Yesterday we had Doug Fine on the show, author of "Too High to Fail."
He told us that weed can help us out of the recession, young-liberal porn if I've ever seen it. His reasoning is sound, by keeping marijuana illegal we're essentially shunning billions of dollars for our economy in production, sales, and taxes. He also uses it as a way to back into an attack on the war on drugs, which has cost this country a trillion dollars over the last 40 years. It's also ruined countless American lives, incarcerating and stigmatizing people for using a drug that is proven to be less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol.
Obviously, as a 28 year old male from the suburbs - with a degree from a liberal arts college - I happen to agree with Mr. Fine. But even more obviously, NBC puts each one of it's employees through a drug test upon hiring - so nobody in this building partakes in that sinful weed. Nobody.
Now I know what you're thinking: It's a company full of creative types, or people with high-power, high stress sales jobs, or people in live news who work insane hours under national scrutiny - what in the world would they be interested in weed for?
And the answer is: I have no idea. I work in news for MSNBC, every once in a while I enjoy half a beer with a big dinner, wait an hour, and then hail a cab home. I won't even risk the subway for fear of balance distortion and danger on the tracks. Too risky. So personally, I have no dog in this fight. But, I might know a few people, that know a few people that do - and they'll appreciate the points made in Fine's book.
My thing is this - We put a lot of young, black men in prison for weed. And not 'a lot' as in "Oh that number is higher than the number of white people."
'A lot' as in, "Oh hey, we're sending 1 in every 9 black men to prison for primarily minor offenses." The war on drugs has always preyed on young, black kids and young Hispanic kids. It damages their future, it damages their families, and everyone benefits except the American public.
Though, to Fine's point - I'm not entirely sure an abundance of marijuana being available to the general public will give the economy quite the jolt he expects. From what I've... read, it doesn't generally spurn-on industriousness.
Check out the segment from yesterdays show and let us know what you think @thecyclemsnbc
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I remember having this discussion when I was a 28 year old liberal arts graduate from a prestigious west coast University, and in the ensuing decades I have seen lives ruined, good people marginalized from productive society and in general a whole lot of ignorant baseless rhetoric around and around the topic of pot and the economy.
Those who know nothing about the herb are seduced by the chimera of "big money" to be made from legalizing marijuana. They essentially want to artificially maintain the ridiculously high price and put the "big money" toward whatever their favorite cause may be. What they don't realize is that they can't control it now, how can they control it if it were legal. They have an ignorant monochromatic perception of the herb (maybe because their viewpoint is like that of an east coast junkie; powder and percentages) and cannot see the vast potential of economic and social benefits that would open up if legalization were done correctly. They want to levy special taxes on an herb that can be grown at home.
I have a radical suggestion that is probably foreign to the economic pillars of both parties. Why not try something called "free enterprise" or the "free market economy" or the law of supply and demand. Do not try to add a surtax onto a product that has thrived underground for so long, but let it come out of the shadows. The personal income tax from the no longer hidden retailers, wholesalers, producers, transporters; the retail sales tax from the stores; the cabaret tax from the nightclubs, the array of opportunities from countless local harvest fairs and festivals not to mention the same from the whole chain of the peripheral products (soil additives for the growers, storage devices for the conoisseurs, delivery vehicles for the consumers, and on and on) would bounce around our economy again and again.
It would be American grown, American made, and ours to export until the rest of the world catches up. Legalization would not turn the whole society into potheads, but de-stigmatization would open up a whole new view of consciousness and the human condition.
But I guess until then: " Are you sad, depressed? Do you suffer from angst, ennui or metaphysical distress? Ask your doctor if Marijuana might be right for you.
Caution- side effects may include laughing, smiling and having friends"