Originally posted by Davis Bloome
Of course marijuana should be legalized, it's not harmful to you....despite what those dumbass commercials say. Pot doesn't make you blow up someone's phone, leave your friends stranded somewhere, or all that other dumb shit. 🙄
Indeed. Getting slobbering drunk makes you leave your friends somewhere and RUN OVER mail boxes. 🙂
Originally posted by RedAlertv2
Honestly, I dont think whether its harmful or not should matter in deciding to legalize or not. The point is that people should be able to choose what they do to their own body, including things that are harmful.
Tobacco, alcohol, fast food and prescription drugs are all legal and all cause harm. The only difference is that there's no lobby for Marijuana because it's hard to tax it. Moonshine stills are illegal for these very reasons. Again, as I mentioned in another thread, the Federal government gets involved only when a citizen's personal actions deprave industry from profitting and when the government starts to loose tax revenues. They typically only get involved when it comes to money. Murder, hate crime, descrimination and the like; these are all left to the state and local governments.
Originally posted by RedAlertv2
Why do you think marijuana would be hard to tax?
For the same reason that Moonshine is illegal, it is a product that can be easily produced by a private citizen. Often times producers of Moonshine will sell their product without the government or lobby-represented corporations such as the alcohol industry getting their cut. Often times it is justified by the ruse that without government or industry quality regulations the product can be harmful to anyone who consumes it. Certainly there is merrit to that in the production of alcohol, but that can't excuse can't be used with weed when all you have to do is stick a seed in the ground and let nature do the rest. So what that means is that the government would have to illegalize the growing of weed while relaxing the regulations on consuming it; giving the opportunity to some business (pharmecutical industry) the chance to corner the market like a RJR Tobacco or Phillip Morris. This is the direction we're seeing in those places that are decriminalizing it. There's a difference between decriminalizing it and legalizing it. You can have a dime bag or a quater sack in some places, but any more than that and they'll arrest you under the pretense that you are dealing it.
Originally posted by Ace of Knaves
Tobacco, alcohol, fast food and prescription drugs are all legal and all cause harm. The only difference is that there's no lobby for Marijuana because it's hard to tax it. Moonshine stills are illegal for these very reasons. Again, as I mentioned in another thread, the Federal government gets involved only when a citizen's personal actions deprave industry from profitting and when the government starts to loose tax revenues. They typically only get involved when it comes to money. Murder, hate crime, descrimination and the like; these are all left to the state and local governments.
There's no reason that it would be harder to tax drugs than alcohol, tobacco or prescription drugs.
Originally posted by Ace of Knaves
Can you go into further detail? Why is moonshine illegal when alcohol is not?
Moonshine is moonshine because it does not have to be held to the same standards as something legal. It also flies under the tax radar.
Did I answer a rhetorical question? If I did, I apologize.
Originally posted by Ace of Knaves
Can you go into further detail?
Alcohol can be produced at home and still gets taxed successfully.
Tobacco can be grown pretty much the way weed can and cigarettes still get taxed.
Much like cannabis, prescription drugs have various uses and still get taxed.
Those seem like the biggest problems I can think of when it comes to taxing something and (in the US at least) it's not a terribly big problem. Generally people are willing to pay some amount of tax rather than buy at inflated black market prices and/or risk jail time. Companies are more than happy to not be illegal for the same reasons.
In case you were wondering, Ace of Knaves.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
Alcohol can be produced at home and still gets taxed successfully.
Tobacco can be grown pretty much the way weed can and cigarettes still get taxed.
Much like cannabis, prescription drugs have various uses and still get taxed.Those seem like the biggest problems I can think of when it comes to taxing something and (in the US at least) it's not a terribly big problem. Generally people are willing to pay some amount of tax rather than buy at inflated black market prices and/or risk jail time. Companies are more than happy to not be illegal for the same reasons.
I think we may be having a miscommunication. If some company were to produce a pack of 20 joints, people would be lined up for moths to get a pack and would gladly pay the tax levied by the government. People pay taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. But, by your points, a company mass produces those things and profit from public consumption...profit massively, in fact. And the government gets a percentage of those profits in the form of taxes. (Even when those companies are shipping a huge hunk of those profits to off-shore tax shelters, but that's another thread.) Look at the marijuana clubs that are popping up all over the place. It's legal to get weed at those establishments via a loosely regulated prescription process. These clubs do not grow their own weed, they get it from medical marijuana farms which are owned by pharmecutical companies. So, people can get a prescription for medical marijuana for anything from IBS to panic attacks and it's legal, limited to a certain amount and then the pharmecutical company turns a profit. if I buy a dime bag from a guy that gets his weed by the pound in Humboldt county, I can get arrested because I don't have a prescription.
Originally posted by Ace of KnavesThat sounds like an incentive to buy the slightly more expensive, taxed, yet legal weed, as opposed to the cheaper option that could get you arrested. I for one would gladly pay a few bucks more each time if the whole process was legal and had no legal risks involved. I guess I still fail to see how taxing weed would be hard. Like Symmetric said, the government has no trouble taxing alcohol and cigarettes, how is weed different?
I think we may be having a miscommunication. If some company were to produce a pack of 20 joints, people would be lined up for moths to get a pack and would gladly pay the tax levied by the government. People pay taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. But, by your points, a company mass produces those things and profit from public consumption...profit massively, in fact. And the government gets a percentage of those profits in the form of taxes. (Even when those companies are shipping a huge hunk of those profits to off-shore tax shelters, but that's another thread.) Look at the marijuana clubs that are popping up all over the place. It's legal to get weed at those establishments via a loosely regulated prescription process. These clubs do not grow their own weed, they get it from medical marijuana farms which are owned by pharmecutical companies. So, people can get a prescription for medical marijuana for anything from IBS to panic attacks and it's legal, limited to a certain amount and then the pharmecutical company turns a profit. if I buy a dime bag from a guy that gets his weed by the pound in Humboldt county, I can get arrested because I don't have a prescription.
Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
What does that have to do with how hard it is to tax?If you had the option wouldn't you buy that same dime bag in a way that wouldn't put you in danger of jail time even if it meant that some suits would turn a profit?
Because if it's legalized, then you can't arrest a guy for growing his own. It takes a tremendous amount of tobacco to make the effort worthwile to put the effort into growing it to smoke it yourself. Not to mention the process it takes to cure the tobacco to make it suitable for smoking. Not many people know how to make their own alcohol, but Moonshine is still illegal. With weed, why pay anyone anything, taxed or not, when all you have to do is have a few feet of land and a seed to avoid spending money on it? This makes it difficult to tax because it involves much less effort to grow your own than any of the other examples we've been discussing. The reason weed remains illegal, besides the threats to other industries, is because it's as easy to grow as a tomato plant, but is extraordinarily more profitable. I'm not arguing that most people wouldn't gladly pay a company and taxes to get the weed legally, simply that it's so much easier to make yourself than any of the other examples. Again, I ask, why is moonshine still illegal when alcohol is not?
Originally posted by RedAlertv2
That sounds like an incentive to buy the slightly more expensive, taxed, yet legal weed, as opposed to the cheaper option that could get you arrested. I for one would gladly pay a few bucks more each time if the whole process was legal and had no legal risks involved. I guess I still fail to see how taxing weed would be hard. Like Symmetric said, the government has no trouble taxing alcohol and cigarettes, how is weed different?
It is an inncentive, absolutely. Don't grow it yourself illegally, when you can buy it legally and pay taxes on it. Don't make your own liquor, buy it from a company that will pay taxes on the profits.
Originally posted by Ace of Knaves
Because if it's legalized, then you can't arrest a guy for growing his own. It takes a tremendous amount of tobacco to make the effort worthwile to put the effort into growing it to smoke it yourself. Not to mention the process it takes to cure the tobacco to make it suitable for smoking. Not many people know how to make their own alcohol, but Moonshine is still illegal. With weed, why pay anyone anything, taxed or not, when all you have to do is have a few feet of land and a seed to avoid spending money on it? This makes it difficult to tax because it involves much less effort to grow your own than any of the other examples we've been discussing. The reason weed remains illegal, besides the threats to other industries, is because it's as easy to grow as a tomato plant, but is extraordinarily more profitable. I'm not arguing that most people wouldn't gladly pay a company and taxes to get the weed legally, simply that it's so much easier to make yourself than any of the other examples. Again, I ask, why is moonshine still illegal when alcohol is not?
I answered your question already.
Originally posted by Ace of KnavesWhat if when weed was made legal, there was a stipulation in the law that it would still be illegal to grow your own, unless you got a license to do so? The license would entail some sort of fee (tax), kind of like what the legalization bill in California was proposing. The bill they had was going to make it a $50 annual fee per plant. Overall I get what you're saying now, but nonetheless the government still stands to gain a substantial amount of money from legalizing weed. If nothing else, by cutting all the spending they currently allocate towards law enforcement against marijuana.
Because if it's legalized, then you can't arrest a guy for growing his own. It takes a tremendous amount of tobacco to make the effort worthwile to put the effort into growing it to smoke it yourself. Not to mention the process it takes to cure the tobacco to make it suitable for smoking. Not many people know how to make their own alcohol, but Moonshine is still illegal. With weed, why pay anyone anything, taxed or not, when all you have to do is have a few feet of land and a seed to avoid spending money on it? This makes it difficult to tax because it involves much less effort to grow your own than any of the other examples we've been discussing. The reason weed remains illegal, besides the threats to other industries, is because it's as easy to grow as a tomato plant, but is extraordinarily more profitable. I'm not arguing that most people wouldn't gladly pay a company and taxes to get the weed legally, simply that it's so much easier to make yourself than any of the other examples. Again, I ask, why is moonshine still illegal when alcohol is not?
i havent been able to smoke pot for years because of asthma.
i used to be a member of NORML.
yes it should. theres no solid legitmate reason it shouldnt. you can legally own it via prescription. you can legally buy drugs which a extremly harmful and addictive, while pot, being just an herb, isnt.
only real reason i can think of its illegal? so burecrats can make money.
if they really didnt want it in the US doesnt it stand to reason that given our advanced survalance and especially how tightly monitored things are now they could stop it, at least the amount thats coming in everyday? or maybe im just the only oone who noticed our presidents shaking hands with manuel noriega all those times.
on the other side, its really legal if you dont advertise it.