Gee, that's a novel idea--legalize and tax. Haven't people been saying that forever? Congrats to the NYT on another hard-hitting commentary.

As a practical matter, it already is legal in California, isn't it?

Legal for medicinal purposes in CA

where's Phelps?

FACT: 70% of ATL readers voted to legalize prostitution because 70% of ATL readers are too homely and/or otherwise pathetic to get laid any other way, and they don't want to risk getting disbarred. It has nothing to do with political beliefs.

Right wing fearmongers claim that legalized marijuana will lead to a spread of drug/gang violence.

Let me ask you this... when was the last time you observed gang violence related to the production and sale of alcohol?

Ending prohibition ended the 1920's Chicago gang violence. Ending prohibition can stop the Mexican cartel violence as well.

Yeah. We need a big tobacco-like lobbying group working for heroin manufacturers. That would generate tons of revenue, for politicians at least.

McDermott Will & Emery sucks.

So instead of breaking our criminal laws, they'll be breaking our tax laws?

Medicinal Marijunana is prescribed for depression, anxiety. headaches, loss of appetite and a plethora of other quasi-medical conditions. The doctors who make the prescriptions charge $500 for the initial consult.

Why not fatten Uncle Sam (Bank of America)'s pockets instead of Shady Tom?

9 = subtle Latham troll

What happens when the next economic crisis hits and there's nothing left to legalize-then-tax?

KS sucks and they know it and hate the fact that they know it.

N. Wacker Stud

13, simple, more taxes on the rich (redefined as people making over $120k). If you're earning triple the national median income, you need to pay your fair share, which is any number more than what you pay now with no upper bound.

Change we can believe in.

The only people that vote against legalization are those that have awesome connections (like their hookup is next door) and don't want to pay tax on their dope.

13,

Simple, we reverse the Bush trend of huge tax giveaways to wealthy individuals and companies that send jobs overseas. Investments in infrastructure (instead of wasting our tax dollars on unnecessary war) will grow the economy overall and raise revenues.

Health care reform with a public option will greatly reduce the costs for private employers, and allow them to hire more employees and reinvest in their businesses.

Change we can believe in!

I do not know what the rational argument against legalizing pot is. (I say the same thing about gay marriage.)

17 - are you high?

Amen to that, 17!

Apparently sending all of our manufacturing jobs to India and China wasn't good for the economy... who could've forseen that?

Besides, although we need spending now to clean up the Republican mess, don't forget that the last time we had budget surpluses was under Bill Clinton!

19,

Companies in every other industrialized nation are not crippled by health care costs like ours are.

Remove thoses costs off of companies, and all of our companies immediately become leaner and better able to compete. This reduction in costs will allow more investment and grow the economy. Growing the economy raises revenues.

The legalization movement is opposed by DC's powerful anti-Cheetos lobby, a group that will stop at nothing to prevent increased consumption of Cheetos.

20, when Bush spends money to get the US out of the early 2000s recession (stock market collapsed in 2000) that he inherited from Clinton, that spending is bad. Yet when Obama spends money to get the US out of the late 2000s recession (stock market collapsed in 2008) that he inherited from Bush, that spending is good. Ok I get it.

Don't forget that the last time we had budget deficits under $1 trillion was under George W. Bush.

If we encourage drugs and sex with prostitutes, we'll increase our health cares needs as bodies break down and STDs spread - thereby increasing the cost of health care. It's counter-productive, you d-bags!

23,

Dubya inherited large surpluses from Clinton. The first recession didn't hit until fully 1 year into Bush's term.

Republicans are too simplistic. If there are surpluses, give it back as tax cuts. If there is a deficit, then fix it with tax cuts.

If only Republicans believed in a balanced budget and strong dollar like Democrats do, we'd be better off!

The other side of the legalize proposal has to be spending real money and resources on prevention and treatment. But if they do that, I say give it a shot.

I'd like to see nothing more than undercutting the finances of the Taliban, South/Central American cartels, and US Gangs. If I am a drug lord or dealer, my biggest fear is legalization.

I say legalize and tax murder-for-hire. Imagine how much some lawyers would pay to get that bitch of an ex-wife of the alimony dole.

21, remove those costs from the companies...and have taxpayers pay for the health care? So instead of making the shareholders and employees bear the costs of health care, you make everyone else responsible for their costs? Do you think the taxpayers will be more efficient in spending health care money (the government is obviously famous for its efficiency, especially with Medicare and Medicaid)? How exactly is that an improvement?

Or did you think health care grows free on trees?

24 -

Do the math:

X - Odds of getting an STD during the cost of an encounter with a fallen woman

$t - Cost of treating an average STD (inclusive economic productivity lost due to illness)

V - economic value of encounter with said fallen woman.

Only if X x $t > V, does it make sense to ban prostitutin' (that's how Maury guests call it). I strongly suspect that V is indeed > X x $t, especially if the profession is taking out of the gutter.

- Zombie Coase's Penis

25, the early 2000s recession started in the US in April 2001. The economy was already weak in 2000 and Europe had begun its recession. I know it's hard to face reality, but get your facts straight.

28,

The US has the MOST expensive health care in the industrialized world and amongst the worst quality of care at the same time.

Obama's spending is better than Bush's, that is absolutely correct.

Bush spending - tax cuts for the wealthy and outsourcing jobs. No long term benefit to the country.

Obama spending - alternative energy, health care, and education. HUGE lasting benefit to the country.

But, we shouldn't get bogged down arguing with right wing Republicans. They are so out of power that it is pathetic. Let them keep screaming in their echo chamber, and we'll keep reaching out to moderates.

Republicans are busy kicking out heretics. Democrats are busy looking for converts.

Err, odds of getting an STD, not "odds of getting a cost"

29, non-proofreader

21,

"Companies in every other industrialized nation are not crippled by health care costs like ours are."

Your unsupported generalization aside, Europe has socialized medicine largely because we subsidize their defense costs through NATO. However, even if we could feasibly manage a public health care system, the costs would shift from employers to employees (the middle class). This would create a reduction in disposable income, leading to a reduction in spending and a reduction in company revenues. And because prior governmental health care programs (medicare, medicaid, schip) have all ended up costing tons more than initially forecasted, I doubt the private companies would be freed from their financial obligations so easily. Instead, the government would need every source of taxable income it could find in order to gather enough cash to feed the insatiable beast known as universal health care.

If privatized health care is supposedly so good, then why has EVERY other industrialized nation gone with a nationalized system?

Because they see that our system is way more expensive and provides inferior coverage to fewer people.

Thanks to profiteering concepts like "pre-existing conditions", even people in our country that do have coverage get denied treatment.

33,

Please name an industrialized country other than the US with a privatized health system that is less expensive and provides superior care to nationalized systems.

Hate to say it, but defense costs aren't that big a % of the federal budget, so your desperate attempt to connect that to health care is itself an unsupported generalization.

31 nad other liberals that think the rich get all of the tax breaks -

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20.'Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to dri nk for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!'
'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too.
It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'
'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

29, your math is too kind to 24. The vast majority of healthcare expenses are incurred in keeping very old people alive a few years longer. Smokers&c who die young are saving us money, and their activities should be subsidized.

(Or, you know, the government shouldn't have a voice in what we do to ourselves and shouldn't be responsible for the consequences. Crazy, I know.)

I don't see many congressmen complaining about their government provided health care... must not be that bad, eh?

36,

Your point ignores the fact that the wealthy derive the most benefit from the system, and therefore it is fair to expect them to pay more into the system.

It's a basic concept called the "Graduated Income Tax".

I understand that a lot of the Alan Keyes flat-tax advocates can't stand the fact that those that get the most also pay the most, but that's just tough luck. Short of a time machine, the ship has sailed on that debate.

Keeping hard drugs illegal is the best thing whitey's done for the poor young black man since forty acres and a mule (except, of course, for Blacks On Blondes). The poor young black men don't have the brains, education, capital, or other assets to thrive in many of the employment markets the rest of us use, but they are fit and have a high risk tolerance. By keeping drugs illegal, whitey makes it possible for poor youths to monetize their high risk tolerance relatively easily. Legalize and there's no way for urban youths to add value.

The Netherlands has amongst the highest quality of life in the world. Legal and safe marijuana and hallucinogens. Might I add that a lower % of Dutch have tried drugs than Americans, so their system has less drug abusers, commercial shops rather than violent gangs distributing the drugs, and LESS people using drugs.

Everyone gets good healthcare. Everyone gets funding for college. Everyone gets maternity/paternity leave.

Call it socialism if you like, but the more the American people hear about it the more they WANT IT!!!

35-

I'm not a Francophile, but it's common knowledge the French system costs way less per person and that their lifespans are much longer than hours (although much of that is because the stupid gun nuts here insist to have the right for 10,000+ women and children to die from gun violence per year--Jesus insisted innocents die from gun violence, this is why the Religious Right and the NRA have the same base).

What we need to do is convince Jesus that the wanton murder that comes with everyone owning firearms isn't worth the joy of having a fun toy. Then, our lifespans will be longer than the French and we won't be humiliated by being inferior to the French in a major statistic. Why, Jesus, why do you love gun violence so much?

40,

A good point made with nicely with satire. Drugs have been a scourge on urban communities (black, hispanic, AND white urban communities).

Let's have our drug policy create businesses and tax revenue, not felons and gangs!

39, the issue is not who should pay more. The example already postulates that the wealthy pay more in taxes. Notice that after the price drop, the wealthier person still pays more?
The issue is how a tax cut should be divided, and why an income "tax cut" should be given to people who don't pay income taxes. And what is wrong with giving 50% of a tax cut to people who pay 70% of the taxes.

-not 36

42,

The French example reinforces my point, rather than contradicting it (which may have been your intent, I can't tell).

My challenge was for someone to name a PRIVATIZED health system that is better/cheaper than nationalized systems.

The French system is amongst the more expensive NATIONALIZED systems, but is far cheaper and better than the US system.

I think we're on the same side of this debate. There are no examples of privatized health systems that are cheaper/better than the nationalized ones.

That's why every other country has gone with a national health plan.

44,

People in the middle and lower income brackets are most likely to take the amount of a tax cut and put it back into the economy by spending it.

In contrast, the wealthy are more likely to save that money rather than increasing their spending.

Tax cuts to the middle and lower income brackets are more stimulative of the economy.

46, what someone does with the money has nothing to do with the fairness of how the beer price cut should be distributed among the people who paid for the beer.

Furthermore, savings are good for the economy. Remember during the Clinton/Bush administrations when we decried the US's low savings rate? Remember when it was a bad thing that Americans saved so little and US investments and the government had to use money borrowed from the Chinese? Remember when consumption was thought to be wasteful and a bad concept? Yeah, those were the days.

www.norml.org Your source for TRUE information about marijuana.

www.mpp.org - also a decent source.

www.LEAP.CC - this is Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Cops, prosecutors and judges recognize that the crime/violence/problems stem from the existence of the black market for drugs, not the drugs themselves.

47,

I would disagree as to whether what is done with the money matters. When asking whether to cut taxes, you are looking at depriving the treasury of funds to be used for the public good (yes, roads/bridges/schools/national defense are socialist b/c we all chip in to enjoy the benefits).

So, the question is whether the public good is better served by continuing the tax or cutting it.

Also, let's be fair by noting that marginal tax rates in the U.S. are at their lowest levels in many many years. The need for tax cuts just isn't there the way it was when Reagan was President.

I like low taxes, but we need the Government to have enough funds to function.

Satire, 43? I meant every word of it. We shouldn't have a drug policy (and shouldn't view everything as a motherfucking tax base, you goddamn thieves), but so long as we do, we should be able to count its winners and losers. There is no business that brings more money into the ghettos from the rich neighborhoods than the drug trade. Killing it will leave kids with no better options with one fewer way to get ahead in life. Back to snatching pocketbooks and selling burgers, I guess.

50,

I suppose some people are so stupid and misguided that their honest opinions serve as satire.

No worries, you actual status as a moronic racist is just as effective at making my point as when I thought you were performing a satire of a moronic racist.

If you are representative of the opposition in this debate, then we should have legal and taxed marijuana sooner than I thought!

Thanks!

Why do so many people assume that taxing legalized marijuana will even generate all that much revenue, in the first place?

Marijuana costs what it does now because of the risk premium associated with peddling an illegal substance. Drug cartels spend a lot of money sneaking the stuff over national borders, fighting turf wars, paying off officials in Latin America, etc. They lose a significant amount of their smuggled shipments to law enforcement. All of these factors and more inform the street price of marijuana. When you take these factors away by legalizing it, marijuana will be dirt cheap. There'd be not much to tax.

And even if you did impose a significant tax on cheap marijuana, you'll just get laughed at by most. Weed isn't like alcohol. If it was legal, you could grow it in your garden, and enough so to last you a very long time. Besides, if it's heavily taxed, who says street dealers will go away? They'll grow it, and sell it to undercut the sin tax just as they do already. And you'll spend just as much time and resources hunting down tax scofflaws as you do now with potheads.

The fantasy of legalized, government revenue generating marijuana being taken over by Phillip-Morris and company, handing the street drug dealers their collective hat, is just that: a fantasy.

52,

That won't happen for the same reason people buy their alcohol from the store and pay the excise tax. Simply put, most people are lazy.

All it takes to make really good beer is a bucket, $40 worth of basic chemistry equipment, some grain, hops and yeast. Making beer is easy and cheap, but not as easy as buying.

Under your logic, where are all the bootleggers undercutting the price of alcohol by avoiding the excise taxes?

Your parade of horribles has no basis in fact.

52 - If you enjoy watching Good Eats on the Food Network (awesome show), Alton Brown does an entire show dedicated to making your own beer. It only takes about 45 mins of effort and a dark, cool place to store in.

Making your own beer is much easier than tending a garden (besides, try growing marijuana in a garden outdoors and see how long before teenagers steal it).

Distilling alcohol into hard liquor is still pretty easy and requires minimal equipment, and people generally don't do that either. The investment of time, effort, and $$$ is fairly similar for alcohol and marijuana.

Therefore, since we know for a fact people don't go to the time/effort/expense to avoid alcohol taxes, they aren't likely to for marijuana taxes either.

51, you still don't get it. Lemme spell it out for you:

People take jobs in which they can add the most value at the least cost to themselves given their skills, assets, and preferences. I'd be a shitty gymnast, I don't have the family connections or wealth to be a politician, and I'd hate being a waiter. I don't so much mind this law stuff, and I can do a good enough job of it, so here I am.

For a whole host of reasons (including shitty schools, a culture that doesn't value literacy and learning, unstable family structures, low family resources that necessitate early employment, potential genetic factors, and a whole host of other factors I'm sure you know better than I do), many young guys coming up poor in bad neighborhoods don't have the skills, assets, and preferences to, say, go to college and law school. Sure, we can force a few of them through the system, but not most of them. The rest have to ask themselves (at a young age, since mommy doesn't have a silver spoon for them late into their twenties) how to support themselves.

For another long list of reasons (including a culture focused on athleticism, slave-breeding practices, hard living, and perhaps just chance), a certain large group of such men finds itself quite physically fit, and with shitty opportunities to monetize that fitness. A few become athletes. Most are left to choose between (low-risk, low-reward) dead-end service jobs where their main comparative advantage isn't realized and (high-risk, high-reward) drug-dealing.

We decide which jobs to take based (in part) on a risk-reward calculus. For many people, there are jobs available based on their skills sets that allow for a reward just as high as that available to drug dealers at a lower risk. However, for many of the guys I've been talking about, that's not the case. Assuming some variation in risk-preferences, there are some for whom the rational way to monetize their assets (fitness and risk-tolerance) is dealing drugs.

This is not an argument for or against legalization. I support legalization, but not because I want to screw poor dudes with no better options out of their jobs. This is just a point about one of the most significant practical side-effects of criminalization/legalization. If being aware of it (and, you know, of forty acres and a mule, not to mention blaxploitation porn) makes me a moronic racist then I can only confess to that flaw.

I'd rather listen to the musings of a semuta addict on Ecaz rather than listen to the musings of a pot addict.

55,

Oh, I get what you're saying. What you don't get is that you are a moron and spouting these ignorant and racist opinions causes rational and reasonable people to flee from your point of view.

51 - I want to be a Mongol king and lay on the bellies of my dead enemies wives. High risk-high reward. Its just that I don't see any lisiting on craigslist for that yet.

55 - I want to be a Mongol king and lay on the bellies of my dead enemies wives. High risk-high reward. Its just that I don't see any lisiting on craigslist for that yet.

You are all idiots and earn less money than me.

Louis Ziccareli

53/54 - How much beer can you make in your home? A week's worth? A month's worth? You can grow a year's worth of marijuana in your backyard with very little effort. What's more, you can sell it, and there's a ready built market. Nobody wants to buy your shitty house beer. They just don't. Plenty of people want your homegrown marijuana, though.

People buy corporate made alcohol because alcohol isn't a lifestyle. You show up at a bar, and you buy a few drinks, and you leave. Marijuana just isn't the same culture. The ones that smoke it WILL grow it, or buy it from those who do if it's cheaper to do so.

Not everyone wants to drink beer. Likewise, the myriad tastes of alcohol are far more distinguishable from one another than the effects of highs from various strains of marijuana. Vodka tastes nothing like Wine, and the two have different kinds of inebriation. Even if we stuck to the beer market alone, beers can taste wildly different from one another. Anyone that things marijuana is this variable between strains is a moron.

People who smoke marijuana aren't looking for some cocktail to sip on after work, to enjoy the taste and the social lubricant it provides. They're looking to get high - preferably as high as they can, with an effective strain of marijuana. If it comes down to paying a premium on FDA regulated corporate marijuana, or growing just as effective, if not moreso, shit in your backyard, the choice is easy for millions of people.

These cheap comparisons of marijuana to alcohol have got to go. They all focus on one similarity between the two substances, and ignore the abundance of significant differences.

-52

39, The fact that someone is wealthy isn't proof that they derive more of a benefit from our system than someone who is poor. In fact, perhaps the poor derive more of a benefit (they certainly do in relation to what they pay in). The rich and poor derive the same federal benefits in terms of the highways they drive, national defense, etc... However, on top of that, the poor are claiming food stamps and welfare checks. In this sense the poor are getting much more out of our system.

Certainly the rich are getting more in their local communities in terms of better police, roads, etc..., but they are paying for that with their local taxes and this therefore has no bearing on the fairness of federal tax rates.

That's it, 57? Racism, racism, boogedy-boogedy-boo? Really?

An unwillingness to debate the "moron" and a lack of answer to "ignorant and racist opinions" might make you comfortable in your "rational[ity] and reason," but it won't persuade anyone. An unwillingness to see that there are plenty of people out there who are no more sure of your position than of mine doesn't do you any favors.

(Now for the long answer, right, 57?: we should tax the fuck out of rich folks, spend it on magically creating jobs that don't add value--or the market would create them already--for poor folks to keep them out of jobs that aren't good enough by our lights, etc. Not only don't we respect their career choices, not only don't we pause before cudgeling the economy into oblivion, no, we don't even need to pause to consider why this profitable, successful investment hasn't happened already. Clearly it's because of racists. Cool.)

58/59 -- There ain't no ads for drug-dealers on cl either, but they find gigs. Get up, get out, do something! Mongolia's a beautiful country, and the dollar goes far. Live your dream, brother.

There's no statistical link between weed and crime (other than possession). It follows that the only reason weed is illegal is because politicians believe it makes people lazy, and do not want to encourage such behavior (contrast with crack, the use of which is highly correlated to non-drug-related crime). I tend to agree that weed has short- and long-term motivational effects on people. Just the same, I have a very hard time understanding why the government should take any action -- let alone tax me in order to finance the cost of a "war" on drugs -- in order to prevent someone from being lazy.

The amount of tax revenue will depend on how heavily weed is regulated and how high the tax rate is. At some high level of regulation/taxation, the black market will still remain in robust form, thus depriving the government of benefits. At a lower level of regulation/taxation, presumably only those who utilize a dealer for multiple drugs would not pay a small premium to avoid an illegal and likely inconvenient transaction. And potentially if the taboo surrounding weed were, in sufficient time, eliminated through legalization, weed use may become more widespread, thus increasing the tax base.

45,

The problem with your question is that you don't define what "better" means. Does it mean that the program covers more people? Or that the people who are covered receive the most advanced medicine? Or that the program better incentivizes medical advances? Or that everyone receives equal coverage? Or that people live longer (which is not necessarily caused by a "better" health care system?

"Better" is a misleading term. The left believes that our system would be better if 40 million uninsured were covered (regardless of the increased cost). The right believes that our system would be better if it were left to prosper in the free market (regardless of those who are unable or unwilling to obtain coverage).

I'm for it, but with more than just tax to regulate it - we would need pretty strict drug testing in critical workplaces. Yeah, it probably doesn't matter if your burger flipper gets high all the time. I'm sure he does. But what about the train operator? The ferry captain? These people have already proven that they cannot resist the urge to send a text message while they are driving/flying/captaining - how on Earth are they goign to resist lighting up?

The fundamental problem with the pot legalization movement is that people don't realize why drugs are illegal. They are not illegal to protect you and me - they are illegal in order to protect what the lower 2/3 of society would do to themselves, and us in the process, if they were legal. Yeah - nobody gets hurt if Bam-Bam smokes dope and then goes to study hall at Harvard - but what about the bus driver with 45 innocent lives at his disposal?

I know its hard to get off the ivory tower and think rationally for a few minutes, but give it a try. It's a beautiful thing.

52/61 - what's your glitch? did your parents spend your childhood getting stoned? just as not all types of alcohol are different, all drinkers of alcohol are different. the same goes for marijuana - not all marijuana smokers smoke to get as high as they can. you cannot improperly define a category of people in order to make your uninformed point. further to the point, if and when marijuana is legalized, research into growing and purifying techniques will refine marijuana into many different products with many varying properties and effects for the many different types of people who just want to get as high as they can.

you are also a douche.

It's pointless to argue with the far right-wingers. They just shout the same thing with increasing shrillness.

These people want to swear that national health care won't work even though every other industrialized country in the world has it and it works just fine.

These people want to swear that legalized marijuana will be horrible, create violence and not generate any revenue. The Netherlands has it, they generate major tax revenue and tourism from it, they have lower levels of drug use than we do, and don't have to waste all the money we do on prisons.

As long as the right wingers insist on ignoring easily observable facts, do yourself a favor and just ignore them.

68 - Who said I'm against legalizing marijuana? I'm all for it. I'm just not convinced it will generate much tax revenue.

Maybe not all marijuana smokers are looking to get as high as they can when they smoke, but most are - and we all know it.

As far as R&D for marijuana, that's just comical. We already know how to grow highly effective strains of marijuana. Besides, even if Phillip Morris took over your fantasy legalized marijuana trade, and invested R&D into creating a better, more effective strain of marijuana, again, that will add to the premium, and will be undercut at the street level by homegrowers and dealers who are actively competing against big marijuana. Big marijuana would be lucky to siphon off a small fraction of the market who are just so blown away by this speculative brand of 'professional' marijuana.

And that's assuming this is complicated stuff that can't be figured out by street level growers who would be free to openly experiment with their crops without fear of detection and prosecution. Face it, marijuana is not alcohol, and your poorly thought out comparison falls apart on close inspection.

67,

Even though it is illegal, marijuana is cheap and readily available. If the bus driver wants to be high, he already is. Availability of marijuana has increased during the course of the "War on Drugs".

So, how does prohibition protect us from the stoned bus driver? Wouldn't a law against driving under the influence be the thing that protects us?

Alcohol is legal, why aren't the lower 2/3rds of society going crazy killing everyone? Why is the top 1/3rd better able to handle using marijuana?

It's obvious you are ignorant about marijuana's actual effect on the human body. Been watching 'Reefer Madness' to get your information?

67,

Even though it is illegal, marijuana is cheap and readily available. If the bus driver wants to be high, he already is. Availability of marijuana has increased during the course of the "War on Drugs".

So, how does prohibition protect us from the stoned bus driver? Wouldn't a law against driving under the influence be the thing that protects us?

Alcohol is legal, why aren't the lower 2/3rds of society going crazy killing everyone? Why is the top 1/3rd better able to handle using marijuana?

It's obvious you are ignorant about marijuana's actual effect on the human body. Been watching 'Reefer Madness' to get your information?

I hae to tell you, I would much rather head down to the 7-11 and grab a pack of joints than call my hookup, hope he happens to be in, and then take a 30 minute drive before I can enjoy my 9-hour Lord of the Rings fest.

73,

Then don't wait until you run completely out to buy more!

As to the rest of my questions in post 72?

-72

68 - WTF?!?

You do realize there are laws regarding the manufacture of alcohol, right? You can't just set up your own still in the backyard and start selling the stuff out of your garage.

Why do you think regulations regarding legalized pot would be any different. Trust me, if it becomes legal, it will be cornered by big business.

Your scenario is not realistic.

69 - The Netherlands justification is a canard. Holland produces a little more than half a billion dollars in tax revenue from their coffeeshop marijuana. That's a piddling of tax revenue. 60% of Dutch marijuana is black market, too. Might want to check your facts next time you invoke Holland to further your stoner points.

75 is correct. Making alcohol is at least as cheap and easy as growing pot and only takes 10 days instead of 3 months.

Most people won't grow their own pot because it will get stolen if they grow outside and don't want their house to smell like a drug den from the growing weed. So, like most of us, they'll buy it.

The ATF prevents people from cheating when it comes to alcohol/cigarettes b/c they are in charge of enforcing the tax. Sure, some do still cheat to avoid the taxes, but there isn't exactly an epidemic of bootlegging and counterfeit cigarettes, now is there?

I honestly don't see how you're trying to argue that there are mysterious huge differences between alcohol and cannabis, or tobacco and cannabis...

75 - You're missing the point. Set up all the licensure and regulatory requirements that you want, but marijuana still won't be alcohol. You already have tougher *criminal* penalties in place for growing, selling, and consuming the stuff. Do you think less severe regulatory sanctions are going to stop whatever underground trade continued after its legalization?

Alcohol is more difficult to produce as far as quality and quantity to sell and consume. You can grow copious amounts of very effective marijuana for dirt cheap. If you want to chase the many people who grow it without a license, and/or buy it from these growers, then how, exactly, are you all that better off from what we have now? Hell, you would've even have to modify the forfeiture laws, and most of your law enforcement agencies and units that investigate the current trade could remain. You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie.

69,

It's easy and comfortable, fat and lazy to righteously label all those who disagree with you "far ____-wingers." Some of them are, some of them aren't, and you should be able to understand and answer their points, not just shout them down and drown them out.

National health care does a great job (in most places) of guaranteeing a certain level of care to all people. Privatized health care offers greater incentives to innovate, and thus offers newer, better medicines and technology. Newer technology is more expensive, so privatized health care is more expensive. (Also, no nation in the world has a population demographically similar to our; it's really not too hard to keep a few million rich Swedes healthy.) To some extent, nationalized health care can free-ride on the research conducted in privatized health-care system. Which system is "better" is a matter of values (as 66 already said, to no apparent avail). Others' system works just fine for their values, and maybe for yours, but perhaps not for mine. Unless you really like barrel-of-a-gun rule, we (or at least politicians representing our values) should try to talk it out.

The Netherlands are clearly not analogous to the US w.r.t. legalization. They have a highly urbanized population, so home-growth is impractical. They have a lot of neighbors who haven't legalized (and can get tourists from the US), so tourism is viable. They have a homogeneous, unarmed population with little history of rioting/civil unrest, so drugs have no exacerbated problems with violence. The two countries are just very, very different. We can learn from their successes, but they certainly don't foreclose the entire debate.

You might be right on these issues. You might not be. Neither your opinion nor mine is particularly important, so chill the fuck out and try to consider both sides critically.

76,

So, your counterpoint is that with a population as small as the Netherlands they were able to generate $500 million in revenue, thereby doing significant damage to the black market (which previously had 100% market share).

Ummm... you realize that was exactly my point?!? Criminal interests were damaged, significant tax revenue was raised.

Where is the part where you make a point against what I said?

The financial benefits of legalizing and taxing pot go way beyond merely the revenues collected from direct taxation. It also saves the money the government would otherwise have spent on drug-law enforcement. And it unclogs the nation's dockets, freeing up judicial, prosecutorial, and public-defender resources.

As a second-order benefit, legalizing pot would substantially reduce violent crime. Prohibition created Al Capone. Following its repeal, however, you don't see Jim Beam & Jack Daniels getting into a firefight over distribution territory. Violence is a risky, expensive, and generally inefficient cost of doing business. In the absence of artificially increased black-market profits, criminal organizations simply would be unable to compete with a legitimate, corporate marijuana industry.

77 - What is so difficult to understand about the difference between the yields from marijuana crops versus the amount of alcohol you'd produce if you made it at home? You simply are not going to get a year's supply of house beer by making the stuff as a hobby. With marijuana, you can get that, and then some. And as I already pointed out, your house beer will still taste like shit. Whereas with marijuana, all you need to do is come across some seeds from an effective strain. Also, good luck trying to make good vodka, wine, tequila, brandy, schnapps, jagermeister, rum, kahlua, and all the other distinct types of alcohol we want to be able to walk into a liquor store and buy. Marijuana simply does not have this varied selection among different strains, where one effective strain couldn't substitute for another in the overwhelming majority of cases. And yet, I wouldn't trade my vodka for some fucking rum, anymore than the next guy would substitute his merlot for some whiskey.

Marijuana is not alcohol.

78 -

No, but the ready availability of pot at every liquor/convenience/cash station/casino/supermarket/K-mart/you get the point will.

Dude, I grew pot in college. Hydroponic systems aren't cheap, it takes 15 weeks to cultivate, and you damn well better not go on vacation any time during your grow season. It is just too much of a hassle to do on your own.

Or, lets just make a comparison to the tomato trade. Sure, I can grow some nice hothouses right in my window, but why bother? The farming industry does it cheaper and better than I can.

Also, lets look at price. An eighth costs around $50-$60 for some kind purple hair. That is around 15 joints. How many smokes come in a pack? 20. How much does that pack cost. The most I ever paid was $11/pack (screw you NYC).

If privatized care offers greater incentive to innovate, why do countries with nationalized health care have a higher average life expectancy than the U.S.?

Most potent, high quality marijuana is grown hydroponically indoors. Hydroponic equipment is very cheap. It is far cheaper to grow marijuana indoors than it is to buy it. Check out our own DEA's numbers for indoor grows. It is a common method. People don't do it because of the effort/smell.

Marijuana is widely decriminalized throughout Western Europe, so that's not a reason for the tourism. It isn't even legal in the Netherlands, just completely decriminalized (as I understand it, that means stores still aren't supposed to sell it, but the gov't just looks the other way). As an analogy, gambling is legal all sorts of places, but Vegas still gets tons of tourism from it.

The example of alcohol kills your point about guns/unrest/violence. We had tons of alcohol/gang violence. Guns were legal and widely available. After alcohol became legal, guns were still just as legal and we were still just as prone to violence. It is the black market filled with criminal elements jockeying for position that creates the violence. Not the substance itself.

Lastly, my point about right-wingers was directed at people of the "black people are best suited to be athletes and drug dealers" sort. Not at people making reasoned points (albeit points I disagree with).

The right has crazy right-wingers, and the left has crazy left-wingers. I stand by suggesting we ignore crazies like that racist, but see no reason you belong in that camp. Please feel free to ignore the crazies on my side, as well.

82,

It takes 10-14 days to make 5 gallons of beer.

It takes 3 months to grow approx. 3 ounces of weed.

A person doing either can make all they want of their preferred substance easily. 5 gallons of beer won't last as long as 3 ounces of weed, but you're forgetting how much quicker it is to make alcohol.

82 -

There are tons of strains of weed, bro. Just check out your High Times mag. Sure, they all get you high, but all alcohol gets you drunk. You prefer vodka to rum. I prefer Hindu Kush to White Widow. Whatever.

Agreed, pot isn't alcohol, but so what. Neither is tobacco, but it is run by big business too. Or are you now gowing to tell me I couldn't grow some tabac in my garage for some reason?

80- Why are you so sure the (limited) legalization of Dutch marijuana didn't contribute to the criminal trade? With legally protected coffeehouses selling the stuff domestically, there's your incentive right there to *grow* the criminal trade of the stuff to avoid excise taxes. For all you know, the black market marijuana trade in Holland was smaller than before it was legalized.

83 - There's no sin tax on tomatoes. If there were, you'd suddenly be witness to the underground tomato market.

And yet, wouldn't you know it, people *do* hydroponically grow marijuana, even with criminal sanctions looming if they're detected. Broaden that market by legalizing it, and watch how many more do it. Is it difficult to grow that way? I'd imagine it is, but again, the sheer size of the yields, and the potential clientele you'd have since you're selling it on the cheap, would make it worth it for many - as you well know even under our current criminal regime.

83,

One pack a day (20 cigarettes) is considered a fairly average smoking habit (slightly below average from my own observations).

I've known a lot of potheads in my life, but I've never known anyone who smoked 15 joints in a day. Heavy smokers generally top out at 5 (yes, people can smoke more than that, but we're talking about average use, not what yahoos do to celebrate 4/20).

82 - I'm afraid you are simply wrong about house beer. There are books and kits everywhere. Good Eats is a very basic level cooking show, and Alton Brown has done two episodes on home brewing. It isn't difficult, it tastes good, and it only takes 10-14 days.

Maybe the house beer you've had before was done by someone that didn't know what they were doing (used bakers yeast instead of brewing yeast, or didn't use proper grains, or got bad hops?). I've had home beer a bunch of times, and it's only been bad once and otherwise is always easily better than crap like Budweiser and often is better than Sam Adams.

87,

I'm so sure because the legal coffee houses are the means of distribution and have to file taxes every year and are subject to audit. Coffee houses could buy black market cannabis (just like makers of bottled mixed drinks could buy black market moonshine), but they'd get caught because of the tax filings.

As to incentive to grow - when you can buy it legally, the incentive to grow decreases. Although your speculation is logical, the example of alcohol disproves it. Lots of people were homebrewing (we've all heard of so-called "bathtub gin", yes?) because that was the only way of generating supply. Once it became legal and readily available, laziness kicked in b/c buying it is more convenient than producing it.

87 - there is a huge sin tax on tobacco, but I don't know of one homegrower for that. I just don't understand your point.

If we are going to legalize drugs and tax them can we at least tax crack higher than regular cocaine so Maxine Waters will still have something to bitch about?

90,

Glad to have run into another informed person! Have a good evening!

-89

Man, 84, you really are too easily provoked out of all clear though. The point (at 51, 55, etc.) isn't that black people are per se cut out to be drug dealers, the point is that poor people with shitty educations in urban areas have so few options that sometimes drug-dealing becomes their best bet. For now, most urban poor folk are black and most drug dealers in bad neighborhoods are athletic. All races have some fractions of athletic guys (though what the fractions are varies, since athleticism, like other skills, needs cultivation), but rich athletic guys have better options, rural athletic guys don't even have the drug-dealing option, and legalization takes the option away from everyone. Not about race. Get it?

88 - Tell me, how many gallons of house beer can you produce versus how many pounds of weed, for the same amount of man hours, over the course of a year? The answer to that question is why people are willing to buy corporate alcohol, but would be far less willing to buy corporate marijuana, all else being equal. There will simply be too many street level dealers willing to grow good stuff and sell it, without having to jump through regulatory hoops like licensure requirements, FDA requirements, excise taxes, tariffs, etc., reducing their costs, and thusly their sticker prices.

90 - Homegrowing suitable tobacco for cigarettes is even less of an option than brewing house beer. Alcohol is far more analogical to marijuana than tobacco, and even those two are too distinct to be perfectly interchangeable for this topic.

The recurring point here is that marijuana is vastly more simple to cultivate and consume in large quantities than alcohol, and certainly than tobacco. Where something is that simple, and the reward is great, lots of people will do it.

The true benefit of legalizing marijuana wouldn't be in the pitifully small tax revenue it'd generate (revenue that would likely be offset by problems increased marijuana usage would create, anyway - everything from an increase in car accidents to treatment funding that policy would eventually demand) but in economic stimulus. You'd see an increase in the sale of gardening equipment, an incipient hemp products industry would arise (clothing, paper, shoelaces, etc.), and, probably most importantly, we'd be able to reallocate government resources elsewhere since we'd be investigating, prosecuting, and imprisoning less criminals (assuming we did not tax the shit out of the legalized weed, and then just substitute our current drug war for a new drug tax war).

94,

You can keep insisting that house beer is difficult and shitty, but that doesn't make it so. The equipment is cheap, easy to use, and doesn't take up much space. The effort is minimal (less than an hour of effort), then you just store your 5 gallon bucket(s) in a cool dark place for 10-14 days. if you use 2 buckets, then you have 10 gallons of beer in the same 10-14 days.

Do you really know people drinking more than 5 or 10 gallons of beer in two weeks or less? Didn't think so.

Also, you incorrectly assume that there will be bunches of illegal dealers and further assume people will buy it from them. Legal stores set a ceiling on what dealers can charge for their marijuana.

Pretend you are a consumer looking to buy marijuana -

Option A is to buy an eighth from a store for $50-60 and get a known strain of known characteristics from a legal provider.

Option B is to buy an eighth from a dealer for $35 or $40, thereby committing the crime of tax evasion, get an unknown strain of unknown quality with unknown characteristics and have to put yourself at risk by dealing with a criminal.

Clearly the consumers will flock to the legal option. That's what happened at the end of prohibition.

It wasn't that cops destroyed all the illegal alcohol. Nobody wanted to deal with gangsters to get drunk now that they didn't have to.

A drug tax war? I know it's fun to make stuff up, but again you are ignoring readily available examples. No tax war for alcohol (which is as simple to make as marijuana). No tax war for marijuana in The Netherlands (and we know they love taxing stuff there).

Just because Rupert Murdoch funded a bunch of Teabagging parties with dozens of attendees doesn't mean that the country is ready to rise up in revolt against sin taxes.

If it makes you feel better, you can leave a nightlight on to protect you from the drug tax war, the alcohol wars, the big scary athletic blacks, and the other delusions you suffer from.

Smoke some cannabis. It will help chill you out.

94,

$500 million from a population as small as The Netherlands is pitiful? That doesn't make sense.

Increased car accidents? Maybe some, but studies show people on cannabis are aware of their impairment and slow down as a result. By comparison, people on alcohol generally do not recognize their impairment and do not slow down. So, yes, there will be some car accidents, but not a lot.

Treatment costs for marijuana? The only reason people go to treatment for it now is because courts require it for first time offenders and small quantities. Cannabis is not associated with cancer, isn't addictive, doesn't cause emphysema... the only health detriment studies have shown is a mild increase in susceptibility to pneumonia.

Of course, even those slight health detriments (much less than with tobacco) are related to smoking cannabis. Vaporizing is much healthier (b/c the nasty compounds are formed by combustion and aren't present in un-burnt cannabis) and is supposed to taste better.

stupid ass right wingers trying to reconcile their pointless pot ideology with alcohol's legality are good for a LULZ

Crack is whack.

95 - Even assuming house beer is good and tasty beer, and is easy to make, (a) it's just beer, and not wine, vodka, and all the other assorted types of liquor that people want easy access to, and (b) people generally don't want to make house beer in bulk, and then travel with it in large jugs to parties, barbecues, bars, clubs, and other places where drinking as a social lubricant is common. Marijuana can be carried in your pocket anywhere you please, and there is no question as to the quality, ease of use, and easy access in a legalized marijuana state.

The benefits of professionally commercialized liquor vastly outweighs that of home brewed beer. The benefits of professionally commercialized marijuana are small, if any. What's the upside? Avoiding tax evasion? The people buying, selling, and ingesting marijuana now aren't too concerned with the criminal sanctions involved, why do you think tax evasion is going to bother them? Especially since it will be virtually unenforceable. What, are you going to have cops check for receipts whenever they find someone with marijuana? Of course not. Are you going to excise tax people who grow it? Why? You don't excise tax home brewers of beer.

There's just no way of enforcing it on a large scale without offsetting any of the revenue you do collect with your enforcement costs.

You're living in fantasyland.

And who cares if marijuana shops will set a ceiling on prices? Of course they'll try to stay competitive. The point is, they won't be competitive with the black market, for the already mentioned reasons: black market growers and dealers of the product won't need to comply with any regulations whatsoever. Their overhead will be lower, and so will their prices. How can legal shops stay competitive? They can't.

97, The Netherlands has the 16th largest economy on earth. Stop pretending Holland is Somalia. Half a billion dollars is less than 0.1% of Holland's GDP. Piddling.

Also, I don't know what study you're talking about, but here's a study that suggests that drivers intoxicated by marijuana are twice as likely to be responsible for a fatal crash (and this doesn't even include non-fatal crashes):

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20051201/marijuana-raises-risk-of-fatal-car-crash

As for treatment policy, legalizing marijuana will not remove its stigma in many corners of society. There will be plenty of outcry for treatment programs, school awareness programs, etc. Many of these suggestions will be adopted. You're not living in real world America if you think that they won't be.

100 - The #1 reason people will by legal marijuana instead of from their dealer:

You can buy joints, beef jerky, sweetarts, reese's, a slurpee, and rent Blade Runner all under the same roof.

Try wrapping your head around that logic.

101, What on earth makes you think that legalized marijuana will go that unregulated? Even in the Netherlands, selling marijuana is confined to coffee shops. You're ever going to sell marijuana sold in convenience stores in America. Not ever.

102 -

They said the same thing about liquor after prohibition.

102 is right...but 101 is much nicer to contemplate...that's change I can believe in.

100 - Most smokers will flock to comercialized marijuana for the same reasons drinkers flock to commercialized beer:

(1) Homebrew is a lot more work than picking up a six-pack at a local liquor store; likewise, growing, harvesting, and curing your own pot would still be a lot more work than going to your local legal pot store.

(2) Most homebrews, crafted by amateurs, are just not a good as beers brewed by professional brewers; likewise, the quality of marijuana grown legally in an amateur's backyard is likely to be inferior to that grown by professional growers.

Most smokers will flock to comercialized marijuana for the same reasons drinkers flock to commercialized beer over homebrew:

(1) Homebrew is a lot more work than picking up a six-pack at a local liquor store; likewise, growing, harvesting, and curing your own pot would still be a lot more work than going to your local legal pot store.

(2) Most homebrews, crafted by amateurs, are just not a good as beers brewed by professional brewers; likewise, the quality of marijuana grown legally in an amateur's backyard is likely to be inferior to that grown by professional growers.

69, 98 --

Shrill and stupidass right wingers like...the editors of National Review?

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWFiYjc1MzgxNWQ2NmZkZDAxZWNiNTY2YjI4MjY4YTM=

whoever voted 'no' is such a fucking tool cock-smoker, he or she should be publicly executed