I hear tell they’s sum lowdown varmints in these here parts that believe marijuany kin make a dadburn fortune fer states that slap a tax on ‘er. Tain’t so, varmints. Peers ya need summon to knock sum sense in ya. Lessen ya don’t take heed, best ta git ready to slap leather, ya flea-bitten, flop-eared bags of fur, ’cause I’m a gonna blast ya.
This just in. Federal prosecutors in Arizona recently announced that their indictments against four major Mexican marijuana smugglers operated their cartel “just like a business.” Federal prosecutors pointed out to jurors that the four defendents, ALL OF WHOM ARE STILL AT-LARGE and being charged in abstensia, managed the cultivation, harvesting, processing, transportation, distribution, and sale of their marijuana just like any normal business would do with a legal product offered to the public.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. After 14 years undercover AND SUCCESSFUL experience with operations against some of the world’s largest, most powerful and sophisticated drug cartels, I simply had no idea how smart, innovative, devious, and yes, even business-like these guys could be. It was a shock, I tell you, a shock.
Here’s the best part. Seems the prosecutors’ star witness is a veteran Anglo internationally-certified 18-wheeler truck driver who they hired to run huge multi-ton shipments of Mary Jane across the border in his truck load of whatever legit cargo he was hauling. It worked until it didn’t. He got busted at the border and is singing like a canary.
Seems the trucker’s big beef with his employer is a promised $5,000-7,000 per trip from the traffickers, but they ended up paying him $2,500-3,000 a load. Dumbass. I’ll bet the farm that they did indeed initially pay him what they promised. But once he was on the hook as a co-conspirator, he was toast. They had him by the balls, and he had to take what they gave him. Or else.
Oh, as for his value as a witness, we’ll see. One thing for sure. Shortly after he was arrested, and I mean within hours, the traffickers covered their tracks completely. They knew what he knew and took steps to erase any useful evidence well before law enforcement officers showed up anywhere to check out what the trucker was telling them. Names, street addresses, phone numbers, emails, whatever. All likely useless. That’s how it rolls in the world of drug trafficking.
So let’s look at some market realities about the marijuana business in the U.S. And how these realities stack up against states who have legalized marijuana for personal and/or medical use to make a few bucks.
CULTIVATION. “Cannabis cultivation and marijuana production operations are extensive throughout California, particularly in northern California. Outdoor cannabis cultivation is increasing dramatically in the northern region of the state, primarily because of expanded cultivation by Mexican DTOs (Drug Trafficking Organizations); as a result, the area is becoming one of the most significant outdoor cannabis grow areas in the state.”
Oops. Not only is marijuana being grown extensively in Mexico, the cultivation here in the U.S. is largely under the control of the Mexican DTOs. I pointed that out two years ago when I cited an example of marijuana cultivation by Mexicans in a U.S. National Forest near Green Bay, Wisconsin (good grief, Green Bay?). And where was the labor coming from? Illegal Mexican aliens. And what do you think is happening in California’s forests, with the help from 2 1/2 million illegals, mostly Mexican, residing in that state?
LABOR COSTS. This one is a no-brainer. For cultivation, harvesting and processing, the marijuana cartels operate on third world labor, in which wages are one-half or less of anything a legal process can establish in the U.S. End of story. No further discussion needed.
MARKET RESTRICTIONS. The states that have legalized marijuana for either medical and/or personal use all prohibit the sale to persons under 21 years of age. That’s MILLIONS of lost customers. Gee, I wonder where the youngsters will get their blow? Same place they get it now.
OVERHEAD. Taxes on marijuana by the states are the biggest factor here, just as they are with alcohol and tobacco (which, unlike marijuana, also deal with federal taxes). And regardless of what type of market the states set up, whether it is largely private or government-controlled or something in between, there will be land purchases, leases, security, property taxes, building maintenance, and a whole host of other costs that are less or even absent for the marijuana networks. And all of these aforementioned advantages for the marijuana cartels leads to ………
PRICE. Here’s where the rubber meets the road. Right now, the average retail price of marijuana is $3,200-$4,800 per pound in the West, $4,800-$6,400 in the Midwest and East, and topped by North Dakota and Hawaii at over $6,500 per pound as the highest prices in the country. These figures come from thepriceofweed.com. Remember, these retail prices reflect what is being charged in the ILLEGAL MARKET, because that is what the market will bear. But these prices are extremely flexible. You can come to places in Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California and buy Mary Jane for $500 a pound. That’s retail!!!! Think Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Tucson, Las Cruces, and El Paso. That’s $31.25 per ounce, compared with the average LEGAL $200 per ounce price at your local state-approved medical marijuana “clinic” in California and Colorado.
Those are real world MARKET FORCES that should tell any rational human being why legalization of marijuana will not work. Then there is the legal aspect, starting with legalizing marijuana for personal/medical use at the federal level (try getting THAT through the House and Senate and signed by the President) and that thorny 1977 UN treaty that classifies marijuana as a Class One drug, along with heroin and cocaine. Abrogation of this treaty, which requires approval by the President and 67 senators, will not occur even in your grandchildren’s time. It simply will not.
So what’s the solution to this conundrum over marijuana? In three words, decriminalization versus legalization. To put in it into three more words, fines versus felonies. This is done in several states, such as Ohio and New York. Get caught with an amount of pot that the state defines as personal use, here’s your “speeding ticket” so to speak. Pay the fine and off you go. No jail time, no felony on your record, and the fine goes into the state treasury coffers without the ginormous amount of money the states would have spent on this folly of trying to make a few extra bucks, which won’t happen, on legalizing and taxing marijuana. Win, win.
I look forward to your praise for this enlightening, thoughtful, fact-filled article …….. varmints.
Footnote for Admin (and our Choctaw friend, Llpoh): Indians win!!!! Indians win!!!! Now in the playoffs through the best team effort by a bunch of no names, no stars EVER. 10-0 in the home stretch. Standing O for the Tribe.
Admin – You and I both know it is not against the law to be an asshole but what do you do with someone who blatantly abuses the privilege? There is no legal action you can take. The only recourse is to warn others of the presence of a world class asshole so they can take evasive action. Therefore I suggest you change SSS’s avatar to a wedge. The wedge is the simplest tool known to man and the basis for the five other simple tools.
Just like a speeding ticket — pay your fine and you go. SSS, If it were that simple I would agree with you.
We all know how the police issue speeding tickets in a fair and unbiased way. Never any entrapment or racial profiling. We also know that they never make mistakes.
Have you ever been speeding, saw a police car and slowed down? So now you see a cop and drop your joint? How is that going to work? DNA tests?
What are you going to do SSS, put more cameras out there to catch these people? More undercover cops?
How many people go to court to dispute their speeding tickets? Just what the courts need — people going to court to dispute pot tickets.
Win, win ? I see too many unintended consequences.
Bear markets in social mood are associated with the END of prohibition(s). Love it or hate it, this is empirically demonstrable.
If brewing beer was as easy as growing ditchweed, liquor stores would sell only wine and spirits (unless the crushing “sin” tax was decremented to near zero.) I have no current or past desire to imbibe of weed, but I’d like to keep my future options open as the ACA spends a decade or two ruining what’s left of medical services.
If prohibiting ANY drug ever made sense, it was alcohol. It is THE most dangerous, costly-to-society “drug” on Earth, yet we know how that went.
Attempts to justify prohibition of pot are equaled in their error only by all the neocon/Likudnik justifications for warfare today.
Prohibition of alcohol extended organised crime from the public sector (government) to the private sector. Look at the jobs warfare between two criminal organizations has created, a small scale MIC/mercenary (Armed Forces) operation with the non-aggressors being the victims.
Yeah, ending the caging of people over their cultivation and/or use of things some people don’t like has been a disaster in Portugal… Oh, wait a minute, the sky DIDN’T fall there, did it?
Flat-earthers are everywhere.
SSS hates to see the USA possibly relinquish its leading role as the nation that imprisons more people, per capita, than any in history. WE’RE #1!, WE’RE #1!
SSS posts an article about mary-gee-wanna?
Reaction #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZkiSYmn74os
SSS- you still think that everyone who smokes weed is a loser living at their mom’s house, getting food stamps and welfare and taking advantage of the system. They are all sitting around playing video games and it is destroying our societies motivation to do anything productive.
While there may be a certain percentage of people who fit that profile and 100% of the people on tv and in movies who are portrayed as marijuana smokers that just is not the reality.
There are many professional adults who chose marijuana over alcohol and live happy productive lifes and get a lot of things done and are generally good people.
No one should be locked up for ingesting anything into their own body, this includes all drugs, not just MJ.
Get over yourself, the points that you try to make are pointless. Gee, someone selling a product runs it like a business. Please file in the no shit file.
If they made it legal anyone could grow a plant and it would put the cartels out of business in a month, at least the MJ business, they would still have other criminal enterprises. Heck they might even go completely legal and try to sell MJ legally and instruct their employees, IE gang members to stop acting like thugs because they now have a legitimate enterprise to protect.
You sir (SSS) are unbelievably illogical in your hatred of all illegal (at least the State says so, so we must comply) substances.
Interesting to watch SSS become more “mainstream” in his views on weed.
Of course they run it like a business. And they have no taxes to pay, no unions to pacify, and an endless customer base. The criminals in Washington are pissing away more money on the DEA and DHS, state, county and local drug task forces, jails, prisons, and lawyers than all the income of the drug cartels. Maybe the government and the ridiculous drug enforcers will be permanently out of business. Let the free market once again save this country from the socialists.
SSS will never learn. TBP monkeys are foghorn leghorn, SSS is the dog:
[img]http://thepeoplescube.com/peoples_resource/image/25889[/img]
I think this is going pretty well so far. No one has showed up to refute or discredit my market-based analysis of marijuana trafficking.
Oh, did I mention that the traffickers already have their networks IN PLACE AND OPERABLE and can react in whatever manner they deem appropriate to any state attempts to deny them their lucrative profits from selling weed? I didn’t? Well, I just did.
“No one has showed up to refute or discredit my market-based analysis of marijuana trafficking.” —–SSS
That’s cuz the two people who will read it are named; 1) Nunn, and 2) Slim … and Slim left town.
Shout out to AWD. Along with Wile E. Coyote and Yosemite Sam, Foghorn Leghorn is one cool, off-the-charts dude.
“SSS- you still think that everyone who smokes weed is a loser living at their mom’s house, getting food stamps and welfare and taking advantage of the system. They are all sitting around playing video games and it is destroying our societies motivation to do anything productive.”
—-JJ3
You pompous dipshit. You don’t what I think, so stop trying to put words in my mouth.
Here’s some reality for you. Do you know what community in Colorado where marijuana sells at $1,000 an ounce or $16,000 a pound. It’s Aspen, asshole. That’s right. Aspen, home to some of the wealthiest people in the entire country. Why $1,000 an ounce? Because the people who live there, which includes quite a few from the Hollywood crowd, can afford it and are willing to pay that price. Market forces, pure and simple. Just like I wrote about above.
Shot your sorry ass down, didn’t I?
Very interesting article on the pot trade and merits of decriminalization of said substance. Well done SSS.
Though I just don’t see why people are projecting all sorts of shit into it. It’s very bizarre and funny at the same time.
“The only recourse is to warn others of the presence of a world class asshole so they can take evasive action. Therefore I suggest you change SSS’s avatar to a wedge. The wedge is the simplest tool known to man and the basis for the five other simple tools.”
—-Roy
I’ll bet you spent hours putting that insult together, didn’t you, Roy?
Here. Let me give you a mystery that should keep that sharp mind of yours busy for a few days.
Why don’t you explain to the TBP readership how Wile E. Coyote can fall off a 1,000-ft. high cliff, splat face down on the desert floor, have a 50-ton boulder fall on top of him, and still manage to crawl out of the hole with just a bump on his head. Think you can do that, Roy? I just know you can. Good luck, Roy.
@ SSS
Wile E Coyote is a fictional character, you being a world class asshole is reality. Can you tell the difference between fiction and reality?
“Wile E Coyote is a fictional character …. ”
—-Roy @ SSS
When I read that, I damn near fainted. After gathering my senses, I looked it up. Sure enough, Roy, you are correct.
If we ever meet face-to-face, Roy, would you please do me a favor and honor me with your autograph? I would be ever so grateful.
SSS sees himself as Yosemite Sam, gunning for potheads, even though he continually gets outsmarted by Bugs Bunny.
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I hate pot because it doesn’t do anything for me. However, I have observed that it has been helpful to other’s. The governer of out state is Terry pension double dipping Branstad and he has vowed that he will never, ever, approve legalization of pot. That is because he had built a whole new prison in Fort Madison, Iowa, to contain those who smoked pot and were caught. Did it cost a alot of money? You bet. Just like he cost’s the state of Iowa a lot of money by being a pension double dipper. How was there enough ignorant people available to vote for this candy coated ass?
“That is because he (Iowa Governor Terry Branstad) had built a whole new prison in Fort Madison, Iowa, to contain those who smoked pot and were caught.”
—-s. Petersen
You stupid fuck. The new Iowa state penitentiary at Ft. Madison is a MAXIMUM SECURITY FACILITY. I looked it up.
I defy you to name one single instance, in any state at any time in the entire history of this country, who was placed in a maximum security prison for just smoking pot. I have to deal with a lot of dumbfucks on this site when it comes to discussing illegal drugs, but you’re inching your way to the head of the line.
Hello, drug cartels ARE a business.
In Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner showed that the structure of Chicago’s inner city crack selling gangs had a corporate structure very similar to…McDonalds. If you’ve never read it, take the time to watch this TED Talk of Levitt talking about it. Levitt reminds me of the Admin.
SSS, I think your information and your conclusions are off-base. There is a business model for the marijuana cartels, but I don’t think you’ve quite captured exactly how it works.
Cultivation and Labor Costs:
Until the the crackdown by the Feds in California in the last year and a half, plenty of NorCal caucasians were growing pot. I’m not disputing that the cartels are in the growing business, but for a while, pot farming was the up-and-coming theme in agriculture in the region. In Oakland people made good money running a school teaching pot growers how to do it. Young people from all over the country attended. It was the decision by the DOJ to start burning fields that played directly into the hands of the cartels, who didn’t want to share their monopoly.
Market Restrictions:
The biggest market restriction has been the attempts by the Federal government to trump California STATE LAW by putting the medical MJ dispensaries out of business. Good for the cartels, no doubt.
Price:
$3200/pound, the lower end illegal retail price you quoted, exactly equals the $200/oz the medical dispensaries charge. There would be plenty of profit at this retail price if pot were completely legal, and there’s room to add a sin tax without pricing MJ users out of the market.
I don’t think too many people smoke $500/pound pot anymore. Not even in Texas. Trust me on that. The going rate in Austin is about $120 for a QUARTER OUNCE of medical grade pot.
Speaking of price, what price is the taxpayer paying all those DEA agents, FBI agents, local cops, prosecutors, judges, private prison companies, county jails, and penitentiaries that would be UNNECESSARY if pot were just legal?
I’ve read multiple sources that estimate if pot were legalized and taxed, it would save me the taxpayer 20 Billion dollars a year.
Don’t get me wrong. I hate the fucking cartels. They have made visiting Mexico, one of my favorite countries, really dangerous. Especially to visit the border towns we used to walk to across the bridge to do our UNDERAGE DRINKING.
As recently as ten years ago, we used to drive into Matamoros to the market, to shop for huaraches and guayaberras and those cool hippie wedding shirts that my beloved looks so good in. Not now. Not for a million dollars. And i wouldn’t venture onto Lake Amistad either, even though it’s very nice lake, and never crowded. People have been known to just disappear there.
Prohibition makes the cartels stronger and more dangerous. Only legalization can ever put them out of business.
I hate the government and people like SSS who think they can lord over me and tell me what I can or cannot grow and ingest.
FUCK YOU SHIT HEAD
The difference between me and SS is that I could care less what he did, as lonmg as he keeps it to himself and does not violate the right of others doing it.
I repeat:
FUCK YOU SHIT HEAD
“I hate the government and people like SSS who think they can lord over me and tell me what I can or cannot grow and ingest.
FUCK YOU SHIT HEAD”
—-taxSlave
Thank you for that well thought out comment. You have added immeasurably to the rational discussion on the dialogue on illegal drugs. I’m sure your remarks will take place as a leading discussion point on national drug policy. Well done, sir.
Like on most sites, you have to trawl thru the crap for the nuggets on TBP.
A contribution like this POV pretend analysis of a classic example of big government involvement, at huge financial and social cost, in the private, victimless pursuits of a large proportion of the populace, is an example of the crappiest of the crap.
Dressing up an obsession with a few clueless figures and a ‘Hey I’m just a cartoon fan type of guy really’ spin doesn’t make it any less an obsession, the author’s vicious responses to comments show that.
Take your reefer madness gibberish and fuck off.
Sure the traffikers run it lke a business. So does the Mafia.
Prohibition gave rise to illegal liquor and , natch, criminal warfare and traffiking illegal booze.
I cant see how prohibition will stop gangs and traffiking of pot.
Maybe SSS has a solution….but he isnt saying what it is.
Thinking as a businessman. Suppose I own a pot farm and pot is legalized. I would do is negotiate with the govt to keep my farm. I would agree to sell to the govt at fair market price. That is win, win. The govt gets my pot away from the illegal market and I get to continue to make money off my farm.
I have no new info.
I logged in just to Thumb Down all SSS posts.
That is all.
“I cant see how prohibition will stop gangs and trafficking of pot. Maybe SSS has a solution….but he isn’t saying what it is.”
—-Kill Bill
It won’t. Then again, I can’t see how prohibition of murder will stop murder. Maybe you have a solution but aren’t saying what it is.
“People will buy what they want.
If they cannot buy it legally, then they will buy it illegally.
If they cannot buy it illegally, then they will learn to make it.”
-Me
You can’t stop the signal… people are gonna buy and smoke dope. You can either legalize it and tax it, or you can keep on throwing people in prison and/or extorting money out of them via “speeding tickets”…
On a personal note, I don’t smoke dope. At most, I partake of good whiskey now and again and enjoy a good smoke at the end of a long day. That’s it. But what a person chooses to put into their own body is their business and none of mine. Or the Government’s by extension. If they want to snort coke in a bathtub with a goat, then hey, that’s their business. Once it starts entering into the realm of MY business (like getting stoned and trying to pilot a vehicle to the local Stop N Rob for munchies) then I start getting a case of the ass. Keep that shit in the privacy of your own home, and all is coolness.
Example: I was out west aways back, going to a technical school. Guy next door? Big time stoner. Not my business what he did. I mind my own.
Except one day he decides to “visit” his “good friends” next door- us. My then very pregnant wife was pretty fucking terrified of this bleary eyed, giggling idiot who just up and walked into our apartment with no fucking warning. It was then very much “my business” what he was huffing/snorting/smoking…
He only left after being “encouraged” with a loaded 12 gauge stuck up his nose.
“Thinking as a businessman. Suppose I own a pot farm and pot is legalized. (What) I would do is negotiate with the govt to keep my farm. I would agree to sell to the govt at fair market price. That is win, win. The govt gets my pot away from the illegal market and I get to continue to make money off my farm.”
—-Leobeer
Well done, Leoqueer. Once again, you show your ignorance of the drug world.
Suppose I’m a major marijuana trafficker in your area, and my bosses decide you’re getting too much of the action and decide to whack your sorry fucking ass and send a HUGE message to you and your brethren in the area. Just to put a punctuation mark on their point, suppose they decide to make you watch your wife getting gang raped and kids get whacked before stuffing your balls in your mouth and shoving a hot poker up your ass. You think they don’t do that kind of shit? No? That will be your last thought before it really happens.
Or they can just simply burn your marijuana crop or spread a herbicide in your fields. Either way, or something in between, if you’re a threat to the traffickers, they WILL deal with you.
It won’t. Then again, I can’t see how prohibition of murder will stop murder. Maybe you have a solution but aren’t saying what it is -SSS
Touche.
so, then, we are reduced to taking the lesser evil. Govt supplied pot or foreign traffikers.
“Once it (personal drug use) starts entering into the realm of MY business (like getting stoned and trying to pilot a vehicle to the local Stop N Rob for munchies) then I start getting a case of the ass. Keep that shit in the privacy of your own home, and all is coolness.”
—-Billy @10:55 pm above
Billy VERY much gets it. Read his comments. Highly recommended.
“Once it (personal drug use) starts entering into the realm of MY business (like getting stoned and trying to pilot a vehicle to the local Stop N Rob for munchies) then I start getting a case of the ass -Billy
You dont want people with the munchies increasing your profit margin?
Tell me, do you turn away purchasers of beer and chips?
Suppose I’m a major marijuana trafficker in your area, and my bosses decide you’re getting too much of the action and decide to whack your sorry fucking ass and send a HUGE message to you and your brethren in the area. Just to put a punctuation mark on their point, suppose they decide to make you watch your wife getting gang raped and kids get whacked before stuffing your balls in your mouth and shoving a hot poker up your ass. You think they don’t do that kind of shit? No? That will be your last thought before it really happens. -SSS
Yanno SSS, this screams legalization. Much as you seem to deplore it.
druggies! fuckers, the usa is on the skids and you want liberal pot and drug laws. porn and pharmacopeia is taking over the usa and you cheer and say bring it on, and Obama laughs and laughs that you listen to katt Williams and shout amen, hallelujah, we have found the messiah of pot.
assholes!
“so, then, we are reduced to taking the lesser evil. Govt supplied pot or foreign traffickers.”
—-Kill Bill
Sadly, yes. You pick the lesser evil.
My article was crafted simply to show economically that the traffickers will win the marijuana battle regardless of your choice. The best we can do is dial back the damage on those who DO NO HARM in their personal use of this drug.
my buddy ray mowery got some sort of cancer, he left on disability and said he was happy he’d be getting medical ganja. he must have known the truth, he left a sort of goodbye musical cd.
he died within six months. his close friend said he kept asking ray, why don’t you take the pain instead of getting high all the time?
my sister did of colon cancer, she said the pain was so bad, she didn’t know why they gave her strong painkillers at first, she said that later on, they were not strong enough.
I believe it was stewart alsop who wrote that giving terminal cancer patients heroin was within the scope of compassion and should not be considered illegal in that situation.
“Yanno SSS, this (drug violence) screams legalization. Much as you seem to deplore it.”
—-Kill Bill
No, it doesn’t. It screams reality. Whether marijuana is legal or not, if I’m a marijuana dealer and you’re getting into my bottom line, I’m gonna fuck you up. That’s what goes on in the drug world. No exceptions.
Juan, I know many a folk who like to spark up and they are from many a ideology, political and religious.
The recent meltdown in America was a financial crisis, the skids you forget to mention, not one of,or caused by recreational pot puffers.
No, it doesn’t. It screams reality. Whether marijuana is legal or not, if I’m a marijuana dealer and you’re getting into my bottom line, I’m gonna fuck you up. That’s what goes on in the drug world. No exceptions -SSS
As I said. You as are former govt worker, know that the govt, in this case, are the lesser evil. Like prohibition, the shit needs to be regulated and taxed. I agree, the drug lords are bad business.
There is no actual cure, but de-funding the drug lords thru de-regulation is a better way.
Kill Bill says:
“Juan, I know many a folk who like to spark up…”
I wrote about my buddy ray because I know there are two sides to the issue. my point is that marijuana is to white folks what alcohol was to the Indians.
when the time comes, peeps will be too fucked up to put up much of a protest when the mileynials send us all to the tank. the world will end not with a bang but a bong.
did you not see ‘wild in the streets’ with chris jones? it is the fucking template for our soon to be masters.
marijuana is to white folks what alcohol was to the Indians -Juan
I’m guessing you never smoked a spliff?
I have been way more blitzed on alcohol than on pot.
But, you made the claim that white folks ‘firewater’ is pot. Please proceed to substantiate your claim.
It was your buddy Rays LIFE, juan, so he chose to do what he did. What he chose to do, right or wrong, will not be decided by you.
That you remained a friend speaks alot.
Legalization ain’t gonna happen despite what the stoners want. The political will isn’t there for it. The only place legalization efforts semi-succeed is where Democrats control the place politically and even then it’s usually relegated to a city like Seattle or Denver that are known for it’s massive collection of hippies and White liberal trash.
Juan
For a lot of Americans, getting shit faced stoned is the epitome of life and is the only thing worth living for. It will be interesting to see this pampered lot handle a economic disaster where they can’t afford to buy their designed pot much less a bag of food.
For terminal cancer patients under hospice care are given morphine in a bottle. Pot isn’t needed. I still have a couple bottles kicking around from when a family member died of the big C and heart disease.
Legalization ain’t gonna happen despite what the stoners want. -TC
As if the revenue draining drug war has reduced the rise of crime, here and abroad.
SSS, My ignorance of the drug world?
If legal pot farms were allowed then they would spring up everywhere. You are suggesting that the criminal element would come after them all. Good luck with that.
I guess I shouldn’t own a pig farm. The major pig farmers will come after me with a hot poker.
I guess I shouldn’t own a trucking company. The major trucking companies will come after me.
etc. etc.
You are right the criminal element wouldn’t disappear at the time of legalization. You are wrong if you think that it won’t be dramatically reduced over time. Crime was reduced with alcohol and gambling legalization.
You think pot is different. That is your ignorance.
This is a dying thread; I haven’t had the chance to comment before now, so I want provide a comment/ask for feedback:
In my scenario, I am referring to marijuana ONLY. I am not taking this example to heroin, cocaine, or anything else. So don’t go there.
Here’s my idea: What if? What if marijuana were made as legal as, say, the common garden-variety tomato? Lots of people grow tomatoes. They’re easy to grow. They’re delicious. They’re nutritious when they’re grown at home. You don’t have to go to any kind of special government-sanctioned dispensary to purchase tomatoes, or pay any kind of special tax on them. You pay sales tax on the packages of seeds you buy from the store, or you pay sales tax on the starters you buy from the nursery. Or, if you want to buy the mass-grown crap from the grocery store, you pay the sales tax on those.
Couldn’t that same example work with pot? You go and buy the seeds you want, and then it becomes like any other garden plant. They’ve already developed the superior strains that increases the genetic quality they desire. It’s easy to grow. People can share seeds, sell seeds, go to the store to buy seeds, just like tomatoes.
I cannot fathom how that would not shut the cartels down, entirely. If every person who wants to take the time and effort to grow delicious tomatoes in their yard, every person who wants to grow pot would likewise take the time and effort to do so. Where would the market be for the cartels, except to switch to another illegal substance that people cannot produce for themselves? There’d simply be no need for illegal growers because people could take care of their own needs.
Now, if the government got involved and insisted that there be some kind of special government distribution scheme, complete with a new set of tax laws and regulations, I have no doubt the system would be entirely fucked-up and not work the way it was intended. This would still leave room for illegal shenanigans, much like people traffic in cigarettes to profit from the fucked-up tax laws. (Do people still traffic in booze in the same way in order to profit from fucked-up tax laws?)
Now, here’s where MJ differs from tomatoes: Tomatoes do not alter your consciousness in the same way pot does. No dispute on that. (Although, I love a good tomato salad with fresh basil from the garden, a little mozarella and some olive oil and vinegar! Woo-Hoo, that’s good!)
So, we need to ensure that others rights are not violated, as Billy mentioned above. If you want to have an all-day party down the street and serve home-grown weed along with homebrew and homegrown tomatoes, I don’t care. (I’d like you to turn the music down at midnight, but I’m pretty flexible and reasonable) But, I damn sure don’t want you driving down the street after bonging and drinking all day and all night. I have kids that might be outside in the front yard, and I don’t need you piloting a 3000 pound projectile if you’re zonked out of your gourd.
We enforce drunk-driving to the max. It’s my understanding that over the last many years (Some number of years, “x”) drunk driving enforcement has worked to drastically reduce the number of drunk drivers on the road. Oh, sure they still do it, but in much less numbers.
So, I don’t know exactly the test to administer for stoned-driving. Maybe it exists already, or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. But if it doesn’t exist, someone with the correct entrepreneurial spirit and a smart mind could surely devise such a test. Maybe a saliva test. I know the company I work for has random testing and the pee is read in the cup, instantly, somehow. It’s an immediate pass/fail situation. No need to wait for the lab.
Summary: Legalize marijuana, freely. Prosecute the shit out of driving while intoxicated. Prosecute other crimes that relate to the trespassing on the rights of others.
Please comment: Would this system work? If not, what would be the downfalls of it? Why wouldn’t it work?
Thanks
Tim
Comparing tomatoes to Mary Jane. You fucking idiot. The dumbest comment ever and that’s saying a lot. Don’t ever post here again you ignorant moron.
Tim, That made sense to me but then again SSS thinks I am ignorant as well.
You ask “why wouldn’t it work?” When SSS resorts to name calling and abuse you know he doesn’t have the answer.
I will give you SSS’s bottom line. Pot should not be legalized. Argue in favor of it and you are an ignorant moron.
“Comparing tomatoes to Mary Jane. You fucking idiot. The dumbest comment ever and that’s saying a lot. Don’t ever post here again you ignorant moron.”
—-pseudo SSS @ Tim
Tim and Leobeer
That wasn’t me. It was probably Stucky trying to stir shit up again. But Tim missed an important fact in growing pot just like you would with growing tomatoes in a garden. Millions of pot smokers live in cities. Try cultivating pot in the Thirty Blocks of Squalor and see what happens.
But Tim did make a statement with which I agree 100%. “I love a good tomato salad with fresh basil from the garden, a little mozarella and some olive oil and vinegar! Woo-Hoo, that’s good!”
@ Kill Bill
” “Once it (personal drug use) starts entering into the realm of MY business (like getting stoned and trying to pilot a vehicle to the local Stop N Rob for munchies) then I start getting a case of the ass -Billy”
“You dont want people with the munchies increasing your profit margin?
Tell me, do you turn away purchasers of beer and chips?”
Okay, you and I both know you took my comment out of context, so just knock off the fuckery.
I got no problem with rolling back the anti-drug laws back to 1912. Want to suck down a few bottles of laudanum? Knock yourself out. Roll up a big fattie in your backyard and smoke it up? Go on ahead. Throwing people in jail for consumption of anything is fucking stupid and only creates an entire criminal class for consuming shit that used to be legal…
But the POINT of my comment, that you knowingly took out of context, is that if you suck down some laudanum or spark up a fattie, I don’t want you entering into the realm of “my business”. That means driving a car on public roads because your ability to pilot said automobile is compromised. If you knowingly pilot said car under the influence and cause an accident that takes the life of an innocent, then I would love to fry your ass, personally.
If you just drive off a random cliff or into a handy river and kill yourself, well then I don’t give a shit…
If you want to shoot up heroin, then go on. But don’t expect to get care at a taxpayer-funded Hospital ER when you overdose. I don’t want to pay for the blowback from YOUR drug habits…
It’s like playing with high explosives. You can do whatever you want, and I don’t care. It’s YOU who are ultimately responsible for your own actions. If you accidently blow your dumb ass up, then that’s on you. So long as it doesn’t become my business (like you playing with explosives on the crosstown bus when I’m trying to get home).
In other words, your right to do what you want ends where my rights begin. My rights = my business.
I’m declaring victory. Based on the comments I made above, things are clearly trending in my favor. Let’s consider:
Two drug articles ago, I set not one, but two, TBP records. First, I achieved 10 straight pink screens on my comments (and a total of 16 pink screens throughout the thread). Secondly, of those 10 pink screens, 5 consecutive comments were rated so poorly that they achieved the coveted “hidden” status, and 3 of THOSE comments were total shutouts, meaning there was not one single thumbs-up awarded to the comment. You’ve got to have some sort of special talent to hit those marks.
In the last drug article I posted, I racked up 15 pink screens, with only 3 rated poorly. And here in this article, I only have 3 (count ’em) pink screens, none of which are rated poorly. There can be only one plausible explanation. People here are starting to love me. Group hug, anyone?