what about marijuana, should the govt. legalize it, sell it tax it to help eliminate all of our foreign debt?

Answer 1

No way, I think anything someone smokes that other people get an effect from the gov should ban it, including smoking cigs. I don't want my kids to be at a restaurant and get a contact buzz because it's legal, same as cigs, why should they have to breath it in?

Answer 2

It would not help eliminate our foreign debt that much. Marijuana, while a large percentage of the illegal drug trade, is not that large of a chunk of it.

But lets go ahead and play around for a second.

If our government was to legalize all drugs, and then put the same limits as alcohol. (must be 21 to use them, no "open containers" in city's that want it, have specialty stores that sell them (or drug bars as I would call them), No driving under the influence and no buying/providing them to minors, what would happen?

Well first off, there would be a spike in use, addiction and most certainly death. However, there would also be companies who made them, and now that these companies are not underground criminals, they will have to abide by the same regulation rules as all other consumer goods.

Heroin would have to be heroin, not heroin cut with rat poison. Marijuana would be sold as pot, not laced. Criminals would lose a gigantic source of income which has been funding gang wars, terrorism and other illegal activities ever since the drug prohibition was instituted.

Kids would have a harder time getting ahold of these drugs. Right now a dealer is already a criminal, what does he care if he sells to a kid or an adult? Drug dealers don't ask for I.D. A store owner would have to.

The war on drugs costs billions of dollars to fund. It puts countless people in jail just for possession. Just for dealing. Legalizing them would eliminate this constant stress on our justice and penitentiary systems.

Legalizing drugs would allow the U.S. to tax them with "sin tax" which essentially means you can put a nearly illegally high tax on them. As they do with cigarettes and alcohol.

So in short. Legalizing drugs would do the following.

Help, if not eliminate completely our justice systems overflow of cases.

Help, if not eliminate our jails overcrowded environment.

Help in reducing gang's, violence and their ability to support themselves.

Would save billions a year from being spent on the "war on drugs", while simultaneously creating a new taxable income for America, giving people jobs and bringing in tax dollars.

We would be able to grow and produce them here in America, effectively preventing any of the drug money going to any terrorist organizations.

We would make it more difficult for children and teenagers to get ahold of them.

It would make the "home meth lab" pointless and useless. So the many meth labs and their dangerous consequences would be removed.

On the negative it would also do the following.

Make drugs available to any legal adult who wanted to use them.
Has a high potential for increasing the number of addicts.
Possibility of more people dieing from drug use.

However, the war on drugs has already killed thousands of people, and put millions more in prison. Is it really better to save a few people who don't mind risking their lives, yet putting many more in jail and in the grave,

Or to let those that are willing to take the risks that come with drug use pay the consequences.

Lets get one thing straight. The war on drugs hasn't helped anyone.

Answer 3

Definitely! Marijuana doesn't impare your senses as much as alcohol does. I would rather the person driving on the road next to me be high on pot than drunk. And news flash for all those asking what about the kids, they are all already smoking it if they want to. If it was legal, then they would be able to put restrictions on it just like with alcohol. Either way though, if they want to drink or smoke then they will. So the govt may as well make the money off of it rather than the drug dealers.

Answer 4

I don't think it would work. The only reason that illegal drugs are "expensive" is because they are illegal - because their is some risk involved in their production, distribution, and consumption. Once you legalize any of these drugs, the price would drop.

Pot would be especially easy to obtain because it is just a plant that can be grown by anyone. Harvest the leaves and "roll your own" and you're done. As soon as it became legal, everyone who was interested in smoking pot would plant their own, rather than buy it from some "dealer" or the government. Thus, the government would make little money on it, if legalized.

Answer 5

Kick the neopuritains out of office. Whose business is it what you put into your body? If you want to snort ajax its your own business. The constitution is written on it, and Jefferson smoke and wrote about it. How many people die from booze every year?==thousands. How many from weed--zero. Drug prohibition has failed as miserably as it did with booze. All the war on drugs has done is put allot of poor people in prison--and made a weed that grows out of the ground worth more than GOLD. If it wasn't for prohibition there would not be 1/1000 of the drug crime. Drug mafia's exist because it so so damn profitable. It is only so profitable cause the government subsidizes it by prohibiting it. Pot is literally a weed they used to make rope from. Now it is more than gold and you can get in on any block in any American city. Only in America.

Answer 6

I was stationed at Richmond VA in the 70's , our friend worked at Phillip Morris, and had told me back then that they had all the packaging to start production on marijuana, when legalized by the government... whether its true or not i don't know....

Answer 7

marijuana is the most commonly uses illegal substance in the United States. it is used by many people, most of which aren't your stereotypical "druggie", with no life agead of them. Many of them hapen to be very successful, good people. Think about it almost if not every person who reads this paper will know (even if they don't realize it) at least one if not several regular users of marijuana. Its often made out to be much more harmful htan it really is, unfortunatly not every one realizes this.

What many people don't realize is marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Yet it's the one of the three that gets a bad rap and is illegal. Marijuana isn't even physicaly addicting. You certanly don't see meetings for marijuana like you do with alcohol and AA. Unfortunatly due to American culture the less harmful of the three is illegal.

The most common reason why marijuana can be harmful is that people can often come across laced marijuana without realizing it. Marijuana can easily be mixed with other more harmful drugs with out the buyer realizing it, until they have already used it. This is a dangerous thing that causes many people to do more harmful, hard core drugs without realizing it. If it were to be legalized the government could provide guide lines, like it does with alchol to insure that people knew what they were putting into their bodies.

Marijuana actually has many helpful benefits toward diseases / sicknesses. Marijuana can reduce nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by AIDS. It can Reduce interlobular pressure, which alleviates the pain and slowing and sometimes even stopping the progress of glaucoma. Common side effects of chemotherapy are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting, all of which marijuana would help. It can limit muscle pain and relieve tremor nad unsteadiness of gait for multiple sclerosis patients. Marijuana can help prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. It can also alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Each one of these applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one United States court, legislature, and/or government agency.

Due to these reasons and many others many people are going to jail/prison on a daily basis due to simply smoking a little pot These aren't dangerous criminals that would kill or rape someone. Many of them are teachers, lawyers and respected members of their communities. But yet we still pay thousands of dollars of tax payers money to lock up non dangerous "criminals" yearly even though most aren't going to stop after they get out of jail. Don't you think the money spent here is a waste? Couldn't it be going to more useful things such as hospitals, disease research, or better schools? These are the things that would benifit the people of this country. Certanily you would rather benefit the people more than throwing a non violent pot head in jail who was only trying to smoke a joint and relax after a long days work in jail. There is up to forty million regular (note thats just the regular not occasional users) drug users in the United states. If we were to throw all of them in jail it would cost $500,000 per million people, plus the cost and space of building many more prisons. Couldm't that money be spent on building hospitals? There's already about 1.5 million people tax payers are paying to keep in jail over drugs. From 1990 to 2003, nearly 5.9 million people had been arrested for smoking marijuana. Thats a greater number than the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia, Montania, North and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. This country simply can't afford to put 40 million more in jail.

Marijuana should be legalized. It has many uses such as helping sick patients. People are going to smoke it no matter what the government sais, and with out govenment guidelines this can be dangerous. Not to mention the fact that we have no way we can afford to throw all those people in jail. Its much less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, which are legal, so doesn't it make sense that it would be also?

Answer 8

Marijuana could be used legally for medical purposes only but it must be regulated.

Answer 9

Although I don't smoke it myself,If i were in charge I would legalize it and Tax it.....

Answer 10

America is not mature enough for weed, and what about the kids?