The Top 5 Special Interest Groups Against Cannabis Legalization

[SHRED]

1. Police Unions
2. Private Prison Corporations
3. Alcohol/Beer Corporations
4. Pharmaceutical Corporations
5. Prison Guard Unions


http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/


Fuck em.

[wildbilln864]

1. absolutely but...

I think you could include the Oil Companies and the cancer industry.

[Recursion]

2. Tobacco is behind legalization because they want to sell it

And I really hate to think what RJR will do to reefer...

[wildbilln864]

5. if it's legalized...

I should be able to grow my own for my personal use. Big tobacco can stuff it.

[Recursion]

7. I doubt that would happen. You can't realistically do that with tobacco now

A legalization regime will see all sorts of regulations that basically price out all the small producers and put it all in the hands of RJR and whatever Philip Morris call themselves this week.

There will probably be a few craft organic growers who can charge a shit ton to their clients in Mountain View and lower Manhattan, but full legalization would certainly carry with it regulations that make the current small-grower model impossible.

[Half-Century Man]

15. MJ grows like a weed, cause.....

Besides, nobody is gonna try to smoke 20 joints each day (1 pack a day of cigarettes). 2 is fine.

[MADem]

26. It IS a weed, after all...."Got any weed, man?"

If it were legal to grow it, people would be growing that shit in their gardens as an ornamental plant--their biggest worries would be keeping the high school kids out of their weed patch, and shooing away the kitties wanting to shit in the weed beds!

Hemp and its stronger cousin are common ornamental plants in the middle east. They add a bit of green to the landscape and they grow like, well, weeds....

[vlyons]

18. people will grow their own

just as people now make their own beer and wine. It is legal to make beer and wine for personal consumption. It's going commercial that requires government licenses. You can also grow your own tobacco. You can buy beer and wine making kits right off the internet. You can also grow MJ seeds off the net. But I don't recommend growing MJ until it's legal for meds in your state.

[Bluenorthwest]

24. It will be recreationally legal in Oregon in July, growing for personal use most certainly allowed

and the small grower model will thrive even more than it is today, although that is different from growing for yourself. Colorado is the same way. In terms of equation with other products, tobacco is not the proper model, wine is the model for cannabis because like wine quality and varietal differences are paramount to the consumer who is willing to pay for excellence even if far cheaper mass production product is available. So while there will be a market for value priced product, like with wine that has nothing at all to do with the high end markets. If you like wine and are not broke, the plonk will not be swilled. You know this.

[Recursion]

25. Just wait until Altria's lobbyists start chipping away at that

They'll start by saying the cannabinoid levels have to be between X and Y. Then they'll push for field inspections, processing plant inspections, specific levels of pesticides (pot needs few of those, but they'll put them in there), etc. The day they can sell joints on the shelf in a gas station, they'll start making sure they're the only ones who can, in the name of product safety. Just like what the big meat packers did after Upton Sinclair.

[Go Vols]

22. Yep

Just like grapes that are grown at home to be made into wine.

[marym625]

6. They have probably had

Everything ready to go for years. Boxes of joints all perfectly rolled,; with addictive crap added.

[Recursion]

8. They do; I have some art from Camel somewhere (nt)

[marym625]

10. Eesh

Well, no one ever accused them of not knowing how to make money

[Half-Century Man]

17. Expect a new and fresh marketing campaign for "Miracle Grow"

Roll out gardens for easy planting, aka cannabis carpets.

[MADem]

27. Hey, that sounds like a plan...call it "Magic Carpet" and have Tommy Chong do the

pitch~!

Then some clever botanist has to develop a way to grow ornamental plants that can be formed into shapes--kind of like the chia pet, writ large...

There's money to be made~!

[Half-Century Man]

29. Chia hemp?

Put me down for a Timothy Leary head pot.....er pot head, er.....head shaped flower pot for growing pot.......

[MADem]

30. Or you know those little bendy things they sell so that you can make

heart shaped hedges or bushes shaped like Bambi?

I'm sure the herb would and could be trained to grow in a variety of ways!

In Southwest Asia, it is not uncommon to see it as a genuine ornamental plant--trimmed in the shape of hedges and even pine trees!

One place where I used to live had it planted out in front of the police station...always made me laugh!

[sabrina 1]

33. Legalization should mean anyone who wants to can grow it in their back yard. It's a weed

so who needs RJR to grow it?

Farmers can grow it an sell it at their farm stands.

Who is growing it in Oregon?

The War on Drugs needs to end. It has caused far, far more harm to just about everything, than RJR could do no matter what they do to it.

[marym625]

3. The pharmaceutical one is surprising

Obviously, the growers and independent people that are currently doing great things in this new industry are a burden to pharmaceutical companies. But you just know that they will lobby their way into controlling it somehow and soon.

I just don't see that there won't be a prohibition on use of pot. I think it will be regulated harder than alcohol and probably relegated to only medicinal use. Just like codeine and other drugs that were once available and legal.

[LiberalAndProud]

9. Won't that set up a fight between big ag and big pharma?

Battle of the Titans! Buy your tickets here.

[marym625]

11. put me down for 2, please. front row

[MADem]

31. Pharma can't regulate it--no one wants their crappy "marinol" anymore when they can get the goods

with increasing ease!

[marym625]

32. I still think they'll do their damnedest

To stop anything but medicinal use. And with the greedy POS in Congress, I can easily see that happening.

Nothing they do will surprise me. They'll regulate it to oblivion.

[MADem]

34. Well, that horse is leaving the barn at a fast clip!

Places that haven't outright legalized have "decriminalized"--it's a fine, a ticket, that people rip up and no one tracks. Even the places that are still dragging people to court to pay their fines are doing it for the revenue, not for the criminality. They need to tax it to get that revenue, make it cheap enough that people will buy it OTC like Sominex, and package it attractively if they want to have a hope of competing. And even at that, they'll get the young kids who want gold-tipped cigarillos with trendy sayings on the rolling paper, but there will always be old hippies with a garden out back or on their balcony.

This train is a coming--the billions that will accrue to municipalities and states who get on the weed bandwagon hasn't gone unnoticed. That's "reduce the property tax rate" money; that's "smaller class size public schools" money--weed is Big Money in, and Crime Rate down--a win-win. Everyone sees it, and the dominoes are falling at long last.

[marym625]

35. At long last is right

I really hope you are right. I still think they will try. Just hope you are right and they won't win.

[MADem]

36. There are a lot of people who are backing it...

It's all about the money, and municipal, county, city and state governments don't want those billions to go to Big Pharma, they want them to go to fixing their libraries, schools, city halls, courts, parks, etc. They're motivated. The people counseling veterans with post-traumatic stress (it's not a disorder, it's a disorder if you don't get stressed in some situations!) have found that the shit actually, really, truly HELPS--and they've stopped doing the WAH WAH WAH against it, at least on local levels.

And then of course, there are the partakers--and they know that if they want to partake legally, they need to get their asses to the polls. NORML has been very good at lobbying for change, and they know how to GOTV too...

[marym625]

37. everything you say is true

And you have convinced me that it won't go back to being the demon drug it once was considered. But I still think the pharmaceutical companies will try. And they'll try hard.

It's great that the barriers put up by the war on drugs people are being broken down. About time

[spanone]

4. frightening. working to keep america incarcerated.

[vlyons]

19. Prisons are a growth industry

[Cayenne]

12. Number 1 the ADDICTION QUACKS

Why do they get left out in these things. The rehabs in CO and WA saw their business halved with legalization. Kevin Sabet, Patrick Kennedy and their minions are spreading reefer madness.

[kelliekat44]

13. Because it would put them out of business. nt

[King_Klonopin]

14. Is Big Tobacco #6 ? nt

[glasshouses]

16. yup

[LeftOfWest]

20. Right wing racist DuPont born to it slime.

"Emperor Wears No Clothes". Rec reading.

We had a revolution to get rid of that 'born to it' 'anointed by god to have zillions for nothing but a birth lotto last name' crap.

[SHRED]

21. I've hung out with Jack Herer

He was a great guy. RIP.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

23. Private prisons should be illegal. As if "justice" isn't already compromised by the fact

that the wealthy can afford better lawyers. But this private prison BS is a straight up travesty.

[daleanime]

28. K&R....