Snakeman721 wrote:They should make medical AND recreational marijuana legal across the board in all 50 states and then treat it exactly like they treat alcohol....gotta be 21 to use it, subject to DUI laws, etc. Note...I DON'T use marijuana and never will, but this "war on drugs" has gone on long enough with practically NO results and a HUGE waste of taxpayer money.
100% agreed.
The war on drugs will never work. Just like the war on terror will never work either.
Why?
Well, for the war on drugs, IF you could eliminate every single natural and/or man made thing on Earth that gets you high; you will have only eliminated the SUPPLY, and not the DEMAND; thus there is still a drug problem because the DEMAND/DESIRE is there. If you were somehow able to eliminate the DEMAND/DESIRE, then the SUPPLY wouldn't matter at all. Not a lot of demand for typewriter ribbons right now, even if you have 10 warehouses full of them, right? Anyway, eliminating either supply or demand is a futile and improbable task.
Now as for the war on terrorism, terrorism is an idea. That's why "the pen is mightier than the sword" as Shakespeare wrote. The only way to truly kill an idea is to commit genocide of the entire human race, which would eliminate the idea of terrorism, any actions based on that idea and so forth;, but it's overkill, unlikely and completely effen insane. As long as one human lives, that idea (and many ideas), also live.
Not to derail the thread, but the war on drugs and the war on terrorism do not work. Regarding the latest push for medical / legal marijuana in MN, many LE agencies are against it because quite frankly, pot makes up most of the "drug busts" in this state. It's a cash cow for them. What the states need to do is what CO did... tie pot into the state budget, tax it, license it, and then once it's part of that sacred cow (aka the budget) and they see how much revenue it will bring in, no one will want to touch it. I believe in CO, last I heard, and this number could be wrong, it was something like 5-10M a year in additional tax revenue for the state. I can guarantee you that if the money made from taxing it and legalizing it is more than capturing it is, things will move that way.
I also think that people should be able to grow it, within limitations. For example, in CO, you can have no more than 6 plants with a max of 3 being mature at atny one time. Out of state people can buy 1/4oz and in-state residents can buy a 1oz. They have smokeables, edibles, I think CO is leading the way and the rest of the country needs to model itself after it.
Now, just like booze and guns, pot must be used responsibly by adults. booze, pot and guns do not mix. Basically, common sense and responsibilities and all of that. I know opponents may think kids will get pot, but right now they get booze and guns too. You really can't stop it, just reduce it, control it as much as you can. It's sort of like that video about the best 7 minutes on gun control where the virtual president talks about how politicians don't really want to talk about human nature and how violence is part of it and always will be....and how they'd rather focus on the guns instead of the real problem..... people. Let's not make the same mistake here with pot.
