Posted on 03/26/2009 1:10:42 PM PDT by steve-b
...The dismissiveness toward the question of ending Prohibition as both a good in itself and a form of tax revenue is, however, depressing. His answer was a non-answer. I'm tired of having the Prohibition issue treated as if it's trivial or a joke. It is neither. It is about freedom and it's deadly serious....
(Excerpt) Read more at andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com ...
legalization would not be the solution to our economic problem he is right about that....
.... decriminalization hasn’t helped Califoniya any
JMO, but I prefer not to give Sullivan any attention, including valuable-to-him hits on his website. He’s the Ted Rall of bad prose.
I would prefer decriminalization to outright legalization. At this point I’ll accept just about anything to get the legalization obsessed crowd to shut the hell up for a year or two. LOL
thats a good point. I really get annoyed by the argument that legalizing pot would make the cocaine traffickers stop the violence on our border.
right.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2215381/posts
“Parents Class”
Legalization would open the floodgates for home-growing. Which is fine. But pretending it’s some sort of economic cure-all is as bogus as pretending it’s medicine.
Sullivan is right (for once). It’s about basic freedom. Grown men should be free to grow what they please and use it however they choose.
“Prohibition” now, is it? LOL. The post is just a comment, not an article.
Eh, he manages to say in the first two words of the headline what many media scribes can’t express in entire books.
Much of the contraband that they try to get across the border is schwag, and it would decrease the number of smugglers trying to get other stuff through.
That's because California has not decriminalized pot, they passed medical marijuana legislation, Pot is still illegal through-out California, as the Feds are so pleased to show in their unconstitutional raids.
No, they would not have to "legalize" any other drug.
I was agreeing with another Freeper that in order to stop cocaine smugglers coming across the border you would need to legalize a lot more than just pot.
Wasn't crime a factor too?
Here's my problem with our drug policy. When the puritans and Temperance League types wanted to ban alcohol, at least they had the decency to pass a Constitutional Amendment.
However, we allow our government to ban a whole host of substances by fiat (including rather harmless intoxicants like weed), without going through the proper legal motions.
We need to start our substance policy over from scratch and say to the Prohibitionists, "You want pot to be illegal? Fine. Go get a Constitutional Amendment."
I don't think so, all that is needed, is control of the border... Most pot comes from the good 'ole USA, pot is the biggest U.S. cash crop as it is the most commonly used drug in the U.S. and that has stayed fairly steady for a very long time.
Another industry would be born. Farmers would have new crops to grow and sell. New packaging and distribution companies would be born. Retail outlets would be created and the government would reap tax revenues at all levels of this.
Couldn’t agree with you more!
Oh boy, more money for the government. Just what the beast needs... more food.
And I’m actually hearing libertarians making this case. Crazy.
There was a HUGE increase in home-growing when California legalized “medical” marijuana. Back in my smoking days, we had no less than five sources for the stuff, all licensed growers with state issued cards (for various bogus ailments, like headaches). The genie’s already out of the bottle.
Besides, growing for personal use is undetectable and any laws against it would be unenforceable. If the government’s aim is to tax the hell out of it to increase revenues, personal growing will become even more commonplace.
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