Daily Skiff

To much money being made off marijuana being illegal, greed is what controls things not using your brains

There needs to be rational discussion. When that begins prohibition will end. Right now we have billions of dollars being allocated to fight a never ending war. As long as the hardliners can continue to scare society, the money will flow.

Alcohol prohibition ended 4 years after the great depression began. People get rational when money is scarce.

Alex, I could not agree with you more. There are many people who agree that our current drug policies border on insanity.

Drug Policy Forum of Texas
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Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
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The tobacco, alcohol and prescription drug gangs cause more death annually than all illicit drugs. Current drug policy disregards science and punishes families of citizens, confiscating their property for making a safer health choice in a social or medicinal drug. What madness!!

Users have been around for eons with out this violent bloodletting except during the first "Noble" experiment.

Across America paramilitary drug raids trigger violence rather than lessen the risk. It is called, "Overkill" to use such force on a nonviolent health issue.
http://www.cato.org/raidmap/
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

None of us like to think that we've been brain-washed by our very own Federal Government, even when the evidence of it stares us starkly in the face every day. Even when physical evidence of it is well-documented and easily accessible. The truth must be told! Marijuana is one of the friendliest, most useful natural substances known to man, and its illegality makes no sense at all.

I am in complete agreement in all the article says.From all I have seen and read and know about Hemp is this ,all efforts should be made to legalize Hemp .As it now stands ,eventhough it is illegal anyone can get Marijuana,BUT no one in the USA can get Hemp,unless it is from another country. MARIJUANA illegal,HEMP illegal. American Marijuana can be aquired American Hemp cannot. LEGALIZE

Excellent article, Alex.
I expected this to be rather controversial and am pleasantly surprised that all commentors agree with you. Well done-

Alex,

I am the PR Director of GA NORML at UGA, and would like to commend you on taking on such a difficult social issue at such a young age. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, but instead want push you in the right direction. Let me move through your article point by point:

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The March 8 death of University of Kansas student Jason Wren from alcohol poisoning raised a question in my mind: Why is it legal to drink yourself to death while marijuana and hemp are still illegal substances?
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Great opening question! You correctly placed it in the context of recent events, and successfully engaged your audience.


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The prohibition of marijuana seems so hypocritical when you consider the fact that alcohol and prescription drugs can be just as disastrous and sometimes even more lethal than most illegal drugs.
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Ok, here you make a bit of an amateur mistake. If your goal is to sway opinion, you just ostricized your prospective audience. Never call your opponents hypocrites; they just stopped listening to you. Try to stick to the history and science behind the issue. If you haven't read much of it, check out these links:

Every study on the subject in the last 100 years:
http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm

Quick history of subject:
http://www.druglibrary.net/schaffer/History/whiteb1.htm

Note that this is a speech, and many quotations are paraphrased. Full book on which it is based is available in full here:

http://druglibrary.net/schaffer/Library/studies/vlr/vlrtoc.htm


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Every year 440,000 Americans die from tobacco use, according to the National Institutes of Health. There are also 100,000 alcohol related deaths, according to the NIH, but zero marijuana related deaths. So why are we spending $44 billion a year prosecuting simple marijuana possession cases?
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The Socratic method of debate is ineffective on this issue. Try not to ask questions within your articles. Only offer answers. Try to add some humor to this point. For instance, 100 people die each year from water overdose, not drowning, but drinking too much water.

Also, specify that health consequences are clearly not sufficient reason to outlaw marijuana. The death statistics speak volumes. While tobacco, alcohol, and cheeseburgers (obesity) contribute to nearly a million deaths annually, all illegal drugs combined only cause 10,000. Point out that most of this is due to the inconsistency in the products produced by the illicit market.


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Some argue that legalization would lead to a higher crime rate, but history doesn't support that. The Netherlands, which voted to legalize soft drugs, has a lower crime rate per capita than the U.S.
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Prove your claim here. Show how History doesn't support such a statement, and never use the Netherlands as an example. Look to California; being in America, people relate to it better.


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I am not an advocate of making alcohol and cigarettes illegal, nor am I promoting the use of marijuana. But we need to consider who benefits from keeping marijuana and hemp illegal.
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I get what you are saying here. However, over the years, I feel I have found a better way to express it:

"I am against Drug abuse, and if there is a better,proven method to reduce it, I want that method enacted. Legalization has been deemed the best solution to decrease drug abuse by every scientific study performed on our current drug policy of prohibition in the last 100 years. Not a single study exists in opposition."

Again, easy access to the studies is provided in the link above. Also, it sometimes helps to mention how successful California, much of the West coast, and Northeast have shown successes in curbing drug abuse. SO much so, that in several major polls the west coast shows a 58% support of full on legalization of marijuana.


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Growing hemp is illegal in most states, yet according to a recent CNN report, the plant is the most economically and environmentally sound paper source in the world. Hemp has the most usable protein of any plant in the world, and it requires little to no fertilizer to grow.
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Great argument, but you should always mention the low THC content of Hemp v. recreational species of marijuana. This accomplishes two things. One, it shows how ridiculous this "War on Drugs" has become, and two, it appeals to American Capitalism.


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The February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine named hemp the "new billion-dollar crop," citing some of its 25,000 applications, which range from making rope to canvas to cattle feed. It is from this amazing plant that medical marijuana is produced for a variety of diseases, including glaucoma, AIDS and cancer.
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I'm sure you can find a more recent (1938?!), and more widely acclaimed source than Popular Mechanics. This makes your argument look weak.

Also, the subject should be primarily marijuana, and not Hemp. While hemp is interesting, there is a difference between the species used for hemp, and those used for recreational/medicinal marijuana production.


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Marijuana was outlawed as a result of a massive public relations and lobbying campaign sponsored by chemical, logging and cotton companies that were becoming obsolete when it was discovered that hemp could produce the very same things they did, only better.
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You could drill this point home so much better. In fact, I wrote an entire article on just the history of Marijuana Laws. Check it out here:

http://media.www.redandblack.com/media/storage/paper871/news/2009/03/05/Opinions/Marijuana.Laws.Are.complete.Lunacy-3659795.shtml


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Natural health researcher Karen Railey reported that if hemp cultivation were legal, it would greatly reduce our imports of petroleum, textiles and clothes. It would save entire forests from logging and would be incredibly beneficial to the U.S. economy.
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Again, while banning hemp is a great point to show how these laws have gotten completely out of control, it is not at the core of this argument. Try to stick to the issue: Recreational/medicinal use of marijuana.

Also, when quoting figures in studies, offer more than "natural health researcher." What is her title? What institution does she work for? This is why Obama came under fire as a "community organizer." The title is so vague it forces people to question the credibility.

Again, stick to the science, and history of the matter. Try to quote from Journals, and not magazines.

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By enforcing the ineffective prohibition on marijuana, we lose $33 billion in untaxed revenue, according to Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron. That is in addition to the $44 billion the government currently spends on prohibition. Until the government realizes that the money should be put to better use, drug cartels will continue to generate billions of untaxed income from this simple plant.
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Jeffrey Miron is an amazing source of information. He is widely regarded in several academic matters, so make your reader aware of his merit.

Mention that he authored a petition signed by over 500 recognized economists, including three Nobel Laureates, begging the U.S. government to repeal prohibition laws for the economic advantages alone. Additionally, look at his recent article about the Cartel Wars going on in Mexico. It is the greatest incite written on the situation to date, and has vastly swayed public opinion on the failures of the War on Drugs.

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Prohibition did not work with alcohol. Instead it created the most notorious underground crime era in American history. Now we have managed to do the same thing with marijuana.
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Not the greatest closing point, and leaves many holes unanswered.

Your article is a great start, and I am impressed by your merit of not using an "its natural" approach. Keep up the great work, and feel free to contact me:

busted [dot] norml [at] gmail [dot] com

Are you retarded? There are reported marijuana related deaths. This article is retarded. Marijuana prohibition is 2 faced? Marijuana has the same effects on the human body as does alcohol and increases the risk of heart disease and failure. Yes I've done my research. Don't be stupid and look up your facts. In 1999 there were recorded deaths related to marijuana use.

marijuana should be banded all over the world because it is most dangerous drug.

Most Americans and Texans agree and believe health care is the responsibility of the individual. The use of marijuana has been demonized and made a crime, when in truth, it is a health care story about a safer choice!

The really dangerous drugs are the legal ones. Over a thousand people die each day due to tobacco use! Close to 300 a day die from prescribed pharmaceuticals. The tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals gangs deal drugs causing more death annually than all illicit drugs We tolerate their salesmen!

Laws against moral issues, like suicide, drug abuse and sex acts are mostly useless or worse counter productive as far as prevention. They are against our founders and Jesus' teachings of freedom of choice, of free will. Moral issues belong to the individual's beliefs or church philosophy. The family is far superior to the state as a means of moral development and social control.

The destruction of the sacred family unit is one of the worst consequences of the new prohibition. The propaganda is we wage this war to protect our children. The devastating and deadly facts are our babies, especially teens have become collateral damage in this grossly failed war.

Only 50 percent of high school students graduate in our ten biggest cities and only 40 per cent graduate in NYC, Baltimore and Detroit. In the Netherlands 92 percent graduate; that's No Child Left Behind! There drugs are regulated, controlled, taxed and made legally available to everyone over eighteen.

The government is best left out of our personal moral dilemmas. They are needed to protect us from fraud and violence. At present they are too busy trying to be our moral police instead of our safety police Get tough on violent crime!

It may very well be in the interests of people to consult a legal forum on this is it legal question such as http://www.isitlegalto.com. There are a variety of opinions and even more discussion there. However, these types of legal questions are quite serious and thoughtful analysis and thorough examination of the positives and negatives is most certainly warranted. One may want to start with the medical establishment which stands to lose significant revenue and market share to mary jane.