Marijuana growers are destroying U.S. National Forests

[suz1002]

National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

Mexican marijuana cartels sully US forests, parks - Yahoo! News

[hefler]

Technically, marijuana prohibition itself is what is destroying US national forests. Growing marijuana is what's called a "malum prohibitum", which is a little bit of Latin that means something is only a crime in the eyes of the state rather than an actual crime -- an invasive offense against person or property. As such, the actions of growers in evading such unjust laws are their prerogative in any sane ethical analysis. As the public lands under discussion are the de facto property of the state and it is the states laws that have created the situation in question, the growers have no liability, from an ethical perspective, for damages resulting to those lands.

[August]

Evil plant.

[mellow_hendrix]

Legalize it so we can regulate how/where its grown and tax it appropriately. If there's a minor uptick in marijuana-abuse (which I would doubt given how ubiquitous it is now) then the added tax revenue + the savings in prohibition costs can be directed towards rehab programs.

[August]

I'm in complete agreement with MellowHendrix. And NO: it is not because I smoke joints. I got some problems doing that. It occurred to me, a couple of years ago, that it just wasn't any good on account of my psycho-social health, so I quit. But it remains my strong conviction that marijuana never made a person angry and violent in the same way as alcohol has a strong tendency of doing. But alcohol is a long standing part of the mainstream western culture, and that is the main reason why it is acceptable even to religious people.

[Windguy]

I guess there is two sides to the coin on dope, for various health, family and criminal reasons I haven't even seen the stuff in years. I won't touch the stuff because I'm already lazy and I eat too much without the munchies

What I will say is Australia has enacted laws where if a criminal "drug dealer" is living the high life because of his illegal earnings, they can have the taxation office investigate their lifestyle and assets and tax them on what is classed as unclaimed income. Some famous crims have got $2 mil bills from the tax office with gaol (jail) if they don't pay.

So there are ways of making the crims pay for their crime without the hard evidence of doing the crime.

[fireandrain]

"Marijuana is illegal for reasons that have nothing to do with it being a drug." -- Noam Chomsky

[August]

It's like an old friend of mine used to say: "If it is true to say that all those who are doing heroin has smoked pot at an earlier stage, it is equally true to say that all those who are smoking pot have been drinking coke at an earlier stage."

[Windguy]

August you'll have to watch a movie called "Reefer Madness", a 1937's educational/propaganda movie.

Because of the crap that was in it, such as marijuana leads to murder, it became a smash hit comedy of the seventies.

YouTube - Reefer Madness (1936)

Here's that movie in it's entirety. Have fun!

Why it was made? Because the US cotton industry felt threatened by what is a much better fibre.

[August]

That's more than an hour!