We are allowing 60 billion dollars a year of untaxed American dollars go out of America to foreign entrepreneurs and will continue to do so until we are allowed to grow our own and all the prisons,rehab centers and drug cops in the world won't stop it. And reality is for people that can't handle drugs.                  And if the education of our children had truthful information about the most commonly used illicit drug,they might believe some of the scary things,but truthful about the really dangerous drugs out there. But no,they show an egg frying in a pan and tell children that that is their brain on marijuana. The child later in life tries pot,and in an instant realizes that he has been lied to,so maybe they were fibbing about the other drugs too.

That is just an example of how our government and the violence supporting anti-drug cartels have based the assault in their war on drugs. And when you tell one lie,it takes 2 to cover it up,even more if your a politician,and it keeps you in practice.

When the government decides to remove the cartels and organized crime from the marijuana market,they either have to remove the market,reduce the demand or destroy the plant.

They have been spraying herbicides in countries all over the world,to no avail. All we have accomplished is to have whole countries hate us because our sprays not only destroyed the marijuna patch,but three legal crops around it,starving the local farmers that were growing legal crops.

Reducing the demand has proven futile,we are going broke building prisons and locking up people for non-violent crimes. Over 800,000 were arrested last year for marijuana and the numbers increase yearly.

Removing the market is the only workable solution I see for the corner we have worked ourselves into. The way is simple and cost the US government not a dime in a stimulus bill. Legalize marijuana and allow the pot smokers to remove the market by growing their own. Anyone that is not able to grow their own because they are too lazy,too busy or just not in a setting where growing is possible will be the tax paying marijuana user that buys from the licensed store. Where ID's are checked to stop underage purchases. To stop the cartels the retail stores will have to sell a good grade of marijuana at a lower price than the cartels can because as Walmart has taught us all,you can put people out of business by selling for less.

So the people wanting to raise large dollars on taxes off marijuana will have to tune that down or they just raise the price where instead of removing the cartels,you help them raise their prices and make more money, and they already have their distribution and sales systems in place.

The real stimulus to our economy comes when we quit allowing 60 billion a year leave this country,but instead it will be put back into our economy by the people when they are no longer handing the money over to a dealer,instead,they are buying manufactured goods and services.

The justifications that users and addicts come up with to try to make their habit “legal” are never ending. They get into all sorts of arguments about prisons and dollars and dealers to shift the attention away from their habit.

“It doesn’t do me any harm” is probably one of the favorites. A totally stupid statement as they never notice any difference within themselves so think that nothing has changed. There is a very measurable physical difference in their body never mind the difference in their ability to be rational.

 “I enjoy it” follows this pretty closely which is an admission that there was already something wrong with their “normal” state that they had to escape from because playing games, sports or just engaging in pleasurable activities no longer provided any excitement.

All this kind of talk is of course wasted on those that are hooked. This is because the drugs have already altered their mind and rationale and there is no way for them to see it when they are in it.

The only hope for a reduction in drug use is to provide some true data about drugs in a non threatening way for the person to inspect, consider and decide for themselves. Some will see it, some others won’t. Nothing ever works 100%. As long as we can keep the majority sane, strong and with decent values we will still have a workable society that can afford to look after the weak and the sick.

Merv

  The estimates are that 70% of the cartels income comes from the green market on marijuana,and the striking thing about that figure is that 70% of the DEA's budget is for fighting marijuana. Since the leaders of the DEA are bureaucrats and their budget depends on marijuana remaining illegal,you can expect them to try everything they can to hold on to their piece of the budget pie.

   If nothing else comes out of this War on Drugs,we can only hope that America wakes up and removes these agencies that feed off the tax trough and produce no tangible results except the accomplished spending of their budgets.

   The DEA uses propaganda to build up support and when they make a "bust",whether the drugs are pure or not,all are reported at street value,hence an ounce of 20% cocaine is reported as pure and the street value is then attached as if you could add cut to the drugs seized as if it was pure. That is why when they report their effectiveness using dollar amounts as a marker,they sound like they are stopping millions of dollars worth of drugs,but the cartels are only losing thousands of dollars on their million dollar bust.

  In the seizures of marijuana,they price all marijuana as if it were all Kush or some other exotic strain when in fact it sells on the street for $50 an ounce. Again,the DEA reports millions of dollars busted and the cartels just loses thousands.

  The DEA has lied to the American people for so long now that they don't even know the truth anymore and are not interested in finding it.

Jillian,they are required by law,to refuse to do anything that validates any medical uses for marijuana or supports legalization,which means that even if they wanted to,they can't reschedule marijuana.We are caught in a catch 22 with them.

A bill was passed in 1984 or 85 that makes it illegal for any government agency to do this,and it will have to be repealed before any scientific medical studies are done.

The study by Dr. Tashkin was approved by the DEA because in the outline of the study,Dr Tashkin and the DEA thought that a direct connection with pot smoking and cancer or COPD could be established,they were so sure of it that the DEA paid for the study,for 30 years,but oops,wrong.

  The sad part is,that even if the study had proven 100% to cure cancer,the DEA would not release it,and as Dr Tashkin said further studies were required to verify that pot was a cancer preventative,those studies will never be approved,because it's against the law for anyone to approve such a study. The only studies allowed by the DEA are studies that target something harmful or dangerous about marijuana,never the good.

  I will search and find that bill so I can list it here because we need to remove that law before we can get enough information for the FDA to approve marijuana as a medicine. Since the FDA is also a government agency,it can't legally approve medical marijuana,no matter what evidence we present.

As we have increased the border security and are now confiscating more of the marijuana as it comes across,the cartels are moving growers into our communities and setting up shop in country,to bypass all that security. With the advancements being made in L.E.D. low heat,low wattage lighting,which reduces air conditioning costs and the big electric bills connected with commercial growing,detection will come only by accident and after the fact,when they leave a rented property full of empty containers with stumps sticking out of them. The expense of growing indoors will be offset by not losing their loads at the border and being able to grow the more exotic strains,widening their market base and increasing their profits. It is going to be very interesting for the next few years,watching the multi-billion dollar cartels give our multi-billion dollar drug warriors headaches.

That's true, Norman. As border security increases the cartels are going to have more and more incentive to fully establish themselves in our country.

So far their strength has come from the fact that they've kept a very low profile over here. They don't roam the streets murdering rivals like Al Capone and his gang did during the alcohol prohibition.

Because of this many, many people don't see any harm being caused by the prohibition at all. But the more the cartels move operations over here, the more violence they'll bring with them. There will come a tipping point when the general public demands an end to the violence with whatever way works. Ending the prohibition will be considered a small price to pay.

Hopefully we can speed this process up so the number of murders will be kept to a minimum, but eventually the end of the prohibition is inevitable. I would like to see it happen in my lifetime.

If we covered the earth's bare viable real estate with the hemp plant,we would reverse the greenhouse effect,replace pulp wood,allowing forest regeneration,cloth the poor,feed the hungry,reduce oil and coal use,and it would be purty as a bugs ear.

I support marijuana legalization because I think it is probably the most wrong thing America has ever done to it's self. I don't get a paycheck or expect any monetary gain from the legalization beyond the money I save when I don't have to buy marijuana from the dealers,but grow my own. I support marijuana legalization because I beleive it to be the single most versatile healing herb and useable plant on earth.

Although there are some organizations that support marijuana legalization that have paid positions within their structure,you only see them on TV or hear them on radio.

These forums are full of people that support legalization,not for money,but for the same reasons I have. But the people we see here and on television that support the prohibition are all dependant on the drugs remaining illegal for them to continue making their living.

And that is why we will win!

Too many people are making a real good living from marijuana being illegal, because they know that if you put two smokers from different sides of town in jail they will network and multiply.Marijuana is available everywhere,and the republicans know it. If they would just STOP and think of the people instead of their friends and big contributors to their campaigns that have a stake in state or federally run correctional institutions. Try spending some of those billions on actually helping the people and not just locking them up. The United States will never win this drug war if its only solution is to lock everybody up. Legalize it and tax it, thats been the american way ever since I can remember. The only question is why is it taking so long.

OK - great idea, let's legalize drugs...........

but for whom? everyone?  like kids? would there be an age limit?  because if not - then a lot of these bad guys would be selling drugs to our kids......that is to say, selling more drugs to children than they do now........

Is the concept here that we should legalize because we can't beat them?  is that it?  because if it is, then why bother to fight for anything?  Why bother to stand up for anything you believe in?  Why not legalize Human Trafficking (which incidentally is the fastest growing criminal activity in the world) - let's make it legal to buy and sell people. To keep them captive in misery. Take them away from their famillies and their culture. Beat them. Rape them. Sell them for sex. Sell them for cheap labour.  Because we're currently losing that battle as well. 

Is that OK with you?   Because it isn't with me........

If we're losing the war on drugs - just like when we're losing any other war - then we need to change our strategy, not just give in.........

Why not take a leaf out of Rudy Giuliani's book of zero tollerance - look what he did for New York city in the early '90's.....

but to advocate just giving up.....   shame on you

john stack   4th August 2009: johnstack@svetna.com

http://www.svetna.com

I'm sorry John, I didn't mean to confuse you. If the prohibition actually achieved its goal of preventing people from using marijuana then we wouldn't have a problem. Nobody would use marijuana, the cartels would therefore have nobody to sell it to which would leave them with neither the financial ability nor the incentive to murder in order to protect their marijuana incomes (because of course they wouldn't have any).

But the prohibition doesn't prevent people from using marijuana. Marijuana has been widely used during the entire seventy years of the prohibition. So what the prohibition achieves instead is that it prevents reputable companies from legally competing against the cartels. The cartels make about $13 billion a year from selling marijuana in the U.S. and they kill whomever they think they have to in order to guarantee the continuity of this income. Last year the cartels murdered more than 6,000 people in order to protect their drug incomes, and so far this year they've killed 4,000 already and will murder about 3,000 more before Christmas.

This is the outcome of the prohibition that you support. The options for people like you are either to make it work and eliminate marijuana use from this country, or continue supporting it knowing that it doesn't achieve its goal of preventing marijuana from being used in this country and therefore it does directly lead to the deaths of thousands of people.

As the last seventy years have shown us, it is physically impossible to prevent marijuana from being used in this country, therefore the only logical, humane and effective solution is to license reputable businesses to legally produce and sell marijuana to adults at prices too low for the cartels to match. This will immediately take from the cartels all of their adult customers and leave them with so little income from minors that they'll be forced out of business. As the cartels make two-thirds of their incomes solely from marijuana sales in the U.S. ending this source of income will decimate them and permanently end the murders they're committing.

So, how are you following the logic this time John? Since you appear to be a diehard supporter of the prohibition I'd really like to hear how you're going to make it achieve its goal of eliminating marijuana use in this country when that goal has so completely eluded us for the last seventy years.