Are Marijuana Opponents Smarter Than Mother Nature or Smarter Than God?

The government has absolutely no moral, ethical, or philosophical right to outlaw a species of life. With all the debate about marijuana usage, one basic fact is being ignored: marijuana is not a chemical produced in a pharmacy. It is a species of life. The overwhelming majority of people would either credit its existence to Mother Nature or God.

Marijuana Haters Say the Darnedest Things

E.J. Montana, opinion columnist for the Arizona Republic, noted:

   "Opponents (of Marijuana legalization in Arizona) already have demonstrated a strategy of scare tactics based on questionable information, something they should know better than to do, since several of the bigwigs in the campaign are prosecuting attorneys.
   "That will be the irony of this campaign.
   "While the people promoting legalization deal with facts, opponents will try to alter voters’ sense of reality." (*1)

Indeed, with many of their anti-marijuana quotes, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Some of their taradiddles are farcical on their surface; others require a rhetorical question to clear the haze.

My Body, My Choice: One Man's Perspective

A civil right cannot be guaranteed to ANY citizen, until that civil right is guaranteed to EVERY citizen.

Many who are pro-choice are worried about women losing their reproductive rights. Perhaps they should be. After all, if the right "to do what one wants with their own body" is so basic and important, why should it be confined to the uterus only?

Perhaps if it were women who had abortions that were being piled into for-profit prisons instead of marijuana smokers, one might quickly understand this thesis.

Medical Marijuana Demagoguery Proving to be Very Wrong

When Prop 203, the initiative to legalize medical marijuana, was being considered in Arizona in 2010, opponents (particularly Shelia Polk and her comrades,) feared the worst:

They predicted "trashed neighborhoods, drug cartels disguised as medical marijuana dispensaries, increased armed robberies, burglaries, murder and organized crime." (*1)

They feared then (and still do now) that medical marijuana cards are "way too easy" to obtain and that marijuana would flood the state since unused meds would be sold on the street to children.

They called medical marijuana a "smokescreen" to full legalization and that we should expect "97-98 percent of medical marijuana cardholders (to be) aged 17 to 35 and suffer(ing) from "chronic pain". (*1)

However, the most recent (2014) Arizona Medical Marijuana Act (AMMA) End of Year Report, produced by the Arizona Department of Health Services (who issues the MMJ cards,) not only shows the opposite to have come true, but in the end, medical marijuana in Arizona is turning out to be small potatoes.

Republicans Smoke Pot Too

The Arizona GOP leadership has decided to go whole-hog against any initiative to legalize marijuana in 2016.  Many are pointing out that in 2010, Prop 203, the initiative to legalize medical marijuana won by just 4,340 votes.  They believe that if they can improve republican turnout just a little more, recreational marijuana can be defeated in 2016.

However, this school of thought forgets the circumstances surrounding the 2010 election.

2010 was a backlash election.  It was the first opportunity since the election of Obama for people to vote. Particularly in Arizona, but throughout both red and purple states, republicans won big. In Arizona, GOP turnout was quite high.  In fact, republicans won every statewide office in 2010 and in many of them, they won big.

Drug War Cost Could Go a Shockingly Long Way if Spent on Education

Sometimes it's difficult to picture the huge amount of money we are spending on the failed war on drugs.  This article takes just one line item from the cost of the drug war and shows how shockingly far that money would go if it were spent on education instead...

In a June 2010 report entitled "The High Cost Of Incarceration," (the link to this PDF is below,) the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) found that there are 561,526 NON-VIOLENT drug users incarcerated in the U.S.  The cost to tax payers is $26,000 a year (or $2166.67 a month) per inmate.  This means that we are spending $1.2+ billion ($1,216,639,666.67) every month to incarcerate non-violent drug users.  Of course, this is just the cost of incarceration alone.  It does not include the costs incurred by law enforcement or the courts to convict these people.

Now let's take a look at the population of school children in America.  According to childstats.gov, (whose link is also included here,) there are approximately 50 million school-aged children (age 6-17) in 2013...

SO WHAT ELSE COULD BE DONE WITH THIS MONEY?

* After only 5.75 months, we could buy a $140 computer tablet for every schoolchild age 6-17!!!

Should Marijuana Money Go To Tax Revenues or Drug Cartels?

Those are the only two choices.

Perhaps one of the reasons the issue of marijuana is so contentious is because there is no perfect solution to the question.

For many, however, the bottom line of the issue is the bottom line of the finances.  Here, we have only two choices:  Either marijuana revenue will go to law-abiding companies and tax receipts; or, THE MONEY WILL GO TO THE DRUG CARTELS!

Some anti-pot pundits will quickly point out that it is nonsense to think that the drug cartels will disappear if MJ is legalized.  This is probably true.  However, after four decades, it's clear that the Drug War won't stop the drug cartels either!

How ironic!  Those who espouse that the drug cartels would certainly survive marijuana legalization are half-way to realizing and admitting that the Drug War itself is a continuing failure.