Smell of pot from chimney leads to record bust

[Saggy]

 

Marijuana and organized crime only go hand in hand because marijuana is criminal.  Before it was ever criminalized, it grew wild on the sides of roads, and the criminal element had no idea what kind of cash crop it was sitting on.  I'm not going to say, "If it's legal, then all the dealers disappear," beacuse it's just not that simple, but what is simple is that there is an organized crime element surrounding marijuana simply because it is illegal.  I mean, there would really not have been such a large bootlegging trade after alcohol prohibition if alcohol was never put in the prohibition that it was.

It'll boil down to the question of "do I want to get my product by legal, above-ground means where I know what I'm getting, or do I want to deal with some shady street dealer who may rip me off or get ripped off by whoever supplies him?" I mean, how big is moonshining/alcohol bootlegging these days? It still exists, but it's not exactly the norm it was during alcohol prohibition.

 

If you outlaw anything that people want, it and organized crime will become friends. It's called capitalism. If there's a demand, there will be a supply and somebody will be making a lot of money.

This kinda touches on my main concern.

 

If marijuana would ever be legalized it would be something similar as to if all the companies and work that goes on in silicone valley decided to close shop and lay off all of the workers. There is a very large criminal enterprise created by illegal marijuana. If the government were to take it over it would be the same as putting millions of people out of work.

 

From the biggest person to the littlest person there are people and families that rely on the illegal marijuana trade. These are people that might not know how to struggle and survive in non-criminal ways.

 

If marijuana would ever become legal and government controlled what criminal industry is capable of filling it's shoes? The people that are used to living the easy life with money and all that thanks to their criminal marijuana activities are not really going to want to accept positions as super market stock boys for minimum wage.

 

 

I've heard the argument that the illegal trade will still exist and users might have an option of getting stronger stuff illegally, and other stuff like that. For one the basic supply/demand principle very well might dictate that legal weed will be a sh*t load cheaper, since there will always be a demand and the govt will be able grow/process/sell with far less overhead then the illegal ends. The govt might be able to undercut the illegal trade to the point where the margin of profit in the illegal world just isn't worth it.

 

*retard edit

"The govt might be able to undercut the illegal trade to the point where the margin of profit in the illegal world just isn't worth it."

 

Except it won't be so much government, but private industry. Much like companies like Jim Beam or Jack Daniel's outlasted the bootleggers.

 

 

Now, as far as how lucrative marijuana sales are... I don't mean to be rude, but there really aren't many people raising families off of weed profits. There's just not that much money in it, and even though there are a lot of people supplementing their income with it, it's not really the huge cash crop that it's made out to be except for very few people. Those people being the ones that sell it by the kiloton being smuggled into some other country, or the few individuals with local grow sites that can package and sell pounds for several thousands of dollars. Those types just aren't really that common, and any person that has the money to invest in a grow of marijuana that produces thousands of pounds and dollars, is going to be able to move on to something else, perhaps even just become a legitimate operation. Because really, if we wanted to legalize it and have some kind of economic benefit out of it, we're going to want to keep the people on board that know how to grow it, ship it, distribute it, etc. They won't really be displaced as much as they'll just be promoted.

 

I do think that there will be something very similar to the bootlegging industry however, and probably more a problem with tax evasion than people realize. It goes right back to the same problems with alcohol, only it's to a much worse extent. It's not too hard to grow a whole bunch of pot, and what's worse if it's legal then all the sudden you're going to see people registering say a 10 plant sized plot, while they're still maintaining a 100,000 size plot in the forest, paying no taxes, and selling it off at competitive prices. In the mean time, everyone who may have sold pot on the side or something that was displaced will probably find work in this regard, and then before you know it we'll have new competitive sports inspired by it like NASCAR was by rum-running. lol Well maybe not, but you see what I mean...

 

 

Those are the things to be expected though, and personally I don't think the reason to legalize it is for the economic benefits. It's because of the economic disadvantage that not having it legal puts us at, and just frankly the fact that there's essentially no reason for it to be illegal if you concede that it's basically harmless, non-addictive and all that jazz ( which most independent research leans toward). Not to mention the incredibly shady history of how it became criminal in the first place; one guy didn't want to seem soft on Mexicans, the next guy didn't want to seem soft on Communism, and on it went until Regan just started spewing, "Just say no!" , smashed some eggs in a pan and smoked a couple of rehsus monkeys to death with gas masks and ever since then it just keeps getting worse... It goes from, "Oh, it's a gateway drug, it will make you do heroin," to, "Okay, it's not a gateway drug... But it might make you go crazy!" to, "Oh, no, it doesn't make you go crazy, but it supports terrorism!" to, "It's not all that bad, but it will make you waste your life," all the way up to the point where they're just contradicting themselves... "Oh, yeah, we admit it's mostly harmless. But not this sh*t, it's like 20% THC, it's not the same grass your parent's smoked in the 70s"

 

I mean, seriously, could there be one thing other than drug prohibition and the War on Drugs that the American public has been jerked around on more? Every time an independent study comes out to refute something like, "Pot gives you ball cancer," it just gets swept under the rug and somehow this strange false reality of, "Pot is bad, so it's illegal," prevails without any real question or concern over the validity of it.

 

I'm not even one to argue pot is harmless; it's smoke, it's mind-alterting, etc. I am one to argue though, that thanks to the bunk science out there, we don't truly know how harmful or harmless it is, and every time some independent research group wants to see what kind of medicinal value it has, the DEA basically cock blocks them and says, "Nah, we know it's no good, we're not letting you find out for yourself," and then they classify it as a Schedule I narcotic because they can just basically deny any medicinal value it may have. In the mean time, we have things like opiates which are basically heroin as Schedule II for its "pain relief", and because of it thousands of Americans a year are binging on their prescription pills and OD'ing. That's just the worse example, you wouldn't believe the type of sh*t that is classified as less dangerous than pot. I mean for f*ck's sake, kids with ADD are basically given amphetamine and then we question why they get hooked on meth when their state coupon doesn't pay for the real sh*t anymore?

 

Who controls drug scheduling? The DEA and the FDA. So in other words... The organization that flagrantly denies any medicinal value of marijuana in the face of the rest of the world's science, and the organization that approves a drug in six months and then recalls it when it nukes your kidneys, are the ones deciding on this sh*t. Now it wouldn't be so bad if you know, they would admit their mistakes, but in the meantime the DEA just simply denies any research that might show cannabis has some medicinal value, and the FDA never even gets to approve anything other than a bunch of toxic ass chemicals that will reduce your allergies and work as birth control, but also make you bleed out your eyes and suffer from ulcers. Man, those guys sound like they know what they're doing.

 

Now, I'm making most of this anecdotal, because frankly I'm not going to go pull up a bunch of crap online to copy and paste, and I'm just kind of tried of trying to paint the thing in a reasonable light, but it's just f*cking ridiculous. We're talking about a substanse that has been used and documented for thousands of f*cking years, with very predictable side-effects... You feel good, you get hungry, you go to f*cking bed. No bleeding out of your anus or spontaneous human combustion, just pretty f*cking straight-forward. It's use as an intoxicant and medicine was even quite common at the turn of the century, and even in the 30s when the first federal laws attempting to criminalize it were being passed, the bunk science prevailed. I mean, if half the people here took an hour out of their day to watch the documentary "Grass" they'd realize that there's been at least three government paid studies that have shown pot is basically harmless that have simply been thrown out and ignored while the government's take on things has been propagandized to the point where it is just the accepted truth, then they'd sit there and go, "f*ck, Woody Harrelson knew this and I didn't?" and feel like a moron.

 

Seriously though, ask yourselves why people would be such staunch supporters of this... Do you really think that they're all just potheads that want it to be legal, and that it's all just made up or something? Trust me, if these people didn't want to do anything but smoke pot all day long with no repercussion, they could do that quite easily since the War on Drugs is so f*cking ineffective. I mean, let's just get real, both the ideas that pot is in any way in need of being regulated, and that the regulation is even working are the most unsubstantiated things that people hold as truth on a regular basis. I cannot really think of one single thing that more people are more deluded by...

 

With all that being said, the truth of the matter is that this little moment of drug prohibition is like a flash in the pan compared to how long society has been using marijuana. Sure there are people involved in criminal enterprise now that would be displaced into some other profession and some other things might be turbulent at first, but when you compare the length of time that pot has been illegal (1937 to present) to the time we've used it as a society all over the world (*8,000 BC to present) I think it's pretty clear that if we were to relinquish control on it, that it would quickly default into a normalcy that probably existed around it for far longer than this absurd prohibition that we've all been conditioned into thinking of as normal.

 

 

Seriously though... Go watch "Grass", one of the best documentaries about pot and the War on Drugs ever made, and it's definitely more entertaining and informative than reading my diatribes. I don't normally recommend people watch documentaries about it because it's kind of like, "Heh, the TV said it, it must be true," but in this circumstance I will because I think it's something just subtle enough that people will watch it and absorb it, unlike if I were to try to summarize everything about it and post it in my own verbose writing style.

 

Anyway, it's not that it's all that informative or great, it's just entertaining, and the real point of it for anyone that actually takes the time: Go online to university websites, other country's websites, etc. and substantiate all the things they mention in the film. Then go find some Partnership For a Drug Free American pamphlet, look in the back, and see how much of the crap in there you can substantiate. I think you'll be surprised which source is actually more credible. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214730/

 

Another good one is, "HIGH: The True Tale of American Marijuana". http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1313242/

 

*Actually it might be a littler later than that in 4,000 BC, when the Chinese use to burn it under tents at ceremonies. I've heard about it in Egyptian and even Sumerian society though. Still, you kind of get the picture...

Edited March 14, 2010 by SagaciousKJB