Don't forget the tobacco industry, they have far more to lose from the legalization of a product that people can smoke that WON'T kill them, NON addictive etc. Without cigarettes there is not much use for tobacco and many of today's wealthy got their family money from investments in the tobacco industry a long time ago. During the war on drugs Marijuana was made a schedule one in order to "lean" on small time marijuana criminals with felony charges to give up their sources. Desperate times bad solutions. Back to big tobacco and my reasons for pointing some of the blame in their direction. Colorado: Can smoke cigarettes in public, next to children, standing in a crowd, on the outside patio of a bar, in your car, outside the front of your house, etc. Marijuana, although recreational legal like cigarettes and alcohol, and no danger of second hand smoke (unless you are hotboxing in a car, contact high unlikely) can only be done in private. So it's okay to have to smell and breathe a cancer fighting cigarette in public but let's hide the medicinal cancer-fighting stick.
Big tobacco needs to start growing pot. I know a lot of people would think that bad but let me say, I've made my own beer. It was a lot easier than growing weed but guess what, I still buy beer. In other words, a lot of growers grow because they love to grow and will keep growing. Big tobacco hurts those that grow it for greed and drives down the price that is already over inflated. Weed should be free. We should be just sharing it with people like vegetables from the garden. Dispensaries suck anyway. They crank out for yield and their quality sucks. I will take marijuana from a home grower any day over that crap.
Now top that off with the big paper companies and industries that would be negatively effected by hemp production.
Colorado is making a lot of people look really bad right now. Crime has dropped, Jobs went up, tax revenue went up ($60M as of June) illegal marijuana use among teens has dropped, no marijuana related deaths (eating a whole brownie and jumping off a balcony is stupidity related not marijuana related), alcohol is the leading cause of DUIs and even when THC found in system, not a contributing factor. Studies show people drive fine when high and it actually makes drivers pay more attention instead of less. Point being, everyone thought we would look bad, that we would crumble, crime would go up, people would quit their jobs, the crime lords would run the city. Here we are, better than ever, and the rest of the world is taking notes.
Ya, that's my rant. I've been arguing legalization since 1993, the release of Cypress Hill - Black Sunday. I remember picking it up getting ready to go over to Somalia. The inside album cover had 19 marijuana facts on it and I was all over it. Twenty-Two years later I'm legally growing.
and lost...
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