Legalization is wrongheaded thinking, usually by those who think it means they can walk around stoned out of their minds all the time, and not get busted for growing a garden full of the stuff and supplementing their welfare income.
Legalization does not mean that. legalization simply means that the government becomes the kingpin, commissions licensed pushers to sell it's drugs and provides them with their own territory. The government regulates the prices and the taxes on these bad, horrible evil (but now legal) drugs, and because they are bad, unrestricted taxation becomes the method in which they control usage (in the liberal mind anyways).
Private cultivation, smuggling illegal drugs, "bootlegging"(dealing0 is still illegal and still a class A felony. And the government will stop at nothing to protect it's turf.
What potheads really want, is decriminalization as described in this article.
9th Amendment means we have the right. Government (at least the Feds) have no rights here.
“And the government will stop at nothing to protect it’s turf.”
Actually, the unnamed “Second Whisky Rebellion” after the Civil War resulted in several hundred dead on both sides. Collecting whisky taxes in the south to pay for the Civil War was largely unpopular and settled nothing.
Saying “the government will stop at nothing to protect it’s turf” is simplistic.
The government sent army contigents into the south to protect revenuers. The government, made up of people who bleed and die, quickly learned not to go into certain areas. Mostly, the goverenment would publicly march its troops around the area for a week or so, scribble a few entries into a log and then quickly pull out. Afterwards the bootleggers hauled the equipment back out and continued brewing whisky.
The second whisky rebellion led to prohibition which again settled nothing.
What works is allowing people to keep the money they earn to pay the whisky tax. That way everyone - people and government - can go about their lawful business without killing each other. But that simple fact will be lost on the socialists infesting Washington.
I suspect we’ll see a “third” whisky rebellion as obuma sees to it that vast amounts of money is stolen from working citizens and it gets tough to pay increased taxes on whisky. As usual, nothing will be resolved and some unknown number of people will die.
Smuggling of many items - smokes, guns, booze, people - is increasing. John Hancock is back in the house.