Cannabis Sativa

So you've no doubt heard that some asshat took a photo of Phelps taking a hit off of a bong, and that he's been suspended from competitive swimming for three months and lost a sponsor. I just want to find the asshat that took the photo and let it out. With marijuana still illegal to basically look at, it's not smart to take photos of people smoking it. Anyways, I don't doubt he really was smoking ganja (could have been tobacco, who knows?). I just think the fact he had to come right out and say he was wrong, that just proved he did smoke marijuana. The fact that people are making a big deal out of it is stupid, lay off the guy. I don't know why we have to set the dogs on anyone who smokes the stuff...

...Which is a lot of Americans. I know a retired drug enforcement officer that smokes it, a lot of my friends are leisure smokers, a lot of my parents' friends are, and that huge host of Americans who smoke it, this is a lot of people. I've never smoked it directly (been in a hot boxed room), gives me a migraine-like headache, so I stay away from it. My only request is blow the smoke out the window or go outside. I think it's stupid that it's a criminal act to be connected to it. The huge base of Americans that smoke it is a huge untapped tax base.

I still advocate the decriminalization of it and the legalization of growing it. Farms of the stuff can grow up (creating jobs, a hee hee) and be a taxable base. We can turn the exclusive marijuana cartels into legitimate businesses, just import the stuff and put an eight or ten percent tariff on it. More revenue, because a lot of Americans smoke it. Put the same tax on it that we put on these decrepit cigarettes (which are deadlier than ganja). I see benefits compared to cigarettes (which are basically filled with death).

This is a lot of revenue. More money for a government that needs it, and an economic situation that needs stimulating.

So, here's my idea:

(You might want to read this first, it's a .pdf).

So, that said that about 14 million Americans use the stuff. Tax base. Marijuana might have several things that can harm the human body, but this is all natural stuff. Cigarettes have a host of junk in them that the manufacturing process puts into them. Now:

Six bucks for 12 marijuana blunts multiplied by 14 million is: 84 million. Now only a dollar and a half of that is tax, so: two million one hundred thousand. Also, people buy more than one box of cigarettes, so it'll definitely be more.

That's just the tax from directly buying the blunts. Tariffs on importing the stuff could be massive money makers. Probably more than that. I don't know they exact amount of ganja illegally imported so I can only speculate on how much it would be. But I figure it would be a lot.

If its growth is legalized, it can be taxed through growth and interstate transport. There can be farming jobs, and processing jobs, and (I bet) it could be processed to be less harmless with the same effects.

Here in Washington we have Liquor Stores run by the government (I think) to get the taxes directly. We could just put the marijuana through the same store. Also, we could license dealers to sell it in their own stores. A lot of revenue to be made, to be sure.

Yeah, that's just a simple idea.

Also, I have to say this. You can't make the argument that the 'marijuana culture' is worse than the 'alcohol culture' or the 'prescription drug culture.' In my opinion, the latter of those three is the worst because it is legal. Marijuana is far less worse than these prescription drugs people abuse.