cannabisnews.com: Bogarting Sanity in the Marijuana Wars Bogarting Sanity in the Marijuana Wars Posted by CN Staff on July 06, 2007 at 05:58:48 PT By Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers Group Source: Town Hall.com Washington, DC -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters. Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming. Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's environmental obsessions, his son's problems are no one's cause for celebration. The younger Gore's high-profile arrest does, however, offer Americans an opportunity to get real about drug prohibition, and especially about marijuana laws. For the record, I have no interest in marijuana except as a public policy matter. My personal drug of choice is a heavenly elixir made from crushed grapes. But it is, alas, a drug. Tasty, attractive and highly ritualized in our culture, wine and other alcoholic beverages are approved for responsible use despite the fact that alcoholism and attendant problems are a plague, while responsible use of a weed that, at worst, makes people boring and hungry, is criminal. Pot smokers might revolt if they weren't so mellow. Efforts over the past few decades to relax marijuana laws have been moderately successful. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, which usually means no prison or criminal record for first-time possession of small amounts for personal consumption. (Those states are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.) Yet even now, federal law enforcement agents raid the homes of terminally ill patients who use marijuana for relief from suffering in states where medical marijuana use is permitted. These federal raids have become an issue in the 2008 presidential race as candidates have been asked to take a position. A summary is available on the Marijuana Policy Project Web site -- http://www.mpp.org/Beyond the medical issue is the practical question of criminalizing otherwise good citizens for consuming a nontoxic substance -- described by the British medical journal Lancet as less harmful to health than alcohol or tobacco -- at great economic and social cost. Each year, more than 700,000 people are arrested for marijuana-related offenses at a cost of more than $7 billion, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. Here's a Bingo thought for people concerned about the federal deficit, America's 4.5 million uninsured children or our soon-to-be-bankrupt Social Security system: If marijuana were legalized, regulated and taxed at the rates applied to alcohol and tobacco, revenues would reach about $6.2 billion annually, according to an open letter signed by 500 economists who urged President Bush and other public officials to debate marijuana prohibition. Among those economists were three Nobel Prize winners, including the late Milton Friedman of Stanford's Hoover Institution. Friedman and others were acting in response to a 2005 report on the budgetary implications of marijuana prohibition by Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard. By Miron's estimate, regulating marijuana would save about $7.7 billion annually in government prohibition enforcement -- $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels. That's a lot of money for English tutors and health care for indigents. Add to that amount income taxes that would have to be paid by marijuana producers. Drug dealers don't pay taxes, after all. Nor do they concern themselves much with rules of the workplace and worker welfare. Miron argues that legalizing marijuana would not increase use because decriminalization hasn't increased use. But, he says, legalization would reduce crime by neutralizing dealers and eliminating the violent black market. Legalizing marijuana isn't an endorsement of underage or irresponsible use. Best would be that everyone deal with life unmedicated, but adults arguably have a right to amuse themselves in ways that don't harm others. While some may balk at the idea of legalized pot, it seems clear that some remedy is in order. At the very least, a fresh, freewheeling debate free of politics and bureaucratic self-interest is overdue. Maybe Al Gore could moderate. Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Source: Town Hall.com (DC)Author: Kathleen Parker, Washington Post Writers GroupPublished: Friday, July 6, 2007Copyright: 2007 King Features SyndicateContact: info townhall.com Website: http://www.townhall.com/CannabisNews -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #21 posted by whig on July 08, 2007 at 14:27:40 PT Hope Fiberoptics are the future, I think. You're right, think how much energy we could save if our homes were built to use the sun's natural light without losing the benefits of being able to turn the lights on and off. It would not be difficult either to store enough solar to supplement to adequate brightness when it's dark out. [ Post Comment ] Comment #20 posted by Hope on July 08, 2007 at 03:52:45 PT Fiber optic lighting will go through the roof!:0) [ Post Comment ] Comment #19 posted by Hope on July 08, 2007 at 03:51:15 PT Spurring the Economy :0)We're talking money. When cannabis is relegalized, the cannabis won't be the only salable commodity to come out of the black market. Many people will want to purchase some sort of lockable humidor type box or case. Plain or fancy. That would be nice. Pipes will be collected. Vaporizers will be sold. There could be, as we know, a significant drop in the sale of antidepressants and some other kinds of pharmaceuticals. But those super wealthy corporations can just get real and cops can protect people from killers, rapists, and thieves and prisons can go back to being for those guys, too.More people will really get into cooking and perhaps, gourmet thinking and real interest in their health and the quality of food they and their families consume. Home cooking will see a resurgence and new popularity.Lots of stuff will be invented. :0) [ Post Comment ] Comment #18 posted by Hope on July 08, 2007 at 03:34:20 PT FoM and Thestales Comments 1 and 3... Right on! [ Post Comment ] Comment #17 posted by Hope on July 08, 2007 at 03:27:33 PT John Tyler comment 10 Very thoughtful post. [ Post Comment ] Comment #16 posted by FoM on July 07, 2007 at 18:42:54 PT whig Thank you. I was just wondering out loud. [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by whig on July 07, 2007 at 18:02:58 PT FoM I don't know it might depend on the state. I don't think you can legally home distill, generally. [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by FoM on July 07, 2007 at 16:38:17 PT whig Thank you. I really wasn't sure. Can a person brew as much beer as he wants at his home as long as he only shares it but doesn't sell it? [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by whig on July 07, 2007 at 14:25:53 PT Home brewing Apparently it's illegal in Alabama. Go figure. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by whig on July 07, 2007 at 14:23:22 PT FoM There's no tax on home brew. [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by FoM on July 07, 2007 at 10:00:17 PT Money or Cannabis Virtues I don't think money is important when cannabis is discussed but for those with dollar signs in their eyes (politicians) the tax could be set high for store bought marijuana and that could turn into a lot of money. People should be able to avoid that tax if they could have a garden. Do home brew people pay taxes on what they make?Cannabis has virtues. I wish they would listen to the virtues of cannabis. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by John Tyler on July 07, 2007 at 09:36:23 PT money screams I think money should not be the reason that cannabis is re-legalized. Cannabis should be re-legalized on it’s own merits, which are plenty. That being said the people with the anti-cannabis attitude cannot or will not be convinced by that. Maybe, hopefully, the money side will convince them. They don’t have to like it, but they can use the money as an excuse in their own minds to justify their own grudging change and the change around them. Economics can change social situations. As an anti-cannabis curmudgeon you might say, “I don’t like the cannabis industry”, but as a realist you might also say, “but on the other hand, there is an awful lot of money there”. For these kinds of people greed wins out. Money doesn’t talk…it screams. If the money says let cannabis be re-legalized it shall be so. I just had a thought. Write “Re-legalize Cannabis” on the money you spend. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by whig on July 06, 2007 at 20:52:41 PT FoM I think some people are good at farming and some people are not, and farmers should be able to earn a decent living. Even if I do think we should be able to just grow cannabis in our front lawn. There are far more dangerous things in gardens. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by FoM on July 06, 2007 at 11:24:46 PT whig I doubt that there is any inferior cannabis growing anywhere in the U.S. anymore practically. [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by FoM on July 06, 2007 at 11:22:41 PT whig I know people brew their own beer but what I meant is Cannabis could grow practically all by itself if it has good earth if it was allowed. [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by whig on July 06, 2007 at 11:09:31 PT FoM I think cannabis will be a huge money maker for those who have the skill and experience and access to good strains, but if people can grow their own it will certainly not mean everyone will want to or can in their particular circumstance. [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by whig on July 06, 2007 at 11:07:12 PT FoM Many people home-brew beer. [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by FoM on July 06, 2007 at 10:42:17 PT thestales I guess the reason that I don't like the money argument is because when the laws are changed it won't be a big money maker. It's not like Beer and how beer is mass produced. You can't grow beer in a home garden. That's why I don't like the money argument but wish for a good common sense approach like jailing people or fining people as a talking point. Reason is what I want to see more then anything. [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by thestales on July 06, 2007 at 10:25:23 PT Politicians think in money terms That's becuase if you can convince the people that run the drug war institution that there is more money is taxing and regulating than in prohibition.These people only care about money. Some have figured out that the pile of money in regulation is bigger than the money in prohibition. Now they just need to back pedal without looking stupid to get the bigger pile of money.But I agree, that is not why it should be legal.but it is another good argument to bring up. [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on July 06, 2007 at 07:58:46 PT Lessons Learned from Al Gore III http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_6307866 [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by FoM on July 06, 2007 at 06:03:10 PT Money or Common Sense? I read articles like this and they don't do much for me. It's the same article over and over again with some changes. Money isn't the reason to legalize marijuana but the laws should be changed because it is the right thing to do. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment