Free Dope!

[will]

www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/07/how_much_would_legal_marijuana_cost_a_new_book_says_it_would_be_nearly_free_.html

People call it weed for a reason, but I never thought about it quite like this. Taking the profit out of marijuana would certainly help with drug related violence. Then we would just have to deal with the violence surrounding other black market problems. It would be an improvements. Besides, when did you hear about a person hopped up on pot taking out a row of shoppers with an uzi? Stoners are usually pretty sedate, unlike those who are full of other exotic chemicals. Letting people eat dope nuts instead of pine nuts at the bar might make rough bars a bit more sedate. That would help with yet another set of problems. I can't see any downside to legalizing this stuff.

It's kinda like gay marriage. Making it legal doesn't make it required.

[kitkat]

I'll tell ya why it terrifies the elites... (or at least used to) It's because it *unmotivates* worker bees. Something abt pot unmasks the BS in advertising and propaganda. (and the "work ethic"). Can't have a bunch of layabouts when we are building the capitalist fantasy world, now can we?

[jeromeoneil]

Pot will grow wild in damn near any environment on the planet. When I was in Drum Corps we stopped at a rest stop in Ohio and found dozens of plants growing in a ditch off the highway. We thought we hit the mother load. It was free, despite the headache.

Point being, a joint would only cost pennies because rolling papers cost pennies. You can smoke it out of a can or eat it if you're out. Or as the old song goes...

Amphetamine just wasn't my speed
And cocaine would make you go broke
But man o' man I sure could go for that
Marijuana smoke

I'd use a bong or bowl or rollin' papers
Or any other smoke component
Then I'd rip right through two boxes of
Entenmann's coffee cake covered donuts

And if you found yourself stranded
With no paraphernalia at all
You could always poke some holes
Through empty cans of alcohol

[baldrick]

Not to mention the many and varied uses for the fiber from the stems, and the fact that it helps replenish the soil it's grown in. All the rigging in sailing ships used to be made from hemp, and the pot we've all smoked is nothing more than hemp bred to increase the THC content of the buds.

It's "win, win,win", IMO.

[jeromeoneil]

I worked for California NORML back in the early 90s, and I always said that until the pot movement made it a civil liberties argument ("I have the right to 'moke a bowl in my house, eat some pasta and go to sleep) instead of a practicalities argument ("Rope!") they were never going to get anywhere. I still hold that position today.

So long as it is viewed as a "drug" and something on which we should wage a war, all the benefits that might fall out of it's legalization are moot. Fiber is great, but you gotta grow the devil weed to get it!

It seems like gay folks are making huge strides in equal protection. Perhaps pot heads will be the next group that is able to come out of the closet.

[baldrick]

I agree. Was just tossing out the fact that it wasn't even considered a drug to war on, until it apparently hit the radar of the same sort of folks that brought us Prohibition.

[trash]

The DuPonts.