Legalize and tax it, already!!
- Thread starter 804brown
- Start date
Just do it.
wkmac
Well-Known Member
Don't worry, it's so easy to grow now that trying to use marijuana as a huge tax windfall will fail. Legalization for tax reasons will end up costing the gov't money because then enforcement costs will come from trying to maintain the product monopoly in order to derive the tax from it. Taxation windfall is the wrong reason to legalize marijuana.
Catatonic
Nine Lives
The real reasons to legalize:
1) Eliminate a large % of the population from being criminals and teh resulting lack of respect for obeying the good laws.
2) Eliminate the criminal element associated with the prohibition of a substance that has little detrimental effect on society
3) Realize tax revenues as with alcohol. Citizens have the right to create their own wine and beer now but few do it. It will be the same with marijuana - the convenience factor will still cause almost all people to buy it rather than grow it.
4) Distribution and possession of large quantities can still be left as illegal to offset concerns with 2 and 3.
wkmac
Well-Known Member
2 and 3 may be true but if you legalize only on the promise of a tax windfall and then the tax revs don't live up to what was expected, what then? Return to the old way? I say legalize just on the pure grounds of personal freedom and liberty and then go from there.
As to people not growing their own out of convenience sake, may or may not be true. In the case of making beer or wine, you do have to make a capital investment of equipment and supplies and then some personal labor is involved. With marijuana, there is still some labor but the capital investment can be very minimal. Marijuana by definition is a naturally occurring weed so all one needs so to speak is a sunny spot and a place to throw out the seed and then nature does the rest. Or is you wanted to go hydroponic or aeroponic, the equipment side is involved but then someone like myself who has already built a aeroponic system to grow leaf lettuce, strawberries, etc., growing marijuana would require lighting upgrades that can get expensive but in a legalized world a small scale system could grow enough product to recoup the cost. Then again, legalizing marijuana in that framework could explode a new entrepreneur class which in our current economy could prove beneficial but I just don't see gov't in our current context allowing that to happen to begin with.
Because marijuana is so easy to grow, making the case to legalize on the grounds of tax revs. is risky IMO in the sense that if tax revs don't meet expectations, we'll just regress backwards. The real tax windfall will come in the savings from the prison-state industrial complex that has been built on the so-called war on drugs.
Besides why given more heroine aka tax dollars to an already out of control drug addict aka gov't?
wkmac
Well-Known Member
And Woody would be right too. Ashame you aren't capable of reading, you might learn how superior hemp is in many ways and how certain vested interests twisted gov't to begin with so that industrial hemp would be made and maintained as illegal.
Tell em' Dave!
And like Woody, Dave would be right!
moreluck
golden ticket member
Why do you assume I never read about hemp?? I am from the hippie 60's. I knew about Woody right off the bat to respond and didn't have to look up anything.
wkmac
Well-Known Member
Because past remarks by you towards Woody have always been condescending so why now should I assume you are not doing otherwise?
menotyou
bella amicizia
The people who grow their own would like it legalize because they then can enjoy their 'drug of choice' legally, safely in their home/just like everyone else who imbibes in some form or fashion. We aren't talking teenagers or drug dealers.
They pay taxes for those over-filled jails with low-level criminals who sold a nickel to their buddy for $60.
They pay taxes for those over-filled jails with low-level criminals who sold a nickel to their buddy for $60.
av8torntn
Well-Known Member
The government has plenty of money. Given the record of what they've done with the money we've already given them I see no reason to give them more.
It's because of what they haven't done with it that perpetuates the need for more. You know, like pay for wars, perscription drugs, health care, etc.
Catatonic
Nine Lives
I had to remind myself that sometimes it is better to ignore than engaga.
