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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers


Registered: 03/06/03
Posts: 21,287
Loc: The Ocean of Notions
Last seen: 5 months, 22 days
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Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really?
#6394046 - 12/21/06 01:19 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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This is old news to me, but its funny to see that the mainsream media knows its true. So much of this article is bunk though...
Quote:
Dec. 18, 2006 — Weeding through the value of the nation's cash crops, a study released today states that marijuana is the U.S.'s most valuable crop and promotes the drug's legalization and taxation.
Drug enforcement officials say the equation is not that simple.
The report, "Marijuana Production in the United States," by marijuana policy researcher Jon Gettman, concludes that despite massive eradication efforts at the hands of the federal government, "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of the national economy."
In the report, Gettman, a marijuana-reform activist and leader of the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis, champions a system of legal regulation.
Contrasting government figures for traditional crops — like corn and wheat — against the study's projections for marijuana production, the report cites marijuana as the top cash crop in 12 states and among the top three cash crops in 30.
The study estimates that marijuana production, at a value of $35.8 billion, exceeds the combined value of corn ($23.3 billion) and wheat ($7.5 billion).
Pot Tax?
To activists for marijuana legalization, the study confirms a position they've held for years, and uses government stats to support their claim.
"The fact that marijuana is America's No. 1 cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington D.C., a group that focuses on removing criminal penalties for marijuana use.
Kampia, whose comments were included in the study's press release, adds, "Our nation's laws guarantee that 100 percent of the proceeds from marijuana sales go to unregulated criminals rather than to legitimate businesses that pay taxes to support schools, police and roads."
A 2005 analysis by Harvard visiting professor Jeffrey Miron estimates that if the United States legalized marijuana, the country would save $7.7 billion in law enforcement costs and could generated as much as $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.
Miron's report on the costs of marijuana prohibition was signed by more than 500 leading economists, most notably the late Nobel laureate Milton Friedman, who served as an economist in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations.
Aside from the health debate over legalizing marijuana, Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency, says groups that advocate its taxation sometimes paint too rosy a picture.
"It's still a drug," Courtney says. "Just because it's a good cash crop doesn't mean you should legalize and tax it."
"It's not these cute mom-and-pop bong shops anymore," Courtney continued. "It's violent drug-trafficking groups that are doing all these grows."
Local marijuana growers, he says, are the tentacles of international drug-trafficking organizations that bring weapons, violence and a slew of other drugs into the market.
"You can't tax a Mexican drug trafficking group," Courtney explains. "That's the side a lot of people don't focus on."
http://a.abcnews.com/Business/story?id=2735017&page=1
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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RoosterCogburn
Fearless,one-eyed U.S.Marshall


Registered: 08/25/06
Posts: 8,508
Loc: Dirty South, NJ
Last seen: 12 years, 4 months
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: Madtowntripper]
#6394076 - 12/21/06 01:27 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
"It's still a drug," Courtney says. "Just because it's a good cash crop doesn't mean you should legalize and tax it."
Then why can I buy cigarettes anywhere in the US?
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"It's violent drug-trafficking groups that are doing all these grows."
Really? The 5 or 6 grow-ops I have personally witnessed were either hippies or really smart technogeeks who didn't want to pay $25 a gram for hydro...
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"You can't tax a Mexican drug trafficking group," Courtney explains. "That's the side a lot of people don't focus on."
Wow... No one focuses on it because if we could grow it here legally, we wouldn't have to import shitty Mexi-brick!!!
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SuperD
Cacti junky


Registered: 10/05/03
Posts: 6,648
Loc: The bridgesii bridge
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: RoosterCogburn]
#6394099 - 12/21/06 01:33 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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I couldn't possibly agree more with all 3 statements above
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   D Manoa said: I need to stop spending all my money on plants and take up a cheaper hobby, like heroin. Looking for Rauhocereus riosaniensis seeds or live specimen(s), me if you have any for trade
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus


Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 3,222
Last seen: 14 years, 2 months
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: SuperD]
#6394119 - 12/21/06 01:43 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
SuperD said: I couldn't possibly agree more with all 3 statements above

5 shrooms.
-------------------- Know your self. Know your substance. Know your source. The most distorted perspective possible is the perspective that yours is not distorted.
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Rylmonkey
Former Master ofThe RX-7


Registered: 07/24/05
Posts: 505
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: ExplosiveMango]
#6394233 - 12/21/06 02:27 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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lol article just pisses me off even more, how many more dumbass years do we have to wait till they legalize the shit. It's inevitable, just because the fuckers with power in this corrupt country get there money from illegalizing the plant. Only makes you think how much better this place would be if everyone smoked weed instead of cigarrettes.
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ExplosiveMango
HallucinogenusDigitallus


Registered: 07/12/05
Posts: 3,222
Last seen: 14 years, 2 months
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: Rylmonkey]
#6394505 - 12/21/06 03:46 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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The thing about Americans (DEA types, not all) is they are tortured by their excess money, but they are so confused by their arrogance that they have no idea.
They think by torturing others (drug users) they will rid themselves of their own torture, much like how some African men believe raping virgins will rid them of their HIV.
But unfortunately, life is not as such.
-------------------- Know your self. Know your substance. Know your source. The most distorted perspective possible is the perspective that yours is not distorted.
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Hix
Animal Mother


Registered: 02/20/06
Posts: 299
Last seen: 16 years, 3 months
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Re: Marijuana is US' #1 Cash Crop---No, Really? [Re: Madtowntripper]
#6394761 - 12/21/06 05:45 PM (17 years, 1 month ago) |
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Quote:
"It's still a drug," Courtney says. "Just because it's a good cash crop doesn't mean you should legalize and tax it."
Well maybe because it's a good cash crop, has minimum side affects, and is significantly less likely to be abused than tobacco or alcohol, hemp is about the most useful thing in the world, and it has a long history of spiritual and religious use around the world. But hey what the fuck do I know, I wasn't even aware that the homegrowing hippie down the street was a "tentacle" to the squid of violent street crime, and supplied terrorists with bombs and weapons. I think they might be taking the terms "selling Ak-47" a bit too literally.
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