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For the record I don't smoke, that includes cigarettes, marijuana or anything else, nor do I do any other illegal drugs.
However I do believe it should be legalized for many of the aforementioned reasons. The positives vastly outweight the negatives.
1] The taxes that could be raised for the sale of marijuana through sales tax.
2] The reduction of expenses that are incurred when a person is incarcerated. It costs taxpayers $30,000 to incarcerate a person for 1 year, think about all the people who are locked up for drug related offenses and think how much money could be saved.
3] The taxes raised could be used to offset any ill health effects of smoking.
4] It would keep the product pure, i.e. people only buy weed not weed laced with drug XYZ.
5] Hemp would thus be legalized since it is banned under the same law marijuana is banned under. Hemp is much cheaper to grow and has no known natural predators [insects that eat it]
6] Less use and thus less run off of insecticides.
The reasons legalization won't happen are:
1] Cotton industry would not let it happen as they would lsoe money [this includes the companies that make the insecticides]
2] The junk science with the research that says that it is more harmful than smoking cigarettes without any prove, that it is a gateway drug etc.
3] The tobacco industry would see it as competition instead of embracing it and starting to grow it so they too would fight it.
4] Society has to change and people have to accept responsibility for their actions so that the fear of being sued for people using a product in excess is reduced.
just my $.02
-Mark
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