Here are just a few ways that society is negatively affected by cannabis prohibition:
Increased Organized Crime: The stronger prohibition is enforced, the more the black market can profit from it. The higher the profit for cannabis, the more attractive it becomes as a black market item. Larger and more sophisticated organized crime operations are the result. The larger the operation, the greater the damage to people in society.
Corruption of Public Officials: The number of corrupt public officials is staggering. Some are making money through allowing black market imports, while others make money through prison investments. A significant number are making money from pharmaceutical investments and the chemical companies that supply them. The end of cannabis prohibition means a drastic cut or complete end to these profits they’re ruining their lives with. Since they are ignorant of the damage these disgusting practices do to them, they will cling to these sources of income desperately.
Dangerous Infrastructure Construction: Pre-employment and random drug testing can detect cannabis in urine up to 28 or more days. Cocaine, methamphetamines and alcohol are only detectable for a few days. Those are the drugs construction workers, truck drivers and many other professional use instead of cannabis. They use them while building the infrastructure of our nation, hauling heavy toxic loads and establishing policy in the capital.
Was the building you are in right now built by someone high on cocaine, or a drunk worker? Was that toxic load being hauled by a meth-head? Take it from someone who has worked many construction sites and has known a lot of professional drivers, you want your infrastructure built using cannabis, not alcohol, methamphetamines (adderall) or cocaine(ritalin).
Health Issues Due to Contaminated Cannabis: Banned pesticides and chemicals, particle and chemical contaminates, heavy metals, regular metals and more… The majority of the cannabis in the united states these days is disgustingly contaminated. Instead of sweet and delicious cannabis the public is subjected to moldy, poorly grown and handled cannabis.
Contamination is started by ignorance and fueled by greed. With prohibition prices it is significantly more profitable to grow cannabis cheap and dirty. Since it’s mostly grown for profit it is not grown for quality or cleanliness. There are a number of health issues cannabis is being blamed for, that are actually from the contaminates on and in the cannabis.
The health issues are not caused by the cannabis itself. Smoker’s cough/lung, ischemic strokes, vomiting every morning, ‘cannabis hyperemesis,’ and even speech impairment is common. People suffer from a growing number of cannabis related health issues, without realizing that contamination is the culprit, not the plant. Most of the time the people are not even aware that there is contamination present.
Children Being Taught Lying is “Ok”: Cannabis will always be used by the educated individuals in this world. Parents who have to hide their use from their children are teaching their children it is ok to hide things.
Those that have to lie to their children are teaching them that it is okay to lie. This results in the children learning that lying is okay. Raising children honestly and openly results in well balanced adults.
Debilitating Genetics of Prohibition Cannabis: The pressures of prohibition have directly led to CBDs being bred out of most commercially available strains. The result are extremely high THC strains with little to no CBD. The over use of these types of strains can lead to significant loss of motivation, manic episodes and even psychological issues from the temporary loss of mental capacity they can produce.
Though these effects can be extremely debilitating, they are only temporary and go away when the cannabis use is stopped or functional strains are used instead.
CBDs and certain terpenes have been proven to be what counteracts the psychotic episodes. That is why marinol, the synthetic THC, causes psychological issues in high doses as well. It is not a balanced, full plant extract, with enough CBD and the proper terpenes to counteract the psychoactive effects.
Removal of an Amazing Renewable Resource from Industry: In the 1930’s, hemp was about to become the first billion dollar crop in the united states. That was right before prohibition of cannabis started. Thousands of natural uses for hemp were identified, including paper, acrylics, clothing and fuel. Had cannabis not been prohibited, we would not be cutting down all the forests for paper. We would not be drilling for nearly as much oil and we sure would not be using so many animal products for clothing and cosmetics.
Tax Losses and Unnecessary Tax Spending: The state of Colorado is collecting $10 million in taxes a month on retail and medical cannabis sales. This figure does not include equipment sales taxes, employee state and federal taxes in cannabis industries and the thousands of other cannabis related industries that are beginning to emerge. In addition to losing taxes, the state and federal governments have been using a significant amount of other tax monies to ‘enforce’ prohibition. This is a double drain on city, county and state coffers. The difference has been made up in tax collection from the good citizens of the land.
Health Care Corruption: Cannabis was and is one of the most powerful medicines on the planet. As was predicted by medical professionals in 1937, the removal of cannabis as a medicine from the public has caused a huge healthcare crisis. A healthcare crisis so large that we are now ordered in the USA, as tax paying citizens, to pay for the continuation of this corrupt system.
This crisis has been made worse by the growing number of toxic prescription medications. Medications that would not have been researched or produced if cannabis was still available to the public. These body/mind damaging drugs are being given to children and infants and the side effects are horrible.
The USA, for all the money and time spent on health, is not even in the top 10 nations for health care.
Disrespect for Law Enforcement: Anyone with a full education on cannabis can tell you how ridiculous and harmful it is to prohibit the use of cannabis. Having law enforcement that is convinced cannabis is harmful sends the message that law enforcement isn’t that bright. It’s a huge disrespect to be ‘law enforced’ on a subject the officer is completely ignorant of. Not only ignorant but, in this day and age of information availability, staunchly ignorant through refusing to look up the truth.
A ten minute education on cannabis will reveal that it was prohibited originally over money and continues for the same reasons today. Then we are told they are just ‘doing their job’, making law enforcement seem as if they have no ability to think for themselves. Really, prohibition makes law enforcement officers look like mindless uniformed thugs enforcing mobster rules.
Disrespect for Religion: Religions that preach against cannabis suffer the same fate as law enforcement officials that remain ignorant. The bible, a book widely touted by American religious fanatics, contains a recipe for medicinal cannabis oil called “Holy Anointing Oil”. The cannabis ingredient has been conveniently ‘mis-translated’ to ‘calamus’. When the oil is made with calamus, as modern religions say, it produces a toxic oil. According to webmd.com Calamus is likely to cause kidney damage, shaking, and seizures.
The FDA prohibits calamus use in food products because three of the four species of calamus found in the world contain a cancer causing chemical called beta-isoasarone. When the same oil is made using cannabis, it produces a healing oil, the anointing oil Jesus used to heal people. A healing oil that works better than any prescription you can get out of a pharmacy. You decide which translation is correct.
Glorification of Gang Members: The ridiculous gangster rappers all identify with massive cannabis use and drug sales. The money that comes from selling cannabis in black market areas leads to the formation of gangs and organized crime as previously stated. Gang members are personified as cannabis and drug dealers that have lots of money, women, drugs and guns.
This personification is very confusing to children and many children fail miserably at attempting to pursue the fantasy being pushed as reality.
Criminal Justice System Overload: In 2014, over 50% of the inmates in just the federal prison system were incarcerated for drug offenses. 27% of those incarcerated for drugs were sentenced for cannabis related offenses. That’s approximately 25,000 people’s worth of taxes that were paid out for law enforcement time/resources to arrest and hold prisoners. That includes court staff wages for judge(s), attorneys and various support personnel. Additional court space for the additional case load for drug offenses, incarceration costs including food, clothing, psychiatric, guards, janitors and so on and so forth.
Federalregister.org states that in 2013 it cost approximately $30k per inmate per year to keep someone in prison. That is just the paltry federal inmate population, between 2001 and 2010 the police departments of our wonderful nation arrested over 8.2 million people for cannabis. Nine out of 10 of those arrests were for simple possession. In 2011 there were more arrests for cannabis than for all violent crimes put together.
Denied Access to Cheap Renewable Fuel: Take the seeds of the cannabis/hemp plant, squeeze the oil out and filter it. You can pour that into any diesel engine and it will run beautifully. Bio-fuel from corn is a joke. It rapes the land and produces ridiculously low amounts of bio-diesel, but someone definitely made money from that scam.
Rather run alcohol? Hemp produces thousands more gallons per acre than corn does. Alcohol and Hemp Oil are both renewable resources that burn more cleanly than gasoline or diesel fuel.
Take all the advantages gas has over alcohol and then go look up the contaminates that each contributes to the environment and how those contaminates affect humans and plants.
Alcohol burning produces CO2 (the CO2 the cannabis plant used up when growing) and water vapor. Beat that, petroleum!
Texanstogether.org against dioxin
Poisoning Our Planet: It takes shredded hemp, water and starch to make a high grade paper. Wood requires processing with toxic chemicals that decimate nature. Take a look around for paper industry contamination (dioxins) and you’ll see the massive damage that has been done to the environment, in the name of wood based paper products.
Paper is one single example. Keep looking for more examples and the horror builds.
Cannabis is a natural and superior product, replaced by chemical/synthetic materials created through mostly toxic processes. There are so many products that we come in contact with in our daily lives that cause damage to create that can be replaced with a gentler process and cannabis/hemp as the renewable resource to make them with.
This is Only a Partial List...
This is only a partial list of how your life is impacted by cannabis prohibition. The impact on the environment and society that prohibition of cannabis/hemp has is criminal.
The #1 thing prohibition has accomplished is significantly contributing to the creation of a physically and mentally ill society.
In fact, the pressures of prohibition have created a situation that tends to breed individuals seeking escape. The high THC, low CBD created through prohibition pressures have evolved to provide that escape and there are many people flocking to them.
The irony is that the more high CBD cannabis people use, the less societies ills tend to bother them and the less desire they have for “prohibition cannabis.” The longer they use high CBD cannabis, the more healthy, responsible, capable, dependable and productive they become.
Ending prohibition of cannabis will create more awareness. Here is hoping awareness increases because it will lead to significant decreases of corruption in society.
Keep it Clean!
I wrote this several months ago, I wanted to add Medicare Savings.
In 2013, 17 states had medicinal cannabis programs, they saved an estimated $150 Million in Medicare prescription drug costs.
An estimated $500M would have been saved if all 50 states were legalized cannabis states.
These numbers are significant, because they represent the massive savings of only a small percentage of the population. Remember that there is still a severe social stigma, a great many people will not use cannabis until federal regulations are loosened. (regardless of state law)
Once federal legalization comes about, we can expect to see significant health boosts in the nation, lowered prescription costs through Medicare alone of over 1 Billion/year and a much, MUCH more tolerant society.
Good things are coming!
Since you mentioned "obvious" word, captain just couldn't resist...
https://steemit.com/fun/@cryptotony/naked-capt-obvious
I have underage eyes watching my screen, I have to say I didn't click. lol
hehe :)
did you notice the downvote on my "Cannabis is non-addictive" article?
I wonder what comment they 'wanted' to post, yet didn't. eh? lol Hope they do, eventually. Lot of bad information out there that needs to be put straight.