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Facebook Billionaire Gives Money To Legalize Marijuana
Aldenissin writes "Dustin Moskovitz confirmed that he has recently given (an additional) $50,000 in support of Proposition 19, which is seeking to legalize marijuana in California this November. He had previously donated $20,000 to supporters of the act, which would allow people 21 years old or older to possess, cultivate or transport cannabis for personal use and would permit local governments to regulate and tax commercial production and sale of the substance. Asked for a comment as to why he's backing the legalization of marijuana, Moskovitz just sent this statement: 'More than any other initiative out there, Prop 19 will stabilize our national security and bolster our state economy. It will alleviate unnecessary overcrowding of non-violent offenders in our state jails, which in turn will help California residents.' An irony here is that about a month ago, Facebook refused to take FireDogLake's 'Just Say Now' pro-cannabis law reform ads."
OMG, a billionaire gives 70.000 $ to an association - that is indeed a very strong backing. With all that money they will be able to lobby for a good week at least.
We need to drop this 'war on drugs' mentality that's cost us so many billions and given us one of the highest imprisonment rates in the world. Marijuana is less addictive and damaging than both alcohol and tobacco, and actually has plenty of acceptable medical uses. Its also rather interesting that a state is testing its powers against the federal government by downright defying a federal law, I wonder how that's going to turn out.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
How do you think kids feel now. On one hand you have the government, parents and everyone saying that marijuana is not good for you. And on the other hand you have a Facebook founder telling them its ok and should be legal. I'm afraid that if the proposition isn't passed that it will just make it all the much harder for the people against it to gain ground.
Absolutely, do NOT decriminalize the drugs. Legalize them. And do not allow production to every go into gang hands or to be imported/exported. THis is purely about getting control of our borders and ending drug use. Gangs push more drugs than anything else because it is HIGHLY profitable. Stop the profit incentive and you kill the gangs and imported drugs from Mexico and China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Making goods or services illegal generally doesn't make it stop happening. It creates a black market that is unregulated and spurs of whole economy of crime. That is what happened with prohibition. That is what happened when abortions were illegal. That's what is happening now that marijuana is illegal. It's also happening with prostitution. Legalize it and regulate it, and you've actually cut crime.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Go to google news. Search for: mexico drug war
it was nice defeating you, I'm sorry you couldn't be a more worthy opponent.
Pot generates more than 60% of cartel profits. Legalization takes that money from the cartels and puts it in the hands of governments and legitimate businesses. That in of itself is a boost to national security
People claim that legalizing pot will bring gazillions of dollars into the government coffers by taxing the product.
However they don't explain why we should believe that current dealers would be willing to start collecting and submitting taxes to the government. They already have a product that they are selling tax-free, what is the incentive for the dealers to start charging more for the same product?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
If my children are that stupid, it is my failure as a parent.
Do you frequently catch them with alcohol and tobacco?
If you do frequently catch them with alcohol and tobacco, do you really think it is entirely the responsibility of the state to deal with that?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
it free up cops / courts / the prison system for real crime and not tieing them up with your dime bag buyer. Also thing of the tax money from pot as well.
Yeah it's just too bad hardly anyone knows that the real reason for making it illegal did'nt have any6thing trying to stop people from smoking it...
-Oz
Prohibition - ever heard of it? It was the great idea of making something illegal that could be made in your bathtub. -Pot, making something illegal that grows in your backyard, your basement, your National Forest - easy to grow, easy to sell. Millions and billions in Court costs, incarceration costs, police costs and power to criminals - all for something you can't stop and is no worse than booze. So simple, so hard for people to understand.
Enjoy your Karma, after all you earned it. Feel your Karma Joe, feel it burn.
Well, I'd submit an admittedly naive idea:
If everyone voted in 100% of elections, cared enough to research every candidate and initiative, had access to solid information on the issues and candidates, and was educated enough to navigate through FUD when finding that information, then it would not be possible to "buy" a seat or referendum, because any money used creating FUD would just be poured down a hole and any money spent on GOTV would be useless.
In other words, the only reason we have a system where you can buy victory at the polls is because the citizenry is some combination of uncaring/too-busy-to-deal-with-it and there's little money in honest journalism anymore.
We need smarter, more dedicated voters and objectively assembled, well reported journalism.
Sure, there's a cost for signature gathering to qualify something or someone for the ballot, but that is chump change compared to what is dumped into emotional manipulation and outright deception of voters
There should be campaign finance laws, of course, but the law is a blunt instrument. The problem has to be attacked at its root. Not all is lost -- even with our current electorate and media, FUD creation is a very inefficient prospect. The less efficient it gets, the less influence money has over politics. I worry about the demise of high school civics classes, though.
Someone had to do it.
When you make something illegal that isn't a real crime, you still create criminals and everything that comes with that. Now what I mean by "not a real crime," is something that doesn't cause harm to others. Nobody in their right mind is going to say murder shouldn't be a crime. By its very nature it is a crime, because it hurts someone. However other things, like drugs, are not. There is on inherent harm to anyone other than the user.
Now this doesn't mean that you should never make anything illegal that doesn't cause direct harm. There can be good reasons. An example might be excessive speeding. In and of itself it causes no harm, however it greatly increases the chances of harm being caused by a mistake, and the magnitude of that harm being rather large. Hence there is a reason to make it illegal. Likewise some drugs are just too dangerous to use safely. Crystal meth is a good example. There isn't a safe way to use meth, so it probably isn't a good idea to allow it to be distributed legally.
However you have to weigh the reasons against the negative impact on society. As with any choice, there is ALWAYS a downside. When you make something illegal the downsides are that you create criminals, and thus have to spend time and resources dealing with that, and you provide a potential source of profit for illegal enterprise. So you have to weigh that against the good you believe it will do.
In the case of marijuana, things are very firmly slanted to the bad side with it being illegal. The drug itself is very mild. There is no near term toxicity and its long term effects are no worse than alcohol or cigarettes (it can cause lung cancer, like any inhaled smoke, and it seems to have a negative impact on higher reasoning skills when used heavily for a long term). So it is not very harmful. However it being illegal has put a ton of people in jail, which costs money, and provided a nice profit source for illegal enterprise.
Things like this need to be weighed. Sure, if marijuana was legal it would lead to some problems. People would get stoned and operate a car (that would need to be covered under DUI laws). People would abuse it and spend their life doing little else other than getting stoned. However those problems are far less than the current problems, and are ones much easier to mitigate.
Whenever you talk laws like this, it always needs to be a cost/benefit analysis. You have to work out what is the best for society over all, and not let knee jerk politics get in the way.
More plausible (in the context of a legalization wave) would be the legalization of drugs that have relatively benigh side effects, then the limited legalization of drugs known to have heavy side effects and/or to be strongly addictive. For instance, I'd expect MDMA to be available sooner and easier than morphine. Crack would probably always stay illegal, although not per se but because I expect it to be illegal to cut restricted drugs in unhealthy ways (just like you can't put any random stuff in your alcoholic beverage if you want to be able to sell it).
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
You are aware that we do have child labor laws that regulate how much children can work, aren't you? For example, movies that feature babies usually shoot with twins because each baby can legally work only a very short number of hours. Children also legally have other jobs such as babysitting. Are you advocating outlawing all child labor so that the only option would be to have a black market of child labor? That's what would cause sweatshops.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Unless they've changed it since when I was in school (which was admittedly a long time ago) then the message is that all drugs are EVIL. They'll all fuck you up, make you a degenerate, etc. No drugs period. They are all painted with a broad brush.
Ok well the problem is that isn't true, and kids are going to find that out. They'll meet someone who smokes weed, and does fine. Maybe a popular kid they idolize, maybe an adult who has a job, family, and all that shit. Whatever the case they'll realize that what they were told was bullshit. They may try it themselves and further realize that it was bullshit. Pot won't destroy them, all this was nonsense.
Now the real problem is that they may then ignore some of the other messages. See meth really WILL destroy you. It is heavily addictive, you often get addicted with a single usage, and we are talking a physical addiction. It also just wrecks your body. Your teeth fall out, you become gaunt, it'll kill you in not too many years. All this is on top of the heaping helping of paranoia and delusions it gives you. Nasty, nasty, shit that nobody should ever mess with.
However if the message about meth and pot is the same, and someone finds out the pot message was BS, well do they believe the meth one? Much less likely.
We need to be straight with kids. Tell them how it really is with drugs. That doesn't mean saying "Sure use them," I mean leading a clean life is always best and that counts the legal ones. You are better off not to smoke tobacco, or marijuana or anything. However there's a big difference between those and things like meth and heroin.
It is similar to the bullshit and ineffectiveness of abstinence only education. Nobody is saying tell kids to go have sex, they are saying tell them "Look, the only sure fire way to not get pregnant or get a disease is to not have sex. Really, the best idea is to wait, it is much, much safer. You do NOT want a kid right now whil you are still a kid yourself. However, if you are going to have sex, here's how to be safe about it."
Same shit for drugs.
I don't understand. Are you outraged that this guy spent $50,000 to support Prop 19? Do you realize alcohol and tobacco companies spend millions every year, funding anti-marijuana commercials? Why do you think that is? They don't want competition from another legal intoxicant. Despite the fact that alcohol is proven to cause brain damage (Korsakov's Syndrome etc.) and cigarettes kill thousands of people every year. Tobacco companies tried to do the same thing with clove cigarettes; they actually succeeded in several states. Or consider the hundreds of millions spent annually by the DEA and local law enforcement agencies to fight this "killer weed". Are these tax payer dollar's really being well spent? I can understand that you have an issue with people buying legislation, but this guy's $50,000 splurge is nothing compared to the hundreds of millions spent by corporations every year to lobby for legislation that they stand to benefit from. One example is private prisons. They spend millions lobbying for stricter drug laws. Why? To increase their business. Does it seem right that a private corporation can buy legislation that puts thousands of non-violent offenders behind bars, just so they can increase profits? We have definitely lost control of our country, but it isn't to the potheads.
We do need laws to protect citizen's property and well being. If someone steals your television, stalks you, mugs you, or blows up your business, that hurts you. How does someone buying a joint and smoking it in their house hurt you? How does someone paying money for a woman to have sex with them hurt you?
Your right to swing your fist ends at my nose. But you should have the right to swing your fist if you're not hurting anyone else. Punch yourself in the face for all I care!
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
If your children are as stupid as Carl Sagan, I think you're darn lucky.
While the extra tax revenue doesn't hurt, that isn't where most of the money is gained on this.
Consider the ridiculously huge number of people in prison for a harmless crime, and the fact that many of them get longer sentences than rapists. Now figure out what it costs to incarcerate them at taxpayer expense. (Hint: we have 106% of Canada's crime per capita, but 616% of their prison population per capita.*) Now calculate the lost labor from having them rot in prison instead of doing something productive. Now add in the cost of paying all of those cops who do pretty much nothing but go after potheads. Now add in the huge amount of Mexican border security needed vs. drug gangs with the power of small armies, which get all their money from... yep, pot. This goes way, way, into the billions. Not throwing all that money away would make a huge difference. Any tax revenue gained from selling it legally is just a bonus.
* - Here's my sources on those 2 statistics I quoted:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
As for the dealers selling it tax free? The dealers are out of the picture. They can't keep up with the prices a large-scale commercial operation is going to be able to sell it at. When's the last time you purchased alcohol from a dealer on the street, vs. one of the 97 gazillion liquor stores? If you're most people, the answer is "never." Now sure, some set up their own mini-distillery (or get some from a neighbor who does), and they obviously aren't paying tax on it, but that's such a ridiculously small minority that it's statistically insignificant - and even most of the ones who do that don't use it as their sole supply due to the sheer impracticality of producing large amounts of beer with something you made in your basement.
Last but not least, in additional to the many billions we wouldn't be throwing away, we'd be some lives by weakening the gangs up here, and a LOT of lives in Mexico, where the drug lords pretty much own the country thanks to the virtually limitless income they're making from US pot users.
I don't smoke pot... it simply doesn't appeal to me. However, it's actually *less* harmful than alcohol, in that it's quite possible to OD on alcohol (although you generally have to be pretty stupid to manage that), while it's physically impossible to OD on pot. As for the short-term impairment of being under the influence of either, I don't really see one being significantly worse than the other. The only issue I'd have is people driving while high, and we already have DUI laws to cover that. Just add an "or pot" everywhere those laws mention alcohol.
if this were the case, everyone would spend 100% of their time looking at politics. Even politics junkies can't keep up with the amount of shit that flows every day from lobbying groups and other well funded think tanks, how can a regular person separate the wheat from the chaff?
Then teach your children not to buy it. It's not the government's responsibility.
And strip voting rights at age 75 or so.
Not giving 17 year olds the right to vote even if the individual is fully capable is justified on the basis that too many 17 year olds are too inept to vote.
Well too many elderly are even more incompetent.
The elderly vote in droves yet nobody falls for FUD like the elderly.
I've know some over 75 individuals with sharp minds who don't fall for FUD but the vast majority, the VAST VAST majority of people seem to get rapidly stupid once in their 70's and become afraid of everything in the universe, particularly anything new or anything involving the young.
It'll suck for the minority of OAP's who are not gone in the head but tough luck, they can join the competent teenagers.
Our whole capitalistic society is founded on the notion that people with assets are the ones most qualified to make decisions for the rest of us. So what's the problem with buying legislation?
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I think you have the terms a bit mixed up. "Decriminalize" means it is still illegal for anyone to possess the substance, but that the penalties for smaller amounts are fines rather than jail time. "Legalize" includes a status like alcohol or tobacco, with sales restricted to those above a certain age. Proposition 19 would set that age at 21. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_19_(2010)#Authorization_of_criminal_and_civil_penalties).
I think most supporters of Prop 19 and THC legalization in general would agree that THC should not be available for sale to children. Implying otherwise is a strawman argument that makes opposition to the Proposition seem more reasonable by re-framing the terms involved.
You don't have to keep up with 100% of it. A mere 20% would be enough to tell you who is full of shit.
Here's a hint: they likely have an R or a D after their name on the ballot.
If everyone voted in 100% of elections, cared enough to research every candidate and initiative, had access to solid information on the issues and candidates, and was educated enough to navigate through FUD when finding that information, then it would not be possible to "buy" a seat or referendum, because any money used creating FUD would just be poured down a hole and any money spent on GOTV would be useless.
That's one approach, but solid information? The only information out there (short of first-hand knowledge) is provided via the television airwaves. And most of that is in the form of soundbites, superficial coverage, and/or ads. If the cheering that's heard when someone predicts the imminent death of newspapers is any indication, I'd suggest people like it that way.
So if people are going to get their information from the TV, a better approach would be for the networks to meet their obligations to the public and provide free air time for candidates. The high cost of running for office is almost entirely attributable to the high cost of television advertising campaigns. Remove the need to raise that money, and you've removed the corrosive influence of money in politics. From a randomly selected article
So you personally know that no Pot is grown in the USA?
Where did you learn this?
A more fitting title to this summary would be "Billionaire Donates (at most) 1/14,285th of his money to support Prop 19"
I'm glad actually that he donated, but just be nice if we were told what exactly this $50,000 was going to accomplish.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. - Einstein
Our whole capitalistic society is founded on the notion that people with assets are the ones most qualified to make decisions for the rest of us.
Wrong. Capitalism is founded on the notion that people with assets are the ones most qualified to make decisions regarding themselves and their own assets. Not other people or their assets. That's the meaning of "private ownership".
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
And when the drug cartels, finding the pot business no longer lucrative, move on over to cocaine etc.. what then?
As long as there is something that's outlawed, there will be outlaws performing it. If you legalize it, those (and others) will move on over to the next outlawed thing. Legalizing something to take away the raison d'etra for these cartels won't work. Legalizing booze didn't make the mob vanish. They moved on over to coke and gambling. It took concerted effort from the FBI to stamp them out.
I support legalizing pot - I think it's less harmful than the two current legal drugs - tobacco and alcohol. But I don't for a second believe that we'll solve the mexico drug war by legalizing it. it'll only get worse because they'll be pushing cocaine. The drug cartels have to be taken on just like the FBI took on the mob.
1. If alcohol is legal pot should be too. The former has far more potential for harm than the latter.
2. Half the population feels or has felt the law is contemptible and contemptible laws breed contempt for the law.
3. Pot should be regulated much the same as alcohol and cigarettes, in your home or licensed establishment. Obviously, one should not drive or engage in other potentially harmful activities when stoned. Common sense must prevail.
4. If governments wish, the level of THC in the product could be regulated in order to prevent ever more potent strains from being engineered.
5. Don't expect a huge tax windfall from legalizing pot, the stuff is dirt cheap to produce because it grows like a weed. Pun intended. Once the risk is removed, absent government mandated pricing competition will drive prices through the floor just like the rest of agriculture.
6. Stop putting people in jail for smoking pot. It makes no sense when places like California have such huge budgetary issues. A ballot initiative should be put to the people, de-criminalize or tax increase proportional to the cost of keeping all those locked up for the offense in jail. Halting the lock ups is really the only area you will see savings from legalization.
7. If Pot is legalized, then discourage smoking as a delivery method... Smoking is still harmful to your health.
8. At some point, it will happen so why not be ahead of the curve? The benefit is generally the greatest for the early adopter of these sorts of things.
9. No system is perfect. The best we can do is always try to make things better!
Actually, This guy spent $20 000, and then another $50 000, and another Facebook co-founder spent $100 000. For a total of $170 000.
Marijuana legalization isn't just for the potheads, they already have easy access to pot. It's for the rest of us who are sick and tired of paying billions of dollars to tell people what to do with their own bodies, and are sick of the violence that comes from the black market which prohibition encourages.
And when the drug cartels, finding the pot business no longer lucrative, move on over to cocaine etc.. what then?
Do you think the drug cartels aren't already dealing cocaine? Removing cannabis from their inventory will only serve to reduce the amount of money flowing into their coffers. That will in turn reduce the amount of power that they can wield over the government, law enforcement, and the general public.
have illegal aliens living in your nearby forests dumping pesticides
What? They, like, come over illegally, buy pesticides, and go dump them in the forest?
You can't take the sky from me...
You have it backwards. Only the fact that there are illegal drugs makes it possible for criminals to make money from them. Doing drugs may harm yourself, but they don't harm anyone else. Virtually all the harm caused by illegal drugs is a by product of the drugs being illegal.
How many people has the war on drugs stopped from getting drugs? Zero.
Has the war on drugs made it easier or harder for kids to get drugs? Easier as criminals do not generally check IDs or have generally good ethical behavior.
Has the war on drugs made criminals so rich they can destabilize small countries? Yes.
Has the war on drugs caused more harm than the drugs being banned? Yes.
While there is no doubt that some drugs can totally screw you up, making drugs legal has not increased the number of people doing drugs. Some people are risk takers. Some people are just stupid. But making drugs illegal has NOT stopped anyone from getting them. It has made a ton of money for the violent criminals.
Prohibition always fails.
Anarchists never rule
drug users in general, are people that are comfortable subsidizing the crimes against humanity being committed in Mexico and other regions with drug related violence.
I'm not sure I really understand why it is that this makes the prohibitionists bad and the users good.
Because the the prohibitionists are giving the criminals a monopoly on the product and it is the highest level of hypocrisy to pretend that the users are comfortable with this situation, especially in a thread about efforts to rectify this travesty of justice.
You can't take the sky from me...
Yeah, but you couldn't go to war at 17, either. When I was 16 and 17 my dad was still filing me as a dependent and payed taxes I owed (how that is handled varies state-to-state).
Personally, I think it is absurd to have a 21 drinking age, so also a 21 pot smoking age seems silly, too. We should legalize and tax all drugs, ditch the expensive drug war, start educating people about how dangerous some of these substances are, and make zero tolerance DUI laws. Note that I don't do drugs, so I have no vested interest in this outside of tax money.
Sorry, but you're wrong on several accounts.
Firstly, under 18's aren't allowed to vote not because they're inept or stupid, but because, theoretically, their minds are still developing, they're succeptible to manipulation and they are not responsible for their actions. That's why we don't let young people drink or stand trial. I don't fully agree with this (eg. gangs of 14 year olds who get away with rape and murder, even though they know full well what they're doing), but that's the way it is.
Secondly, the fact that old people become "stupid" or ignorant of the changing society is irrelevent. Particularly in the US but prevalent in all western democracies, all citizens have the right to vote, whether they're black, female, immigrants, disabled or just stupid. Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if stupid people weren't allowed to vote. Or even better, wouldn't it be nice if people could only vote if they agreed with [my opinion], because [I] couldn't possible be wrong. That kind of thinking is the reason democracies let everyone vote. Yeah, the elderly are racist, ignorant, and always falling for scams and FUD. Right, because the super-smart people of slashdot would never fall for FUD like, say, the thousands of baseless anti-Microsoft articles and comments.
Thirdly, your major failure is assuming that only under 18s and over 70s contain vast, vast majorities of stupidity. In my experience, stupidity knows no bounds.
Bingo! Legalization would instantly defund the Mexican cartels. As it stands today their is a huge war going on just south of our border and we're doing very little about it. Pirates (yes real ones) kill a man jet skiing on a border lake just a couple weeks ago. Then yesterday a US citizen was killed riding a bus in Mexico on his way to see some family members. It's been reported that the Mexican police are saying they only maybe protect busses from sun up to 2pm. WTF? It's getting to the point where Iraq is going to be a safer place.
This also ignores all the kidnappings that happen in Mexico and are spilling out into Phoenix. Last I checked, Phoenix was only 2nd in kidnappings in the WORLD right behind Mexico city.
I have no idea why more Americans are not outraged by this and the USs overall non-response. If we even think we see a Taliban over in Iraq/Afghanistan we rain hell down on them, but we have citizens getting killed and kidnapped right here and we don't even bat an eye.
No dipstick. The moderators and I are both aware of the fact that Marijuana was originally illegalized because it was the number one textile crop in America at the time. And as such, it existed as the primary competition to wood, cotton, and oil. Look up "The Marijuana Trick" on Youtube, and you'll find out the truth: That Marijuana was made illegal so that William Randolph Hearst didn't lose MILLIONS (back when a Million dollars was an OBSCENE amount of dough) on his thousands of square acres of woodland due to hemp existing as a competing textile to wood in the paper-pulp industry, DuPont didn't lose MILLIONS due to the fact that Hempinol was fueling our cars,and making plastics from hemp seed oil, and that cotton farmers didn't lose MILLIONS because we were getting by making Levi's (and other clothing)out of Hemp fiber. This has been the single biggest FACT left out of 95% of every American history class taught since the 1920's! Mostly because the Yellow Press (named as such due to the rapid oxidation rate of newspapers printed on wood-pulp paper...as well as it's inherent sensationalism) succeeded in demonizing Hemp by calling it "Marijuana", and "Hashish", and convincing everyone that Mexicans, and Negros were driven to rape white women under it's influence.
As many farmers were relatively under-educated by today's standards, they unknowingly nagged congress and the senate to ban the crops growing in their own fields, and feeding their families. Although it hasn't been officially stated as such, I feel that this also brought about the "Great Depression" due to so much of this country's economy being dependent on the production, refinement, sale, and export of "hemp", before it was made illegal as "marijuana". One can only hope that California will lead this country back to a sane path by reigniting the flame of industrial hemp as a by-product of their attempt to legalize marijuana.
-Oz
Capitalism is the notion that a few individuals should be allowed to accumulate large quantities of limited resources which in effect means they get to dictate to the society that needs those resources. The Golden Rule, as it were.