I'm not sure though... Some people look at it as a gateway drug. Do you think that's true? I know it's not true for everyone, but how do we justify that?
Marijuana is California's number one cash crop. In California, marijuana is a $14 billion dollar industry, and vegetables are $5.7 billion and grapes are $2.6 billion. It is utterly preposterous that California's largest agricultural industry is completely unregulated and untaxed! Who do you think benefits the most from this situation? Certainly not the folks in charge of California's budget crisis. With our state in an ongoing fiscal crisis — and no one believes the new budget is the end of California's financial woes — it's time to bring this major piece of our economy into the light of day. With the state in the thick of an historic economic crisis, the turn towards regulating and taxing marijuana is merely common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes.
California Assembly Bill 390, known as the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act is the first bill ever introduced to legalize the sale and use of Marijuana in the U.S. state of California. Marijuana will be sold and taxed openly to adults age 21 and older in California if this bill passes. This proposition is predicted to generate over $1 billion dollars of very much needed annual revenue. To obtain a commercial grow license one would pay an initial $5,000 fee, then a $2,500 fee each year after that. A tariff of $50 per ounce would also be placed on all sold and grown marijuana.
Estimations suggest that legalizing marijuana and thus ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison nonviolent offenders could save the state of California $1 billion a year. A study by Jeffrey Miron (an economics teacher from Harvard) entitled "Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States" found an estimated $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement would be saved if cannabis were legalized and an estimated $6.2 billion would be gained if cannabis was taxed the same rate as alcohol or tobacco, which would total an estimated $14 billion annually.
Social
If you have money, the ganja is always available where I live; we practically can't make it any easier to obtain. Glamorizing pot by making it illegal and relinquishing the regulation of distribution to the black market is not safe for the youth. Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, to misuse, abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They're here to stay. So let's try to reduce those harms, and right now we couldn't do it worse if we tried.
Fully decriminalizing marijuana would greatly reduce the financial gains earned by the black market from cannabis sales and trafficking. State regulation of the distribution of cannabis would reduce the activity of this illegal drug market which is the market that exposes and urges the use of a variety of different drugs. Basically, you won't be exposed to other drugs as if purchasing a bag of cannabis on the black-market.
Application
Other than the medicinal uses from marijuana, which I'm sure most of the pharmaceutical industry lobbies against (the pharmaceutical industry has thousands of lobbyists in Washington, DC that lobby Congress and protect their interests), marijuana has a wide assortment of uses. From food to fuel, weed control to water and soil purification, instead of naming applications, I should be identifying what it can't be used for, because that list would be smaller.
Food: The seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. About 30-35% of the weight of the seed is an edible oil that contains about 80% essential fatty acids. Also, about 20% of the seed contains highly-digestible protein. The seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. The leaves can be eaten in salads, and products range from cereals to frozen waffles, hemp tofu to nut butters, whole hemp grain to hemp flour. One tablespoon of the oil from the seed a day easily provides human daily requirements for EFAs; it's nutritional value is definately considerable.
Biofuel: In addition to the nutritional value of the seed's oil, the oils in the seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole can be used to make biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel. Filtered hemp oil can be used directly to power diesel engines. I wonder who lobbied against that.
Structural Material: Lots of materials can be produces using hemp oils and fibers. Hemp produces 250% more fiber than cotton and 600% more fiber than flax when grown on the same land. It's used to make paper, ropes, carpet and anything made from canvas such as clothes, sails, tents, handbags, and shoes because it is used to make canvas (the word canvas derives from cannabis). The fibers are strong and they are used to strengthen concrete (dubbed hempcrete) and many composite materials used for construction and manufacturing applications. I can sit here all day and list objects that can be made with materials from hemp such as plastic, fishing nets, house insulation, animal bedding, mulch, oil-based paints, moisturising agents (creams), and many more.
Agricultural Benefits: It can be used for soil and water purification and weed control. It can be used as a "mop crop" to clear impurities out of wastewater, such as sewage effluent, excessive phosphorus, or other unwanted substances or chemicals. It is currently being used to clean contaminents from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. Because of its height, dense foliage and its high planting density as a crop, it is a very effective and long used method of killing tough weeds in farming by minimizing the pool of weed seeds of the soil. Using hemp this way can help farmers avoid the use of herbicides, to help gain organic certification and to gain benefits from crop rotation.
Comments
I'm not sure though... Some people look at it as a gateway drug. Do you think that's true? I know it's not true for everyone, but how do we justify that?
Regulation and Taxation
Marijuana is California's number one cash crop. In California, marijuana is a $14 billion dollar industry, and vegetables are $5.7 billion and grapes are $2.6 billion. It is utterly preposterous that California's largest agricultural industry is completely unregulated and untaxed! Who do you think benefits the most from this situation? Certainly not the folks in charge of California's budget crisis. With our state in an ongoing fiscal crisis — and no one believes the new budget is the end of California's financial woes — it's time to bring this major piece of our economy into the light of day. With the state in the thick of an historic economic crisis, the turn towards regulating and taxing marijuana is merely common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes.
California Assembly Bill 390, known as the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act is the first bill ever introduced to legalize the sale and use of Marijuana in the U.S. state of California. Marijuana will be sold and taxed openly to adults age 21 and older in California if this bill passes. This proposition is predicted to generate over $1 billion dollars of very much needed annual revenue. To obtain a commercial grow license one would pay an initial $5,000 fee, then a $2,500 fee each year after that. A tariff of $50 per ounce would also be placed on all sold and grown marijuana.
Estimations suggest that legalizing marijuana and thus ceasing to arrest, prosecute and imprison nonviolent offenders could save the state of California $1 billion a year. A study by Jeffrey Miron (an economics teacher from Harvard) entitled "Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition in the United States" found an estimated $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement would be saved if cannabis were legalized and an estimated $6.2 billion would be gained if cannabis was taxed the same rate as alcohol or tobacco, which would total an estimated $14 billion annually.
Social
If you have money, the ganja is always available where I live; we practically can't make it any easier to obtain. Glamorizing pot by making it illegal and relinquishing the regulation of distribution to the black market is not safe for the youth. Unfortunately, every society in the history of mankind has had some form of mind-altering, sometimes addictive substances to use, to misuse, abuse or get addicted to. Get used to it. They're here to stay. So let's try to reduce those harms, and right now we couldn't do it worse if we tried.
Fully decriminalizing marijuana would greatly reduce the financial gains earned by the black market from cannabis sales and trafficking. State regulation of the distribution of cannabis would reduce the activity of this illegal drug market which is the market that exposes and urges the use of a variety of different drugs. Basically, you won't be exposed to other drugs as if purchasing a bag of cannabis on the black-market.
Application
Other than the medicinal uses from marijuana, which I'm sure most of the pharmaceutical industry lobbies against (the pharmaceutical industry has thousands of lobbyists in Washington, DC that lobby Congress and protect their interests), marijuana has a wide assortment of uses. From food to fuel, weed control to water and soil purification, instead of naming applications, I should be identifying what it can't be used for, because that list would be smaller.
Food: The seeds contain all the essential amino acids and essential fatty acids necessary to maintain healthy human life. About 30-35% of the weight of the seed is an edible oil that contains about 80% essential fatty acids. Also, about 20% of the seed contains highly-digestible protein. The seeds can be eaten raw, ground into a meal, sprouted, made into hemp milk (akin to soy milk), prepared as tea, and used in baking. The leaves can be eaten in salads, and products range from cereals to frozen waffles, hemp tofu to nut butters, whole hemp grain to hemp flour. One tablespoon of the oil from the seed a day easily provides human daily requirements for EFAs; it's nutritional value is definately considerable.
Biofuel: In addition to the nutritional value of the seed's oil, the oils in the seeds and stalks, and the fermentation of the plant as a whole can be used to make biofuels such as biodiesel and alcohol fuel. Filtered hemp oil can be used directly to power diesel engines. I wonder who lobbied against that.
Structural Material: Lots of materials can be produces using hemp oils and fibers. Hemp produces 250% more fiber than cotton and 600% more fiber than flax when grown on the same land. It's used to make paper, ropes, carpet and anything made from canvas such as clothes, sails, tents, handbags, and shoes because it is used to make canvas (the word canvas derives from cannabis). The fibers are strong and they are used to strengthen concrete (dubbed hempcrete) and many composite materials used for construction and manufacturing applications. I can sit here all day and list objects that can be made with materials from hemp such as plastic, fishing nets, house insulation, animal bedding, mulch, oil-based paints, moisturising agents (creams), and many more.
Agricultural Benefits: It can be used for soil and water purification and weed control. It can be used as a "mop crop" to clear impurities out of wastewater, such as sewage effluent, excessive phosphorus, or other unwanted substances or chemicals. It is currently being used to clean contaminents from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site. Because of its height, dense foliage and its high planting density as a crop, it is a very effective and long used method of killing tough weeds in farming by minimizing the pool of weed seeds of the soil. Using hemp this way can help farmers avoid the use of herbicides, to help gain organic certification and to gain benefits from crop rotation.