Why Is Cannabis Illegal? I know.

[GreenBean]

WARNING: This post is extraordinarily long.... :smokin:

Cannabis is illegal for three reasons. It all began with a company named DuPont and a man with a tiny penis named Anslinger. You can read for yourself all the parts in between then and now but once you do so, it should be fairly obvious that reasons why Cannabis is prohibited does not involve money in any way as many people think. Personally, I attribute its prohibition to unrectified racial hatred, unenlightened politicians, and a general population still brainwashed by the movie "Reefer Madness"....

Some of my stoner friends believe, as the original poster does, that Cannabis legalization will hurt the profits of various industries so severly that it justifies the spending of thousands (potentially millions) of dollars in lobbying and propaganda efforts in order to keep it illegal. Let me throw some counter points out there using the original post as a template....

Chemical Companies:
Cotton requires large amounts of chemical fertiliser and pesticides, unlike cannabis which stronger and more durable fibers.

Fertilizing cotton isn't the only place where chemical companies make their money. Chemical companies profit on a wide variety of products which Cannabis isn't suitable for. The loss of profit would be negligible but such would be made up for when you consider how much would be saved as a result of no longer having to lobby to keep Cannabis illegal.

Plastics Industry:
Many plastic products can be made from natural cannabis without pollution.

Besides being environmentally friendly, it would also be cheaper to make those plastic products from Cannabis rather than processed petroleum, leading me to ask how any company who makes plastic products would suffer from Cannabis legalization. Surely it must be cheaper for them, if the current price of oil has anything to with it, to make their products using Cannabis rather than petroleum / oil. Wouldn't they actually save a lot of money if they were using Cannabis?

Timber Industry:
Cannabis 'hurds' (the woody bit of the stalk) can be used to make furniture as well as paper of superior quality than that made from wood.

So why not just use Cannabis? Furniture companies can't patent oak trees and make obscene profits from furniture made from oak can they? Is it simply more costly to make wood out of Cannabis? I think not. The timber industry would not suffer at all from Cannabis legalization. It would only give them another type of tree to process.

Tobacco and Alchohol Industries:
If more people turned to the safer and non-addictive recreational pastime than their products.

Why couldn't companies like Marlboro cash in on Cannabis? Tobacco companies already have the facilities to produce packs of joints by the pallet and the expenses incurred from growing Cannabis as well as (and potentially alongside) tobacco cannot be high enough to render it an unprofitable avenue to venture down. And speaking of recreational use, the high that comes from smokng a joint followed by a half bottle of vodka and a hand-rolled organic cigarette cannot be achieved by either of the three on their own...at least for me anyway...

Pharmaceutical Companies:
Who may profit less if ill people were to grow their own medecine in preference to their many dangerous and addictive synthetic drugs which the same people claim are less affective than cannabis.

A tax break here and there should make the pharmaceutical companies forget the idea of coming up with Cannabis-related diseases in their diseasemongering push as of late to compensate for the loss of revenue, but a reminder that they would no longer need to spend millions per year on lobbying (and these guys probably spend the most on political influence towards Cannabis) just to keep Cannabis illegal should be enough to get them to reverse gears and support it. Not to mention that Cannabis can't cure every ill out there and there's a plethora of them waiting to infect you at your local supermarket (Aspartame, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Monosodium Glutamate, Sodium Nitrite, Acesulfame Potassium, Sucralose, all of which are found in a wide variety of food products and all of which can send you straight to the doctor if consumed regularly). There are so many toxic products for sale on supermarket shelves that Cannabis legalization should not be of any concern to the pharmaceutical companies who gain more patients from bad eating habits than from the lack of a single form of theraputic relief caused by the prohibition of Cannabis.

Criminal Justice Industry:
Including police, lawyers, barristors, court officials, prison staff, probation services, drug counsellors, forensic scientists, customs officiers and security firms, who may suffer if 100,000 less prosecutions are brought each year. ( the system really is against us )

That assumes that all these people will be laid off and sent to the unemployment line should they no longer be tasked with enforcing Cannabis prohibition laws. Such an assumption is way off, especially considering the current state of affairs in the nation. In fact, law enforcement either needs more time to pursue and convict violent criminals, more personnel to secure our own borders and enforce illegal immigration laws, and more space to lock them all up. Repealing the laws prohibiting Cannabis would be a benefit to law enforcement, as it would allow the criminal justice system to function more efficiently at all points. It would also allow law enforcement to focus more on crimes that matter, like murder, rape, theft, sexual exploitation of children, illegal immigration and terrorism. Not only is prohibiting Cannabis inhumane in the moral sense of denying sick persons relief from their ills, the time wasted enforcing such a prohibition is doubly immoral because the time spent on arresting, convicting, and imprisoning someone for possession of Cannabis is time that could've been better spent on the rapist or murderer who still walks the streets searching for their next victim....

Fuel Companies including Fossil, Nuclear and Solar:
The Report of the FCDA Europe (endorsed by Judges, Doctors & Academics) reveals that the 'cannabis biomass equation' shows beyond doubt that cannabis-derived fuel is a cheaper and safer form of viable energy.

But doesn't that favor the legalization of Cannabis in this country, one that is supposedly seeking energy independence from the Middle East? No doubt the oil companies are clocking in extreme and obscene profits per quarter, but one must consider all variables of the equation between refining petroleum and processing Cannabis before claiming that oil companies stand to lose big if Cannabis is legalized. First, how much would the profits of the oil companies drop if Cannabis-derived fuel were sold at the same price as petroleum-derived gasoline is being sold for now? Not much, if any right? Exactly, because the costs of turning Cannabis into fuel suitable for a combustion engine can't be much greater (if greater at all) than what it costs to refine petroleum into gasoline. Now calculate the drop in expenses when you eliminate the drilling, the pumping, and the shipping (a majority of which spans halfway around the planet) that preceeds the refinement of petroleum and replace that with the costs of growing enough Cannabis to satisfy fuel demands. Think we could knock off about 20% of the price of gas without touching the profits of the oil companies? I think we could. Tell me again why the fuel companies fear Cannabis legalization?

Why NORML and all the other groups campainging for the legalization of Cannabis have so far failed at getting Cannabis legalized is because none of them have hit the right point yet. The core of every campaign for the legalization of Cannabis that I've seen, heard of, or read about focused primarily on the medicinal benefits of Cannabis. Most suggest that we decriminalize small amounts while making it readily available to those with a prescription from a doctor. Some go so far as to invoke civil liberty. Still, others mention the plant's industrial uses. While all are noble ideas, such a campaign is doomed to fail in the context of a society run by a corrupted government devoid of any nobility. If you want success with your campaign for Cannabis legalization, then you must relegate just about every positive argument for Cannabis to the role of supporting arguments, even the medicinal argument. I say this because all of these arguments are moot points. The government setting the rules doesn't care about you, me, the rest of us, nor the environment we live in. The continued existence of two things can immediately prove this; Aspartame and SUVs. With that in mind, it should be obvious that the main argument of any campaign for the legalization of Cannabis must focus on one thing and one thing only; money. If the message isn't already obvious, then perhaps a short history lesson will make it crystal clear...

Back in 1920s, Alcohol endured a few years of prohibition before an epidemic of organized crime forced the government to reconsider its approach. Such a reconsideration resulted in the approach of regulation and taxation rather than prohibition. That approach, despite all of alcohol's negative effects on the individual and society as a whole, remains the same today. Why? Since only the year 2000, alcohol has generated over twenty BILLION dollars in tax revenues from taxes that are only applied to alcohol. That assload of money is what keeps alcohol legal with certain conditions, primarily that of age.

Cannabis is easily capable of matching that kind of revenue output. But instead of making four or five billion dollars a year off of unmotivated stoners, who would be more than happy to pay the government fifty cents on each gram of Cannabis they purchased if they could purchase quality stuff (organically grown, de-seeded and de-stemmed) safely and cheaply enough instead of growing it themselves, it spends about ten billion per year trying to wipe the very idea of Cannabis out of our minds. Where common sense was waving the white flag in every other argument for Cannabis, it is simply committing suicide in this aspect of things. For the War On Citizens Smoking Cannabis seems like an awful waste of money doesn't it?

So...

The next time you're chatting with a friend about Cannabis or if you're out campaigning for legalization, make sure that the sign you're waving or the shirt you're wearing says something along the lines of this:

"[b]Cannabis prohibition costs taxpayers over a billion dollars a year[b]."

And aside from the above, know below:

The majority of people in this nation don't care that Cannabis has medicinal value, and quite a few of them still believe that Cannabis drives people crazy. Illustrate to them the fact that they are partially paying the bill (1/10th is a conservative estimate) to keep it illegal before you dispell the myths of the blue pill people and you stand a good chance at swaying a lot of public opinion...

The majority of corporations exist for one purpose and that is to make money. Illustrate to them how they can save money by embracing and using Cannabis industrially rather than paying the lobby to help keep it illegal, and you stand a good chance at swaying a lot of corporate opinion....

The majority of politicians don't care about your well-being. They only care about two things: money and political power. Show them how replacing a yearly expense of ten billion dollars with a yearly profit of four billion can justify giving themselves a raise, not to mention make a long needed peace with the millions of people who'd like to be able to smoke Cannabis recreationally without fear of persecution, and you stand a good chance at swaying a lot of political opinion....

And when you have all three opinions in your favor, success is inevitable...

[Ferre]

There is another reason for Cannabis to be 'illegal'; "The Christian Religion".

Long before Anslinger and Dupont started their war on "competition" which Cannabis is for the industries, the Pope(s) already declared war on Cannabis centuries before that.

Reason? Cannabis has been a religious sacrament for "non-Christians" (Read; heathens) since long before the Abrahamic religions were founded and those 'non-Christians' and all their religious habits have been the subject of persecution by "the church" since the inquisition.

In fact, the drugs war is nothing less than an extention of this inquisition, it's not by accident that it is mostly healing entheogens that are religious sacraments for many ancient cultures that have been made "illegal" by the Christian dominated western world (read USA, who dictates the rest)

Just my two cents.

[gromorebud]

well in that case why the fuck is it illegal then? wtf

it's illigal because the freemasons had all their money in forestry and hemp was going to make paper made from wood history,that's a bit oversimplyfied but its the basic reason,it was all down to moneyimp:

[gromorebud]

another point how can you make genraliseation's about health,i smoked MJ since 1976,i hold down a decent job in IT ,i have no mental health prob's,
i know alot of other people who toke aswell and the only person ive seen it effect mentaly already had problems with depretion and he was an abuser not a user..goverment properganda is just that just pure bullshit,the bigger the bullshit the more people are inclined to beleive it. peace

[LovelyTasha]

The reason cannabis is illegal in the US is because a bunch of police officers blamed all the crime in the area on "stoned negro men". That's it. Propaganda spread...and it eventually was made..illegal. There's your awnser. PROPAGANDA. I think the History channel did a story on it, too. I highly doubt anyone was made "emotionally unstable" because of it..most of these people already had an exsisting problem.

<3

[spleafer]

The government likes people to conform. Potsmokers are generally non-conformists. As long as we just drink our booze, smoke our cigarettes and eat our chemical-laden processed food, everyone's happy (although all these things are much worse than pot). Plus marijuana laws provide a convenient excuse to take out rabble-rousers who get out of line.

[alpha kenny wun]

Marijuana was made illegal in the 1920's- 30's. Its an outdated law, but for politicians its almost taboo to support legalization. Hopefully when the next generation makes its way to politics they'll have enough sense to change a obsolete law. Dont forget our government is run by conservatives that are in the pocket of the religious right and pharmecutical companies that would go bust if they couldnt force feed everyone there meds. The common sense approach would obvioulsy be to legalize it, but the same people that are against gay rights, want intelligent design taught in every school, and other neocon bullshit wouldnt have it.

[crucial conflict]

well this thread looks pretty old but weed is illegal because you cant pay taxes on it

[PeopleCallMeJesus]

you all dont get out much, this stuff is still illegal because "it's killing our kids and ruining their lives." i dont think it has a whole lot to do with money. the politicians always get you with the "dying" or "braindead" kids. it's all based on lies about safety and moral values.

[CannabisExtemptee]

I completely disagree with you. I think cannabis should be legalized. I think all drugs should be legalized. I think you also need to educate yourself. You are wrong when you say "it's killing our kids and ruining their lives." Before you go and say horrible things like this why don't you check it out further. Try punching the word LEAP into your browser. What's killing our children is ignorance, not plants, not drugs. "The windfall savings on law-enforcement dollars could be plowed into health care, education and rehabilitation, which are the only methods proven to correct substance abuse."