“Record-High 50% of Americans Favor Legalizing Marijuana Use”
The advocacy group National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws claims that marijuana is the third-most-popular recreational drug in America, behind only alcohol and tobacco. Some states have decriminalized marijuana’s use, some have made it legal for medicinal use, and some officials, including former U.S. Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders, have called for legalizing its use.
“Why I want marijuana legalized…bud IS wiser (reason #3)”
Allow me this little bit of conjecture…it would be in the best interests of Anheuser-Busch InBev to support the legalization of marijuana.
- This company currently has the infrastructure and agriculture network in its current business model to support marijuana production/distribution and does include public policy. From their website: “The beer industry should play a role in promoting alcohol responsibility because no company benefits from the misuse of its products.”
- The same JOBS necessary to run a brewery can carry over to marijuana distribution. We need jobs. They could easily create 30k more jobs with the legalization of marijuana.
- By investing in the growth of cannabis it would help to negate the effects of the brewing process on air quality as the fermentation process alone contributes significantly to the release of CO2.
- Marijuana is SAFER to consume than alcohol.
- It would be a marketing gold mine.
© 2011 Jerry D. Elmore
“Why I want marijuana legalized…one word: Plastics (reason #2)”
Plastics. This was Mr. McGuire’s word of wisdom to a young man named Benjamin in a film called “The Graduate”. Ben had not really decided what to do with his life upon graduating from college so Mr. McGuire’s advice would have been a worthy career insight.
And with good reason. Just take a good look around you…the presence of the plastics industry is as ubiquitous as two molecules of oxygen. You will touch more plastic in a day than you touch yourself. You will see it, smell it, and use it to eat, drink, and cook with. It will save someone’s life or take it.
And you know what, 99% of the plastic you see around you is the product of crude oil. Consider that the top 5 largest companies in the world revolve around plastic. Wal-Mart sells it to the public. The profit and revenue of 4 other companies depend on the extraction of crude oil from the earth which goes into making the plastics we, as consumers, buy and consequently litter the earth with.
Plastics can also be made from hemp oil.
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“Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down, if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?”
– Henry Ford
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Yes, that very weed which people associate with Cheech & Chong and potheads can also take a serious chunk out of the profit margins of 4 of the world’s largest oil companies…IF it were legal to grow in the United States.
But, for the time being, hemp remains illegal for no other reason than the fact it looks like marijuana when, chemically, they are two differently distinct plants.
The fact remains then that keeping marijuana illegal keeps hemp illegal.
Legalized marijuana is not a threat to society.
Legalized marijuana is a threat to the plastics industry.
People who trivialize this matter are just ignorant to how much this would change things the world over.
Why? The United States of America is the largest consumer of crude oil.
© 2011 Jerry D. Elmore
References:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tupperware/sfeature/sf_plastics.html
http://www.totalpetrochemicals.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/Animations/Petrochemicals_gb.swf
http://www2.dupont.com/Heritage/en_US/1918_dupont/1918_indepth.html
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2011/full_list/
http://www.hemp.com/2011/01/henrys-hemp-car-not-so-much-hemp/
http://business.rediff.com/slide-show/2010/mar/12/slide-show-1-worlds-10-biggest-oil-consumers.htm
http://www.nader.org/index.php?/archives/531-Why-is-Industrial-Hemp-Still-Illegal.html
http://www.examiner.com/environmental-policy-in-miami/why-is-hemp-illegal
Why I want marijuana legalized…thinking of the children (reason #1).
My two sons are getting older.
They are far from even being at the age of drug experimentation but it is not inevitable.
There will come a time where some options will be presented to them in a social setting, most likely with their friends. I imagine them being introduced to beer, wine, tobacco, and marijuana. Of these, only one has been proven to be non-lethal. Ironically, it’s also the one that’s illegal. In 2000 years of recorded history, zero people have overdosed on marijuana. The same cannot be said of the aforementioned legal drugs.
Ideally, we should live our lives without any need for drugs or alcohol as a means of escapism. As a parent, I can only wish my kids can do just that. As things are now, they have trouble listening to me when I ask them to not put dirt in each others hair. So, it’s a futile wish especially knowing that I was their age not too long ago.
I consider myself lucky to have made it this far in life even with marijuana still being illegal. I graduated from college with a 3.35 GPA, placed in international and regional design competitions, earned some design patents, completed Surface Rescue Swimmer School while serving in the US Navy, and have never been arrested…the effects of marijuana have NOT been detrimental to my livelihood as the DEA would like people to believe. I doubt I’m alone.
So maybe even if marijuana is still illegal by the time they reach that line in the sand to experiment with drugs, I hope I’ve done the best in raising them to make the right choice.
Abstinence first. But, I’d rather have them break the law for choosing something safer than dying from overdosing on a legal substance.
What parent would not want that? They can live with jail. Cancer and alcohol poisoning have effectively proven to diminish life.
© 2011 Jerry D. Elmore
References:
http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5337a2.htm
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/abuse/drug_data_sheets/Marijuana.pdf
http://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/2.4_Cannabis.pdf
http://www.unodc.org/pdf/technical_series_1995-03-01_1.pdf
http://www.who.int/tobacco/mpower/tobacco_facts/en/index.html
