Keep marijuana illegal :: Haphazard howls

Haphazard howls

Keep marijuana illegal

Aug27/08 12:43:04
Listening To Matchbook Romance - Monster
Feeling chillin'
Smoking a blunt

Does anyone else support keeping marijuana illegal?

There has been a lot of talk from my co-workers lately about Barak Obama and his stance on legalizing weed. They're all prepared to go and actually vote this election because of it. They want to be able to go to a store, buy some pot, and walk around smoking joints like they were cigarettes. I doubt things would ever get that liberal but it seems to me that legalization of marijuana would be a very bad thing for those of us who enjoy it on even a semi-regular basis.

The first thing that would happen, if pot was legalized, is a spike in prices. There would be so many sin taxes on it that the high price of name brand cigarettes would seem like a steal. The goverment would have to get money out of it somehow. Noone does anything for free.

The next step would be regulation. Special interest groups, such as Mother Against Drunk Driving, would be up in arms and insure that the government regulated the amount of actual marijuana one could get, or more likely, the amount of THC in the marijuana. That means you could go in, spend $60 on a laughable amount of weed and after you get done smoking it all up a little while later, you're left with only a slight buzz because it has almost non-existant levels of THC.

This would also lead to greater degrees of punishment for those caught selling non-regulated or non-approved marijuana. The stuff you get from your dealer now would be black market goods, not only illegal as before but worse since the government would then be losing money on anything not sold through their system. Don't think so? Try to grow cigarette tobacco sometime. You'll get in more trouble being caught for that than for growing your own pot.

I say keep marijuana illegal. What needs to change is the penalties. Marijuana needs to be taken off of the list of schedule 1 narcotics. Granted, so does MDMA as it has been approved by the FDA and is still used for the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but that's a rant for another time.

Marijuana needs to be lowered to schedule 3 or below on the list of narcotics. Keep it illegal but get rid of the ridiculous penalties for possession or selling. Those are my thought on the subject anyway...

roj Sep2/08 05:52:04

I don't believe that they could tax it. See, I can brew beer or wine at home. I don't pay any taxes as long as I brew less than 250 gallons a year that the BATF would allow me to do. Anything else over that would require me to bottle my alcohol, take it to the nearest package shop to get all of my bottles stamped with a tax stamp and pay x% on it. Now, I could always go over and never tell a soul.

Then there's distillation. That's completely illegal to do without a license. Once again, I can still do it (and I will be soon) and not tell a soul so I can brew moonshine (like I will be doing).

Who says I can't grow it inside my house like so many people do? Why, they can bust me for it, but that would be just like busting a moonshiner for distilling homemade alcohol. Same thing, different substances.

Veil Sep2/08 15:29:52

I'm not saying that there wouldn't be people growing their own like there are now. I just think the government would regulate and tax the larger growers, importers and distributers. I could certainly be wrong about how they'd go about doing it, but that's just how I see it happening if it actually did become legal in the U.S. I'll be the first to admit I was wrong if it ever does get accepted as legal and doesn't get taxed or regulated, though even that would take many years of lobbying and pressure and while California has taken the first step, I doubt I'll ever see federal support of it in my lifetime. I can't see the future though. I can only make predictions based on history. This is one of those subjects that I do hope I'm wrong about all across the board ^.^