For instance, Oakland voters “overwhemingly approved” of a bill that will place a business tax on marijuana.   Civilians in Jacksonville Beach, Florida have proposed an amendment that will decriminalize possession of less than 20 grams, taking it from a civil infraction to a criminal misdemeanor, which would only result in a $100 fine.  Similar bills have been proposed throughout the country, some dropping dead on the legislative floor while others passed (Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon).   However, what this is a sign of is that people are finally starting to realize the federal government really doesn’t give a damn about antiquated laws that are a direct assault on civil liberties.  Besides, the federal government has shown their ability to directly affect the lives of citizens is limited to wars and tax cuts/hikes; the money for social programs seems to never be spent effectively as its often a different figure by the time it reaches the project it’s supposed to be funding after going down the line of politicians and lobbyists.

To limit the localization movement to just drug laws would be a incredibly narrow-minded thing to do.  Localization is what the founding fathers wanted and it is what all citizens in every state and every town should be working towards.  Make your town self-sufficient and it will become a better place to live.  It will be a healthier and cleaner place, and one that is more efficient.  Politicians like the scum from New Jersey won’t be able to steal taxpayer money if all the money is accounted for by dilligent citizens trying to put a greenhouse in their town or installing solar panels on all the municipal buildings.  Localization is the way to America’s prosperity, not a reliance on organized criminals sitting in big, secure buildings waiting for the day they retire to their big, secluded and secure homes that were paid for with our money.  Down with Donkeys and Elephants and up with the People.  Localize before it’s too late.

A recent article on RasmussenReports.com entertained the idea that legalizing marijuana might actually do some good for the struggling economy. While the main focus of the piece is a recent poll stating that 40% of Americans favor legalization, it was the following excerpt that was the most interesting nugget of information in the article:

The World Health Organization estimates that 42% of Americans have tried marijuana, the highest usage level in the 17 countries it profiled. Some researchers contend that marijuana is the number one cash crop in the United States.

Three Nobel Prize winners including Milton Friedman were among the more than 500 economists who endorsed a 2005 Harvard study that concluded that legalization of marijuana “would save $7.7 billion per year in state and federal expenditures on prohibition enforcement and produce tax revenues of at least $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like most consumer goods. If, however, marijuana were taxed similarly to alcohol or tobacco, it might generate as much as $6.2 billion annually.”

Given Obama’s public support for decriminalization in 2004 as well as his appointment of former Seattle police chief, Gil Kerlikowske, as drug czar, there is hope that rational thought rather than demented ideology will dictate America’s drug policy in the future.

For more information check out the following articles:

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/february_2009/40_say_marijuana_should_be_legalized

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_froma_harrop/will_obama_cross_the_reefer_rubicon

http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/cashcrops.html

http://ronebreak.com/2009/02/08/why-marijuana-is-illegal/

Now look at these numbers, and tell me why we are in a massive economic crisis. 17 Billion Dollars?!?!? Are you fucking kidding me? That number is absolutely unreal to me, and that is only on a Federal level.  States have spent over 27 Billion on the drug war, do they realize it’s easier than ever to walk out one’s front door and have a bag in your hand within 10 minutes?  Do they realize that this will NEVER change?  Some states have, 13 at last count, with Michigan and Massachusetts on the way.  We are slowly catching on, but it certainly isn’t fast enough.

Am I asking to completely decriminalize the plant and put it in the hands of anyone and everyone?  No, absolutely not, it could easily be regulated at least as much as alcohol is to keep it out of the hands of the younger generation before they have developed to a point where they can responsibly use the drug.  But isn’t throwing almost 40 billion dollars a year at a losing battle absolutely gut wrenching?  I’d say so, especially for the number 2 cash crop in our nation.  Marijuana and hemp could easily be MAKING us billions of dollars in taxes, and stimulating our floundering economy.  Instead we choose to sit back and be robbed blind by our governments; state and federal, on a war that is more hopeless than Iraq and Afghanistan could ever imagine to be.

With the nation’s economy falling apart at the seams and no end in sight, there is no better time to address this issue.  We need to stop spending our money putting non-violent drug offenders behind bars and take the drug trade out of the hands of the gangs and criminals.  It’s up to us, the taxpayers to lead the charge in this battle.  More and more taxpayers are starting to realize this and are voting to legalize medical marijuana, or decriminalize smaller amounts of marijuana (Michigan and Massachusets being the most recent to change their stances in the recent election).

If you break it down to dollars and cents, the decision has already been made for you, you just don’t realize it yet.  Write your senators and congressmen and spread the word to your friends and family to do the same… If nothing else the sick people of our country who rely on marijuana to ease their pain for a vast variety of diseases should not have to be going to gangs and other violent criminals in order to get the only medicine that really makes them feel better.

We owe it to ourselves, we owe it to our loved ones, and we owe it to our checkbooks.