tO my knowledge, no one in the Tea Party has advocated a position, pro or con, on the subject of legalization of marijuana. The fiscal confusion and inconsistencies sucks all of the oxygen out of the room long before this subject comes up. Perhaps this site may serve as a sounding board for questions and positions.
There are several approaches to this issue, most of them addressing some moral bent or another. To be different, we could deal with the totally practical elements.
First, if marijuana were legalized, the weed could be grown on a healthier (weedwise) venue. That is, it could be dealt with as an agricultural product and cultivated in a healthier (for them) situation, like on a farm. There would be fewer strange looking young persons wandering in a forest and perhaps more actual farmers doing the farming. Allowing our farmers to grow this product would produce a more consistent crop. I suspect that there might be some benefit to the end user to be treated to a product grown by a real American farmer.
Speaking of farmers, cannabis could provide our country cousins with their first new cash crop since the soy bean.
We would lose a few narcs but we would gain a few thousand employees in the processing and packaging phases of this new product. Recent crackdowns on cigarette smoking have resulted in a lower level of addiction and thus lower sales of this particular product. We could balance this out by allowing our tobacco companies to grow, package and market a new product. While we are looking for ways to increase the employment of U.S. citizens, we should note that it is unlikely that we would ever outsource the work required to get this product from seed to a smoke.
We would also need to add employees for the quality control function. The (probably) dimwitted end-users would necessarily need to forego the pleasure of describing their smoke as “Good S---, man“. This particular vulgarity would lose its appeal if our quality control allowed that everyone’s S--- would be a good as everyone else’s, which I am sure is as the higher power intended our S--- to be.
Securing the farms growing the cannabis could be assigned to a few vicious, non-rabid canines with good lawyers.
The effect on our economy would be a series of wins. More jobs, more taxes collected at various levels, fewer narcs and other enforcement personnel, empty jail cells, and you can add your own wins to this list.
And, we would have one less item for our new citizens to carry as they run across our border.
Recent reports make it clear that we are losing our battle to control this particular product and spending millions for the pleasure of losing. A true bureaucracy will rue the fact that we may be missing out on a few thousand SEIU members and their glorious pensions, but this is a sacrifice that we may come to enjoy.
Some have said that making pot legal will encourage our young people to become addicted to this and harder substances. But, there is this; most people who acquire pot from a local source will find that this source has an extensive product line and would be happy to provide a one-stop operation. If that is as true as it appears, then the person who buys his or her pot at a local drug store will be exposed to tooth paste, deodorant, condoms and other beneficial items. Our tyro pothead will rarely have hard stuffed hawked at the local Walgreen’s. As to the initial addiction, there is also a theory that young people like to pull your chain and will try anything that you prohibit merely because you do prohiblt. But, this psycho-babble will lead us nowhere.
It is hard to tell whether we have more illegal border crossers because of our need for Mexican pot, or more Mexican pot because the border-crosser supply line is conveniently already there. Chicken or the egg – take your choice. It doesn’t matter. If we eliminate our need for extra-legal, low-grade pot, we will have one less factor feeding the invasion. This would be a win.
Will indulgence increase? Yes and no. Some will be tempted because it it is now ‘legal’, but others will lose their enthusiasm if they don’t get the feeling that they are living on the wild side.
As for the good v. evil debate, we should try to be logically consistent.
A. This is a true story. I recall sitting in a room with a number of politicians who were describing their undying opposition to legalization of this drug. I saw what they could not. I saw that each of them was smoking and each had a glass of scotch in his hand.
B. Before we invest another nickel in drug law enforcement, let us look at what we have accomplished with anti alcohol and anti smoking laws, rules, regulations, etc in the past century.
This memo is not intended to advocate pro or con. If it appears to be one-sided, this is simply because the ‘antis’ have had the moral high ground and thus control of the public forum. We do not intend to challenge that high ground. But we do believe that a logical discussion should have a place at the table.
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