i 
one canadian in particular
rymyx said:
I don't think anyone from south of Chicago should ever be president in that country.
Yeah....there is a LOT of America underneath Chicago. Including Springfield, Illinois, where Abraham Lincoln was from. So I'm rather content letting people south of Chicago contend for the presidency.
That having been said.
The decriminalization of pot is trickier in the US than in Canada. And there has been a movement toward this for some time now. The way people are getting this moved is in two separate movements that are adjacent to one another.
The first movement is the legalization of hemp. It's insane that we don't grow it. It's a $200 billion industry annually, and yet the US won't grow it. The banning of hemp growth was brought about by two people/things. The first is William Randolph Hearst who at the time of the criminalization of growing hemp owned 80% of the newspapers in America - pretty influencial. The second -and prehaps the more pertinent- is the Dupont special interest group. At the time, they had the patent on polyester, a new material that was pliable and cheap to make. If hemp wasn't made illegal to grow, the Dupont company would have more competition, so it used its big business might to influence Washington.
Now, the argument is being made that if we grow hemp, it will be too hard to control because hemp and marijuana look exactly alike. Hemp, however, can be grown up to a density of 200-300 stalks per square meter. Marijuana, however, must be grown 4 feet apart, because only the female marijuana plant can be smoked, and if it is fertilized by males, the "smokability" is taken out of the plant. So, it seems like one could tell the difference rather easily.
The way to get hemp growth legalized is through states movements. A petition is put forward to ask the voters on the ballots if they want to legalize hemp growth in their state. Minnesota passed this I think 6 years ago. But South Dakota (a state that would benefit from hemp growth) voted it down over and over, it lost in this past election with 80% of voters voting against it. I think there are 12 states that have voted for the legalization of hemp growth. However, since it is a federal law that one can't grow hemp, individual states legalizing it does nothing. Once there are enough states that pass the legislation (26 or so), they can petition Congress saying that the majority of states wants it and we should make it legal to grow hemp. The states will probably ally with the EPA and the Department of the Interior to argue their point.
The argument that's being made adjacent to this is the movement for the decriminalization of marijuana. Right now, molesting a child, holding up a gas station (without a weapon), and stealing a car all have the same potential penalty as carrying X-amount (I don't know how much, since I'm not a dealer lol) of pot on you. The movement wants to make posession of marijuana just like a speeding ticket...you get the ticket, and the worst punishment is a night or two in jail - not a year or three in prison.
The decriminilization of pot has a long ways to go in its argument, because most people assimilate it to the
legalization of pot, which it, by no means is.
I don't really care for marijuana, but who am I to deny someone else that? Marijuana is the least harmful of the illicit drugs, and so it seems odd that the government classifies it with heroin.
But I think we should make the legal drinking age 18 first.
Is that what you were looking for?
