Don’t Legalize It
Happy Holidays.
I’ve got bad news … The Man is coming for your stash. Yes, Right Now.
But he’s not coming with handcuffs, no not this time.
The Man has other plans.
Image: San Francisco Weekly
The first rumblings of the Plan can be heard in Boise, where Republican legislator Tom Trail (R-Moscow) is leading the “compassionate conservative” charge to legalize medical marijuana.
Expect this to become a trend among libertarian-minded statehouse members. Trail is just the beginning of elected Republicans going unconventionally green. Once these people come to see full legalization is the way, that’s when pot smokers should start getting The Fear.
You see, Their Idea of legalization will be amazingly different from today’s supporters working diligently in California. They will want to control growing operations, like New Jersey, restrict potencies and issue dictates about how much one can have.
Once Cali legalizes it, which I believe is inevitable, officials everywhere will realize that everyone who wanted to engage in recreational smoking was already well-stocked in herb. Even though I expect this issue to ultimately be buoyed by America’s rising libertarianism, it will lead to some insane taxes, especially if smaller municipalities have a say as many still do with alcohol.
When legalization really goes national, one signature could forever change America’s largest unregulated market.
Marijuana consumers should approach with caution.
My worry is that red state officials can’t wait to create a new outback gestapo like the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission, ready and willing to put its agents right up in your shit just for enjoying a buzz outside of your home.
In other words, a legal cannabis market could very well be controlled by the same bunch of hard-ass, lizard-brain flat-tops that have been busting kids for decades.
Harsh.
I’m convinced that the best way for reform proponents to proceed is at the city and county level, trying to influence sheriff and district attorney elections to produce policies like those introduced by Philly DA Seth Adams. You call it, “decriminalization.”
A direct appeal to a human’s greed and lust for fame is more effective than crying freedom, joining NORML and sparking up at a park later today. Presented through this lens, marijuana consumers become an ATM machine for law enforcement, ultimately saving time and money on housing and prosecution. That’s the key.
I say, “Don’t Legalize It”.
If grungy hippie types made that a meme, the straights would pay attention.
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“They will want to control growing operations, like New Jersey, restrict potencies and issue dictates about how much one can have.”
And they call themselves Libertarians? What happened to the “get government out of my private life!” motto thing that Libertarians/Republicans are so proud of shouting?
Legalization of gardening and sharing nature’s bounty will make a way for nonconformists to avoid the tyranny of conformists who coerce conformity on them even to the forfeit of their human rights.
The government controls everything else, including what kind of toilet you can use,so why wouldn’t they control, marijuana….
Glad to see others finally catching on.
Don’t legalize: Decriminalize
This article, by the way, is exactly 420 words in length.
Nice one. I am now a trueslant visitor because of you and Taibi. I always click your stories from home and work and some times on my cell.
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m flattered. :O)
In response to another comment. See in context »How would the government police a lot of this? I think we should just let people grow plants that grow naturally.
Corn is an example of hybridization…..so are apples.
Everyone should be a farmer.
They will want to control growing operations, like New Jersey, restrict potencies and issue dictates about how much one can have.
i disagree. they don’t have the time, funds, personnel or expertise. unless they outsource it. Paging Dr. Herer.
Automobile drivers in states that legalize/decriminalize will see an across-the- board increase in car insurance rates for ALL drivers to pay for the increase in vehicle accidents and deaths due to the increase in drivers under the influence of drugs.
How many drug tourists will be driving around California zonked out of their mind on weed?
Any libertarian that wants a “NEW” law to TAX, REGULATE & CONTROL pot needs to review their party fundamentals.
It’s probably true all that you’re saying. It’ll be legalized eventually, it’ll be regulated, quality may suffer, the taxes will be killer and will get worse with time, and it may be way more inconvenient for users once it’s legal than it ever was when it was illegal.
But, I lived in the north of Mexico for a couple of years and saw first-hand how the drug war there has escalated over the past few years. The problem with keeping it illegal (albeit decriminalized) is that it supports foreign suppliers of pot. And, since upwards of 25% of the pot used in the U.S. comes from Mexico’s tyrannical drug cartels, every time you consume Mexican weed you support these cartels.
Cops and civilians are getting murdered, whole towns are being cleared out under threat of violence by the cartels, and it’s only intensifying. Just ’cause we don’t have to live with it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. If taxes and relative inconvenience are the high price of regulated, domestic weed, it’s worth it to me not to support murderers. So, let’s legalize it, already.
A very valid set of points, billfro.
In response to another comment. See in context »One of the reasons Republicans thus far have been against legalizing weed is that if something doesn’t directly affect them, they tend to not give a shit. So when you tell them that America’s ineffective War on Drugs hasn’t curbed its appetite for marijuana any, and that American demand for weed is what is making Mexico’s cartels so powerful, you’re just wasting your time. The drug cartels are Mexico’s problem, after all, so why should they care?
In response to another comment. See in context »Correct.
In response to another comment. See in context »So, then what are the reasons for the Democrats not wanting to legalize it?
In response to another comment. See in context »I’d imagine those reasons are the alcohol, tobacco and pharma lobbies, pappa.
All that money sure does help drown out the cries of the hundreds of thousands of Americans jailed every year over something silly as marijuana.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Stephen C. Webster of True Slant: The first rumblings of the Plan can be heard in Boise, where Republican legislator Tom Trail [...]
Interestingly enough, I talk all this shit and I’m proven right two days later, by Reuters no less …
http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0422/legal-marijuana-turmoil-potwealthy-california/
And therein lies one of the major problems with prohibition: to those capable of aping the law, the built-in financial incentive to keep it illegal is great.
“They” don’t adequately regulate my beef or broccoli, so I don’t see why they’d regulate my bud (except, of course, for the Puritanical american idea that having fun is sinful).
I see NO authority with the right to tell me, a 66 year old, what I can and cannot put into my body. That said, decriminalize!
[...] Stephen C. Webster of True Slant: The first rumblings of the Plan can be heard in Boise, where Republican legislator Tom Trail [...]