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Comment by William Poole
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Should we legalize cannabis in a fascist society?


The government wants to regulate every last aspect of the cannabis trade, including what seeds the growers can use. This means they will not only steal your money, they will also control what kind of stuff you get. Monsanto is already making GMO cannabis seeds called terminators that you cannot reproduce, their main form of control over other agricultural industries.


The pot legalization movement in this country is just another attack on the free market. It's probably the only industry left that enjoys zero tax and regulation. Every dollar that is spent on domestic cannabis is returned to our economy, and not one cent to some bureaucrat. It's all real money returned to the economy, because there are no parasitic politicians sucking from the financial stream. This is changing already with medical marijuana laws that favor centralized businesses they can partner with, over small, unregulated farmers (ex. 25 mile rule in AZ, tax law in Washington state...). We are already seeing a trend in the food industry, where consumers deliberately seek out unregulated food from their local farmers to feed their families over the supposed safe groceries from the store. This is another example of a truly free market, and it is under attack as well. Legislation across the country is already being pushed to outlaw any farmer to consumer transactions that would bypass the USDA and/or FDA.

If Washington state got it's way and taxed cannabis 25%, that 25% was meant for either extra profits for the business, or as extra cash in the consumers pocket. If the politicians are set on stealing from these businesses and consumers like they do with every other industry, then maybe legalization isn't the best option. Keeping it illegal will retain at least one good product for the “underground free market”. Consider decriminalization. This is where they take away cannabis' criminal status, yet it's still illegal. So you get an anarcho-capitalist situation where no corporation or government can touch the industry, hence it's anti-fascist by definition. Local growers become the only source of the product. One might argue, “well what about the cartels??” First of all, Monsanto and Phillip Morris are the worst cartels of all, and that's who you will be purchasing your GMO pot from if they get the legalization they are pushing for. Second of all, Mexican import was necessary because domestic U.S. Growers hadn't figured things out yet, and concerning controlled indoor horticulture, the technology hadn't caught up yet either. This has been changing ever since northern California started supplying the country with the finest outdoor, and technology and experience for the indoor scene has made huge leaps. Also new medical marijuana laws have helped more people take away the fear of growing, but that's because these laws are just another form of decriminalization. Federal legalization on the horizon isn't the cause for the reduction in Mexican import, its the domestic competition combined with consumer demand for better, local medicine.


Now legalizing it on a state level, without the federal government's approval, might have the same effect as decriminalization. Recently a legal analyst, Stuart Taylor, weighed in on what would happen if the federal government were to continue treating marijuana as a schedule 1 drug:


“a federal crackdown would backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain.”


Now this might be the only way a free market can flourish in a controlled economy.

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