Wednesday, January 02, 2013

envisioning a post-prohibition world...,

realitysandwich | Pot-smokers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your pipe dreams.

Marijuana legalization is a beginning, not an end.

When residents of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize the adult use of cannabis, it felt like a momentary rush of sobriety in a country dazed by decades of anti-marijuana hysteria. But what comes next? 
The drug war edifice is cracking and the end of prohibition may be nigh. Or may not be. The way things play out is not preordained. Major strategic differences among legalization proponents are surfacing about how to proceed. Some drug policy reform leaders, fearing an official backlash, are urging a cautious, go-slow, approach: make it as easy as possible for the Feds to back off and let the states do their thing. Other voices, claiming a pro-pot electoral mandate, are calling for bold, assertive moves to implement the will of the voters.

Some medical marijuana dispensary operators are celebrating the prospect of expanding into adult sales, while others worry about getting squeezed out as weaker players fold in an increasingly competitive, multibillion-dollar industry. Mom and pop growers in the Emerald Triangle of Northern California, America's cannabis bread basket, who've paid their dues over the years, cringe when they hear of post-election overtures to tobacco companies from single-issue obsessed, DC-based drug policy reform lobbyists who presume to speak for tens of millions of cannabis consumers.

The future of cannabis is up for grabs -- as much as anything can be in our ailing, corporate-dominated culture. So why not think big? Here are some ideas:

2 comments:

umbrarchist said...

The government could have been making billions taxing this stuff instead of spending billion incarcerating people over this trivia.

CNu said...

I think that the government permitting these incremental lapses in its decades long, very severe prohibition, is some significant writing on the wall wrt the prospects for continuity of governance in the face of collapse.

What Is France To Do With The Thousands Of Soldiers Expelled From Africa?

SCF  |    Russian President Vladimir Putin was spot-on this week in his observation about why France’s Emmanuel Macron is strutting around ...