High: The True Tale of American Marijuana

I figured for this post I would let someone else do the talking just to make all of you aware how many people believe that legalizing marijuana would benefit the country. In the video below this post is a documentary titled “High: The True Tale of American Marijuana”. This is a great documentary that addresses a lot of the myths surrounding the plant and discusses what positive impacts it could possibly have on America. It’s documentaries like these and other sources of information that made me change my views on marijuana. That’s right I didn’t always believe in legalizing this plant (shocking I know). I constantly believed that we were winning the war on drugs and that legalizing marijuana would lead to more crime. But if you looked at all the people, sources, and money that was spent to push these ideas on me, then how could I believe any different. Now that more and more people are questioning marijuana prohibition it’s easier to have access to other ideas, and this is what allows the individual to make an educated decision about the issue. This is what this debate is really all about. Giving people all of the information necessary to make their own decision based on facts, not myths or scare tactics that have been so prevalent surrounding this issue. This is my ultimate goal with this blog. To educate! To give people the information necessary to make their own decisions and then hopefully they will share my point of view. I hope you all enjoy the documentary as much as I did and please don’t limit yourself and view this movie with an open mind.   

Time To Grow Hemp!

I’ve discussed the potential economical benefits of marijuana a few times on this blog but today I want to talk about the economic up sides to another plant know as hemp. Hemp comes from the same family of plants as marijuana (Cannabis) and as a result it has been demonized in the same manner (albeit not as much as marijuana).  It is true that hemp contains THC just like marijuana but it does not contain enough to cause any of the same physiological effects. Hemp contains about 0.3 percent of THC where as marijuana can contain anywhere from 6 to 20 percent on average depending on the quality of the plant. Because hemp contains trace amounts of THC and because it comes from the cannabis plant family the government has greatly restricted production and cultivation of this plant. Hemp is used in as many as 50,000 products sold in the United States. It is used in everything from clothes to dietary products yet its production in the U.S is greatly restricted. It is nearly impossible to obtain a license to grow it through the DEA, and since we can’t grow it in any significant amount we have to depend on foreign countries such as China and Canada to export it to us. This makes the U.S the number 1 importer of hemp in the world.

                Think of how many jobs we can create by loosening our restrictive laws against hemp and how much economic growth can come with it. The same types of scare tactics used against marijuana are keeping us from the economic growth that we can achieve with hemp. It makes no sense and hopefully through this blog and other informational sources more and more people will realize this fact. Yes it is true that this plant contains THC, but when was last time you ever heard of drug dealers pushing hemp or anyone being arrested for smoking it? The truth is that there is not enough THC in hemp to obtain any kind of a “high” from the plant. Marijuana smokers realize this which is why you never hear of any of them or anyone else for that matter smoking hemp trying to obtain a high. However we still treat this plant as a drug which is why one has to obtain a license from the DEA in order to grow it.

We are shooting ourselves in the foot. How can we allow our apprehensions about marijuana trickle over to hemp? We buy it from other countries and put it into thousands of products that we sell in our stores and use in our homes yet we won’t allow our own citizens to cultivate it in order to improve our economy. This is proof on how well scare tactics work in demonizing cannabis. These scare tactics have been so effective that our own government is willing to limit the potential of our own economy based on them.  It’s like I’ve said before, we have to educate ourselves on cannabis so that we can free ourselves from these myths and scare tactics. Only by looking at the facts can we realize that cannabis can become one of the largest cash crops for America and bring incredible wealth to the country.    

                       

Super High Me

In honor of today I decided to have a little fun and post the movie Super High Me. It is a very funny movie spoofing the famous documentary Super Size Me by Morgan Spurlock. In this video comedian Doug Benson takes on 30 days of smoking marijuana. Along the way he goes through a number of tests including medical, I.Q, and psychic abilities. Throughout the experiment he is traveling from city to city performing his act. Have Fun and be safe today. I hope you all like the movie as much as I did. Enjoy!     

Here's to 40 Years of "Winning"

Congratulations everyone on winning the war on drugs for forty years now! That’s right for forty years since law enforcement first took up combating drugs in the 1960’s we have been winning. In each decade of this war law enforcement members have been preaching their sacred mantra “We are winning the war on drugs”. So according to them for forty years we have been winning the war. Well I have a question. How long do you have to be winning a war before you finally win the damn thing?  It took less time to win both world wars than it has to win the war on drugs. When it comes to this war we don’t even have an end date. There isn’t even an estimated year when this war might come to an end. There isn’t even a timeline on how long this war is going to last. Will it be over in ten years, twenty years, or another forty? I guarantee if you asked anyone in law enforcement this same question that they wouldn’t be able to give you a straight answer. When will people realize that we are spinning our wheels by constantly throwing money and resources into a war that truly has no end in sight? Not even a light at the end of a tunnel.

I was searching around the internet in an attempt to find some counter arguments to this issue. I found this website containing an article written in 2006 by Jonathan V Last of the Philadelphia inquirer.  http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n150/a08.html. At this website I found this statement “Over the last five years, while no one was paying attention, America has been winning its war on drugs.”  We have been winning all along and you all just haven’t been paying attention! This is one of the biggest smoke and mirrors acts that I have ever seen. This guy’s counter argument to America is losing the war on drugs is “No, we are winning everyone just hasn’t been paying attention”. Imagine if someone gave the same argument about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. The political backlash would be enormous on whoever would dare say it. The truth is that it’s because people are paying attention to the war on drugs that’s making them question it. They realize that we still have illegal drugs coming into our country as we did forty years ago and in that forty years we haven’t made any progress to stop it completely, and don’t see it stopping any time in the future.  Mr. Last’s argument is ridiculous and the fact of the matter is anyone who would write this and expect people to just accept it as fact is shameful.

Let’s look at the last five years since this article was written. Since then Mexico has been torn apart by violent drug cartels who are trying to push more drugs into this country than ever before. There have been more murders and a more steady supply of drugs coming into the U.S which is continuing to fund their criminal organizations. In just five years it has become an epidemic. My question is where was Mr. Last who wrote that we were winning five years ago? Was he paying attention then? Is he paying attention now? I wonder what he would say about the situation today. Would he notice that the war on drugs is pointless, or would he try to convince the rest of us that we were still winning and not paying attention? Let’s get educated everyone it’s time to start questioning the war on drugs instead of mindlessly accepting it.

Won't Somebody Think of the Children!

Out of all the arguments to keep marijuana illegal none of them makes less sense than the “Think of the Children” argument. Senator Feinstein, from California, spoke to a crowd about proposition 19 on October 30^th 2010. This proposition would have allowed marijuana to be legally possessed and cultivated by people who are 21 and over in California. In her speech that day she said "The last thing we need to do is make it easier for drug dealers to increase their consumer base by pushing pot on young people…"

 STOP! First of all if marijuana was legalized it would put drug dealers who sell marijuana out of business. After all, if you could get marijuana from a licensed legitimate store like you can alcohol, then why would you risk buying it from some sketchy guy in an alley? I mean you don’t buy your beer from a drug dealer you buy it from a liquor store by someone who is licensed to do so. Second, how would kids get their hands on marijuana if you had to be 21 or older to possess it? It’s the drug dealers who are going to sell drugs to kids not the legitimate businessman. Just like today you can’t purchase alcohol from any establishment unless you are over 21, so anyone underage trying to buy booze at any of these establishments will be told to take a hike.

I know what some of you might be thinking right now. You’re thinking “Well Ryan, what about all the underage kids who manage to get their hands on alcohol. Ending prohibition didn’t keep that from happening.” While this is true let’s take a look at who supplies these young people with alcohol. I took a look at www.centurycouncil.org and on their website I found this statement “Research commissioned by The Century Council reveals that 65% of underage youth who drink obtain alcohol from family and friends. Equally important, only 7% of youth report that they obtained alcohol from retailers who failed to check for identification.” Yeah that’s right these kids don’t get it from some sketchy drug dealer out in the streets they get it from home. Only 7% get it from irresponsible and absent minded retailers and nothing on the website mentioned kids buying it from drug dealers. Is it so hard to imagine that if marijuana were legal that it would keep drug dealers from selling it to our youth? After all, the drug dealer doesn’t care if he sells his marijuana to our kids illegally, however; a legitimate retailer would. So why wouldn’t you want to make marijuana legal and take the drug dealer out of the equation all together?

It seems that senator Feinstein is misguided on her view of ending marijuana prohibition. The “Think of the Children” argument can be put to rest by simple reasoning. If marijuana was legal and sold in licensed establishments with similar restrictions as alcohol, then drug dealers who sell marijuana would be obsolete. Therefore there would be no drug dealers selling marijuana to our kids because they would be put out of business by legitimate establishments. It really is that simple and it is amazing that people still resort to “Think of the Children” for their argument against marijuana legalization. Because in reality people who fight for marijuana legalization are doing more to keep drug dealers from selling marijuana to our youth than those making the argument.

The Positive Outcomes of Ending Marijuana Prohibition

It’s time to stop kidding ourselves and realize the many benefits there are when it comes to legalizing marijuana. Not only would this be a major American cash crop and bring in billions of dollars in government revenue a year, but it would also create small business, and decrease crime in America and Mexico. There are far more benefits for America to legalize this plant than to continue to pour money into the war on drugs that has been unsuccessful for decades. The fact that this plant is still illegal makes no sense. 

First off, let’s look at the possible revenue that marijuana could bring to the U.S. Currently American spends ten billion dollars keeping marijuana prohibition in place. That’s ten billion that we are in the hole every year to keep marijuana illegal in a war against drugs that has failed. The estimated illegal revenue that America generates from marijuana alone is another ten billion every year. Assuming that prices would remain the same as current illegal prices, and if a government tax was added to that amount, then that would accrue billions of dollars a year in taxes alone if marijuana was legalized. Now that’s ten billion dollars in revenue total plus another ten billion that the U.S would save every year on law enforcement activities related to marijuana. That’s twenty billion dollars that America would acquire every year not including the tax that the government could generate from this plant.  America is missing out on so much economic wealth that it makes no logical sense keeping marijuana prohibition in place.

Now many people would argue that revenue from marijuana alone wouldn’t be that significant to the U.S economy as a whole. And it is true Marijuana would be a huge cash crop but it wouldn’t single handedly pull us out of the economic slump, but I challenge you to find one single product or plan that would. The problem with this argument is that the people making it are thinking one dimensionally and are only considering the income from the plant alone. Legalizing marijuana would not only bring capitol from the plant itself but also create small business. Is it really that hard to imagine Amsterdam style coffee shops appearing in America? If we have bars to drink in wouldn’t it seem plausible to have lounges where people smoke cannabis? These ideas don’t seem that farfetched considering that we notice examples of similar establishments around the world. Cannabis lounges would not be the only businesses to profit off of marijuana legalization. Paraphernalia shops would explode throughout the country. People would want to purchase smoking devices and glassware for their cannabis consumption. Many people already own similar items so there is no question that it would become a profitable market. These small businesses would add jobs and strengthen economic development. It should be a no brainier that marijuana legalization would bring about major positive economic changes.

Where does all of this potential economic wealth find its way at the end of the day? In nowhere else but the pockets of the drug cartels whose violence is currently plaguing Mexico. This money funds the weapons and manpower the cartels use to carry out their violent actions that include beheadings and burning people alive in barrels full of diesel fuel. The best way to hurt these organizations is to take away their product and money. By legalizing marijuana we accomplish both. The cartels would take a ten billion dollar cut all at once thereby limiting their funds for weapons and their members. Not to mention the money that goes towards bribing police and political figures and carrying out hits on the ones who can’t be bought out. The cartels would lose their momentum making it easier to pursue them and bring them to justice. Mexico would finally see a reduction in violence making both Mexico and America safer. The best way to fight violent cartels in Mexico is not by pouring billions of dollars into a war on drugs that has accomplished nothing in the decades it has existed; this simply does not make sense. The best way to hurt these organizations is to take away their product and income completely, and legalizing marijuana does both.

Legalizing this plant accomplishes so many positive outcomes. The economic income it could provide for America and the security it could bring to both Mexico and the United States are reasons enough to at least discuss and debate the issue, instead of mindlessly dismissing it as we have for so long. It’s time to research and educate ourselves about what legalizing marijuana could do to benefit the society that we all participate in.