Get Pot Legalization Right

[bobandtorey]

Prediction: Recreational marijuana use will be legal in Michigan within two years. The door that cracked with the approval of medical pot use is now wide open. A Detroit News/WDIV-TV poll finds that 56 percent of state residents favor legalizing marijuana for general use.

That will embolden backers of petition drives aimed at getting marijuana legalization on the November 2016 ballot. If the issue makes it on the ballot, it will pass.

But it should be done right. The problem with the medical pot authorization is that it kept too many trappings of the illegal drug trade in place. For example, the pot is produced for the most part not by commercial growers but by the patients themselves, or their caregivers. And it’s sold primarily in single purpose outlets that could pass as head shops.

That’s led to constant confusion about where the line between legal and illegal falls, and has landed a lot of well-intentioned people in jail.

 

 

If pot is legalized, it should be treated exactly as is alcohol. It should be produced by licensed commercial facilities. When prohibition ended, bath tub gin and moonshine stills pretty much disappeared; so should backyard pot plots. The content should be controlled by state regulation, just like it is for whiskey, wine and beer. And it should be sold in mainstream outlets that are licensed and inspected.

Handling it like alcohol would protect children. It’s easier for a kid now to buy a bag of weed than it is a six-pack of Bud because state law has removed alcohol from the underground economy.

Legalization is coming. Michigan should start preparing to get it right.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/columnists/nolan-finley/2015/06/17/editor-note-finley-pot-legalization/28820603/

 

 

[cristinew]

 just like it is for whiskey, wine and beer.  ????   You can make beer and wine at home ,  dummies,

[bobandtorey]

Sounds like everyone but us and the MMMA want our grow rights 

[cristinew]

Kids  get booze now also  I do not know what this guy is talking about.

[trichcycler]

its bobs fault !  how could you post such rubbish ! 

[t-pain]

more prohibitionists that want to keep weed illegal.

[ozzrokk]

Kids  get booze now also  I do not know what this guy is talking about.

 

 

And neither does he...................

[t-pain]

everyone hates that nolan finley guy at the det news.

 

who reads newspapers anymore? weird.

[AmishRnot4ganja]

This sounds like the opening salvo in the advertising battle that will ensue when three legalization proposals are placed on the ballot. This is obviously coming from those Republican money grubbers who want to monopolize the marijuana business in Michigan.

[bobandtorey]

Theirs money in cannabis as we all know but how many pieces can someone get from one pie ?

[Restorium2]

Sounds like Schuette. 

[bobandtorey]

Thanks 

 

You should not be calling people names 

[Chauncy Gardner]

They really have to stop with the comparing cannabis to hard liquor. There are no similarities between the two. These ignorant idiots who spout off about the need for cannabis to be regulated  like liquor do not have the faintest idea of what they are talking about.

[medmanmike]

They really have to stop with the comparing cannabis to hard liquor. There are no similarities between the two. These ignorant idiots who spout off about the need for cannabis to be regulated  like liquor do not have the faintest idea of what they are talking about.

Neither is gambling, cigarettes or other "vices".  It's all they know.  The need for control, but without "thinking" about it.  Just throw the same 'ol, same 'ol (tax and regulate) at them.  

[t-pain]

Can grow your own tobacco and roll your own cigarettes,

Why not regulate like tobacco?

[trichcycler]

sure can, but you cannot sell it processed, only legal in its whole/raw form I believe, without the tax stamps/permits/etc

[2d]

sure can, but you cannot sell it processed, only legal in its whole/raw form I believe, without the tax stamps/permits/etc

That would work for cannabis quite well IMHO