Tuesday, June 29, 2010

The Case Against Cannabis Legalization

The Case Against Legalization:
           How Cannabis Taxation and Regulation Laws Further the Prohibitionists' Agenda
by Kimmarie Rojas

Introduction

Cannabis Activists are a-buzz with excitement at the prospect of California’s “Tax and Regulate” campaign, as well as other “legalization” attempts about the Nation. The arguments seem favorable, and the current recession is but another tool in the arsenal of reasons why legalization, taxation and regulation would be the right thing to do.

Yet, lest we forget that “taxation and regulation” of cannabis is the main reason for the original early 20th century federal prohibition of cannabis, be reminded of “The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937” placed into federal law requiring only a $1 tax, but with unachievable and public bureaucratic record-keeping and inappropriate punishments for not following the tax act to the letter, ranging from a $2000.00 fine to LIFE imprisonment. Will a Marihuana Tax Act of 2011 reverse this language and "legalization" ruse or add to it? Will another tax and regulate act remove the legal and political bricks which have built impenetrable walls around the production, harvesting, use, transfer, and possession of Marijuana. 
Although California is the thankful forerunner of medicalization, let us also not forget that it was California that made the first law restricting, regulating, and criminalizing cannabis. It was not drugs that California was against then, however. Remember, Cocaine and Heroin were still legal in 1913. Alcoholism and opiate addiction were rampant. It was racism that doomed Cannabis, not a scientific study or a social necessity. Cannabis was smoked by Mexicans; and although they were the indigenous population of the state, closed white puritans minds, believing they were greater than and more entitled in all ways, used their superior political and media powers to spread reefer madness.

Mike Meno wrote the article Colorado’s Governor Signs Medical Marijuana Regulations in the current MPP Blog.. It was a glowing review about this important bill, and how Colorado can set the pace for other state models. It sounded as if this was indeed, a "groundbreaking" event, however after reading the comments, many Colorado caretakers, patients, and smokers, emotionally wrote that this bill is a disaster for MMJ and dispensaries. Read for yourself, and note my comments to the MPP Blog:


The Power to Regulate is the Power to Destroy


Anytime a democratic people must convince the government to stop enforcing unjust laws through mechanisms such as "tax and regulate", that government has succeeded in extorting its citizens. We talk of MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION as a panacea, the end of a war, a freedom. Yet this freedom IS ALREADY OURS, simply because the “laws and regulations” that make possession or use of marijuana a punishable offence are indeed UNJUST laws. It is not “legalization” that will make cannabis free. Legalization implies the inherent right to tax and regulate, to govern the growth of a natural indigenous plant for which our bodies were designed to receive (see “cannabis receptors”), and to exact taxes from the sick, or from the fruits of the earth and human labor, that which was grown by ones own hands. Decriminalization, the repeal of those laws and loopholes in Federal Interstate Commerce laws, and all other administrators and administrations that knowingly or unknowingly created a police state. Just give back what you took one hundred years ago, and let us go on about life. Already, citizens hungry and overdue for medicalization are willing to pass initiatives that give up their right to grow their own cannabis, in return for a highly regulated cannabis medicalization plan. Giving up the right to grow a plant from a seed in one’s own soil with ones own hands is a slippery slope that gives away the very ability to survive. Imagine those sweet tomatoes in the garden being taxed. We may be willing to let the government extort money from us through taxation and legalization, but how many inherent human rights will we allow the Government to take before we realize we have a DUTY to make things right?

c 2010 MariesRun
The Green Association for Sustainability

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