How was alcohol legalized?

[briangumble]

Ussually when something becomes illegal in this country, it's very rare that it gets legalized again. The only case I can think of where something was legalized was back when alcohol was prohibited. Alcohol is a substance that is a lot more harmful than weed, and is a substance that kills almost 100,000 people every year. And illegalizing alcohol is a lot more easier than illegalizing weed. With weed you can just grow it anywhere. I don't know how alcoholic beverages are made, but I'm pretty sure it's a complicated process. And it takes more alcohol to get intoxicated than it does to be intoxicated from weed, so you have to possess bottles of this stuff to get drunk, whereas with weed you can just have a small bag in your pocket to get high.

So if alcohol is more harmful than weed, and more easier to control than weed, how was it legalized? And why can't weed be legalized?

[marty_moose]

now i am by far no expert on prohibition, but from my education in the subject i know for a fact that people had stills all over in the woods and made their own beer, moonshine, whisky, etc (like growing pot). the police officers trakced these people down and destroyed the stills, but the brewers made it profitable enough for the popo to not do it too much. meaning there were about 5000 straight police officers fighting the thing all over the country. all the others were crooked. also, innumerable nightclubs in big cities were speakeasies, which were hidden from the police, dont know the password, you cant get in. there were some seriously ingenius ways of hiding the alcohol behind walls and cabinets and stuff. pretty cool. also, with the rum runners and the boats used to transport the stuff, the brewers and traffickers could buy black market engines and stuff the police were using, or better stuff, and outrun the police. this type of stuff happened commonly, as well as the most influential reason it was relegalized: gangs. al capone and all those guys. lots of killing for alcohol, complete chaos in so many cities. people, innocent and not, police, and citizens, were being killed all over for alcohol. the crime rates shot up, and all this crap. it was pretty obvious that the country was getting torn apart by prohibition (oh and the home brewers stopped caring about quality and started poisoning and indirectly killing a lot of people that way too). marijuana hasnt had that effect on people, and it hasnt been relegalized for that reason. people dont make enough of a fuss about it, and it hasnt directly caused deaths or anyhting super serious like that. also, our society has grown accustomed to the illegal status of it, and industry has grown around it. legalization would throw a wrench in the works, regardless of the money that could be gained long-term from hemp products. its all about short term. one product that does everything is so much less profitable than thousands of products that do specific things. like cancer stuff. people dont get money from curing cancer (like marijuana can help with breast cancer). they get money from the treatment of cancer. and so they dont WANT it to be cured. if the people started riotting and killing in the name of weed, i'm sure somehting would happen but i cant imagine that situation ever coming around. sorry for the long rant, and ask if you have any more questions, i'd love to answer em. hope this clears it up for you a bit

[marty_moose]

oh and by the way, one of the big things about life back in the '20s was the fact that technology was the same for everyone. common people with ocnnections could get the same tech that the police were using, or better. because of the strength of the gov't these days, thats near impossible. they have tech so superior to stuff we could get (i assume most people dont have black market connections) that theres no competition like there was back then. NASCAR: started by moonshiners with their suped up cars running from the police. really interesting stuff, i think

[Trailblazer420]

Good answer, marty. Also, alcohol isn't that hard to make; my dad made his own just for fun and it was good.

[Tbika]

Originally Posted by Trailblazer420

Good answer, marty. Also, alcohol isn't that hard to make; my dad made his own just for fun and it was good.

And alcohol probably even harder to control than marijuana, because while marijuana is illegal in almost every country in the world, one would only have to cross the canadian or mexican border to get a truckfull of alcohol and bring it back to America (which is what they did during prohibition)

[stickyone13]

have you every tried to peel a bottle away from a beligerantly drunk friend who's had more than enough? that shit ain't easy. i've had a good friend punch me in the face cause he was absolutely shithoused, and was in serious danger of hurting himself or someone else. he apologized profusely the next day, and didn't let me pay for anything for a solid week after. we're still good friends, but anyway, it's tough. drunks like thier drink.

ever grabbed a pipe out of a stoner's hand? "heeeeeyyyyyy man. that shit's mine. why'd you take it?"

stoners aren't fighters, by and large. drunks, on the other hand, are. case closed.

[bigtee212]

its because they had something to compare it to, as in how much worse it got.

we dont really have anything to compare with, in our history, because it was just coming around when it got banned

[Le Grenouille]

Originally Posted by briangumble

So if alcohol is more harmful than weed, and more easier to control than weed, how was it legalized? And why can't weed be legalized?

The government realised they could make far more money taxing it to fuck...

[Xero77x]

I say there was no contention to the public outrage when it was illigalized. The country wanted it back to being legal, and the only people who wanted it to be illegal were gov't officials.

In Marijuana's case, when the outcry began, corperations started paying "scientists" and the media and so forth to give it a bad name. CEOs of companies like DuPont and Sherman Williams also testified against it when it appeared before court, it was slandered so much that it was easily kept illegal.

And I would say the most effective way to "legalize" it would be to get as much "false" information from the court hearings as you could from then, and spin it into being unconstitutional (thought the hearings of the re-legalization of Alcohol maybe?)... but its gonna be tough...

[Xero77x]

The other thing is, once the mexican boarder fiasco that is going on right now is solved, Marijuana legality will be a softer issue. I would say the image of Meixicans sneaking over the board with a big sack of pot is a common one.

BUT, with legalized bud, prices would drop, so the incentive to bring pot here is not even there. Maybe there would still be a market for the dank stuff, but chances are even those would drop considerably because you (presumably) could get 5X the ammount for what you would pay for dank...

And imagine the danknesss a billion dollar american plant would bring?

[stneod]

Basically by ignoring the law completely, much as we do with marijuana.

Because of capitolism in america competition would be tight for the dankest shit possible, good for the consumer, and if the govt taxed it heavily mabye we could get out of all this debt.

[Xero77x]

hell yea tax it MORE than it costs to buy it, but the total would be less than what it would cost to buy it illegaly... and yea, something like that would pull us out of debt...

(Meaning, grow it as if it were to be sold at $10 an half ounce, but add $20 tax, and sell it at $30.)

[Sleeze]

Marty pretty much has it pinned, society would say "QTF!!!11111" if it were legalized b/c most are so brainwashed into thinking hemp is bad. And Cannabis makes most people way to passive to care.

[Buzzard]

During the depression FDR pretty much made it go away because it was just another thing the govt had to worry about, no one followed it, and organized crime really took hold in america with alcohol as their main source of income.

[naughtyneighbor]

k so we need canada and mexico to fully legalize first