Live Stoners 10 Reasons to legalize Cannabis.

wwwillie

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Hey!
Lifted this from Leafly. Thought it made some good points. Sure we know some of them but I thought this was a nice comprehensive field guide to arguing with the "anti" crowd.

For every responsible cannabis consumer out there, there’s a negative stereotyper who assumes that cannabis users are all “mad on the reefer” without taking into account the many positive arguments for legalization. Whenever you hear their claim that cannabis users are irresponsible drug addicts or that medical marijuana is a sham, you can counter with these research-backed arguments in favor of cannabis legalization:




1. The World Will Not Collapse into Chaos
No, cannabis consumers are not going on violent rampages through the city. In fact, it’s quite the opposite -- violent crime and property crimes have both decreased in Colorado since the state legalized recreational cannabis, and the London study we referenced in our 5 cannabis misconceptions article led to a large drop in crime rates after cannabis was decriminalized for a year.



2. The Prohibition of Cannabis Takes a Financial and Social Toll on Society
There were 658,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2012 alone, and the majority of these arrests were for non-violent, low-level offenders. Enforcing cannabis possession laws costs the U.S. approximately $3.6 billion annually. All of this time, cost, and effort takes our law enforcement away from enforcing more urgent issues.

3. Marijuana Enforcement is Inherently Biased
No matter which way you put it, when it comes to arrests for simple marijuana possession, black Americans are the top contenders. Overall, they are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana, despite the fact that blacks and whites both use cannabis at similar rates. Even in more progressive states like Oregon, black Oregonians are still twice as likely to be arrested for low-level cannabis charges.

4. Cannabis Has Medicinal Applications
Despite the notion many anti-cannabis people have that medical marijuana is nothing more than a lie, studies are starting to show marijuana's potential in shrinking aggressive cancerous brain tumors. Furthermore, a recent American study found that treating epilepsy and other seizure disorders with CBD reduced seizures by 54%. Use of THC reduced spasticity in sufferers of multiple sclerosis by 30%. Cannabis may also reduce depression and relieve anxiety. While more research is needed to better determine how cannabis can help treat diseases or symptoms, there's a reason why 24 states thus far have legalized medical marijuana.

5. Cannabis is 114 times Less Toxic Than That Other Legal Substance, Alcohol
In a comparative analysis on the risks of recreational drugs, alcohol was the top contender, while cannabis was considered the lowest risk, making cannabis literally 114 times safer to use than alcohol, a legal substance for adults ages 21 and up.

6. Legalization Hasn't Led to Increased Use Among Teens and Minors
Since cannabis was legalized in Colorado, many feared that it would lead to increased consumption among youth. In fact, legalization has had the exact opposite effect – due to education and regulations restricting use to adults, the percentage of teenagers in Colorado who admit to using cannabis has been steadily dropping from 22% to 20% between 2011 and 2013, and remains below the national average at 23.4%.



7. Cannabis Generates Revenue
Ah yes, the almighty dollar. No matter how you put it, money talks. Colorado’s first year of legal cannabis provided $63 million in revenue, with an additional $13 million from licenses and fees. Not only that, but the money is going to great causes -- $30.5 million goes right back to the taxpayers (rewarding those who voted for legalization), and the rest goes towards youth marijuana education programs, school construction, and the costs of regulation.

8. Keeping Marijuana Illegal is Expensive
According to the ACLU, in 2010, the U.S. spent more than $3.6 billion on enforcing cannabis prohibition. It's estimated that the U.S. will spend more than $20 billion over six years on keeping cannabis illegal.

9. Legalizing Cannabis Could Eliminate the Black Market
It's possible to undercut the black market by making the legal market more appealing to the standard cannabis consumer through legalization and tightly controlled regulations. Mexcan cartels once supplied the United States as the top source of illegal cannabis, but since legalization has swept across four states and Washington, D.C., the amount seized by Border Patrols has dropped 24% in the past year, and the price of Mexican-grown cannabis hasdropped from $90 down to $30 per kilogram. Legalization brings proper regulation and infrastructure, and ushers in potency testing, product variety, warning labels, and overall peace of mind for the consumer.

10. Legalizing Cannabis Creates Jobs
Colorado created 10,000 new jobs in the legal cannabis industry, boosting the economy and lowering the unemployment rate to just 6%, making it one of the lowest in the nation.
 
Salutations WWWillie,

...Less Toxic... ...Illegal is Expensive... ...Could Eliminate the Black Market...

I wish to point out that because of its prohibition black market has generously contributed to twisting the herb's natural composition where CBD and CBN plus terpenes, etc., are less important than THC. In essence the consumer gets very little options compared to what a free market would have to offer otherwise. Worse, healthier consumption modes remain to be developped today and prohibition didn't help it at all; as a matter of fact, a vast amount of cannabic data has been tainted with toxic combustion fumes, objectively speaking!...

So, how dows one pretend to appreciate heathy cannabis consumption when a plant's genetic favours THC beyond all else, not to mention it's going to be smoked anyway! I mean, i feel like history has failed us miserably and yet the true value of cannabis has prevailed somehow, because the genie still managed to escape and it surprized everyone despite decades of unbalanced psycho-active contents associated to an archaïc/toxic delivery method, to put some thick icing on such "stoner" cake!!

...

Honestly, if i were a conspirationist i'd begin to think that far way back to the embryonic origins of anti-cannabic bigotry, under King George or even Queen Victoria, they may have gotten wise/educated enough to devise some devilish plan based on frankenstein strains feeding combustible (toxic) joints... On purpose!

:stir:

But that would be quite a stretch, i just prefer to imagine a synergy of compound interests invited the inevitable to happen instead...

Politicians exploited fears, professionals feared to speak up, etc. Those were obscure days for the masses but a few.

Hard to believe, in Canada this creative invention by mister William James McCormick (Toronto/On., 1938) could have launched the cannabis vaporizer market 70 ~ 80 years earlier! Even better, south of the border in Mississipi mister George Humphrey Trichenor designed a charcoal-operated vaporizer as soon as 1869!... So, it's not like there was no need and no solutions; my bet is circumstanctial convergence of greedy influences appears to have prevented normal development of a healthy cannabic culture, among other things. Briefly put, fanatism caused society to derail.

Good day, have fun!! :peace:
 
Personally, I'm convinced that it was the oil companies that were the primary ones pushing to make cannabis illegal. Hemp produces the perfect biodegradable plastics and that was seen as the ultimate threat to the petro-based plastics industry. Now we are stuck with a wasteland of plastics that will stick around for thousands and thousands of years, thanks to those despicable money-grubbing asswipes.
 
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