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Why don't we just throw Mother Nature in jail and be done with it?
That'll teach the pot-heads! WOSD money well spent....
I certainly believe it. I grew up where the ditches were full of the stuff...not that anyone really cared all that much.
Good to know the endless tax dollars we dump into the failed war on some drugs are going to eliminate a natural growing crop that we should be growing on a large scale anyway.
Give Harry Ainslinger some credit. The man was an empire builder.
I know you dig threads like these, so I thought I'd ping you.
The reason for establishing colonies in the US was to obtain "naval stores", which means hemp, used for rope as well as pitch derived from trees.
Another case where the war on drugs has ruined an entire industry.
AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhh - ditchweed!
Another example of American tax dollars at work.
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Many years ago, back in the early 1970's, I was visiting relatives in Iowa. Driving around the small farm community, I saw a lot of ditchweed. In fact, it was almost everywhere.
It's reputation was that it had no effects when smoked, so I left it there.
But...I found myself driving down a back road, and there, at the roadside, on the corner of a cornfield, was the largest marijuana plant I had ever seen. Apparently the cornfield was irrigated and fertilized, and this plant had grown where water drained from the field. It was right on the edge of a ditch.
It was at least 12 feet tall, and was topped by enormous purple buds, some over a foot long. These had little beads of resin on them...enough so they glistened in the sunlight.
Well...I took it upon myself to remove a couple of those buds and wrapped them very carefully in foil and plastic, then shipped them back to my home in a box full of other stuff, via UPS.
Dried and groomed, I ended up with about 6 ounces of the most kick-butt weed I had ever smoked. It was literally amazing.
Just a tale from the long-distant past. I gave up smoking dope not too long after that, and haven't had as much as a toke since then.
1. Legalize it to be sold as alcohol is legalized, with all the strictures and taxes involved, allowing it to be sold only to those over 18.
2. The following penalties would apply to illegal distribution:
(a) 10 years prison for any who supply or sell it to minors.
(b) 20 years prison for second violation
(c) Death by hanging/life in prison for 3rd violation
3. The following penalties would apply to any intoxicated person operating a motor vehicle:
(a) 5 years prison for first offense
(b) 10 years prison for second offense
(c) Death by hanging or life in prison for operating a public vehicle (school bus, police vehicle, etc) first offense. Same for 3rd offense private vehicle
4. The following would be the penalty of public THC intoxication:
(a) 180 days in jail, first offense
(b) 50 lashes with horsewhip, 2 years in prison 2nd offense.
(c) 30 years in prison, 3rd and subsequent offenses.
That should be sufficient, I would think.
By my understanding, plants grown as "marijuana" are the same species as ditchweed, but are selectively bred so as to enhance THC production. Wouldn't having large quantities of ditchweed in the wild tend to cause cross-polination of "marijuana" plants, thus degrading them?
Well, if the DEA is successful enough, ditchweed might become endangered, in which case it will win federal protection as an endangered species, and disturbing it will then become a felony.