Legalizing - A Rational Business Plan

i fully agree except the production of your own.


i would think it doubly ignorant to then legalize the plant but outlaw the cultivation.


i'd be growing my own rather than smoking something the gov grew

 

We may in our life times never see anything close to that occur... sad but true... even if the public and the law-makers were behind a plan such as that, the ciggrette companys wouldnt like it nor would any alch company... the legalization of weed would hurt their profits, they alone have eough control to put to rest any plan for legalization of weed here in the US... we may see THC become more respected on a medical level, even now it is being researched so that it can be used and used in a form that is not a plant... but we will most likly not see it legalized on a public level in our lifetimes if all factors stay at status quo...

by the way, there are countless factors that fight he legalization for Mj and most al would have to be extinguished before we could finaly legalize it...

 

The goverment is the least of your problems, your major hurtles will be the conservitive party... religious groups... and multi-billion dollor corperations as well as genral public negitivity and a heap of other cynical groups or other organizations...

no matter the profit pulled by the goverment, the fact is the other factors that oppose it will over shadow any price tag, nomatter how large the figure is... plus we dont have enough excepted and throughly tested and proven theroys and even fewer scentificaly excepted facts... sorry...

 

i agree with all of your points except that about cultivation.
theres a BIG difference between growing a plant and harvesting MJ, and producing your own alcohol.
firstly, weed is just that, a weed. it thrives in many conditions, and to legalize the product from the plant, intrinsically legalizes the plant itself (cannabis plants are only illegal in that they produce THC laden marijuana. without THC products illegalized, the plant is legalized). The plant can quite easily grow on its own in the woods, and if someone HAPPENED to put the seeds there, it would then constitute a crime. (i know im taking this to the extreme, and clearly its easy to prove that someone with a complex expensive grow operation is growing for consumption, not by accident). For example though tobacco is legalized for consumption/possesion etc. and is a multi-million dollar industry, with STRONG sway in washington, it is TOTALLY legal for anyone to grow their own tobacco plants. Its not common, because the curing of tobacco is complicated, and many plants would be required to yield an appreciable amount (tobacco is used in much higher quantities than weed obviously)
secondly, misproduction of alcohol, and illegally produced alcohol is extremely dangerous. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from illegaly/poorly produced alcohol, being tainted and poisonous. It is almost impossible to grow weed that is poisonous to smoke. Lacing with another drug is besides the point, because those drugs would be illicit.

otherwise I really doubt that the government would OPERATE grows, or personally produce weed. That isnt their business, too much effort. They would let capitalism run rampant, and huge commercial grow operations would start pumping out weed, STRICTLY regualated by the government. Stores would start to sell weed, and be responsible for taxing it just as any product, as opposed to special government offices that grow/process/sell weed, totally not cost effective.

 

well put

 

if it were up to me id legalize every drug......i only smoke bud but i think peaple should do what they want...u only live once, and if u wanna spend ur life doing drugs then who the fuck are we to stop them?

 

fuck legalizing every drug. there are drugs that aint right. true people should be able to do whatever they want but when things are proven rediculously harmful then it shouldnt be allowed. basicly im talking aobut meth and heroin.

 

Im with you on that one, I would add a few to that list but im with you all the way.

 

or we could take the more likely road and say that violent crimes would increese due to the fact that the drug has become much more widespread due to legalization and consumption would increase and crime due to drug related poverty would increase because of increased addiction.... thats only a sliver of what may occur with this drug alone much less others...

 

That's not really the issue, here, though. Government has never been about money...it is, but it's more about power than anything else. They'd have more power over the drug trade if it was legalized...It's just like alcohol prohibition...

 

power... power would be lost on countless other levels even cause radical party shifts is such a thing were to happen these days...
even if the goverment was the one we needed to look at, they would loose to much for it to be worth changing...

at this point, the govermnt is the least of our problems and as long as we keep saying that and beliving that, we will never get any closer to our goal...

changing our gov's mind is one of the last steps

 

Very good post here. Remember the Gov't is the least of your problems. It is not only tobacco magnets, there are several less heard of big money corp. that are strictly against it; chemical companies, pharm. drug manufacturers, paper suppliers, etc....

All of the above have money many of us could only think about floating around DC to keep marijuana illegal.

Now on to the Gov't, yes it would lesson the amount of tax dollars spent on incarceration....I really want to break this down to enlighten many of our members.

For those that do not know, and many do not b/c it is swept under the carpet. Lets start w/ the State system, they have a lessor percentage of non-violent offenders, many are violent offenders or sex offenders(Federal Law does not have laws against sex crime w/ the exception of crossing state lines w/ a minor and commiting the sex act on a Indian Reservation). In most cases, the prisons work like a business, only they do not have to follow labor laws. Inmates are paid pennies to work, in some cases they are forced to work, in others they choose to, depends on the State. There are major industries going on within most State Prisons, these are your better paying jobs b/c the prison, and most importantly the State itself makes tons of money off this. Lets say hypothetically that 1% of State Offenders are in for marijuana(we all know it is somewhat higher than that), that is 1% the State is not making money off, as well as one less severely under payed employee.


Here is where I'm most knowledgable. The Federal Prison System, The U.S. Department of Justice. The Federal System has the least number of violent offenders, as well as the highest number of marijuana related offenses. The Federal Prison System is one huge multi Billion $ business. In prisons classified as high security all the way down to low security are required to work from 7:30 am until 3:45 pm, you get 2 25 min. breaks and a 30 minute lunch. Pay grades for what are called compound jobs(paint shop, carpenters shop, welding, landscape, food services, warehouse, etc...)are, as of my release in 1998 were as follows:

$0.13 per hour for grade 4
$0.19 per hour for grade 3
$0.27 per hour for grade 2
$0.40 per hour for grade 1

Note: There are only so many pay grade slots available, more often than not you are stuck at grade 4 until a higher pay grade comes open(some-one is transfered or released...or dies of course). So if you are in a medium or high level prison, chances are you will be a grade 4 for months, maybe even years b/c the med. and high levels have an avg. sentence of 20 years, low have a 12.5 year avg. and camps are right around 5 years.

You can, if you are a hard worker, come w/ ideas to save people money, and are grade 3 or higher receive a bonus not more than 50%, if I remember right. These compound jobs take care of the prison's maintenance, plumbing, any building needs w/ the exception of fencing, walls, high security areas, etc... All the needs of the prison are taken care of by inmates, officers are just there to oversee what goes on, make sure some-one does not steal a knife or tool to make a weapon, and keep order among the masses. All compound foremans were once correctional officers that waited for a retirement or transfer opening to move in to these foreman positions....so they do not have to have any specific knowledge in the trade, that is what the inmates are for.

Now, if you want to make some real money, go to UNICOR, or as it was formerly know as Federal Prison Industries. These jobs are the ones that pay, they are harder to get into b/c you have to get in first, then you are on a priority list which if you are transfered, puts you at the top of the list as priority hire. You get credit for ea. month, after 18 months you get a $0.10 automatic raise, then a nickle after that up to 120 months, which is where you max out. I personally had 86 months in UNICOR b/c I am poor, really have no support system in the free world, and needed to make a decent living.

These pay grades start at 5 and go to what is known on the compound as Super Grade. I'm will not list all the grades, but you can max after 120 months of service and being paid Super Grade at $1.58 an hour.

UNICOR Industries makes everything from federal Court and Gov't letterheads and Stationary for every Gov't office, work gloves, inmate clothing, office supplies and furniture, food service stainless, office chairs, etc... Basically if the Gov't needs it there is a UNICOR that makes it. Now here is where it gets good, they take the cost it takes to make the item, a good example is a computer desk, it cost them in materials and labor less than $30 to make, but they have a huge upscale % they charge over, so this computer desk that cost less than $30 to produce is now sold to another needy Gov't agency for about $180 + S&H. Nice profit right.

Ok, lets say the Gov't says "fuck it, lets decriminalize marijuana" We have an oxymoron now. If they make it retro-active, they have to release a nice percentage of UNICOR's labor force, as well as a bigger percentage of compound workers, many of which are very hard to replace. Now this is if they make it retro-active, if they do not, the Federal Court System is going to be completely flooded, no more like a tsunami, w/ marijuana offenders doing pro se motions asking to be released, which means the Supreme Court has to get involved, and Congress has to review the writing of the laws amendment....oh my God! WTF, they would have to do their F'n job. So now they are losing a tax credit, a valuable trade worker or UNICOR employee, and they are spending huge amounts of money in court costs.

You see, what is spent per year to incarcerate a person is just a minor piece of a much bigger picture.

A good example is the University of Minnesota Waseca, a small agricultural college in Waseca, MN. It was closed due to needing over $10 million in renovations(asbestes, I know I can't spell....plumbing upgrades, electrical upgrades, and other renovations needed to keep the college w/in code....now why waste $10 million on renovating a college, so it closed and the Federal Gov't purchased it for pennies and spent $10's of millions to make it a med. security prison....now that is logical...right? See, it is a money game, and the prison system plays a major role in the flow of money w/in the gov't.

Yes, it would be nice and they could generate some nice profits, but not anywhere close to the profits they generate now w/ major corporate america lobbying, the prison system, and excuses to use our tax dollars. Last year E.J. Lilly, whose primary stock holder is Former Pres. G. Bush, Sr. spent $100 million lobbying against amendments that may harm the profits of their industry, R.J. Reynolds, about the same, maybe even into the billions, no definate stats on this. So legalization would not touch the very micro tip of the ice burg here ...... this is why MJ is illegal, and chances are until big money corp. america can figure out a way to make huge profits off it, they will continue to lobby against it's legality.

We have to target big money companies, show them a business plan that would generate huge profits involving the sale of MJ and the 100's of other products that can be made w/ it, and then we are talking legalization, when one company says "hey, I think this will work" and other companies take notice to this money flowing in, and see what is going on and the money that can and will be made, they will lobby more and our beloved Gov't would have to begin to amend laws, and eventually will do some form of regulated decriminalization.

Sorry to have written a small book.

 

First of, just because a drug is made legal, doesnt mean more people will start using it. Don't forget that marijuana didn't become popular in America until after it was outlawed. Also, this doesn't mean that violent crimes would increase. Much of the reason there is so much violence in the areas where drugs are sold in the streets, is due to the drug trade. Since there is so much money surrounding drug sale, and that money is put in the hand of violent criminals, people will often be murdered because they are intruding on other dealers drug deals, and taking money from other drug dealers.