Because the most important thing right now is decriminalizing pot.

[originalpckelly]

Fuck the economy, let's all just get high and we won't even know there is an economy.

Actually, this may be an economic stimulus program, we'll all get the munchies and go out and buy tons of junk food.

[dysfunctional press]

1. actually, it would/could ultimately be a very BIG economic stimulus...

http://www.letuspaytaxes.com

there's also A LOT of public money spent every year prosecuting and incarcerating nonviolent pot-smokers.

[Ian David]

2. If they legalize pot the day before the election, we're screwed. n/t

[crikkett]

3. You dummy, you troll. Pot is the biggest cash crop in the US right now.

Not only that but big pharma is taking out patents on the active chemicals in pot left and right. If it's not good for medicine, why all the patents?

Furthermore decriminalizing marijuana also decriminalizes hemp, which will save our forests at the very least because it's a renewable resource for paper.

If congress does their job you'll be wiping your ass with the stuff within a year.

[OneBlueSky]

4. "you'll be wiping your ass with the stuff within a year" . . .

geez, what a waste . . . can you still smoke it? . . . :shrug:

[razors edge]

6. I quit smoking bad shit years ago.

:evilgrin: :smoke:

[snappyturtle]

5. Well said.....ditto. nt

[lame54]

7. I think the point is to quit arresting and jailing innocent people

[StrongBad]

8. What's wrong with decriminalizing something that is used as a front for unnecessary incarceration?

n/t

[krabigirl]

9. That would be excellent for the economy, and tax revenues.

[Javaman]

10. hell you are right, you know? because it's completely

impossible to do more than one thing at a time.

:eyes:

[EOTE]

12. As soon as congress passes the World Peace Omnibus Bill

we'll all be in good shape. Until that passes, everything else must stay on the back burner.

[Javaman]

24. keep holding your breath on that one.

In the mean time, I'm going to keep supporting things that are realistic.

[Cal Carpenter]

11. Are you kidding?

You really think that's what this is about?

How about one of the biggest (for-profit btw) prison systems in the world filled with (mostly young black male) people who have done little or no harm to anyone?

How about a perfectly good crop like hemp which can't even been grown because it is related to marijuana, and what it could do for our farming and manufacturing businesses?

Good god, do you live in a box?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

13. So... you support the war on drugs?

[cliffordu]

14. That's just what I was thinking. Must be a prison guard.....

[High Plains]

15. Dumb OP on several levels.

First, legalizing marijuana does not equal "let's all get high."

Second, pot smokers are aware there is an economy and--gasp--even contribute to it.

Third, yuck, yuck, stupid stoner stereotyping.

Fourth, call me an optimist, but I think Congress is able to handle more than one issue at a time.

[JuniperLea]

20. Umm... I don't think the OP meant this to be...

All that cerebral, Dude.

[originalpckelly]

22. Talk about someone who needs to get high.

:P

I'm cracking jokes, and these stupid asses take me seriously.

The only point I was making is that decrim is down on the list of priorities, way behind warrantless wiretapping/etc.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

25. Please. The so-called War on Drugs destroyed the Constitution long ago

All this handwringing over FISA amuses me. In some communities, it's been routine for the cops to kick the door in and arrest everyone because some drugs are on the property for decades now. Not only that but people get their property seized because drugs - BTW marijuana more often that not - were found on it, even if they weren't their drugs. But you must not live in one of those communities, or don't have the appearance of the kind of people who get targetted by the police. You thought you had Constitutional rights. How quaint.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

26. LOL

Good point.

[JuniperLea]

28. Heh! Well, people are dead serious about their ganja! LOL!

... weed marijuana pot bud herb mary jane reefer smoke grass chronic cannabis bong joint green dope blunt dank high hash spliff stoned smoking pipe stoner bowl drugs 420 skunk trees toke baked doobie maryjane thc blaze cheeba hemp buddha hydro blazed nug dro nuggets sensi hashish nugs tree rasta pothead ganj...

Big Pharma must be handing out a lot of dough, because the taxes we could gain would be massive! And think of all the farming opportunities!

[SOS]

16. Will Foster would likely disagree with your thesis

"In 1995, Will Foster was a 36-year old father of two when Tulsa, Oklahoma, police officers appeared at his door with a "John Doe" warrant to search for methamphetamine on the basis of a tip from a confidential informant. They found no amphetamines, even after tearing apart his five-year-old daughter's teddy bear. But behind a locked steel door in his basement they found a 25-square-foot marijuana garden — plants Foster grew to treat the chronic pain of acute rheumatoid arthritis."

Sentenced to 93 years in prison.
Sentence reduced to 20 and Foster served 4 years and 4 months in a state penitentiary.

http://www.mpp.org/victims/will-foster.html

Mr. Foster's 4th and 6th Amendment rights were thrown in the garbage.
More serious than expensive gasoline, imo.

[Bonobo]

17. If you had cancer, you might think so.

[charlie]

18. I'm sure they can squeeze it in somewhere

between sessions of Not Doing Anything About Bush.

[JuniperLea]

19. Big Pharma will never let this go...

Too many poor people will come to realize that the weed growing in their backyard makes a fine tea, and, or, biscuits that give them much needed relief from their glaucoma, their high blood pressure, their nausea, their sleeplessness, their anxiety, their lack of appitite... all those things that Big Pharma makes delicious PILLS and POTIONS to cure! AIDS and cancer patients be damned too! We can't have that!

I'm convinced this is the sole reason.

Pot is so benign... it is ridiculous that it is still illegal.

[mikeytherat]

21. What?

mikey_the_rat

[Wizard777]

23. They should legalize all drugs. Cocaine alone is a 200 Billion a year industry.

That's just what they know about.

[Zynx]

27. Cocaine is extremely harmful.

Sometimes people do have to be protected from themselves.

[JuniperLea]

29. So is alcohol...

Just sayin'.

[unpossibles]

30. two points

1 - does the illegality harm even more than the drug itself? In other words does the black market and crime involved in said market create more problems than the actual substance?

2 - does prohibition really keep people from using? Have rates gone down since prohibition? Are drugs now impossible to get some 4 decades after the war on drugs began? Or is that just a smoke screen to get votes and scare people into giving up their rights?

[Toucano]

31. Two VERY GOOD points.

The illegality produces far more deaths than the usage of the drug itself.

Everybody who wants it, still gets it.


Prohibition is bad for society.

[RadiationTherapy]

32. There is no economy when you are in jail.

There is no housing market when you are in jail.

There is no choice when you are in jail.

There is no gay marriage when you are in jail.

There is no DU when you are in jail.