For The Love Of God, Just Legalize It
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U.S. and Canadian authorities today descended on an international, multi-million dollar drug smuggling ring resulting in the arrest of 24 individuals. The $5.5 million in seizures included 105 pounds of cocaine, a small amount of ecstasy, and over 1,200 pounds of marijuana.
The bust came after previous arrests tipped police off to the smugglers operation. The group had been growing marijuana in Canadian based grow-houses and smuggling the drugs into the U.S. for sale. They then took the proceeds from these sales and purchased cocaine in the U.S. which they would then smuggle back into Canada. The smuggling ring, comprised of people from within the greater Toronto region, British Columbia, Florida, Michigan, Hamilton and Windsor, face more than 250 criminal charges.
Police have issued statements touting this bust as hard proof that marijuana-friendly Canada is becoming a haven for organized criminals that want to flip the quasi-legal drug for harder, and more profitable, narcotics. This case will undoubtedly result in demands from across the board for crackdowns on Canada’s leniency towards marijuana related crimes. The current Conservative government of Canada will surely use this example as fodder for their omnipresent anti-marijuana rhetoric, allowing them to further sway public opinion and more easily backslide on a decade of Liberal dominated marijuana friendliness.
The question is; if marijuana is such a danger due to its value as a currency on the illegal drug market, and it’s being used to purchase harder and more dangerous narcotics, why haven’t we yet stripped it of its black market value by legalizing it?
Personally, I am not a marijuana user. I don’t care for its effects on me and I choose not to partake. That said, I did experiement with it in the past, and I cannot understand how anyone could possibly view this drug as any more dangerous than alcohol. I’ve witnessed the effects of chronic use of both. While I don’t condone the abuse of any substance, the number of functional pot-heads I’ve encountered vastly outnumbers the number of functional alcoholics I know.
I’ve never seen anyone smoke a joint and then get violent. I’ve never seen anyone wreck a vehicle after smoking up. I have not once seen a marijuana user pose any immediate danger to any third party after getting high (aside from the untimely demise of several unfortunate snack foods).
Why is it that our governments continue to wage war against this comparatively benign recreational narcotic? If, instead of cracking down on it, both governments would simply legalize, regulate, and tax the drug, illegal smuggling operations would instantly be rendered obsolete. No one would pay black market prices for the drug once it quickly becomes widely available at consumer friendly prices. Its value in criminal operations would immediately be negated.
Counter, if you will, with arguments regarding the health effects of marijuana. Speak of its “gate-way” functionality that will eventually turn our youth towards the path of heroin and cocaine addiction. Seek to educate me on the adverse psychological effects of the drug on its habitual users.
I won’t believe a single word of it.
I have a mountain of personal and anecdotal evidence that convinces me of the contrary. Weed doesn’t make you a loser. It only serves to expedite the process if you were destined to be one in the first place. Additionally, I can’t believe that the negative health effects of smoking marijuana fall anywhere near the danger level of smoking cigarettes. As for those alleged psychological effects, sure, years of abuse leads to a bit of dopiness in the user, but they are still leaps-and-bounds ahead of their alcoholic counterparts.
We need to learn from our prohibition era mistakes in this matter. We are wasting our tax dollars and valuable law enforcement resources chasing criminals when instead we could be reaping an untold amount of revenue from the proceedes of legal marijuana taxation. The biggest blow we can deal to these criminals has nothing to do with legislation. We have to hit them where it hurts. We have to let the weed roam free.
–http://www.shoutwire.com/comments/12903/For_The_Love_Of_God_Just_Legalize_It
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