Why Continue Waging A War Against Hemp?

[User]

Historians of the future will doubtless marvel that a great and powerful republic, founded in part on "liberty and the pursuit of happiness" but now suffering from difficult economic times would waste billions of dollars every year in a futile war against a humble plant.

That plant, of course, is hemp -- source of oil, fiber and a mild psychoactive drug. It's so mild that in all of history, no one has ever died from a marijuana overdose.

And those who used it in their youth, like the three most recent American presidents ( Clinton claimed he "didn't inhale," Bush was "young and foolish" in his jejune days, and Obama confessed that "pot had helped" during his youth ), somehow managed to go on to reasonably productive lives.

So why is the stuff still illegal?

For one thing, there's an immense federal bureaucracy, the Drug Enforcement Administration, which naturally seeks to stay in business. As long as pot is illegal, the DEA has plenty of work. And when the need arises for a headline to show that the DEA is on the ball, its agents can always drive to some home that uses too much electricity, shoot the dogs, kick in the door, and announce that American youth are protected because it just seized plants with an estimated street value of $4.2 gazillion.

For another, there's our pharmaceutical industry, a major source of campaign contributions. The pill-makers buy candidates so they can protect their revenue streams.

Now, it might be too much to expect the federal government to move sensibly here. There are, after all, two wars and a crumbling economy to contend with. But Colorado could help itself by legalizing the cultivation, sale and use of marijuana with a reasonable excise tax of $25 an ounce.

It would save money in several ways, like lower law-enforcement costs, as well as a reduction in the prison population. Further, the corruption and violence associated with black markets should diminish.

More money would circulate in our state, as Colorado hemp farmers received money now going to Mexican drug cartels. Profitable farms mean that open space gets preserved through market mechanisms, rather than taxes and zoning. Further, it might enhance tourism, at least until other states catch on.

One possible snag is the federal government. No matter how sensible we make our state laws, there would still be draconian and moronic federal laws enforced by federal agents.

So initially, the marijuana excise tax proceeds should go to our state attorney general's office, with instructions that the money be used to defend all Coloradans charged with marijuana violations that are crimes under federal law but not under our enlightened state law.

In other words, every "probable cause" for a search warrant would be vigorously contested. The chain of evidence would come under intense scrutiny. The credibility of informants and agents would be subject to brutal cross-examination.

Every such trial -- our tenacious defense teams would never plea-bargain -- would be a grinding ordeal for the U.S. Attorney's office. The federal Department of Justice would soon move its prosecutorial resources away from pot and toward real crimes that people care about.

The downside? Maybe a few more lazy potheads munching junk food. But in today's economy, there aren't jobs for them anyway, so where's the harm to society?

Contrast that with the benefits of reduced spending on cops and prisons, a boost to Colorado agriculture, and increased revenue for our hard-pressed state government, if we'd just give up on this silly war against a plant.


News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/
Source: Aspen Times (CO)
Copyright: 2009 Aspen Times
Contact: mail@aspentimes.com
Website: Aspen Colorado | AspenTimes.com News
Author: Ed Quillen

[michaelkaer]

This War on drugs is an insane war. If you just looked at it logically for 2 seconds, you would see that the vast majority of the people now know that A) there are some uses medically for the plant. If you ask, most people will answer glaucoma, aids and cancer with maybe a few saying MS or pain treatment. The vast majority of the people know that you can make paper,rope and cloth out of the fibre. How can any government expect to keep such a useful plant illegal. Individuals will be happy to go far out of their way to make sure the government never has the chance to wipe out this plant. Government folks WAKE UP! How much poison was put on the plants in other countries which ended up harming US citizens? This is a plant. All it takes is one tiny seed eaten by a bird and transporting it to another district, to start it growing again. There are not enough thugs the government can round up to pull up these plants (and no way of controlling the thugs from stealing some of it) to put a dent in the ferrel hemp and ditchweed. What makes them think that inteligent individuals would not continue to hound them in the govenments futile (and extremely wasteful) efforts at erradication. The people have to keep hounding them with simple questions like "Why are you wasting billions of dollars a year on this when we could use the money for much better things?" one last word, plants can multiply on a logrithmic scale but the thugs to tear out the plants are more linear and over time will go into decline.