zero, I’m willing to bet that a majority of dealers are in it on a sort of hobby/moonlighting level- the construction worker that has turned a spare bedroom into a grow room, or a college kid who can get Jamaican pounds on the cheap, and sells to his friends on a markup.
yeah, I was kidding. My interest in arguements like this is normally nil. But, I couldn’t pass up the one liner. 
Who says drinking alcohol isn’t tainted? Depends on the person, really. I had a girlfriend who basically crawled into a bottle. Not that things wern’t 99% over anyway, but that made it easy for me to dump her. I see drinkers and see people who might end up embedded in bridge abutments, with blocks of leather for a liver, beating SO’s for fun and sport…
I suppose most people don’t see a problem with it, but I do. Granted, we can argue this one all day, and this really is just my opinion…
I vote too, but the 2 major parties in this country, the far-right and the near-right, don’t have any plans to help legalize for the fear of anti-drug backlash. Most pot supporters are third party members that almost never make it into office. The problem isn’t ‘get off your ass’ its government doesn’t work at all for certain issues.
Its not the pot that the Ruling Class hates. It’s the pople who smoke pot that they hate. We said “up yours!” thrity odd years ago and they’ve never forgiven us. If they have a good stiff drink for every toke we take, we’ll be dancing on thier graves soon enough.
For is it not written “Verily, for whatsoever shall go around, therefore shall it come around”?
Also, something like"And there shall be great giggling, and noshing of kif".
So wouldn’t it be a good idea to sell pot in a liquor store where employees can card the kids rather than leave the dealing to high school kids who don’t care how old their buyers are? They have machines now that won’t allow a buyer to make an age-restricted purchase without running the magnetic strip of his drivers license through a machine. Seems to me like this would cut down on teen marijuana use, especially considering that some 85% of kids consider marijuana easier to get than alcohol!
So why is pot still illegal? The fact that its three biggest legal competitors (alcohol, nicotine, prescription drugs) are among the highest-paying johns of the whores in Congress might have something to do with it…
I must disagree with this statement. I can see your reasoning for it, but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean more people will use it…(right away)
Just like with alcohol and tobacco, it’s up to parents to set limits and guidelines for their children.
In Canada,(specifically B.C.) we have several proactive politicians trying to legalize or, atleast decriminalize marijauna. The motion (I think it’s a motion) goes to the Senate in the fall.
In Vancouver, there are a couple of businesses that cater to the pothead. Cannabis Cafe (sp?) and Hemp B.C. My wife and I checked it out last time we were at the coast. Many people were rolling and smoking and drinking coffee and so on, all out in the open and quite relaxed. It was very refreshing. There was a table in the back of the room with a coffee grinder set up on it. There was much loose pot on the table and in the grinder. I asked a nearby patron if he minded, of course he didn’t, and I rolled a zepplin of doob and off I went. We bought a coffee mug for 16 bux before we left.
I’m not saying that adding another drug to the legal list is always a good thing, but this drug is a common as aspirin, and the tax advantages are to great to pass up.
The “It’s a gateway drug!” argument is amusing. If a teenager has to sneak around and deal with unsavory characters to score some weed, he’s already in contact with the sort of folks who’ll sell him coke or acid or heroin.
If he didn’t HAVE to see these people in order to get high, bingo! No contact with hard drugs!
Hey, Newt Gingrich tried to legalize it, and looked what happened to him!!
I’m a cynic on this one, I guess.
The government makes much more money on pot being illegal than it would if pot were legal.
With pot outlawed, the government gets to impose stiff fines on those caught with it. In addition, there are the laws which allow confiscation and sale of property used in connection with drug-dealing activities. This has been an absolute gold mine for law enforcement agencies. They are confiscating houses, cars, boats, antiques, etc., etc., and selling them for huge bucks.
Legalize pot, and all that money is gone.
“But wait,” you say, “We can make up all that lost revenue through taxation! Legalize it and tax it!”
The problem with that line of thinking is that pot would be almost impossible to tax. It is a weed after all. Anybody with a windowbox and some topsoil can grow it. Heck, you could grow it in a lot of places just by throwing seeds on the ground. How do you tax something like that?
I think a candidate who musters up the courage to come out in favor of legalization is going to be surprised at the amount of positive voter response. This year’s presidential election would get very interesting, I predict, if someone like Jesse Ventura jumped in and started advocating legalization as part of his platform. I can almost hear the sound of 20 million potheads peeling themselves off their couches to go vote! 
I’ve never tried to grow tobacco, so I don’t know how hard it is, but can’t you make the same argument for tobacco?
In any case, the answer is marketing, marketing, marketing. I smoke Marlboros instead of growing tobacco in the windowbox and hand-rolling it because, down deep, I see myself as a rugged cowboy type. I drink Michelob instead of brewing my own beer because Tonight is Kind of Special. I’m sure I’d fire up an Acapulco Gold 100-millimeter filter-tip because the teevee ads have assured me that I’ll feel great and get lots of long-legged blonde women.
I think it is illegal to grow tobacco without a licence. Can anyone back me up on that?
My Wild Assed Guess: It’s illegal to grow tobacco, cure it and transport it WITHOUT a tax stamp from the Treasury Dept.
I doubt that simply growing it is against the law.
Incidentally, that’s how marijuana was first illegalized, back in 1937. FDR signed a bill (the Marijuana Tax Act) making it against the law to trasport it without the special stamp, and then the Treasury Dept. didn’t make up any stamps. Or made them up and didn’t issue them.
HorseloverFat wrote:
Ah, now this relates to the main question of my OP directly.
To wit: Why is there more backlask against political attempts to legalize marijuana than there is against political attempts to keep it illegal? Why does running on a pro-legalization platform make a politician lose more votes than (s)he gains?
Tobacco is not an easy crop to grow. It grows only in a very narrow climate range, it is subject to a number of pests and fungi, and it is a huge pain in the ass to harvest. On top of that, it has to be “cured”.
I don’t think the tobacco analogy is a good one, or an alcohol analogy, for that matter. People could make their own alcohol, of course, and avoid taxation, but again, it would be a huge pain in the buttocks to do it.
Weed is just that. A weed. Easy to grow. Easy to harvest. Tough to tax. So tough, in fact, that I predict the government would wind up losing money on any taxation efforts, owing to the enourmous resources that would have to be devoted to sorting out and squelching illegal pot.
It’s the baby boomers fault… blame it all on them
I think the reason it stays illegal is because there is not a clear number of people who admit to smoking it. Most people chant ‘legalize it!’ from an anonymous message board post, but in the light of day how many of us will stand up to our fellow co-workers, parents, children, and right-winged christian friends, and say with a smile… “I smoke pot, and I’m proud”?
I want it legalized… but I’m not Man (well I am not a man at all, but you get the point) enough to stand behind my convictions, step out of the black-lighted closet and shout out… “FREE THE WEED”. That’s not saying however that I wouldn’t get my butt off the couch and go vote… I would definitely vote for it!
I’m rambling at this point… time to light up again
Yeah, I can’t believe this subject has shown up again! You’d think it would be in GD by the second post.
Yet, still, MARIJUANA is NOT Illegal everywhere. Course the OP didn’t state just where they were talking about & besides, as I said before, the book, THE HISTORY OF MARIJUANA covers it extensively.
You missed the biggest one of all http://www.druglibrary.org and http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer
Neither is good-quality mj particularly easy to grow.
And what did you suppose the difference was with good quality mj?
Read enough on the subject and I am sure you will be struck by the similarities. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer
Not really. I have made my own wine from my own homegrown grapes on occassion. No big deal. They sell beer making kits in the stores.
On my web site, you will find the Federal Financial Analysis of the Legalization of Drugs. Overall, it shows a 37 billion dollar annual savings. There is no breakout for mj specifically. I think there is every reason to believe that it would follow the current model of micro-brewers of beer – specialty flavors which support small producers. As for growing it at home, some would, but only in about the same proportions as those who make their own wine or beer.
There will always be a market for that super-duper kind bud that’s grown hydroponically, constantly tested to make sure the levels of nutrients are right, and grown from the seeds of the best pot in the world. Most people don’t want to go to that kind of trouble for a buzz; a decent indoor setup would cost several hundred dollars. If you want to get fancy, it could run into thousands of dollars. Everyone wants to smoke the best weed, though, so I predict a very large market for high quality pot if it’s ever legalized.
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I’ve never tried to grow tobacco, so I don’t know how hard it is, but can’t you make the same argument for tobacco?
In any case, the answer is marketing, marketing, marketing. I smoke Marlboros instead of growing tobacco in the windowbox and hand-rolling it because, down deep, I see myself as a rugged cowboy type. I drink Michelob instead of brewing my own beer because Tonight is Kind of Special. I’m sure I’d fire up an Acapulco Gold 100-millimeter filter-tip because the teevee ads have assured me that I’ll feel great and get lots of long-legged blonde women.
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Brilliant…very good points. It is all marketing. The is a huge market for pot. If it were sold at, lets say, liquor stores, many people would buy it.
It’s illegal to make gin in your bathtub, so make (or rather keep it) it illegal to grow pot in your window box.
Regards, Graeme