Food for thought on Prop19

[purpleatama]

Anyone see this story in the LA Times:
Legalization could slash the price of pot 80% - Los Angeles Times

My speculation is that to the end user, prices will not change. However, you will have big business starting large grow ops which will put many small time growers out of business. Also, much like the above post, it seems like government regulation and taxation will follow a similar route akin to tobacco. Also, Cannabis tourism will actually cause a LOT of problems. Amsterdam already has quite a problem dealing with this type of problem.

Removal of Cannabis as a Schedule I controlled substance and federal legalization of medical use would be sufficient enough to drastically curb the underground drug trade in Cannabis IMO.

 

[hydronewbie]

Here we go again. Those of us who support Prop 19 do so because we see it as a step toward national legalization of cannabis. Prop 19 is not perfect. It is one affront at relaxing cannabis as a schedule 1 controlled substance. If it does not succeed, another iteration eventually will. California will lead the way as it always has.

The irony of strange bedfellows - stoners against Prop 19 in agreement with law enforcement - is not lost on anybody. Each is concerned that Prop 19 is against self-economic interest while employing straw man fallacies to support their position which is ultimately about maintaining control of the status quo.

Virginia Postrel, in her book, The Future and Its Enemies, argues from her libertarian view point that there are stasists and dynamists in society that generate the ebb and flow of public policy.

Since it is so unpredictable, the future is threatening to some, an exciting challenge to others. Those to whom the future is threatening, because their cherished present may be disrupted, or because they will not be able to control what happens, Postrel calls the "stasists," since they want stasis. "Stasist" is similar to "statist," and this similarity is no coincidence, since Postrel is a libertarian, and stasists tend to be statists, appealing to politics for the power they need to inhibit change. Those for whom the future is wonderful because of the changes it promises Postrel calls "dynamists," since they see reality as dynamic, though the Greek word dynamis actually means "power." Dynamists, indeed, see power as something that resides in individual creativity, rather than in the collective and the state, as stasists tend to prefer. Dynamists see power in change, while stasists see power as something to prevent or control change.

Postrel further divides stasists into the "reactionaries," who simply like the past and hate the present, let alone the future, and "technocrats," who do not necessarily hate the future, but want it under their control, and dislike or hate the present for the extent to which it contains things that they don't want and would not have allowed if things were under their control. Although it is a division that Postrel does not make, we might further divide technocrats into "ideologues," who have some great theory about why they should be in control and what the future should look like, and "pragmatists," who have no special axes to grind, and no particular theory, but simply believe that a desirable future cannot be generated without someone in charge. Reactionaries, of course, can also be either ideologues or merely the naturally conservative, but we don't want to get carried away with elaborating Postrel's divisions too much. The thing about the "pragmatists" is that they may simply not understand that control is not needed -- indeed, that control is adverse to growth and development.

Postrel defines reactionaries as those "whose central value is stability" and technocrats as those "whose central value is control" [p.7]. As long as technocrats feel that things are out of control, they are natural allies of the reactionaries, even if they still think of themselves as believing in change in some manner or degree. Neither like the sort of Boom Town life that is the most agreeable to dynamists. A central aspect of the book is the visceral distaste that is revealed, in reactionaries and technocrats alike, for the vulgarity of dynamic popular culture and economic growth. Both factions have either a parochial or an elitist determination that others should live their way, which is why Postrel's first chapter is called "The One Best Way." Reactionaries tend to think that "the one best way" is already known from the present or the past, while technocrats think that it will be the fruit of their own planning and control.

In my view, the existing prohibition of cannabis cannot be sustained into the future. The interesting process of repealing cannabis prohibition plays itself out on this web site and in the mass media every day. The federal government has a formidable bully pulpit from which it maintains its status quo position regarding cannabis use as a criminal behavior against a growing body of social and scientific evidence that do not support that tenet.

In a little over a month, California may make history by regulating, taxing and controlling cannabis use for adults and citizens on both sides of the prohibition issue will have to make adjustments to the new paradigm shift.

I doubt I will change anyone's mind about Prop 19 here and so I won't try. I am for Prop 19 and nothing will sway that to the contrary because I can already sense the freedom I will enjoy after it passes and I believe that this progress will unshackle society completely from federal prohibition in the future.

Peace.

 

[YouGrowBoy]

If it does not succeed it will set the whole movement towards national legalization back. That is why it NEEDS to pass now and also keep many, many people out of jail.