quote:

ORIGINAL: Thadius

quote:

ORIGINAL: rachel529

a pack of cigarettes costs roughly 25 cents to manufacture from start to finish.  that same pack if full of joints would be worth 100 dollars on the street.  make 80 of it tax.... plus the savings in your police, dea, and prison system? deficit goes poof

Making it legal would also drop the street value (no risk = no need to retain lawyers, etc...). Taxing it would be a great winfall, however I am not sure it would offset the current money made from seizures, rehab, and penalties.

They just opened a pot superstore out in California, complete with a doctor right next door. CBS story on Pot Superstore

Who knows, maybe it will become a national chain.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin

My suspicion is aside from the Dutch, nobody will legalise pot for the simple reason that they need people working to make the economy work, how many pot heads will be working every day, all day....yeah man, I will think about getting work tommorrow man, but today I just can't be bothered...perhaps ok now there is unemployment, but what about when the country gets moving again, there won't be a work force that can be bothered.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aneirin

My suspicion is aside from the Dutch, nobody will legalise pot for the simple reason that they need people working to make the economy work, how many pot heads will be working every day, all day....yeah man, I will think about getting work tommorrow man, but today I just can't be bothered...perhaps ok now there is unemployment, but what about when the country gets moving again, there won't be a work force that can be bothered.

quote:

ORIGINAL: AnimusRex

The city of Colorado Springs decends into financial chaos, as streetlights are turned off, police and firemen are laid off, and parks go unmowed and unwatered.

From the article:
Though officials and citizens put public safety above all in the budget, police and firefighting still lost more than $5.5 million this year. Positions that will go empty range from a domestic violence specialist to a deputy chief to juvenile offender officers. Fire squad 108 loses three firefighters. Putting the helicopters up for sale and eliminating the officers and a mechanic banked $877,000.

Turning out the lights, literally, is one of the high-profile trims aggravating some residents. The city-run Colorado Springs Utilities will shut down 8,000 to 10,000 of more than 24,000 streetlights, to save $1.2 million in energy and bulb replacement.

Hansen, the criminal-justice student, grows especially exasperated when recalling a scary incident a few years ago as she waited for a bus. She said a carload of drunken men approached her until the police helicopter that had been trailing them turned a spotlight on the men and chased them off. Now the helicopter is gone, and the streetlight she was waiting under is threatened as well.

"I don't know a person in this city who doesn't think that's just the stupidest thing on the planet," Hansen said. "Colorado Springs leaders put patches on problems and hope that will handle it."


Somewhere, Ayn Rand is having an orgasm.

Her first.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Moonhead

Will the private response ambulances be able to pick them up and get them to hospital without an evil central government to pay to maintain the roads, though?

You're dead right about these fuckwits not having a clue about how much money it costs just to keep the basic foundation of society running, and how no fucker's going to pay for any of it without a government to tax them, though.