Why not?

[Verres]

So pot wouldnt be taxed like tobacco and alcohol? Why not?

Sorry, I'm genuinely confused on this one.

[C0ckney]

yes it would be taxed, no doubt a lot, but if you put the production and distribution in the hands of big companies then the efficiency savings would be greater than the tax burden.

this would be true also for other drugs.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Verres
So pot wouldnt be taxed like tobacco and alcohol? Why not?

Sorry, I'm genuinely confused on this one.

I'd have thought you could have put a massive tax on pot and it still wouldn't add up to the markup the dozen or dealers put on it before gets to your average joe.

I don't know a great deal about the economics of pot, but I used to know a lot about Ecstasy, about 10 years ago when they were getting sold at around 10 for £70, the people who brought them into the country were paying £1 each for quantities greater than 1000, thats ON TOP of whatever the manufacturers in Holland (or wherever) were making.

Drugs can stand *A LOT* of taxing before they'd actually go up in price.

[alva]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
My experienec of this is really old - I believe the cannabis around today can be very strong.

Yup, and that is a problem, some can actually almost be considerd to be a hard drug but seeing as it is very difficult to know upfront ( read: not regulated) it can be dangerous, just as it is with XTC, Cocaine...

[Whaleboy]

Verres:
For an 8th of skunk it probably costs about 20p to massproduce it. Going rate around here is £18-£25. If it was legalised like tobacco I'd have thunk it about £5-£10 including a completely insane amount of tax. On the other hand it's much easier to grow than tobacco.

"Ban it all" people:

Yes it's a drug, yes it can be harmful but then breathing ****ing oxygen will kill us all. Sex can cause heart attacks and alcohol can cause sex. No such thing as a free lunch, you take any kind of chemical or substance in your body and it will have negative effects. So no, it's not harmless, but then neither is anything else... you can't use the "omfg it might kill you" argument if you have a free society.

A couple of B&H every now and again isn't going to hurt, has a different effect to a 40/day habit. Couple glasses of wine a day is completely different to half a bottle of Bells for breakfast. Similarly, a bit of weed every now and again isn't the same as 4 joints a day from the age of 12.

And look at the reason it's illegal. I'm not sure about US and Canada but weed was banned in the UK in the 20's because the powerful wood paper industry lobbied government because hemp paper was a threat.

[Boris Godunov]

The U.S. Tobacco industry has been huge player in keeping marijuana illegal here. After all, people would probably rather smoke that over tobacco if they were the same price and as easily available.

If anti-drug fanatics put as much energy into railing against, say, horrible fast food as they did mari-joo-wana, they would probably save a lot more lives. After all, more people die of heart disease than almost anything else in this country. Junk food is very harmful to the body, can be addictive and leads people to engage in unhealthy behavior. So why no effort to ban that?

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Pot is illegeal because it has been morally and ethicaly unacceptable. All it took was some sevety year old coot in politicas to say this is bad for you and you shouldnt d it. I find it funny how old white men have the say in what all people do now days. I dont smoke pot and not agaisnt those who do iots none of my biz for one and every time i did it made me sicker then a dog. Course i was drinking at the time to.

[Whaleboy]

If anti-drug fanatics put as much energy into railing against, say, horrible fast food as they did mari-joo-wana, they would probably save a lot more lives. After all, more people die of heart disease than almost anything else in this country. Junk food is very harmful to the body, can be addictive and leads people to engage in unhealthy behavior. So why no effort to ban that?

And who's ever died of a marijuana OD?

Course i was drinking at the time to.

Weird thing... eating chocolate helps to prevent you being sick... mixing it with alcohol is never pretty though.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Guess ill be staying away from pot since i love my beer and hate chocolate. Oh well

[Whaleboy]

I am a woman, and you are a man. The force is now balanced

[Fake Boris]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Some people who are otherwise perfectly healthy shouldn't drink. Same with pot. The drug, and it is a drug has been very misleading to the people who have ended up using pot, because they are not given the caveat that it will make mental illness worse.

That's one of the problem with prohibition, people are told outright lies about pot intended to frighten them instead of being told about the possible dangers and the responsible way to use drugs recreatively.

And BTW, alcohol is one of the most harmful and dangerous drug available (more so than so-called "hard" drugs like heroine and cocaine).

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I am a woman, and you are a man. The force is now balanced

But please dont make me a man. I like the fact that i can go postal when I want, and as a woman you have the birth given right to do so

[Whaleboy]

Well what on earth am I supposed to do with these superfluous genitals?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Pot is supposed to be harmless,

It's not. It's just nowhere near as bad as certain authorities like to say. That makes people completely dismissive of the actual risks. Pot is more dangerous than tobacco. Then again, most people don't smoke as much pot as they do tobacco.

[Mrs. Tuberski]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
Well what on earth am I supposed to do with these superfluous genitals?

Hell if i know, just know I dont want em. One set of balls and 1 penis is all I need in my marriage and those belong to tubes