artificial strata of persons criminalized for gun possession, a clear and unambiguous right guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment. Add up all the inter-social effects and you find a dominant theme in the society which is the drug culture are the evil that must be handled with swift and determined law enforcement structures. International I said above, remember? A few months ago Bush made a public statement linking the War on Drugs to the War on Terror. The propaganda machine let us know that Afghanistan is a source of heroin that supplies terrorists. Link all the massive force of NATO, with its vast interlocking intelligence and policing structures with our own military and intelligence and policing structure which is, for the most part hidden from public view, and therefore hidden from public and political analysis and control. Of course, we see the huge drug culture denied, at the very least, political voice by the expressly denying them the right to vote, when they have a criminal record. Each succeeding generation must expose its children to the criminal element both real and manufactured, repeatedly and over again, which guarantees the ever present demand for an ever growing police structure. The public is lulled into a state of political somnambulism. This condition is not in the planning stages, it is operational. At one time governmental activity could act as viciously as they chose against Blacks, Hispanic with little or no fear against a white majority backlash that is until whitey was forced to open her eyes and to see what was happening. Now, Blacks and Hispanics and Women are n o longer the pacified and obedient sheep they once were. A growing police state needs justification in a real democracy. There just isn’t enough street criminal activity to justify the levels we see to day, in the absence of the combined affects of controlled substance statutes and arms control statutes. There is enough criminal activity, in numbers, without artificially stimulating the growth street crime, to justify more police activity directed against white collar corporate criminal activity. However, in the best form and substance of government that money can buy, our democratic process is unable to direct a proper level of law enforcement activity at those white-collar criminals [white collar criminal as modernly defined includes some of the clergy]. Your question then: Is there something good about having marijuana being defined as illegal? I would answer, no. So just relax and inhale deeply. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/57 "2003-12-14T00:59:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Evil Captor \* > \*\*Your husband’s laughter notwithstanding, there are an AWFUL lot of nonviolent drug offenders in prison. Here are some numbers from the Human Rights Watch website: > > [Here’s a link to the site.](http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/06/drugs0607.htm) \*\* I completely agree that there are way too many non-violent drug offenders in prison. If I had my way, no one would ever go to prison for using, or selling, drugs. However, your cite was not about marijuana-only offenders, but racial disparity in sentancing. It does not address what _kind_ of drugs were involved. The sentances for possession of equal amount of crack cocaine are far harsher than that for marijuana. (Again, a travesty, but that’s another thread.) \*\*jklann, \*\*your cite does not say _how much_ marijuana offenders were charged with posessing. They may have not been charged with dealing, because of lack of concrete evidence that they were doing so, but they most likely posessed amounts far exceeding “personal use.” (For example, a defendant may have been caught with a pound of marijuana. The police have no proof that he was selling it, but few reasonable people would argue that a pound is strictly for personal use.) In my state, you have to be caught with 100 to 200 grams in order for it to be a misdemenor of the fourth degree, punishable by a maximum of 30 days in jail. 200 to 1000 grams makes it a felony of the fifth degree, which is a maximum of six months to a year in prison. 1000 to 5000 grams (which is about three pounds of pot, by the way) is a third degree felony, punishible by 1 to five years in prison. The point is that possession of up to approximately two ounces of marijuana will, at worst, earn you thirty days in \* jail.\* Two ounces is really a bit more than is usually purchased for personal use. I think it’s terrible, personally, that anyone would go to jail or prison for this kind of offense, no matter how much pot they posessed. My only point was that a kid caught with a joint in his pocket is highly unlikely to end up in prison, depite the common misconception. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/58 "2003-12-14T01:39:53Z")
I knew all kinds of people that bought marijuana by the ounce or more for personal consumption, unless my memory is failing (but I don’t smoke pot, so I’m perfect, right? :D). ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/59 "2003-12-14T02:15:16Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m not sure what America’s international drinking status is, but alcohol is definitely still a huge industry. Sure, but a lot more industries have spung up too since then. Back in pre and post Revolutionary America, it was often the most profitable thing a farmer could do with his land. ---
**Author:** ![Mhernan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mhernan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mhernan)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2003, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704/60 "2003-12-14T04:03:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IWLN \* > \*\*#1 reason not to leagalize marijuana. It makes _you_ a lousy lover.☹ \*\* I can’ decide whether you are being cnical or that you sincerely beleive and energetically support statutes that exact criminal sanction, penalize people for making a personal choice to ingest a substance into their bodies. What is a more crude intrusion into a persons’s right to decide what she ingests, or not ingests into her person? Scan through the responses here and you find a lot of ignorance, stupidity, opinion, serious contemplation, error, truth, you know the drill. Is it your opinion that the people have right to set around their computers, or their legioslative council tables and decide who should go to jail, or suffer some penal sanction for ingesting some substance? What if they be completeley ingorant of, or partially aware of, or enjoy an in depth understanding of he substance, does it make any diference? If a person is arrested for being under the influence of and possessing with the intent to sell marijuana or methamphetimine or heroin or hashish or whatever, are you aware that the defendant does not have the right to challenge the assumption that she was harming or threatening the health and safety of anyone in the universe at the time of the event/arrest ? What if IWLN in a momenet of silly weakness decided to smoke some grass with a person she trusts, just to see what all the shouting and screaming was about. She puffs and inhales deeply. She smokes a couple of joints and just as she says outl oud, “I am under the influence of marijuana” the door comes crashing open and she is arrested for being under the influence of a controlled substance? If IWLN has minor children then there is a possibility that the children may be taken away from mommy and daddy, who is the trusted one smoking with her? This is a hypothetical, so try to answer as if the event occured as defined. What do you do? 😉 http:// [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-reason-why-marijuana-is-still-illegal-any-good-reason/218704.md?page=4)