[herbie]

2nd'ed raydan.
Used to fun to get a buzz in the 70s... nowadays I'll have a couple tokes every couple years because sharing one joint is about as much 'fun' as a bad case of the flu.
I'd maybe grow a plant in my own house, but I've never even noticed a seed in anyone's stash for years.

[raydan]

I want to grow one in my garden.

My and my girlfriend took a few tokes a couple of years ago in my backyard with friends.
We both fell asleep on the couch and then spent the rest of the evening eating grill cheese sandwiches.

[romanP]

Aging_Redneck Aging_Redneck:

romanP romanP:

I would not put drug addicts on any kind of moral ground, because they do not have the capacity to judge what is moral anymore. They have abused their bodies so much that decision making processes have become altered to do nothing but feed the drug habit, no matter how unreasonable or how much more self-harm will come as a result.

this post a good example of wanting to love the sin but hate the sinner.

Quite the opposite, but I can see how you might misinterpret what I said. Although, perhaps if you had read the first comma, you might have understood better.

For someone who is talking about this issue from a Christian viewpoint, you seem to have forgotten one of the other important bits of your scripture: judge not, lest ye be judged.

Jesus would help the drug addict find help, sanity and security. What would you do?

[romanP]

Dayseed Dayseed:

So, even in Canada, legalizing things doesn't end organized crime. TAXING marijuana would jack up the price of it ENCOURAGING organized crime to still traffic it.

Do you have any idea how much an ounce of weed currently costs, and why it costs that much?

$1:

I don't know what the answer to the marijuana problem is, but I know that arguments for legalizing it to end organized crime or police resources in fighting the organized crime that grows it, sells it and shoots each other up for it isn't the answer.

Legalising will not ultimately end organised crime, but will certainly lessen it. If you buy alcohol, do you go to a guy selling moonshine out of his basement, or do you buy it from a government controlled liquor store or other sort of regulated outlet? Most people will answer the latter, because it's an easier and safer method, and the government hasn't put a prohibitively high tax on alcohol. Government seems to be showing signs of trying to ban tobacco by making it prohibitively expensive to buy, and so there is more smuggling.

If we focused police work on actual crimes instead of telling people what they can and can't consume, there would be more police resources available for fighting actual crime.

[ridenrain]

The point he made so clear was that 90% of the pot grown in Canada by organized crime is smuggled into the US. What we do here in Canada will do nothing to change that.

[romanP]

How do you know, since we haven't tried?

[ridenrain]

We haven't tried repealing the law of gravity either.

[romanP]

Laws against marijuana are a little easier to repeal. You just do it.

[Robair]

Dayseed Dayseed:

I didn't read the whole 19 pages, so this may have been covered already, but if people out there believe that marijuana produced in Canada is wholly consumed in Canada, they're nuts.

Organized crime isn't going to turn their back on something because it's been legalized; it's a simplistic argument put forth with little regard to history, current events or common sense.

Organized crime commits crime where there's room for profit.

If that were the case, there wouldn't be pirated movies. It's legal to go to a theatre and watch a movie, yet strip malls in Toronto are filled to the brim with cheap pirated movies.

Not only are airbags legal, they're mandatory! But, there are organized car theft rings that chop off steering wheels to get at unpopped airbags because it's cheaper than going to the dealership to get a legal one.

If legalizing marijuana were guarenteed to end the criminal element, then the same logic would be true for liquor and cigarettes. Yet, the CBSA reports HUGE seizures of smuggled tobacco and liquor each year. How come the Hell's Angels still run smokes and booze? Oh yeah...there's profit to be made in selling a legal product cheaper than the taxes allow for. I bet half of you do it too. A quick trip down to the States, buy some cheap liquor, stick it in the trunk next to the shoes and don't declare it.

So, even in Canada, legalizing things doesn't end organized crime.

To be fair, I don't think anybody has said legalizing it would end organized crime. The argument was made that it would take revenue away from organized crime, or take a bite out of their operation. Saying anything about ending it was just a straw man argument made by certain prohibition supporters to make the very argument you just did. I'm also pretty sure nobody believes Mary Jane grown here is wholey consumed here.

Dayseed Dayseed:

TAXING marijuana would jack up the price of it ENCOURAGING organized crime to still traffic it.

Unless you are about to slap a 90% tax on the stuff, the price is going down. Most of the cost today is just danger pay. A lot more expensive bringing something that's illegal to the market. Has to be a big payoff for criminals to take the risk.

Dayseed Dayseed:

But hey, didn't you start off the post with something about Canadian marijuana being consumed in Canada or something, I heard somebody shout.

Yes. Even if Canada legalized marijuana, the United States hasn't, and has no real plans to. Can we see how organized crime is going to be all over this as it already is? Remember when Canada had legalized hooch and the States had prohibition? How did that work out for Canada not having organized crime running booze south of the border?

If any argument for legalized marijuana is going to be made, it's going to be a "versus" argument vis a vis alcohol. It's pretty hard to argue that marijuana is a worse drug than alcohol is, healthwise or socially. I hate belligerent drunks, they pick fights and get in your grill, but hard-core stoners can be left to drool by themselves in a corner. Stoners don't get high and beat their wives; they point and laugh at the family dog...maybe even to the point they hurt the dog's feelings.

I don't know what the answer to the marijuana problem is, but I know that arguments for legalizing it to end organized crime or police resources in fighting the organized crime that grows it, sells it and shoots each other up for it isn't the answer.

Happy Easter.

I think BOTH argements are there. Right now you police the growing, selling, using and smuggling of the drug. If we legalize it and uncy Sam doesn't, you police the smuggling of the drug. And you can use revenue generated from the taxes paid by those involved in growing it, selling it and consuming it which is all right now not taxable to police the smuggling.

Win win. And yes, it should certainly be catagorized alongside alchohol ant tobbacco. Not meth and crack.