How much money could we make locally from the legalization of Marijuana?

[stephendare]

It seems like the amount could be fairly formidable.  After all, we are the first city in Florida that most people travel through on vacation.   I would bet that the West and Northsides of the City would crisp up almost immediately if their cash crops werent so sensibly uninviting.

It seems like there is a lot of serious chatter about this suddenly.

How many people would have rags to riches stories locally amongst their sundry cousins if this happens?


http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1889021,00.html

For the past several years, I've been harboring a fantasy, a last political crusade for the baby-boom generation. We, who started on the path of righteousness, marching for civil rights and against the war in Vietnam, need to find an appropriately high-minded approach to life's exit ramp. In this case, I mean the high-minded part literally. And so, a deal: give us drugs, after a certain age â€" say, 80 â€" all drugs, any drugs we want. In return, we will give you our driver's licenses. (I mean, can you imagine how terrifying a nation of decrepit, solipsistic 90-year-old boomers behind the wheel would be?) We'll let you proceed with your lives â€" much of which will be spent paying for our retirement, in any case â€" without having to hear us complain about our every ache and reflux. We'll be too busy exploring altered states of consciousness. I even have a slogan for the campaign: "Tune in, turn on, drop dead."

A fantasy, I suppose. But, beneath the furious roil of the economic crisis, a national conversation has quietly begun about the irrationality of our drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York's, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws are up for review; in other states, from California to Massachusetts, various forms of marijuana decriminalization are being enacted. And it has reached the floor of Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy. (See pictures of stoner cinema.)

There are also more puckish signs of a zeitgeist shift. A few weeks ago, the White House decided to stage a forum in which the President would answer questions submitted by the public; 92,000 people responded â€" and most of them seemed obsessed with the legalization of marijuana. The two most popular questions about "green jobs and energy," for example, were about pot. The President dismissed the outpouring â€" appropriately, I guess â€" as online ballot-stuffing and dismissed the legalization question with a simple: "No." (Read: "Can Marijuana Help Rescue California's Economy?")

This was a rare instance of Barack Obama reacting reflexively, without attempting to think creatively, about a serious policy question. He was, in fact, taking the traditional path of least resistance: an unexpected answer on marijuana would have launched a tabloid firestorm, diverting attention from the budget fight and all those bailouts. In fact, the default fate of any politician who publicly considers the legalization of marijuana is to be cast into the outer darkness. Such a person is assumed to be stoned all the time, unworthy of being taken seriously. Such a person would be lacerated by the assorted boozehounds and pill poppers of talk radio. The hypocrisy inherent in the American conversation about stimulants is staggering.

But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure â€" or simply returned to the public. (See the top 10 ballot measures.)

At the same time, there is an enormous potential windfall in the taxation of marijuana. It is estimated that pot is the largest cash crop in California, with annual revenues approaching $14 billion. A 10% pot tax would yield $1.4 billion in California alone. And that's probably a fraction of the revenues that would be available â€" and of the economic impact, with thousands of new jobs in agriculture, packaging, marketing and advertising. A veritable marijuana economic-stimulus package! (Read: "Is Pot Good For You?")

So why not do it? There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe â€" with some good reason â€" that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although it's true that with legalization, those two might not be unrelated.) Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?

In any case, the drug-reform discussion comes just at the right moment. We boomers are getting older every day. You're not going to want us on the highways. Make us your best offer.

[jaxtrader]

Windfall aside  (and I doubt that North Florida's share would  be that spectacular) what rational basis exists for alcohol to be legal and marijuana illegal? Personally I would be in favor of decriminalisation of narcotics to include heroin and cocaine, but I can understand  that the public health hazard  created by physical addicts willing to rob or even kill to support their addiction makes that proposition, to say the least,  problematic.  By contrast, marijuana, even if legally available, would appear to pose less of a public health hazard than alcohol

[Ocklawaha]

"Mother Goose"

As I did walk by Hampstead Fair
I came upon Mother Goose -- so I turned her loose --
she was screaming.
And a foreign student said to me --
was it really true there are elephants and lions too
in Piccadilly Circus?

Walked down by the bathing pond
to try and catch some sun.
Saw at least a hundred schoolgirls sobbing
into hankerchiefs as one.
I don't believe they knew
I was a schoolboy.

And a bearded lady said to me --
if you start your raving and your misbehaving --
you'll be sorry.
Then the chicken-fancier came to play --
with his long red beard (and his sister's weird:
she drives a lorry).

Laughed down by the putting green --
I popped `em in their holes.
Four and twenty labourers were labouring --
digging up their gold.
I don't believe they knew
that I was Long John Silver.

Saw Johnny Scarecrow make his rounds
in his jet-black mac (which he won't give back) --
stole it from a snow man.

Considering that I'm somewhat of an expert in homeopathic, alternative, cerebral, psychedelic perceptions. Along with a creative exuberance of a liberated mind no longer fettered by ostensibly ordinary deprivations. A "doctor" as it were of the altered state of synesthesia, replete with hallucinations of mystical journeys, changes of perceptions, whilst discovering new worlds elicited in sensory oblivion.

It is my expert opinion that marijuana should be universally decriminalized. That the Federal Government drop all charges against 14 year old kids, 25 year old moms, and 60 year old hippies, and clear their records retroactively. That the government issue a decree of apology to everyone who has been caught up in the lie of "Reefer Madness." That a wreath be hung on the graves of the gallant purveyors of Mary Jane, Toledo Window Box, Super Weed, Black Jamaican, Acapulco Gold, Panama Red and Vietnam Trip Weed. We should immediately extend reprations to every victim of every law enforcement agency who has been harassed, hassled, or otherwise detained by the myth makers of the Killer Weed! I want a decree that automatically moves the recordings of the late Gene Kruppa to no less then GOLD levels, and that the Caterpillar in "Alice in Wonderland," be reinstated in every school classroom complete with hookah.

The law which makes it legal to apply for a licence to grow marijuana, but requires one to first posses the substance in order to qualify for said licence, should either be withdrawn, or the penalty for possessing the substance in order to apply for the licence should be repealed. (By the way this is TRUE, and this is the FBI's Federal loophole to arrest YOU).

There was never one shred of evidence for Marijuana addiction, or that said drug might lead to harder drugs. Whereas Belladonna or Bennie's (Speed)  are readally available to enhance ones dopeamine at any corner drug store (if one knows where to look), there is no reason why the said population should not be able to obtain the same experiences without "the man" coming down on them. The immediate cultivation of Hemp as a commercial product, for the treatments of Glaucoma, menstrual pains, general pain as well as for industrial purposes should commence at once.

The cultivation of Poppy's known in China for 10,000 years as both a medication and recreational substance is currently legal, unless the poppy bleeds resin, in which it's owner becomes a felon. These ridiculous laws should be repealed. Not only are the Poppy's known for their extraordinary beauty throughout the gardening world, they are also the source of fully half of all pain medications ever devised. That an innocent gardener could be caught in a Federal net by simply scratching the bulb below the flower of a common poppy is insanity. That the Wicked Witch of the West, knew the power of a field of Poppy's is wisdom lost on the government, for indeed they will induce peace, joy and rest. Both the Wicked Witch of The West and her deceased sister The Wicked Witch of the East should be immediately pardoned, and an all points bulletin issued for the arrest of that murderous quintet of Dorothy, Toto, Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man.

Oh SHIT! I forgot what we were talking about!

Well there's gonna be a freakers ball
Tonight at the freakers hall
And you know, you're invited one and all

Come on babies grease your lips
Grab your hats and swing your hips
Don't forget to bring your whips
We're going to the freakers ball

Blow your whistle and bang your gong
Roll up something to take along
It feels so good it must be wrong
We're freakin at the freakers ball

Where all the fags and the dykes they're boogyin' together
The leather freaks are dressed in all kinds of leather
The greatest of the sadists and the masochists too
Screaming "Please hit me, and I'll hit you"

The FBI are dancing with the junkies
All the straights, are swinging with the funkies
Across the floor and up the wall
We're freakin at the freakers ball
Yall, we're freakin at the freakers ball

Everybody's kissing each other
Brother with sister, son with mother
Smear my body up with butter
Take me to the freakers ball

Pass that roach please and pour the wine
I'll kiss yours if you'll kiss mine
I'm gonna boogie till i go blind
We're freakin at the freakers ball

White ones, black ones, yellow ones, red ones
Necrophiliacs looking for dead ones
The greatest of the sadist and the masochists too
Screaming "Please hit me, and I'll hit you"

Everybody's ballin' in batches
Pyromaniacs striking matches
I'm gonna itch me where it scratches
Freaking at the freakers ball

OCKLAWAHA
Hee Hee

[fatcat]

legalize weed!

[Springfielder]

Couldn't agree more...and IMO, it never should've been included in the same category as the hard core stuff.

[thekillingwax]

They'd at least get some from me. I've always been curious as to what all the buzz (get it?) is about but I'm too much of a square to even know what to do with it if I had any. My girlfriend's dad does it but she said he does the cheapest skunkiest stuff he can get. From past experience, I like being around someone a little buzzed versus someone who's drunk.