Why legalise?

People never seem to consider the down side of legalisation, mj would attract luxury taxes like for tobacco, alcohol and fuel. I don't know how different it is in the US but here in Oz I would much rather get busted under the current laws than I would for tax evasion, there is no way I am going to pay taxes for growing and smoking my own plants.

I think that just getting it fully decriminalised is the way to go, that way it's not worth the effort or paperwork for the cops to bust you and the government can't tax it because it is not actually a legal substance.

:cool:

I believe that it could cause world peace or at least much closer to it and would only make it easier for you to grow your own.

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I believe that it could cause world peace or at least much closer to it

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Yeah all the soldiers would be too wasted to fight "just now" and the generals of both sides would spend heaps of time smoking the peace pipe.:jointsmile:

:cool:

I would gladly pay the state $100 a year for a permit to grow my own medicine...
Oh wait... I already do that! :D

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Originally Posted by TomStoner

People never seem to consider the down side of legalisation, mj would attract luxury taxes like for tobacco, alcohol and fuel. I don't know how different it is in the US but here in Oz I would much rather get busted under the current laws than I would for tax evasion, there is no way I am going to pay taxes for growing and smoking my own plants.

I think that just getting it fully decriminalised is the way to go, that way it's not worth the effort or paperwork for the cops to bust you and the government can't tax it because it is not actually a legal substance.

:cool:

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With legalization large corporations could take over production which would increase quality and dramatically lower price, so even if it was taxed pretty high it would still be far cheaper than it currently is. No downside to legalization here in the US

If cannabis would be legalized, governments would be facing a challenge of trying to get taxes - first of all - from the companies importing and second of all, from the growers. It would be impossible to legalize it and ilegalize growing. The legalizing issue is about common acceptance. In Finland it's legal to grow one marijuana plant for "decoration" as long as you don't cut it. I grow one on my front yard. I never cut it. It's just there for people to see how beautiful it is. If every pro-legalize fin would have a plant growing on their front yard, it would become accepted then legal and then an institution. IMHO

I firmly believe that legalizing all drugs would drastically lower crime than it is now. To me it seems that 75% of all conflicts with the law are somehow connected to drugs. Legal drugs would cause gangs to be unable to sustain themselves because they wouldn't be able to compete with legal drug prices. Legalizing drugs would essentially put criminals out of business and reduce the need for violent conflicts in the streets and with the police.

It wouldn't be hard to tax marijuana at all, all you would have to do is put the tax the large scale grow operations. You do that by setting a number of plants that would classify a large scale grow operation. For example, only tax people with more than 10 plants in a non-residential building. Allow residential buildings 6 plants, and fine the violators.

A decent large scale corporation would build massive warehouses for their grow operations, they wouldn't be able to hide from the tax, and the large quantity they would produce would far outweigh the costs of the tax.

And another good thing is they would be in constant competition with personal grows, so the professionally made cannabis would have to be far better quality than most personal grows.

I'm still curious what downsides TomStoner is talking about, I can't imagine any.

Legalization would help with the greenhouse affect too, think about all the trees being cut down combined with taking large amouts of hemp and marijuana plants out of the environment so if it was legalized and they couldent tax it, it would still be beneficial for the USA to let people grow if we started to use more AMERICAN MADE hemp rather than cotton it would cut way down on all the nasty pesticides needed for cotton so there is no need to let the Gov. tax it. It pays for itself in more ways than I just stated.

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Originally Posted by TomStoner

People never seem to consider the down side of legalisation, mj would attract luxury taxes like for tobacco, alcohol and fuel. I don't know how different it is in the US but here in Oz I would much rather get busted under the current laws than I would for tax evasion, there is no way I am going to pay taxes for growing and smoking my own plants.

I think that just getting it fully decriminalised is the way to go, that way it's not worth the effort or paperwork for the cops to bust you and the government can't tax it because it is not actually a legal substance.

:cool:

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The cops don't bust people for making their own beer or wine, or growing their own tobacco. As long as your only making what you use and not selling it.

I doubt pot would be any different.

mj could be the secret to world peace

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Originally Posted by Nathan604

mj could be the secret to world peace

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haha i just posted a thread about this, then i came to this thread and was pumped to see all this talk of world peace and cannabis!