Boycotting seems to be falling out of favor as a tactic because it may hurt more people than it helps.
If you assume all drugs come from gigantic, murderous cartels, that might be the case.
If killing police officers was a routine part of the pot growing industry, then you *might have a point. But this guy was clearly nuts. He could probably just as easily gone on his killing/suicide spree if he caught his wife cheating or got fired from his job.
The maximum penalty for cultivation of pot in Canada is 7 years, with a mandatory early release after 1/3 time served for good behaviour. No sane person is going to kill four humans and risk four consecutive life sentences to avoid doing 2.5 years at most.
In any event, I think that the majority of pot sold in Canada is grown in very small operations, like some hippie’s basement. Small attic hydroponic operations, that sort of thing. The bike gangs and such tend to focus on the stuff that has more profit potential and less work.
You can buy lettuce from your local farmer who uses agricultural methods that meet your standards. The same is true for pot if you care to make the effort.
It sounds like your view of the marijuana trade is based on the media’s portrayal rather than personal experience.
I agree with the OP. All people spotted smoking cannabis should be shot on sight immediately. We need to put a stop to this menace. We should have death squads roaming the streets seeking out these “cannabis dens”.
Yeah, but you pick up some great souvenirs along the way :D.
::d&r::
Can’t hold that free market back. 
I’d just like to point out that the police weren’t even there for the pot. They went there to seize property and found the pot while they were there. Also, this is Canada… the guy would be in a lot more trouble for his gun collection than he would be for his plants.
I think the OP does have some merit. A fair bit of the money spent on pot will be collected by organised crime, and may then be spent on more damaging activities. However, I’d say that press and public hysteria over pot, and politicians more interested in votes than effective drugs policy are at least as culpable as the pot users. Legalisation would be a simple way to deprive criminals of income.
(For the record, I have heard sensible arguments against pot legalisation, but I’ve heard the hysterical ones far more often).
Cite?
Dude, you can take my bong when you pry it from my stoned, phlegmatic hands.
Stranger
Hmmm.
Let me state my biases here. I tried pot about a half dozen times during high school and college, and the only reason I tried it that many times was out of sheer disbelief that, through body chemistry or whatever, it did not have the effect on me that others reported that it had on them. Pot always made me extremely pissed off to be wherever I happened to be at that moment, and despise everyone in the immediate vicinity, which, I’m led to believe, is a somewhat anomolous reaction to the drug. Later on, when it wore off, I would feel better. So I’m not disposed to think much of it in the first place. For its own sake, I don’t particularly care if pot is legalized.
However, marajuana seems to have the potential for medicinal benefit, and I think this ought to be objectively studied. “Side effects include euphoria or irrational misanthropy.” Throw in anal leakage, you’ve got half the drugs already on the market.
My problem with the whole Pot/Prohibition analogy to it illegailty fueling crime is: Did the repeal of Prohibition make the Mob go away?
No, but did make them less powerful, and less likely to influence politics.
IIRC the problem (besides the loss of tax revenue) was that the Mob was also influencing and corrupting local governments, and I do think the corruption came from the powerful realizing prohibition was a joke, and the speakeasies of the day many times put the mob in contact with the powers that be. Once prohibition was repealed, the Mob had a harder time to corrupt government. (Less money, and less access to the powerful)
The Mob, however had a way to remain in business: drugs.
I do think today the very well to do also fuel most of this traffic, it is less corrupting to the government than Alcohol, but the corruption IMHO is still there, it is time to shrink the power of the mob even more by ending this war on drugs.
Exactly.
The thread title is inaccurate, but this sentence in the OP is better & escapes the fallacy:
Some sort of collective responsibility thingy. Of course, on that basis, all of us probably consume some commodity or service which is linked with unpleasant activities.
Also, he clarifys that the crime-inducing link in the chain is the illegality, not the drug per se.
Jojo, I expect better from you. You put words into my mouth. Care to address the OP?
Which does make a stronger case for culpability lying with prohibition more than those who partake of the black market, don’t you think?
Depends on one’s view towards drugs. If you think pot should not be prohibited, then you’ll hold policy culpable. Otherwise such events are unfortunate side-effects of the “right thing to do”, irrespective of the actual etiology.
In any case, what is clearly (unintentionally) false in the OP is that this was a pot raid. The cops went to [url=]repossess a truck:
Also, he was a nutcase and had prior non-drug criminal convictions
This is just wrong. In 1960, a quarter century after Prohibition ended, a bootlegger’s son was elected President.
The reason Prohibition failed is that alcohol has a long, above-board history with western civilization. Too many people simply thought the law was wrong for it to be effectively enforced. Not so with pot.
I fear that legalized, prescription pot is going to set up a similar situation to what now exists with OxyContin. There are thieves and black market sellers for that, and they would still exist if marijuana was reclassified as a medicine.
How does that prove GIGObuster wrong?
I would like, if I may, to bring this discussion out of the theoretical for a moment.
About three years ago, my father was arrested for his part in a large-scale hydroponic marijuana growing operation. A couple years prior, he was having financial trouble. He couldn’t find a job, he was getting at least one call a day from the credit card companies, and he was faced with the looming prospect of sending my brother and I to college. When one of his buddies asked if he would help them start growing pot, he agreed. He was the “farmer” - in charge of taking care of the plants. (No wonder he grew such great tomatoes at home!) Fortunately, for a variety of reasons, he only had to serve a year-and-a-half in a minimum security facility.
There are many people in the drug world who do terrible things. There are also middle-aged church-going people with children to support. Every time I see one of those government “Buying drugs pays terrorists” ads, I think, “Buying drugs paid my college tuition!”