Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Oh, the stupidity! Stephen Baldwin and Kevin McCullough co-write a truly bizarre column: Common Sense Says, "No Thanks!" America doesn't want its pot...American potheads do! Sure the debate is raging presently, but it's as fictional in its need as whether pigs can fly or whether Superman was or was not faster than that bullet. In the modern trumped up controversy over whether marijuana should be legalized for the masses, the biggest canard of all is the supposed demand that exists. Does that make any sense? At all? Or how about the supposed arguments given by legalizers Marijuana proponents claim that the benefit to society would be enhanced by fewer offenders being sent to prison, tax revenues that would be generated, and the establishment of marijuana farming systems. Farming systems? Who is talking about farming systems? Sure, we'd like to get it out of the hands of the black market, which certainly means farming it here, but we don't talk about farming systems. But they debunk it anyway with this stunning argument: And the farming argument is just dumb. Speaking of the black market, they apparently think that criminals will still be selling it when it's legal. And second, they are convinced that it will give them easy access to the "high" they want, as well as give the pushers a new line of clientele. Bonus points: Try to make sense of this sentence: A major untruth that they [marijuana proponents] spread is that for every criminal it would prevent from being sent to prison, dealing with the increasingly prevalent use by underage users would be doubled or even tripled. Yes, the notion that underage users would double or triple with legalization is a major untruth all right, but it's not the marijuana proponents that are spreading it. And to try to parse that sentence will make your head explode... "for every criminal" ... "use would be doubled or even tripled." So, prevent one criminal from going to jail and underage use doubles or triples. Prevent two criminals from going to jail and underage use increases from four times to nine times as high. Prevent three criminals from going to jail and underage use increases from eight times to twenty-seven times as high. By the time we save 15 people from going to jail, all the underage aliens in the Tau Ceti system are going to be smoking pot. Oh, but wait -- they said "dealing with the increasingly prevalent use by underage users would be doubled or even tripled." So does that mean that society will exponentially spend its time interceding with pot smoking teenagers? I'm so confused. All I can say is, Thank God for Stephen Baldwin and Kevin McCullough. It sure is nice having them represent the other side. 4:02:59 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Mark Kleiman stumbles into some math ... and gets lost. He calls his post Cheech and Chong mathematics. You decide. It's an attempt to debunk claims regarding the amount of tax revenue that California might reap from legalization. He then works out his own estimates of how much pot that a pot smoker would smoke in order to generate that amount of revenue, corrects his figures, corrects them again, corrects them a third time, and apparently shows that the amount of tax revenue that some people are claiming would result from legalization couldn't occur without a significant increase in use. Fine. This, however, somehow leads him to a completely, and outrageously, false conclusion: So the advocates of legalizing cannabis can argue, as they do, that legalization wouldn't substantially increase the level of drug abuse, or they can argue that it could bring in noticeable amounts of revenue. But not both. Nonsense. All he "proved" so far in his calculations (assuming they are correct) is that the particular amount of revenue ($1.3 billion) that some people claim could be reached (not a claim that I've made), couldn't happen without a significant increase in the level of drug use. It's obvious, even using Mark's figures, that you can bring in a noticeable amount of revenue without substantially increasing the level of drug abuse. I mean, come on. This is juvenile stuff here, folks. Logic 101. It's like the prohibitionists who say that because not every single reduction in the black market that some people have predicted is likely to occur, therefore there will be no reduction in the black market. That's just ridiculous. I can, and will, argue that legalizing cannabis won't substantially increase the level of drug abuse and that it will bring in noticeable amounts of revenue. It's true. And, despite the paucity of directly relevant evidence (as a result of not having a proper laboratory (which California could provide)), all appropriate extant evidence supports my view. So that's a pretty positive thing and perhaps a good enough reason to legalize all on its own, not even counting the savings from law enforcement, prisons, courts, crime, corruption, etc., etc. Oh, and yeah, the fact that the government in a free society has absolutely no legitimate right to wield the sledge hammer of punishment -- punishing the many for the supposed sins of the few. [Thanks, Tom] 12:32:27 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []