No: California does not need any more stoners

San Diego Union - Tribune ^ | 3/26/09 | Jim Gogek

[Cicero]

Goodness. The San Diego Tribune makes sense from one end of the article to the other.

[NormsRevenge]

The SD U-T has one of the few editorial boards in the state that have a clue occasionally.

[Oldexpat]

I really don’t understand how they would enforce tax collection on marijuana if it was legalized. It is so cheap to grow and there is an existing tax-free distribution system. Just how would the state tap into that?

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

[ConservativeMind]

I’d be for legalizing pot if everyone who did something under its influence had the same thing done to them three-times over in return.

If you smoke and drive and run into something, you get three times the damage done to your stuff. If you maim someone, you lose three times the functionality. If you kill someone, well, you die.

[HiTech RedNeck]

How is it that Fornicalia can clamp down on Winstons but not on Mad Dog 20/20?

[The Worthless Miracle]

As we all know - no one who smokes weed can be productive or successful! This must be left up to the state.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

I really don’t understand how they would enforce tax collection on marijuana if it was legalized. It is so cheap to grow and there is an existing tax-free distribution system. Just how would the state tap into that?

Where there's a will, there's a way, be sure of it.

[Darwin Fish]

Bull shite

[TSgt]

I’ve never used drugs however I’m sure there are many successful people who smoke marijuana. The fact is that most drug users are not high-achievers and quite often they are on some kind of public assistance. Walking around stoned all day simply isn’t going to propel anyone through life unless they are a member of the Grateful Dead or Phish.

[Izzy Dunne]

Marijuana intoxication means cognitive impairment, grandiosity, short-term memory loss, difficulty in carrying out complex mental processes and impaired judgment. It severely hurts your ability to perform at school and work. It saps initiative and drive. It increases confusion.

Did anybody else read this and immediately think O'bama?

[Martin Tell]

Just how would the state tap into that?

Just like they do with booze now. Make it illegal to sell without gov't stamp. For over 200 years the feds and their state counterparts have done a (mostly) effective job at stopping moonshiners.

Last week in Tennessee a moonshiner killed himself rather than go to prison.

[Seruzawa]

Ah yes, here come the Drug Warriors (Armchair Brigade).

[HiTech RedNeck]

Getting marijuana is now easy enough that almost anybody who sets his will to it can score.

Where this marijuana comes from is a different bothersome question. It used to be clandestine local growers, who varied in their viciousness. Now Mexican thugs have pumped the country full of cheap and strong marijuana, and we see someone kidnapped daily in Phoenix because of it. (That poor person should move to Maine. Bada-bing.)

Like the failed alcohol prohibition, it seems to have become a question of not whether, but how, people will get their pot.

[IDFbunny]

Marijuana lobbyists argue that if a dangerous drug such as alcohol is legal, then marijuana should be, too. I've never understood that. With all the problems we have with alcohol, why would we want to legalize another intoxicant?

Because the problems from alcohol are worse, the auther admits, so to should we go back to alcohol prohibition?

[bill1952]

>I’m sure there are many successful people who smoke marijuana.

sure there are.

[bill1952]

the auther admits, so to should we go back to alcohol prohibition?

You sound stoned.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Everybody must get stoned!

[HiTech RedNeck]

(Just kidding)