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Why Obama Really Might Decriminalize Marijuana
www.esquire.com ^ | December 23, 2008 | John H. Richardson

Posted on 12/23/2008 10:20:03 AM PST by kennedy

Famously, Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved the United States banking system during the first seven days of his first term.

And what did he do on the eighth day? "I think this would be a good time for beer," he said.

Congress had already repealed Prohibition, pending ratification from the states. But the people needed a lift, and legalizing beer would create a million jobs. And lo, booze was back. Two days after the bill passed, Milwaukee brewers hired six hundred people and paid their first $10 million in taxes. Soon the auto industry was tooling up the first $12 million worth of delivery trucks, and brewers were pouring tens of millions into new plants.

"Roosevelt's move to legalize beer had the effect he intended," says Adam Cohen, author of Nothing To Fear, a thrilling new history of FDR's first hundred days. "It was, one journalist observed, 'like a stick of dynamite into a log jam.'"

(Excerpt) Read more at esquire.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; agenda; anslingersghost; atf; bho2008; bhodea; decriminilization; dopersrights; drugs; drugwars; firstdoper; freedom; legalization; libertarian; liberty; marijuana; morejbts; obama; obamatransitionfile; potheads; stoner; warondrugs; wod
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To: bassmaner

Heck...the Fed’s will just corner/control the market on pot...and tax, tax, tax, tax, it..!!


41 posted on 12/23/2008 10:51:14 AM PST by Osage Orange (Congress would steal the nickels off a dead man's eye's...............)
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To: kennedy

and then there was the NFA of 1934...


42 posted on 12/23/2008 10:51:33 AM PST by woollyone ("When the tide is low, even a shrimp has its own puddle." - Vance Havner)
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To: KEmom

Paper companies were behind the “Reefer Madness”

Alaska has decrimilized THe Green. UP to 4 oz for personal use is no pro blamus.

More than 4 and off to jail you go - big time.


43 posted on 12/23/2008 10:52:26 AM PST by ASOC (This space could be employed, if I could only get a bailout...)
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To: KEmom
I don’t have back-up for this, but I’ve heard that the oil/gas companies were behind making hemp illegal since it can be used as a fossil fuel...

Hemp was made illegal due to tireless efforts of a gentleman named Harry J. Anslinger. Mr Anslinger had witnessed how J. Edgar Hoover had managed to create the FBI and leverage himself into running it and wanted to do the same because he had been a prohibition commissioner and prohibition had been repealed and he needed some job security.

So Anslinger propagated horror stories (e.g. Reefer Madness) about Marijuana abuse and got the white folk terrified that all their women were going to be raped by Mexican farm laborers and negro jazz musicians who were high on hemp. He lied under oath to Congress and it all paid off when he got Marijuana taxed (remember the first step to outlawing something it to get a special tax on it (watch out for this with guns and ammo under The One) and got himself appointed as Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN - notice the similarity to FBI) which, like J. Edgar, he made a career of and stayed in the job for 32 years.

44 posted on 12/23/2008 11:01:43 AM PST by atomic_dog
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To: kennedy

Obviously we don’t need any legal drugs on the streets judging by how many stoners voted for Obama.
There is no other way to explain how so many people don’t havea clue.

Put that idea into your pipe and smoke it.


45 posted on 12/23/2008 11:05:29 AM PST by o_zarkman44 (Since when is paying more, but getting less, considered Patriotic?)
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To: KoRn

Yeah. They could get a lot of taxes and put police back to preventing violent crime........WOW MAAANN!


46 posted on 12/23/2008 11:10:21 AM PST by o_zarkman44 (Since when is paying more, but getting less, considered Patriotic?)
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To: kennedy

Lend-Lease


47 posted on 12/23/2008 11:13:23 AM PST by metesky (My retirement fund is holding steady @ $.05 a can.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

I know no pot smokers who speak like your caricature of a pot smoker.


48 posted on 12/23/2008 11:22:32 AM PST by Magic Fingers
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To: Just another Joe

My child died of a drug overdose.

You have just told me his death cleansed the gene pool? And that when he was 13 he should have been strong enough to not experiment with the marijuana that led him through the gateway of hell to bigger and better thrills?

I believe in karma to people who give such hurt, but am trying to overcome it. May God protect you from your stupidity and never suffer loss like mine. On the other hand, if you or someone you ove is reborn as an Amsterdam junkie, it might be poetic


49 posted on 12/23/2008 11:24:52 AM PST by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: bassmaner

‘bammy has a bigger directive than socialism. Socialism is just one of the tools being used toward the bigger goal of the total destruction of the institution of the family.


50 posted on 12/23/2008 11:25:35 AM PST by MrB (The 0bamanation: Marxism, Infanticide, Appeasement, Depression, Thuggery, and Censorship)
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To: Magic Fingers
stoned kitty Pictures, Images and Photos
51 posted on 12/23/2008 11:28:49 AM PST by MrB (The 0bamanation: Marxism, Infanticide, Appeasement, Depression, Thuggery, and Censorship)
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To: Just another Joe
This might seem harsh but there is such a thing as self cleansing of the gene pool.

I haven't touched marijuana in years and if they legalized it tomorrow, I still wouldn't touch it. In my younger days, however, I smoked acres of the stuff.

That being said, the most dangerous thing about marijuana is having a drug conviction show up on a background check. More lives have been damaged by this than the drug itself.

52 posted on 12/23/2008 11:30:25 AM PST by Drew68
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To: theDentist
Out of curiosity, were it to be decriminalized, which companies would be “ready to roll” immediately and capture the market?

Really hard to profit on something so easy to grow its called a weed. If decriminalized I dont see a large trade in store-bought pot. Some for the connoisseurs who want a different type of bud.

For the most part those who want to partake regularly will likely try growing one female plant and harvestign the buds as they mature.

In any case it will remove the profit potential that feeds the black marketeers.

53 posted on 12/23/2008 11:31:16 AM PST by corkoman
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To: silverleaf
I am sorry for your loss.
If what I said hurt you I apologize.

But to be candid, yes, he should have known, at 13, after experimenting with marijuana, that he did not have the resistance to addiction and never EVER experimented with anything else.

If your child had no children he did take himself out of the gene pool.

Once again, this is a fact of life not a reflection on your child.

54 posted on 12/23/2008 11:34:01 AM PST by Just another Joe (Warning: FReeping can be addictive and helpful to your mental health)
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To: kennedy
Because he'd like to toke up again clear and legal.


55 posted on 12/23/2008 11:36:29 AM PST by weegee ("Let Me Just Cut You Off, Because I Don't Want You To Waste Your Question" - B.Obama Dec 16, 2008)
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To: KoRn

Moving the DEA under the ATF is sensible?


56 posted on 12/23/2008 11:38:36 AM PST by weegee ("Let Me Just Cut You Off, Because I Don't Want You To Waste Your Question" - B.Obama Dec 16, 2008)
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To: corkoman

So drug dealers will get out of the cocaine, meth, crack, acid, x, xanex, etc markets if pot is legalized? I doubt it.


57 posted on 12/23/2008 11:40:07 AM PST by weegee ("Let Me Just Cut You Off, Because I Don't Want You To Waste Your Question" - B.Obama Dec 16, 2008)
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To: silverleaf
Dead drug users and lives lost to addiction are “acceptable collateral damage” to these people. It is horrible

And how many people choke to death om their on vomit because they drank themselves stupid.
Nobody forces these idiots to do drugs,It's collateral damage to the Constitution we need to worry about

Gotcha!,
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58 posted on 12/23/2008 11:40:08 AM PST by Charlespg
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To: KoRn

Amen. My dad was watching TV news the other day and saw this huge pot bust. Right after watching them complain about the economy. He made the valid point of how much money was spent in man hours hunting down the pot, setting up the bust, now prosecuting the criminals involved and then feeding and housing and paying medical bills on the pot dealers.

He said “Don’t we need priorities right now? Somehow, pot just doesn’t seem to be such a big deal when they are saying our banking system might collapse”.

He also said “How many cars were searched for pot in Florida while that little girl was rotting in the woods right up the road from her home”.

He wasn’t really wrong I don’t think.


59 posted on 12/23/2008 11:40:39 AM PST by autumnraine
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To: corkoman
Really hard to profit on something so easy to grow its called a weed. If decriminalized I dont see a large trade in store-bought pot. Some for the connoisseurs who want a different type of bud.

Tobacco grows like a weed. Alcohol ferments naturally in rotting fruit. Nonetheless, purveyors of both products have made billions from selling them. Americans are lazy. Just as most of us don't grow our own tobacco and brew our own beer, many will gladly pay for a mass-produced marijuana product.

60 posted on 12/23/2008 11:41:28 AM PST by Drew68
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