Why Marijuana isn't legal

[sasquatch]

Marijuana isn't anymore harmful than Alcahol or Tobacco. Then why is it Illegal you ask? Well there are many reasons why it stays illegal.


#1. Marijuana can't be controlled like Tobacco. The Marijuana plant is a fundamentaly different plant from the Tobacco plant. The Marijuana plant is a weed and can grow relativly anywhere. The Marijuana plant doesn't require the constant maintaining that the Tobacco plant requires. The Tobacco plant is a flowering plant that requires constnat maintaining. Since Tobacco is more difficult to raise it is easier to regulate.

#2. Law agency unions do not want to lose job security that the war on drugs offers. Do you know why being a cop's support drug laws? More laws=more cops. Why do you think people become cops? Pay, benefits and job security is why people become police officers. Cops also benefit from the fear mongering that politicians, religous clergy and prosicutors have been feeding to the public. Cops like the fact that they waste 3x as much money stoping the flow on drugs than the actual price of the drugs being moved. That means $$$ for them.

#3. The hatred of races and the use of the war on drugs to supress them. The earliest example of this is anti-opium laws that were aimed at Chinese immegrants. The jingoistic fears of asian people by white people was capatilized on by politicians. The hatred of minorities is why white voters like the war on drugs. Many of these people used drugs and still use drugs. Yet their fear of minorities is why the war on drugs continues because it keeps them supressed. Why is it that a large amount of black's are in prison and not white drug users? Society say's Rush has a disease and needs treatment. Yet the black kid needs his door kicked down and shot because "he's a menace to society."



BTW I don't smoke and I've never tried it either.

[MsUnderstood]

1. another theory

The legalazation of marijuana will hurt 2 industries: tobacco (not so much) and alcohol (they would take a beating).

I believe that it is the alcohol giants who keep Marijuana illegal because of the loss of profits that the alcohol manufacturers would see.

[LincolnMcGrath]

2. Don't forget the film REFFER MADNESS

And the DUPONT family.

[Demobrat]

3. MJ is illegal because

the cotton industry in the thirties didn't want to deal with the competition from hemp. Still doesn't.

[youngred]

12. and because their main users were mexican immigrants

who were here illegally. A racist law on the consumption of a favoured release

[CrownPrinceBandar]

4. True, true and true....

for a non-pot smoker you have a pretty good handle on the issues that face those who do.

Why don't you become a lawyer and go to bat for the hemp industry. You don't seem to have an obvious agenda. They'd have nothing on ya.

[Frangible]

5. Somehow

I don't think "great pay" is really a valid reason to become a cop :P

Most do it for ideological reasons, although you do have your bad apples.

Oh, and I think marijuana should be legalized. Completely stupid it hasn't. Goddamn puritans.

[sasquatch]

6. It pays a whole lot better than most jobs

Hell I was recently was laid off from my factory job and I started out at $8 an hour w/o benefits. Cops start out at 30k a year plus benefits. That's a hell of a lot better paying job than most people.

[MercutioATC]

9. Having worked at a police dep't and two sheriff's depts....

I can say that money never seemed to be a motivating factor. The biggest reason for joining law enforcement that I saw:

The same reason people go into the military. It's a job that doesn't require a 4-year degree.

Of course, there were prople did it for the good they could do or the power it gave them, but most just did it because it was a job.

[tkmorris]

11. Not in my experience

I'd say the opposite is true. There are a few who become police officers due to ideological reasons but most are just looking for a steady job and decent pay. Being a policeman gives them that. Just as being a mailman does. No one does THAT for ideology. :)

[geniph]

13. I actually have two good friends who are cops

and both became cops because it's a) interesting work, b) good benefits and reasonable job security, and c) because it's the best-paid work most folks can get without a degree. Both also prefer shift work, which is ALWAYS available to P.D. employees in larger towns. Neither actually joined up for ideological reasons.

[CanuckAmok]

7. I am the only person in BC who doesn't smoke pot!

But I agree with decriminalization.

One other point which nobody has made:

The medicinal use of MJ is quite beneficial, however, it's not lucrative to the pharmaceutical industry, because, as a completely natural sourced product, it can't be patented.

Since it can't be patented, if it were legal enough for say Bristol-Myers to grow it, anybody would be allowed to. So, instead, people aren't allowed to use it medicinally, and must therefore go to the manufactured pharmaceuticals controlled by the corporate producers.

By the way, I didn't smoke for years because of the drug testing in the Canadian Forces, and I don't now, because I don't enjoy it. I did buy, for a time, when my eighty year old Father-in-Law was suffering through the final stages of stomach cancer. He smoked (first time in his life!), to relieve the pain, and it worked wonders.

[sasquatch]

10. I've heard it was great for Cancer treatment

It helps start appitite's and ends pain from my understanding.

[Virgil]

8. It is the center pole in the circus that is the WOD n/t

[Superfly]

14. Marijuana is not legal because

it's been proven to affect the ability of people to spell many simple words like "alcohol", "prosecutors", and "constant". (Hint: DU has a *free* spell checker!)

:evilgrin:

[ConcernedCanuk]

15. NA na - you ALL have it wrong - - especially re: weed

.
.

If Weed were legal,

The people of the USA would NOT put up with war, make war, or support war.

So the "Industry" that would suffer

is the USA's WarMachine and all the spin-off Industries.

It appears to me tha the USA leaders WANT the world to hate them . .

So they can justify all this war, missile and bomb sh*t.

They don't want y'all to be like us "wimpy" Canuks !!

. . . . . . . .

[rbnyc]

16. Hemp Paper v. Wood Pulp Paper Patents.

The chief investment banker of Dupont was some relative of Hoover. Dupont had a wood pulp paper process up for a patent at the same time a hemp paper process was up for a patent. Hoover appointed the investment banker to head a newly revamped FDA and started a smear campaign against marijuana so that Dupont would be able to destroy trees and pollute rivers with their inferior way of producing paper.

EDIT: This is what I remember from an article I read years ago in High Times. I'm doing a search now to see if I can find it.

Second Edit: Here are some links. Not quite like I remembered but we can still blame Dupont.

http://ramabahama.mystarband.net/web/vgp/info/pat-history2.html

http://www.mcwilliams.com/books/aint/303a.htm

http://www.hemp-sisters.com/Information/misinformation.htm