OverwhelmSam

As I'm watching news coverage of the candidates for govenor in California, they are bringing marijuana legalization into the political debate.

The crux of the issue is that money paid by Californians for marijuana goes to Mexico and Columbia instead of being sold and taxed to help the state pay off it's deficit.

So it's coming down to the dollars. With the public getting fed up with the lies from the government ONDCP and Freevibe, any chance the issue will spread nationwide?

CheebaMonkey

So this is complete marijuana legalization, not just medical marijuana?

And if it happened, most definitely the issue would spread nationwide. I'm sure the media would go nuts over it.

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OverwhelmSam

You should see the reporters faces when candidates say things like, legalize and tax the billions of dollars in revenue that marijuana makes on the black market. Very interesting idea.

Greenman

If you legalized it of course, there would no longer be as many billions of dollars in revenue to tax, as you would cut out the black market.

There would be a couple of billion though, it would generate a tremendous tax boom for the government, everywhere from taxing its industrial and recreational uses, the elimination of spending on marijuana's prohibition from the budget (20 billion last year), not to mention the income taxes of nearly a half a million people in prison on marijuana charges that would be released.

Quite a boon indeed. Perhaps it is deficeit insurance. If the US ever gets in a debt jam, it just legalizes weed and gets a nice revenue boost.

Hmm..

Peace.

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OverwhelmSam

Don't forget, $20,000,000,000.00 is just what the federal goverment allegedly spent in a year. State and local governments spent another $20,000,000,000.00 on top of the federal bill.

Lothar121

If California were to legalize pot, the feds would come down on it very hard. They already have alot of trouble with just their extremely free worded medical cannabis law.

I am all for it, however a national strategy for pot legalization should first get other states to jump on board the legalization movement. In other words, as the MPP tried to do in Nevada, get another state to legalize first and have California quickly follow swiftly.

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smokinstump

It seems to me that all the government cares about is making money off of us. It sucks that the government wouldn’t just do it because the people want it but would do it of they knew that they would make money. It would also save the US money because there would be less people in jails.

What is the history of marijuana in the US with illegalization?
-SmokinStump

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j2krj

I'm certainly not a lawyer, but I have just one question. In the constitution, all powers not specifically given to the federal government or prohibited are given to the states. Where did the federal over state come from?

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CheebaMonkey

That's what I'm wondering. How does the whole drug scheduling system work? Did the federal government go and say, 'hey states, accept these laws' or does the federal government just enforce them?