Apr 03, 2009 10:52
If you follow the history of tobacco regulation in the United States, you will see a proficient model by which to regulate marijuana use in the US. If regulated, marijuana smokers would pay higher taxes to smoke marijuana; smokers could only smoke in designated places, and smokers would be banned from smoking marijuana in public spaces, like city parks, hospitals, courthouses, schools, ball parks, stadiums, coliseums, movie theaters, public markets, in cars with children, nursing homes, museums, and restaurants and bars, among other places. Ultimately, as tobacco smokers are finding out today (especially with the authority granted by the federal government for the Food & Drug Administration to commence regulating tobacco use in the US) smoking marijuana would only be allowed in the house. Thusly, usage still occurs, but rights are limited concerning where a user may ingest the substance.
The history of tobacco regulation in the US provides a shortcut to marijuana regulation. In other words, the federal government could easily set any substance into the model of regulation which currently quarters tobacco, a model which has been constructed innately by tobacco. To clarify, imagine substituting marijuana for tobacco; superimpose the marijuana over the model and you will see that marijuana can easily be regulated just as tobacco is regulated.
I'm not talking about legalizing marijuana use; I'm talking, properly, or more progressively illegalizing marijuana. The intent is to alleviate the pressure on our justice, aerate US prisons and jails, as well as reducing the crime along the Mexican border by castrating the call for Latin American shit weed.
Ultimately the goal is to spend more efficiently and to reduce taxes. Regulating marijuana using the model of federal tobacco regulation enables the US to relinquish certain current federal pecuniary behaviors.