On international pot smokers day why not ask the question; do you think marijuana should be legalized? Today a large crowd of protestors marched on Parliament Hill demanding exactly that. Recent polling suggests that the majority of Canadians support the decriminalization, if not the legalization of the substance; including support from 61% of adults in British Columbia. I am going to have to side with the majority of my Provincial bretheren on this one. Alcohol does far more damage to the human body and in my opinion far more damage to society.
I believe we should legalize it, tax the shit out of it, and take billions of dollars out of the pocket of organized crime. We could even take 100% of the tax revenues and put them into law enforcement and the fight against heroin, cocaine, and meth. I do recall seeing demographic studies that show the baby boomers the most supportive of legalization, a large voting block that is about to retire. They're going to be looking for something to do with all that free time...
My daughter works in a candy/chocolate shop in the By Ward market, she never saw so many stoned folks come into the shop before. Business was booming baby.
ReplyDeleteLegalize it, but don't count on raking in the tax revenues. Anyone with a pot, some dirt and a window can grow their own, that stuff grows like ...weeds...don't cha know.
People who grow pot are suddenly going to turn into law abiding citizens?
ReplyDeleteI don't think so.
Just what I want. For the market to be saturated by legal marijuana so that my kids are exposed to it more than they already are. Yay.
Yup great idea...replace tobacco caused, lung cancer, emphysema, throat cancer, second hand smoke asthma etc
ReplyDeletewith marijuana caused lung cancer, emphysema, throat cancer, second hand smoke asthma.....
Unbelievable the rationale that enters into the minds of the mindless.
For every change there is an effect......
Do both. Legalize Cannabis, and at the same time give the police new powers and harsher punishment for the hard drugs.
ReplyDeleteSorry Suzanne but your attitude just makes people lie to you. They know how you feel and hide how they feel because of your reaction. More people smoke than you could possibly imagine. It will be just as illegal for kids to smoke it as it is now.
I don't anymore because being a stoner, or a drunk for that matter, has no place in my life. If it were legal, I might enjoy a toke or two at Thanksgiving, provided I could buy it at the liqueur store.
As for taxing your garden or your plants, thats silly. Go to Holland. Professional growers can make much better strains than a casual one. Its the stuff for sale that will be taxed, and it will sell very well indeed.
Just look at the alcohol industry. You don't just shut the door on a legitimate industry, you give that industry to crooks and have police run around after them for no good reason.
Follow my recommendation and the crooks will lose major income and be forced to turn to hard drugs where the new police powers will see them destroyed. Think of legalizing cannabis as the sugar to make the left swallow the kind of laws and powers we really need.
I dont give a damn about your shitty parenting skills Suzanne, we can do what we like.
ReplyDeleteCompare the health effects of alcohol vs the health effects of marijuana. If you think marijuana should be illegal for health risks, then we should make alcohol illegal.
ReplyDeleteAlcohol is the biggest "gateway drug" of them all.
Iceman, find me a comparison because up to now on how would it have been measured? There is no valid measurement on health effect.
ReplyDeleteHow can alcohol be compared to marijuana? They are not same any more than Tylenol 4 is the same as percocet.
That is just naive, my friend and I'm not buying that aspect of the argument.
My argument is the SMOKE aspect. We have spent the better part of a decade ostracizing tobacco smokers from every walk of life and now we are suggesting another form of 'public smoking'? THAT is my argument. SMOKE!
Do you think cigarettes should be illegal?
ReplyDeleteWow, some libertarian you are. Yeah, you'll let people toke but take away their freedom to do hard drugs, which people have every right to do!
ReplyDeleteThen call me a neo-Libertarian.
ReplyDeleteI knew a guy who went to work stoned everyday, he was a lifeguard. I wonder if DavidA would send his kids to that pool, or would he be too stoned to care?
ReplyDeleteSecond hand pot smoke gets everyone around it high, whether they want to be or not.
How many people die every year from going to work drunk? Why is alcohol legal?
ReplyDeletePeople should be disciplined for going to work intoxicated, regardless of the substance.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in knowing where they could smoke this stuff. Couldn't be anywhere public.
ReplyDeleteIt is illegal to walk down the street drinking a beer. I would expect similar standards to be applied. They are now restricting where you can smoke cigarettes outside. Yet you can burn charcoal in a barbaque in public parks. Which deposits more silt into the lungs of innocent pedestrians?
ReplyDeleteEveryone's answer is always to make it legal and place it under the control of the Government to be taxed. There is this belief that marijuana will suddenly become legitimate and crime will go away. Has this happened with alcohol and tobacco? No. We still have criminal smuggling that takes place, and we still have the hand of organized crime in these areas. Why? The taxes have made these commodities cost prohibitive. It would be the same with MJ. We would still have people committing crimes in order to either obtain it, manufacture and sell it under the counter, or to obtain the cash for it. Criminals will still be involved in the industry, and violence will be too. We'll have tens of thousands of people smoking where they want and claiming it's for medical purposes. They'll hollar, "It's my constitutional right!" and have the HRCs in their laps defending them. Meanwhile, I'll be the slob sitting in a restaurant, dying for a cigarette, and getting higher than a kite from the second hand MJ smoke from the table of medical users to my left!
ReplyDeleteI agree with The_Iceman, keep the rules strict, keeping punks away from the school grounds. I have one concern, would legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana hinder international travel when leaving Canada?
ReplyDeleteTo me, the real question is "Do you want the Government" in the drugs business? I sure don't. They shouldn't be growing dope, and they shouldn't be peddling booze. What people do in the privacy of their homes or on their own land is their business.
ReplyDeleteMichael St.Paul's
Who ever made the claim that crime would go away? All I said is that if you legalize it, the majority of the profits will shift to legitimate enterprise which can be taxed.
ReplyDeleteWhen they made alcohol illegal, organized crime flourished. Who do you want revenue sharing, Al Capone or Uncle Sam?
Legalization and taxation is the only way to go.
ReplyDeleteControl it like liquor and tax it high.
Cretien's plan of decriminalization was dumb,it would have had the wrong effect as you would have been able to have pot, smoke pot, but no-one could grow pot so organized crime would have been the only beneficiary.
I agree with iceman, legalise it, and tax the crap out of it. BTW hemp has other uses besides getting wrecked, it is a valuable plant.
ReplyDelete