Of course, this is comedy from Reason.TV, but it does make a huge point.  The cost of our favorite herb is artificially high due to its prohibition.  When we make our local, state and federal governments re-legalize marijuana, the price we pay for it will come closer to the cost of production.

What are you waiting for?  Write that letter to your government officials.  This includes your local government.  Comment on those ”reefer mad” news articles and educate the masses.  Don’t just sit there on your couch and wonder when… Do something and make it so… Now!

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(FOX 12 Oregon) OREGON CITY, Ore. — An Oregon City man was held at gunpoint and his three children were locked in a closet after three intruders invaded their home in search of medical marijuana.

At about 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, the man heard someone knocking on his front door and proclaiming that his girlfriend had just sideswiped their vehicle, according to Oregon City police. When the man answered the door, three masked men, at least one of them armed with a handgun, rushed through the door, police said.

The victim said the three men ransacked the home, demanded money and took about 1 1/2 pounds of marijuana. At one point, the victim’s 12-year-old daughter witnessed her father on the floor while one of the intruders held a gun to his head, police said.

No one was injured during the robbery, but police said the children were shaken up by the home invasion.

The victim told police it was the first marijuana grow he had harvested.

How do the invaders know the man has a girlfriend?  If you’re a complete stranger, a criminal staking out a suspected treasure trove of medical marijuana, and you see a man, a woman, and three children living there, don’t you assume a female leaving the home around morning commute time is a wife?

Loose lips cause rips. I’m betting these criminals know someone who knows this man.  Who stages a home invasion at 8:30am on a weekday?  Who takes such a risk without knowing there is medical marijuana available within?  I don’t mean to play “blame the victim” in this case, but to whom did the victim brag about his first marijuana harvest?  Did he take precautions to eliminate the smell from harvest time?  Did he make public the fact that he is a medical marijuana patient and grower?

Of course our opponents are quick to condemn the victim for having a pound and a half of marijuana in his home in the first place.  They condemn the medical marijuana law that supposedly puts people like the victim and his children at risk.  To them I say that the criminals are to blame, not the patient and not the marijuana.  Criminals commit violent acts to steal valuable goods for resale on the black market.  The victim’s home could have been invaded over a collection of fine art or gold coins; it’s the value of the theft that attracts the criminals, not the nature of the item stolen.

Marijuana prohibition is the only thing that could make it worth enough money to break into someone’s home to steal a weed.  That prohibition also prevents legitimate medical patients from reliably buying small amounts of marijuana, so they tend to hoard large amounts to get through crop failures and seizures.  That prohibition also creates a lucrative black market where stolen weed can be trafficked.  That prohibition also prevents non-medical users from buying marijuana legitimately so they will support a black market.

Or to but it more succinctly: I’ve never heard of three masked men breaking into someone’s home at gunpoint to steal Budweiser.

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(Guardian UK) Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession.

Ed Shemelya, who leads the marijuana eradication programme in the Appalachia region, says a new type of grower is emerging wholly different to the family cartels that have cultivated the drug for generations. “We are seeing a lot more individuals who wouldn’t normally be growing marijuana. They are not your professionals.”

Shemelya puts it down to the dire economy in this part of America. The region is almost entirely dependant for jobs on coal mining, which has suffered severely from the recession.

“People are growing marijuana to supplement their income or support themselves in poor economic times. This is about economic necessity,” he said.

I often wonder how much of the continuance of marijuana prohibition rests on our government’s inability to provide a living wage to the poor.  Prohibition is already a jobs program for cops, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and prison guards, but how much is it a de facto jobs program for the urban poor in our inner cities and our rural poor in places like Appalachia?  If marijuana were re-legalized, just how high would the unemployment rate rise as unskilled young men in the cities lose their under-the-table weed dealing income?  How bad would the already crippling poverty in Appalachia be without clandestine marijuana growing?

Some people complain about government programs that act as a “redistribution of wealth” from the rich to the poor.  But what is prohibition, if not a Robin Hood that takes the money from the suburban kids and urban professionals who can afford $300-$450 per ounce and gives it to the urban kids and rural folks who are so desperately poor they must risk incarceration to make a decent living?

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(Summit Daily News) BOULDER — Boulder County Caregivers offers 16 glass jars of marijuana with names like Skinny Pineapple and Early Pearl Maui, priced at $375 to $420 an ounce. There are marijuana capsules and snacks made with cannabis butter, such as rice crispy treats.

Russian palladium today is trading at $250 – $262 per ounce.  It is the softest of the platinum group metals and is used in things like catalytic converters, cell phones, and computers.  It is a fairly rare material which must be laboriously mined underground.  Somehow this valuable useful rare earth metal costs less for the men and machinery to dig up, smelt, process, pack, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.

I can get a wholesale ounce of Spanish Saffron today for $89.95 wholesale, which sells for a suggested $129.95 retail.  Saffron is the individual threads of the saffron flower which must be hand-picked.  It grows mostly in Iran and Spain and each flower produces only three threads.  It takes 75,000 flowers to produce a pound.  Somehow, this valuable useful rare flower costs less for the men to harvest, handpick tiny threads from each individual flower, dry and vacuum pack, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.

One of the rarest and most expensive cognacs in the world is France’s Remy Martin Cognac Black Pearl Louis XIII.  It is made from a 100-year-old fruit brandy and aged in a single barrel that is several centuries old. It sells for $28,000 for a 1.75l bottle, or about $464 per ounce.  Somehow, this valuable rare historical luxury liquor costs just a little more for the men to ferment, bottle, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.

Read the rest of this entry by clicking here

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(http://www.isria.com/pages/17_July_2009_70.php) The US anti-drug agency supported the Mexican government’s position of rejecting any dialogue or pact with organized crime.

The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) approved the Mexican government’s position of not negotiating with drug traffickers or criminal groups, whose only possible destination is prison.

Mexican President Felipe Calderón “Is right not to make agreements with criminals. Criminals must be put in prison, period,” declared DEA Head of Intelligence Operations Anthony Placido.

“From our point of view, President Calderón is a hero who is fighting head to head with criminals, said Placido, adding: “We are going to help.”

At the same time, Placido expressed the DEA’s concern over the violence carried out by the drug cartels who feel threatened by the operations undertaken by Mexico’s police and military forces.

The DEA officials described drug cartels as a threat to both Mexico and the United States, adding that the increase in violence reflects the advances of both countries in “interrupting the activities” of these organizations.

The DEA may inadvertently be speeding an end to the prohibition by encouraging the Mexican government to not negotiate with the cartels. Apart from legal, low-cost marijuana sales to adults, the only thing that could bring about an end to the cartel murders is a deal made with the Mexican government to turn a blind eye to cartel operations.

While the government refuses the possibility of this, the murders will continue and the pressure on non-smokers in the U.S. to demand an end to the murders in any way possible will continue to grow. The DEA’s support for the Mexican government’s position will serve to minimize the possibility of the government rescinding on this. The only element left now is for non-smokers in America to see that the prohibition is causing the cartel murders.

Reputable organizations need to be encouraged to conduct sound research into the connection between the prohibition and the cartel murders, with the purpose of generating studies proving a statistically significant correlation between the two. Findings like this from reputable sources will make front-page news across the country and become a powerful weapon in generating support amongst non-smokers for bringing an end to the prohibition.

Widespread knowledge of this connection among the general public will give non-smokers a compassionate reason to support an end to the ongoing suffering and brutal murders of so many people. It’ll also reveal to them just how the prohibition is putting their own families in danger, not only from errant SWAT raids but also from being the accidental target of home invasions and revenge killings by the cartels.

Three THOUSAND people alive right now will be tortured, murdered and beheaded by the cartels before Christmas as a direct result of the federal marijuana prohibition.

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Real nice video, until the obligatory “gateway drug” counterargument in the last fifteen seconds.

Watch CBS Videos Online

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This is basically a reply I made to a comment on an article posted by MrSpof: http://tinyurl.com/neab8v

I was replying to the claim that “establishing a legal marijuana supply will substantially increase use”. I disagree. The person I was replying to had claimed that demand for personal computers and iPods did not exist until after they were invented and put on the market…

Before the invention of personal computers there most certainly *did* exist a demand for a personal computing and communications device that allowed people to easily access news articles and debate issues. To fill this demand people turned to what was available – newspapers, writing letters to editors, talk radio etc.

And if you look at what people did before iPods were invented you’ll see that demand for a mobile personal entertainment device able to hold thousands of songs and allow users to easily navigate through those songs *did* already exist. That’s why iPods sold so well when they were invented.

Just because a product hasn’t been invented doesn’t mean that demand for it doesn’t already exist. Good marketers are able to identify this pre-existing demand and create suitable products to fill it.

And regarding your cigarette example, I hope you don’t seriously believe that prohibiting cigarettes would eliminate their supply. If that were an accurate assumption then after *seventy years* of marijuana prohibition we’d have NO marijuana left in our country at all. ZERO supply would equal ZERO demand, right? But we *don’t* see zero demand for marijuana – kids, adults, medical patients, spiritual people, doctors, lawyers, students and politicians all seek out marijuana in order to meet a need in their life. Making a product illegal doesn’t make the demand for it go away, all it does is divert it to alternative products and illegal suppliers. Demand drives supply.

Demand for a safe, mild intoxicant has always existed in people. Look back in history as far as you want and you’ll always find evidence of this demand. In fact take a look at wild animals and you’ll find evidence of this demand there too. Caribou, cats, insects and birds all go out of their way to take substances that allow them to put aside reality for a time and let them experience altered states of consciousness.

Demand drives supply. Demand for marijuana will ALWAYS exist in our society. We can either allow marijuana to be legally produced and sold to adults or we can do nothing to fill this demand and watch as drug dealers move into our neighborhoods selling to children and protecting their interests with violence. Your support for the prohibition puts non-drug using families in danger!

[There is also the concept espoused by Ryan Grim in his new book that says a demand for consciousness-altering is a constant, though the choice of drugs to achieve that is modified by prohibitions.  It's possible that legalized marijuana may see an increase in use, some people too timid to break the law trying it for the first time and those of us who use it already but often go without because of "dry spells" being able to have a more reliable supply.  However, if the constant demand theory is correct, increased marijuana use may lead to a decrease in the use of alcohol and other hard drugs.  More pot smoking may end up being better for the country and its people in the long term. -- "R"R]

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Courtesy of Missippi Hippy, one of many clever tokers hanging out daily in the Fresh Stash, the 12-Step Program to cure our government’s addiction to marijuana prohibition:

Step Number 1 – Admitted we were powerless over tokers and that our lives were horrified because we can’t stop them from toking.

Step Number 2 – Came to believe that the people are greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity

Step Number 3 – Made a decision to turn our decisions over to the will of the people.

Step Number 4 – Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of our past decisions

Step Number 5 – Admitting to our higher power, to ourselves, and to the people the exact nature of wrongs.

Step Number 6- Were entirely ready to remove all the defective past legislation of prohibition.

Step Number 7 – Humbly asked the people to help us legislate the end of prohibition.

Step Number 8 – Made a list of the 20,000,000+ persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.

Step Number 9 – Made direct amends to such people except when to do so would injure others.

Step Number 10 – Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

Step Number 11 – Sort through correspondence to improve our conscious contact with the people desiring only knowledge of their will and the power to carry that out.

Step Number 12 – Having had a mental awakening to the will of the people as the result of this step. We tried to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting the will of the people, and to practice these principles in all future legislation.

‘Cause we’re good enough, we’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like us!

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Our long-running “war on drugs,” focusing on the supply side of the equation, has been an utter disaster. Domestically, we’ve locked up hundreds of thousands of street-level dealers, some of whom genuinely deserve to be in prison and some of whom don’t. It made no difference. According to a 2007 University of Michigan study, 84 percent of high school seniors nationwide said they could obtain marijuana “fairly easily” or “very easily.” The figure for amphetamines was 50 percent; for cocaine, 47 percent; for heroin, 30 percent.

At the same time, we’ve persisted in a Sisyphean attempt to cut off the drug supply at or near the source. When I was The Washington Post’s correspondent in South America, I once took a nerve-racking helicopter ride to visit a U.S.-funded military base in the Upper Huallaga Valley of Peru. It was the place where most of the country’s coca — the plant from which cocaine is processed — was being grown, and the valley was crawling with Maoist guerrillas who funded their insurgency with money they extorted from the coca growers and traffickers. Eventually, the coca business was eliminated in the Upper Huallaga. But now it’s flourishing in other parts of Peru, and last year authorities there seized a record 30 tons of cocaine — meaning, by rule of thumb, that at least 10 times that much was probably produced and shipped.

via – The Washington Post “Drugs, Guns and a Reality Check“

[Nobody is immune from the laws of supply and demand.  If we demand it, they will supply it.  You can target "them" and a new "them" will just spring up in their place.  You can target supply and all you'll accomplish is moving the supply to a new location and enriching "them" with the unnatural price supports of prohibition.  Your only realistic choices are to reduce demand or legalize supply, and even our own Secretary of State just said our demand for drugs is  "insatiable". -- "R"R]

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Y’know how everyone’s stewing over the bonuses of $115 million paid to AIG executives whose company failed so badly due to their mismanagement and looting that the taxpayers have bailed them out to the tune of $116 billion?

I just wanted to point out that legalized marijuana in America would raise that $115 million in one day.

Carry on.

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