Why Marijuana Shouldn't Be Legalized, Uet

[Gandalfs Girl]

Marijuana is proven to fix a lot of problems that the U.S. has, as a citizen you want them fixed.
Over 30 million people admit they smoke it and 50 million people have tried it. That's an exaggerated estimate. A lot of people also automatically infer that they also support marijuana legalization. That is not the case. A lot of cannabis enthusiasts have looked at the positive outcomes of legalizing pot for example just to name a few; cannabis can be made to Bio fuel, paper, wood, cement, fibers, medicine, oils, food from seeds, etc. Also a lot of people use it for these purposes and it can be used as a revenue for tax. This would be useful as we are in an economic crisis. But could it be that it is too good to be true? I say yes because of things we are looking past only focusing on the positives. Pot being illegal actually leaves present jobs existing, leaves itself from the hands of the central government, and does not create laws that make it easier for the government to tolerate them (meaning it doesn't give them an excuse to take advantage to make ridiculous laws), and these are the main arguments why it should be kept illegal.

As a lot of citizens who are for the legalization of cannabis know the positive aspects that legalizing will bring, I'm going into the negative aspects.
Let me go more into detail about the negative aspects it will have in business. If legalized, it would bring a whole new magnificent market for businesses to want to dip their feet in. People might say that's a good thing for the economy but the way the economy works is through jobs. It being on high demand will lower prices for companies to succeed and that won't bring much money through tax, just an amount that is more than it being illegally sold. Marijuana can replace paper companies, pharmaceuticals, fuel, lumber, etc. Its not just replacing a simple product though, it's replacing a product that is in high demand from people. It would make these companies that produce these items lose a lot of profit. Cigarette companies would have to lower their prices to compete amongst the remaining cigarette companies. Lumber would be replaced because fiber is easier and faster to produce through cannabis. Tylenol or other simple over the counter drugs would lose a lot of clients because clients would see how much better it works. This means that in order to see the same profit it made before legalization, companies would have to employ less people. Also the simpleness of producing these products would require less jobs. A lot less. It will because cannabis is so magnificent and perfect. A lot of you already informed of it know. It wouldn't be a good thing for people who lose the jobs they wasted their time trying to acquire skills for. A loss in demand would bring less profit to these businesses which will make them need less people. Also it's much easier to produce through a machines. It doesn't take a credential to push a specific button on a machine that can easily produce the product. Jobs are essential for the economy not to go down and also we are available to more rights and less taxes. So the products that we are using currently would provide more jobs and more profits and rights would be left alone.

Choices would be taken away. Earlier I spoke of rights being taken away. Now let me try and convince those who don't know, or don't really see a point in what it replaces but just care that it won't be illegal for them to use. Distributor stores won't be affected, they will just have another item to sell. What will be affected are the producers. Massive companies like Marlboro would not want to let the chance of profit go by. Trust them, they will get in the business and invest millions to self produce it and put it in boxes. This will make home growers and underground gardens disappear because of how hard it is to compete. Honest people today who grow make a living supplying it to the underground or commercially. Seeing a loss in profit would discourage them from competing from home. Seeing no use in growing in massive amounts to make a profit. This allows the companies to save a lot of money because as soon as they make regular and sufficient customers, they will facilitate the growing methods and produce a limited range of THC percentage which is the chemical that gets one high. Growing methods have a lot to do with it. The care in the product would be disregarded. Because the companies eliminated so many home growers, it's going to be harder to find growers or dealers who have pot that was specifically grown with care. Later after that we are going to see laws that control the substance's chemical ratios like we have seen occur to cigarette and alcohol companies. To find specifically a potent bud would be almost impossible to find, because most cannabis users would only send profits to big companies. Mostly because people only know one dealer and the easiest dealer they would find is the super companies and thus contributing more to this negative occurring effect. It is really complicated to find foreign cigarettes that are made exactly the way they make it outside the United States. We shouldn't be limited in the type of bud and potency we are trying to acquire as it is a right to have. It's not the governments fault but a result of business and regulations. Unless people boycotted companies and only used organic home grown cannabis bit giving big companies business is inevitable as they also make it easier and faster to get a hold of through convenient stores. Don't discourage underground growers from growing. Cannabis being illegal allows us to find all types of bud anywhere and not specifically coming from someone or somewhere. Leave cannabis from the big companies which are really in control of the government.

This concludes me to explain the cons legalization would have on our individual rights. This pertains to people who see the potential marijuana legalization has, for the people who see no benefit but their own, and people who don't care because they don't plan on using it at all. By legalizing marijuana you are handing over a lot of rights to the government. For example the government believes that machinery can not be properly used by a person who is intoxicated by cannabis. They will make rules to discourage people under the influence from operating machinery. Also giving them a good reason to point their finger at anybody operating a machine and assume he is on cannabis. Maybe the person accused won't be under the influence but now they have a reason to stop you and check you out. Personally a lot of people are magnificent drivers while under the influence but now they could be fined much easier than being fined for possession of pot while its illegal since they have no way of knowing if you seem to act like a person holding ounces of pot. In the workplace since pot is legal, they can assume anyone smokes pot and in result more companies would require drug tests more often. Because it is illegal, the government assumes you are discouraged in doing it, and they just focus on the producers of cannabis. The work place would still be allowed to discriminate pot users from working for them as it is not discriminative to do so but instead a safety precaution. Other rights will be taken away, it's just a matter of the government to find excuses why to do the things they do and maybe they won't be explainable but instead avoidable as to avoiding problems in case science can't prove that cannabis makes people impaired enough for one not to trust someone with things. Cannabis being illegal means that one can do it while people assume one knows they're not supposed to do it and thus leaving government to chase big time growers and suppliers and not give an excuse to inspect anyone properly to make sure they aren't under the influence. People are supposed to not give a reason for Big Brother to be watching. Government shouldn't take one's rights away from them and make them an easier target.

With this I conclude that we are not ready for marijuana to be legalized. However we need to develop ideas that will establish more jobs, ways to not hand over the business to evil companies, and rules that won't give power for the government to take rights away from citizens. Jobs that the cannabis business can take away are irreplaceable by the people who lost their jobs and jobs right now are too important for our economy's well being to just take a wild leap on what exactly those jobs are. Companies are selfish and only look for their profit, and then they consider the customers happiness by how much profit it will give them. Don't let companies control your choice. The government wants to control situations much easier. Don't give in as it will affect your rights. Some day we will consider what effect legalizing marijuana will have to our country, but for now let's fix the crisis our country is in by not taking such a giant chance in legalization, so consider it this November.

 

[kolah]

A nicely written piece. Did you write it?

Andt yes corporate power is upon us. But we can take it away with local grass-roots community living..

 

[fishwhistle]

Yeah i was wondering the same as kolah,did you write this?

 

[FiveAM]

TL;DR

Looks like a copy and paste at first glance.

 

[Gandalfs Girl]

It was written on the spot, I was thinking in my economics class about it so I decided to write it down. I'm going to try and find specific examples and cite them to have a "broader base".

 

[squiggly]

I couldn't disagree with you more completely than I do. I feel like you're not taking into account the situation in non-med states.

The good that would be done by legalizing MJ outweighs the bad.

A few examples of this:

1. It is common knowledge that the MJ industry underpins and makes possible most of the other illicit drug trade stemming from Mexican cartels who have killed thousands upon thousands in a fight to decide who will get to bring their drugs to America. This alone is enough for me, when one considers the death toll--remember that it is going up every day, and that we as a country are on the hook for that. It's on our hands, it's in many of our lungs.

2. Minorities are disproportionally incarcerated for non-violent offenses involving MJ.

3. The war on drugs is a failure, and has cost us billions of tax dollars to achieve the following results.

A. Addicts still overdose.
B. Makes gangs profitable and necessitates violence (to resolve drug-related disputes, there being no legal recourse for this)
C. Artificially raises the cost of growing a plant from dirt.

4. Keeping a policy of prohibition GUARANTEES, not makes possible, not will maybe happen, GUARANTEES that children will be drug dealers. A sad and awful consequence of prohibition.

5. Billions wasted on keeping up the DEA, 60% of our entire police force (which are only required as a result of the war on drugs), and a corrections system which now, increasingly, incarcerates non-violent offenders for longer than rapists and murderers.

6. The big fat shit prohibition takes on the idea that a human is responsible for him/herself and may decide how to lead their life (what to eat/smoke, when to eat it/smoke it).

7. As a result of 6, it is frankly, an unconstitutional policy. No such policy has a place in our country--or we stand for nothing.

I think your analysis is thoughtful and its coming from a good place--but you've left so much out. Too much.

Coming from a completely drug and gang inundated area, and having an understanding of what has caused it to become that way (the drug war) I absolutely cannot accept any analysis that doesn't lead to repeal for reasons which amount to:

1. Big business will take over our drug we like
2. Some people will not be able to make a living growing a, comparatively, small amount of plants in the scheme of things.

Those do not compare with the loss of life, liberty, and happiness that this drug war has caused.

First of all, if it hadn't ever been made illegal--big business would've had it from the start. The same can be said for people making a profit off a relatively small field of (any) plant. This is not something which is possible for any other plant, it is only possible for this one because it exists within a black market.


We cannot reason that the bad, incorrect, and unusual things which are happening as a result of the drug war become reasons unto themselves justifying it (even if some of them are good--although I assure you they are mostly bad).

That's not how this works.

If a law creates a problem, it's not proper to treat the problem as though it was there before the law was created (this seems pretty straightforward to me).

If I give you a medication which makes your skin flush, I'm not going to then look at your skin and say you have the flu and prescribe you flu medication--and when that makes you drowsy give you something to pep you up, and when that makes you antsy give you something to level out your nerves. You get my picture.

We have a problem here, and we have a unique frame in which to look at it. We've done this before--with alcohol.

It didn't work for EXACTLY the same reason the drug war isn't working. Bad people took over the business, and the artificially high prices made possible by prohibition itself made them rich--so rich that they could spend 90% of their profits on smuggling and combating law enforcement and STILL make an absolute killing.

It is the same today, it's just different drugs and scarier times.

I'm a person who has seen the worst of what the drug war has to offer--and it IS NOT happening in med states (by and large) as it regards MJ (obviously it does for more illicit drugs). No matter what you think the aftermath of appeal would bring, it cannot possibly hope to compare with the death and destruction of life that has come with prohibition.


Prohibition is just a special regulation that says you can't make any more regulations. It says, "here, shitty people, YOU deal with it and make it profitable."


For as terrible as I'm sure a Marlboro MJ product would be, and the sympathy I'd surely feel those who have been able to make a living off growing a plant they love--I would prefer both of those outcomes x2 vs carrying on our current policy for one more day.

 

[squiggly]

If you want to read a more complete economic analysis of MJ, here is a great one:

http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/MJCropReport_2006.pdf

It basically says we're a bunch of fucking morons for continuing along this path--and it's accepted as gospel by 98% of all economists who look at it. (Not blowing smoke here--this article is considered the treatise on why to end the drug war by economists).

It also says that not only are we not winning the war, but that drug production and consumption has gone up more radically in the presence of prohibition than it would have been expected to otherwise (and this analysis is borne out when we look at alcohol prohibition and how it affected usage rates [extremely positively] and countries where MJ is NOT illegal, where rates are significantly lower).

A Summary of the article:

1) Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States, more valuable than corn and wheat
combined. Using conservative price estimates domestic marijuana production has a value of
$35.8 billion. The domestic marijuana crop consists of 56.4 million marijuana plants cultivated
outdoors worth $31.7 billion and 11.7 million plants cultivated indoors worth $4.1 billion.


2) The top ten marijuana producing states are California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii,
Washington, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama., West Virginia, and Oregon. Five states
(California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington) had marijuana crops worth over $1
billion.)


3) Despite intensive eradication efforts domestic marijuana production has increased ten fold
over the last 25 years from 1,000 metric tons (2.2 million pounds) in 1981 to 10,000 metric tons
(22 million pounds) in 2006, according to federal government estimates.


4) Marijuana is the top cash crop in 12 states, one of the top 3 cash crops in 30 states, and one of
the top 5 cash crops in 39 states. The domestic marijuana crop is larger than Cotton in Alabama,
larger than Grapes, Vegetables and Hay combined in California, larger than Peanuts in Georgia,
and larger than Tobacco in both South Carolina and North Carolina.


5) From 2001 to 2005 federal and state eradication programs eradicated an average of 33,033
outdoor cultivation sites per year and an average of 2,701 indoor marijuana grow-rooms per year.
From 1982 to 2005 the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Domestic Cannabis
Eradication/Suppression Program (DCESP) eradicated over 103 million cultivated marijuana
plants, an average of 4.3 million cultivated plants a year over this 24 year period.


6) The ten-fold growth of production over the last 25 years and its proliferation to every part of
the country demonstrate that marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the
national economy. The failure of intensive eradication programs suggests that it is finally time to
give serious consideration to marijuana’s legalization in the United States.

 

[silverhaze]

I don't think this is original text.

 

[kolah]

It was written on the spot, I was thinking in my economics class about it so I decided to write it down. I'm going to try and find specific examples and cite them to have a "broader base".

Very nice GG.

 

[Gandalfs Girl]

I couldn't agree with you more squigs I agree that because of the prohibition, we dug a hole to collect ourselves in shit. What it created was loopholes that branch out and create different problems that one can question how they are related. Everything is related. Which is why I considered that maybe, rushing the prohibition to come to an end specifically at this time is not critical. What happens when you rush a plant to its harvest? You get weed. Weed is weed but how shitty are you willing to let your weed be? Are you really deciding that you are willing to let that idea go already? You're introducing a completely new independent variable into the market. The dependent variable should only be going up or staying the same. By introducing this new variable into society, it doesn't affect the dependent variable only, it affects the independent ones by changing their original value. Our government let's food companies grow artificial food that has nutritional value but also comes with possible causes for cancer, diabetes, and gluttony. It is super hard to find real products now adays. They are always substituting with cornstarch and catalysts that are questionable by biologists today.

How I'm comparing this to MJ is the government will grant companies control of the product, will only but beneficial regulations that only benefit one side of the coin. It branches to other problems that the government decides whether it's a real issue. It runs independently owned producers to run out of business, which also results in a guess of what you're purchasing is really made of. By using catalysts in our food, it has caused a number of negative results in the way it is introduced to our bodies, rushing whether it is chemical reactions or ideas, always results in someone taking abuse because they were at a higher advantage to do so.The deaths are tragic but all of that will eventually end, all I'm saying is we need more cons that people need to consider, to recognize them and avoid them. Right now we have too much to think about. If we introduce such a good idea right now being the way things are, something is going to go wrong and it will affect other problems we already have and we will be more lost than we already are.

 

[squiggly]

If we introduce such a good idea right now being the way things are, something is going to go wrong and it will affect other problems we already have and we will be more lost than we already are.

I think it's a matter of law, in the simplest form.

The law is an unconstitutional one which essentially says the government needs to protect us from ourselves.

It's barely a hop skip and jump from that to realizing that it's unconstitutional--especially when we consider the negative effects vs the positive ones.

I actually did a big presentation at my university during my undergrad about this exact thing (economic concerns as it regards MJ). What my analysis found was the following (all drawn from at least 3 studies having found essentially the same information):

1. The demand for MJ is inelastic (does not respond significantly to price)

2. For every drug arrest made, violent crime increases [involving burglary, armed robbery, etc] (correlation was significant with an r^2 of .989--an extremely high and significant value for such a correlation) This was found in Chicago, New York, and Germany (forget the city).

3. 50% of those under the age of 18 smoke MJ. Of that 50% over 90% of them buy drugs from a person who is ALSO under the age of 18 (found in UK, Germany and USA).



If we do a little analysis here are some sense-based conclusions that we can draw.

As a result of (1): The governments policy of focusing its efforts (both in practice and monetarily) on interdiction is not in congruence with what we know about economics. That being:

A. Where demand exists, supply WILL follow.
B. When demand is inelastic, a change in supply (and accompanying change in price) will not affect the demand.
C. In some cases, a decrease in supply actually increases demand when it is inelastic. (Example: demand for food is inelastic, if the price of food skyrockets due to a large decrease in supply--people will actually buy more in an effort to "stock up" due to their uncertainty about availability).


Furthermore, when interdiction occurs--it raises the value of the product which remains on the market. This not only makes the remaining dealers richer, it also makes it easier for the two dealers who pop up to replace the one who was busted to get a foothold.


As a result of (2): We can start to see how the drug war takes on its true form. This form is the one which has turned out country from one holding a high moral standing with low violence and conflict, to one where that is increasingly not the case. We saw this with alcohol prohibition also. When you make bad people rich, and remove legal recourse as a way from them to settle disputes--the result is more often than not violence. This correlation is a representation of that, but this only describes the equivalent value of each arrest as it regards violent crime. The majority of this effect is achieved solely by prohibiting a substance in the first place. Within a year of alcohol prohibition hundreds if not thousands of people were dead as a result of it.

As a result of (3): We are turning our children into drug dealers (I sold my first bag at the age of 9, was on the corner by 12, and was a local cocaine kingpin by 17--dealing by the kilo). This research represents this undeniable truth. Would you rather have lower quality bud in a marlboro pack, or your child in debt to a person with a gun who will kill/injure him/her if they do not make "rent"? It seems like a silly question, but all over this country people don't realize that this is the choice which is right in front of their faces. To me, it is the most important and obvious choice that we can all make.



Let me make this very clear. If we make MJ legal--we will shut down illicit drug business over night. We will bankrupt cartels within a few years, if not faster. We will remove the main reason for gangs and thereby gang violence over night.



End of the day it's not about what the effects are going to be. It's about whether or not the law is constitutional and, hence, legal.

It is not.

Under our law, we cannot consider the issue further--or any of the effects which may come from a resolution. If the law is not legal, then it is not legal. It must be removed and REPLACED by regulation--a legal construct.

We may not like the results, but they will be the right ones--whatever they are.


Nothing could be more wrong than allowing this policy to go on for another day.

Consider a person who wants nothing to do with drugs and never will:

1. This person is surrounded by violence and danger which results from a policy meant to protect them against something they do not need protection from.

2. This person may have friends or family who die/fail as a result of drug involvement--the policy was intended for these people and it routinely fails them and they overdose/die anyway.

3. This person pays, by way of taxes, for all of it.

4. This person, should they have children, are also paying for the government to ensure that their child has a 15% chance of becoming a drug dealer.


It should be clear why this is unconstitutional. They take your money, your safety, and your kids--and what do they give you back? A bunch of addicts with ruined lives or whom are dead. That is to say, there is very little if any reduction in demand or use from ANY of these policies whose SOLE INTENTION is to reduce demand and use.

There is no question that this is the intention of the law--and no question that, economically speaking, the only way to effect demand is to institute demand reduction policies (these comprise a whopping 0.5% of the drug war budget)--like state sponsored rehabs, needle exchanges, anti-drug commercials. When dealing with inelastic demand, supply interdiction is COMPLETELY MOOT and only serves to help criminals become rich--it does not reduce demand. Despite this, and the stated purpose of the law (demand reduction) 99.5% of the drug war budget is spent on supply reduction policies/practices.


So we get a bunch of bad so that we may receive none of the good which was promised (and there are plenty of studies which show that we're actually increasing demand and use through the policy of prohibition--as well as historical data showing that exactly the same thing happened during alcohol prohibition in this country).


There are no economic concerns, or concerns about the quality of marijuana--none whatsoever--which can even APPROACH the level of trumping any of this--and there is much MUCH more wrong with this policy. What I've said here isn't even close to a summary of the shit storm.

I literally have boxes of research on all of this and none of it (and I've looked exhaustively) suggests that the drug war is a good thing. NONE. Not even a bipartisan commission, put together by Nixon 1 year after the controlled substances act went into effect, seeking to determine the favorability of its results. This commission suggested that the policy was doing a lot of damage--including increasing use, proliferation, and violence. The commission unanimously recommended that the policy be repealed immediately, and regulatory measures be put into place. The results were never reported to American people, and the commission was dismantled by Nixon--all of this is available in the library of congress.


If we're worried that legalization might cause problems--you're correct to say we should plan for those and be on the lookout for them. But there are no problems of this nature that will compare with:

1. The problems this policy causes.
2. The implications of violating the rule of law at the highest level (the constitution) in a society. If we don't follow the law, we follow nothing. We stand for nothing.

They called alcohol prohibition "The Noble Experiment" because it came from a noble thought, but it did something experiments often do--it failed.

Drug prohibition is the same failed policy, with the same failures and problems caused. We'll figure it out one of these days.


Like I said, I think you're analysis is thoughtful and what you've said is true--but it ignores the depth of this problem and the effects that it has on society each day that it stands. One day of drug prohibition causes more problems, of a more severe and life ending/destroying nature, than would be realized in the first 5 years of legalization--it's just that so many of these problems have become such an endemic part of our society that we forget what put them there to begin with.

 

[Gandalfs Girl]

I admire the way you write. You're enforcing what I am saying by just letting people be more aware of preventing in, and keeping the vital issues at view. The only thing we seem to not agree with is legalizing it presently. I wrote this to make people consider it one more time before they make a decision. You considered my reasons but you're convinced by standing along with the vital problems prohibition causes. I admire your stand. Its not over until it is legalized so until then I'm going to figure out complications that could arise after it is legalized so others can recognize them and stop them. I've been reading recently and learning what happened during 1900-2012. I will cite things because an opinion is nothing without a trusted source. By the way good Job again and spread the word that people shouldn't buy from national business' and help out local growers. Also for them to grow themselves. There is nothing better and safer than being independent and replying simply on your production.

 

[squiggly]

I admire the way you write. You're enforcing what I am saying by just letting people be more aware of preventing in, and keeping the vital issues at view. The only thing we seem to not agree with is legalizing it presently. I wrote this to make people consider it one more time before they make a decision. You considered my reasons but you're convinced by standing along with the vital problems prohibition causes. I admire your stand. Its not over until it is legalized so until then I'm going to figure out complications that could arise after it is legalized so others can recognize them and stop them. I've been reading recently and learning what happened during 1900-2012. I will cite things because an opinion is nothing without a trusted source. By the way good Job again and spread the word that people shouldn't buy from national business' and help out local growers. Also for them to grow themselves. There is nothing better and safer than being independent and replying simply on your production.

In reality it should be legalized such that we can all grow it in our yards like any other plant--this would remove the problem of big business taking over from day one.

If it were to be legalized, this would be the initial status of the plant (can be freely cultivated)--as with any other plant that is not regulated. I believe this is how it should be.

 

[Gandalfs Girl]

At least it will be for the romantic thinkers.

 

[sun]

Does legalization mean all weed will come from oakland ? Will it all be og & purple only ? How about regulated potancy?Will it actualy be leagle federaly?are they going to step on medical users inorder to make it quasi leagle?because its already decriminalized.(mabey regulate like wine .Grow smoke or give away what you like )The last bill was a joke.