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Assemblyman Tom Ammiano will announce legislation on Monday to legalize marijuana and earn perhaps $1 billion annually by taxing it.

Mecke said Ammiano's proposed bill "would remove all penalties in California law on cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, or use of marijuana, natural THC, or paraphernalia for persons over the age of 21."

The bill would additionally prohibit state and local law officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws. As for Step Two -- profit -- Ammiano's bill calls for "establishing a fee on the sale of marijuana at a rate of $50 per ounce." Mecke said that would bring in roughly $1 billion for the state, according to estimates made by marijuana advocacy organizations.

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Smart move, in my opinion.
I think it may bring in a lot to the state which is a good thing seeing our current times, and will obviously decrease crime what having it not be illegal.
What do you all think?
Let's keep this a friendly discussion, gents!

You must provide an opinion and argument related to the topic when opening a new topic in Serious Discussion.

Quote from SD Rules

7. Present arguments. (for new topics) When opening a new thead, please state your point of view or argument. News updates, "Ask me anything about X", etc., do not present a stance on an issue that is for debate.

Please provide such an argument, and not just a one liner "I support this" or "I am against this"

Although I do not smoke marijuana, I approve this. I approve it because it is helpful to the economy.

Finally, for the greater glory of God. If this is passed, money + freedom + less crime.

Less crime, a solution to balancing our budget with the possibility of being the only large state to generate a substantial surplus, and it's going to receive harsh criticism from the Republican side because they think it will get everybody hooked. The debate begins...

Quote from ToA

and will obviously decrease crime what having it not be illegal.

What logic is that? "Let's legalize murders and robbery; that'll decrease crime!"

Quote from ForTheSwarm

Quote from ToA

and will obviously decrease crime what having it not be illegal.

What logic is that? "Let's legalize murders and robbery; that'll decrease crime!"

Agreed.

A legalized marijuana would decrease the amount of drug lords fighting over this drug, giving less money to the black market and more to the economy. It is safer because people are no longer killing over drug wars and usage problems because it comes from the state.

Marijuana is mind altering and burns your lungs, makes people lazy and tired. Drug Dealers will still be drug dealers, those who sell marijuana will have to just move up the chain. With so much surplus in marijuana there will be a defecit in need for other drugs. Don't be surprised if homelessness, spousal dispues/abuse and teen pregnancy go up or test scores, work ethics and general standards to come down.

Quote from Shocko

Marijuana is mind altering and burns your lungs, makes people lazy and tired. Drug Dealers will still be drug dealers, those who sell marijuana will have to just move up the chain. With so much surplus in marijuana there will be a defecit in need for other drugs. Don't be surprised if homelessness, spousal dispues/abuse and teen pregnancy go up or test scores, work ethics and general standards to come down.

Slippery Slope Fallacy, anyone? If anything, test scores could go up since I am REALLY good at calculus when I have special brownies.

I am strongly in favor of this:

-People do marijuana anyway. Let's face it; there are potheads at school, down the street, downtown.. it's not like making it illegal has stomped it out.
-We need the money. Instead of wasting millions on drug enforcement, we can earn billions in tax revenue
-It will decrease violent crime. If the sale of marijuana is made legal, the drug cartels will be weakened because legal competition will show up and help put the cartels out of business (in marijuana).

Quote from A_of-s_t

Quote from Shocko

Marijuana is mind altering and burns your lungs, makes people lazy and tired. Drug Dealers will still be drug dealers, those who sell marijuana will have to just move up the chain. With so much surplus in marijuana there will be a defecit in need for other drugs. Don't be surprised if homelessness, spousal dispues/abuse and teen pregnancy go up or test scores, work ethics and general standards to come down.

Slippery Slope Fallacy, anyone? If anything, test scores could go up since I am REALLY good at calculus when I have special brownies.

It actually doesn't qualify as a slippery slope fallacy because there is no actual argumentation. The quote asserts that MJ legalization will cause a surplus in MJ. It then discontinuously says that it may be likely (assuming this is related to the MJ surplus) that certain factors may increase or decrease: however, it does not explain WHY or HOW these factors are related. If it did, then it might be a slippery slope argument, but note also that slippery slope arguments can be valid, if constructed properly.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, Shocko, but I'm hoping the other posters will be able to gain something from reading that.

"Those who sell marijuana will have to just move up the chain" is the same slippery slope fallacy employed by the "marijuana is a gateway drug" proponents.

I will go more in depth later on but that was made on the assumption drug dealers aren't selling marijuana for the thrill of breaking the law. However they're providing a product and service much like a business man. As pointed out competition is futile, they'd be aggainst million in tax dollars... Now also following this assumption, you could consider these people unemployed since they no longer have an income. Clearly income is a factor in homes / standards of living.

Alternativly they can change the product and service that they offer and still make an income. The problem is you build resistance to drugs as we all know, therefore a surplus in marijuana at a more convenient transaction should lead to increased intake. Meaning tolerance is built faster, and alternative highs are looked for.

Now to address the spousal abuse claim. As we all know the world is in recession and everyone is becoming tighter and tighter.

So now in our time of need, people are stressed about bills, food etc... It's fair to assume some will want to escape it. With marijuana legalized and its over hyped calming/ relaxing attributes, it's fairly likely that same group of people feeling recession the most will be interested. With arguments about lack of money and food, but wasted on marijuana, It is almost inevitable that atleast one case of this will lead to a form of abuse.

Quote from Shocko

So now in our time of need, people are stressed about bills, food etc... It's fair to assume some will want to escape it. With marijuana legalized and its over hyped calming/ relaxing attributes, it's fairly likely that same group of people feeling recession the most will be interested. With arguments about lack of money and food, but wasted on marijuana, It is almost inevitable that atleast one case of this will lead to a form of abuse.

will tidy up later, but I'm going to sleep again...

In the 1930's there was a thing called a Great Depression. All businesses failed except for one -- entertainment, esp. movies. People spent money to see movies that they should have used to buy food and people LOVED IT. It was the "escape" they wanted. This parrallels your statement, but completely contridicts it since it is not shown that wife beating increased during this time period.

Ergo, your arguement of an increase in wife beating is ungrounded.

The movie business was not the same then as it is now. Movies themselves were still pretty novel, sort of like how video games are today. Also, today's movies have retardedly large budgets, whereas the studios of the old days would pump out several dozen inexpensive movies a year. The few successful ones would make up for the numerous flops.

Also, I support marijuana's legalization. Moar money, plz.

Quote from Richard Nixons Head[MM]

"Those who sell marijuana will have to just move up the chain" is the same slippery slope fallacy employed by the "marijuana is a gateway drug" proponents.

The slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy. If the premises stated are true, and the logic coming forth from that is also true, it may be possible that one event can lead to another event, which in turn can lead to another event. That is in the general case.

In the specific case of MJ as a "gateway drug", there may be empirical evidence to support the "slippery slope" as being a legitimate argument. Personally, I can think of a few friends of mine, (and a couple other associates that I don't see frequently), who started with MJ and ended up in much deeper waters. This does not explicitly prove that they ended up in the "deeper waters" because of their MJ use, but there is a strong correlation between the use of MJ and the successive use of other substances.

The gateway-slippery-slope-argument may be true or false, but what are the consequences if the actual observations do support the argument? What would be the case if MJ were legalized? Would we be stuck with a stinky horde of lazy potheads? Would crime really decrease? Maybe it will inspire a number of lawsuits that creates some other annoying form of legislation, arising from the smell that people might not want to have to deal with. Or maybe there will be barely any effect. Perhaps essentially the same number of people will use it, since it can be obtained illegally anyway, and our society will move on. The real question becomes, is the personal freedom to "subject ourselves/use/relax with/abuse/wind down with" more important than the consequences of legalization? If there are relatively few consequences, then the answer might be yes, and the answer might be no if there are severe consequences. More footage from the 1960's might be helpful in determining the answer.

The justification for a slippery slope argument could originate from the likelihood that someone selling pot is probably also selling harder drugs, or knows someone who is. I would think that by making marijuana legal, it becomes available in legitimate establishments instead of the street, thereby reducing incidents of pot smoking leading to harder drugs.

I assume you meant the slippery slope argument of the gateway drug, doodan?

If so, it certainly could have originated from that. Or it could originate from somewhere in the search for a newer and better high, if a tolerance is created for MJ. Or a combination of both. There are numerous possibilities.

Another case could be that the actual argument becomes irrelevant because the premise IS that MJ is a gateway drug. I'm not saying this already is the case, but if there were case studies done of hardcore drug addicts perhaps that showed some extremely high correlation between MJ as a first drug and the current state of the individual, it would be pretty reasonable to say that MJ is a gateway drug. If anyone knows of such a case study, it would be extremely useful to this topic.
Here is one such article on the subject, though the results are mixed:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/33365.html

Quote from Vrael

I assume you meant the slippery slope argument of the gateway drug, doodan?

Yes, that's right.

Let me also say that while I'm sure I'd get a pretty potent high from drugs like cocaine or speed, I am not going to be trying them because I know how addictive they are and I don't want to risk becoming dependent. That's all thanks to education about substance abuse, which we need more of (and should be able to afford if marijuana were legalized and taxed).

I might be sounding like a pot head to some of you that don't know me that well. I've only tried pot once and that was 8 years ago. Even if it were legalized, I still probably wouldn't do it, but the economic advantages of legalization are too great to overlook. I'm also not worried about the whole country becoming a dope-haven. It is (and has almost always been) socially reprehensible to go out in public while intoxicated by alcohol, and I'm sure similar stigmas would emerge against going out in the world while stoned on pot.