Back in November of 2011 Newt Gingrich had this to say.
I would continue current federal policy, largely because of the confusing signal that steps towards legalization sends to harder drugs.
I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in.
That was then. In November of 2014 California made the possesion of most drugs, including heroin, a misdemeanor. Newt supported he measure.
That is very interesting. But this blurb about Sheldon Adelson even more interesting.
One of the Republican Party’s most powerful donors, the casino magnate has the money to single-handedly bankroll a candidate’s presidential prospects — which he did in 2012 for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Several White House prospects have already traveled to Las Vegas to court Adelson, the chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp. and one of the world’s richest individuals. His advisors suggest Adelson is in no hurry to pick his 2016 favorite, but look for foreign policy — and Israel in particular — to weigh heavily on his ultimate decision. Adelson is a staunch supporter of the Jewish state.
Now Mr Adelson supports medical marijuana research in Israel but he spent a LOT of money opposing medical marijuana in Florida.
Given Mr. Adelsons’s Las Vegas interests it is not impossible that he is a front man for organized crime families and possibly some Mexican drug cartel factions. Given the shift in US popular sentiment on drugs what would be a good damage control position for those folks? Make drug use legal but keep production under tight control or even keep it outlawed. After all that was the Alcohol Prohibition model.
The Federal Government may very well be in the process of doing that very thing. All they would need to do is to move cannabis from schedule one of the Controlled Substance Act (no medical use) to schedule two (some medical use but very tightly controlled).
Comments
8 responses to “I’m Trying To Figure This Out”
Comments were disabled on your “Gandhi’s In Hell” thread but I just wanted to make a few points.
In Hinduism we have the concept of various types of hells for various offenses. It very well could be that Gandhi is in one, or has already done his time in one before moving on to his next earthly life.
Gandhi was no saint. Westerners pedestalize him more than we South Asians do. We’ve been privy to the more unsavory aspects of his character from the get-go.
Beyond that we Hindus and Jains and Buddhists have no problem with even our “saints” spending some time in “hell” if its their due. We have many stories of the various lifetime incarnations of our revered figures and more than a few of them include jail time (hell).
Its all a part of the samsar, cycle.
Classical Hindu:
You were probably referring to this post:
http://classicalvalues.com/2011/03/taylor_joins_gh/
And it was written by Eric. But we are not fussy about such things.
Thanks for the feedback.
I don’t think production should be outlawed, especially on ganja, why should it be? Its been used as food and medicine for thousands of years. So what if some people choose to use for getting high or produce it for that purpose?
I think science should be educating us on “drugs”, not the government.
Classical Hindu – you might like this:
http://classicalvalues.com/2015/01/just-leave-me-alone/
Colorado Dept. of Revenue:
“Total marijuana tax revenue includes the 2.9% retail and medical marijuana sales tax, 10% retail marijuana special sales tax, 15% marijuana excise tax, and retail/medical marijuana application and license fees.”
In reality with local and other miscellaneous taxes retail marijuana is taxed @ ~33% in the City of Denver. Note however that buyers of medical marijuana don’t pay the 15% excise tax, so their total tax rate (in Denver) is only ~18%.
So buyers still have an incentive to get a medical marijuana card and buyers w/o that card still have an incentive to buy under the table.
This is not a knock on CO. Rather, I think it’s instructive for other states to not go crazy on taxes. 33% is just too high. There’s got to be some equivalent of the Laffer Curve for calculating the optimum marijuana sales tax.
There’s got to be some equivalent of the Laffer Curve for calculating the optimum marijuana sales tax.
Any tax over zero is a license to kill.
Any tax over zero is a license to kill.
Of course it is. And that’s true not just for marijuana but for pants and aspirin and automobiles, yet none of those products are taxed at 33% and none have a significant black market as does marijuana.
CO laws need to be tweaked. Yeah, it’s great that we were the first state to decriminalize but the high taxes aren’t working. The problem is, the right doesn’t want it at all so they vote for high taxes and the left of course never met a tax they didn’t like so they vote for high taxes. But unless tax rates are dropped we face the very real danger of prohibiting it again.
CapitalistRoader,
If I was to hazard a guess it would be: the intent is to make it legal to use and illegal to sell. i.e. keep the cartels in business.