We need to stand up and fight

A study was done in Mass. about the effect of legalization. Its been a while since I looked at. I am sure you could do a search and find it. I did right down some of the results and I did check the back up information enough to know they had done their home work. The bottom line was that Mass. would save $24.3 MILLION DOLLARS just in State Costs for police. The total cost saving for all of the legal involved brings that savings to $120.6 Million Dollars.
They factored in a street value price decline because it would now be legal and based on Mass% of the total US population that would give them sales of $173.8 Million. The state income tax on those saleswould bring in $7.5 MILLION DOLLARS and the state sales tax @ 5.% would bring in another $8.7 MILLION DOLLARS for a total change of $137.5 MILLION DOLLARS and I'm sure you could do the rest of the math. This is just the savings for the state, what about local governments??
Short unemployment lines etc. etc. ITS THE ECONOMY

I don't foresee Bill Gates letting everyone know his toking habits. Too immediate a response (falling sales, stocks etc...) for a person to handle.
__________________Are you suggesting Bill Gates is a stoner?

The bottom line was that Mass. would save $24.3 MILLION DOLLARS just in State Costs for police. What are those police supposed to then, go look for the real criminals, rediculous. Or are they supposed to go look for a job?

Wait a minute I didn't tell you the rest of the plan. We put a Krispy Kream shop up with the saving, just to give them something to do. Oh wait a minute that wasn't it. Because MJ would now be legal you would have a whole lot of people in prison that will no longer belong there. Anyone that was convicted on MJ possesion and distribution only would be allowed to appeal for release. You would have about 1/2 of the police force and a lot of the court system available to do the necessary research to affect this. And just think of the tourist attraction you could make out of all the empty prisons. Of course @$23,000/ inmate and over 734,000 arrestsin the year 2000 and 88% charged with possession only tahts another saving of $14,856,160,000. BILLION DOLLARS. ITS THE ECONOMY!!

Victor...........
<marquee><font size=42pt>U R SOME KIND OF GENIUS</font></marquee>

rofl gotta start somewhere. Really the reason this is so important and must be done at the State level not the Federal level. Referendums.They bypass the politicians who would certainly get pressured by the liqour, tobacco, prescription drug and health care industries to stop any bills for legalizing MJ. It would seem that with all the information that is becoming available about MJ not being harmful everyone would understand the only intelligent thing to do is legalize. Instead of running experiments to prove the benefits of MJ, they are going to start testing with Medical LSD.
Yet when anyone questions 'them' and points out the benefits to some from MJ, they say there hasn't been enough research on MJ. I keep raising my hand to be a part of the experiment as long as I'm not in the placebo group.

Benefits?
lol ask whoever tha fuck smokes, stoners have loads information
....i for one could name quite a few really good benefits to smokin herb

All of us think we can but that doesn't really matter. ITS THE ECONOMY!! Or should I say its the economics. On a positive note, I was listening to NPR today, some of you may have heard of it, and guess what the governor is going to suggest in her State Of The State message on Tuesday. You see, there is a budget problem in the State Of Michigan {Theres that damn Economy again} and she is supposed to suggest releasing some people from prison that are non-violent offenders, like folk that are just there for Marijuana Possesion. I may even listen to her speech this year. She was born in Canada and we all know how crazy they are, most of them think Marijuana should be legal.

does anyone know how to start a petition like create it?

if so drop me an e-mail at [email protected]

i find what we can do is tell everyone the facts about weed i did with my mom and changed her mind towards weed. also i read that this year in congress there are going to be two decrimalizion bills presented, and i would like to point out that the democrats have the house and the senet so they have a chance.

i did the same thing with my mom

Lol my mom already smokes weed

.....

yeah, i got dope in my veins cuz of my moms. Michigan has a petition out right now. if it passes, it will only be a few more steps for decriminalization here; itll be legal to smoke and grow our own bud on private property

ive dont the math, as long as 12% of the voting population here smokes, it should be EASY. 12 percent, in this shitty economy, u know ppl r lightin it up every night around here

there are also some farm states really trying to get hemp (not the kind weed) legalized.. it would be considered an experimental crop and DEA has some expensive license requirements, you have to fence and GPS all areas.

Which is really stupid. The DEA doesn't seem to realize that Hemp will ruin a Marijuana crop. If you plant Hemp and MJ close to each other, the male hemp will pollinate the female MJ plants. When it does, over time it will remove the thc. And most of the MJ they say they have pulled out is really just hemp. Looks a lot like MJ, but it won't even give you a slight buzz. It just allows them to act like they are eliminating MJ crops.

Med I had a copy of the 2006 referendum. I was passing them out to people so they could collect signatures. We only needed something like 360,000 signatures and I couldn't wait to see it on the ballot. If you look back through this thread you will see how it was set up. And then I just didn't hear anymore about it.
I read an article about a month ago that stated that the language for a petition scheduled to be on the 2008 ballot had been approved. I can't seem to get a copy of it. I even asked MikeyZero, the head of the Oakland County NORML if he had a copy. I haven't received a response yet.
As I see it, the problem is we, the potheads, probably all react like I did. I was so sure that it would be on the 2006 ballot that I didn't pay enough attention to it. I think I had around a 100 signatures turned in. I thought others would do the same. Silly me.
I'm sure that a lot of growers would welcome this change, but would you believe, there are some that probably haven't looked at the referendum, that think it would put them out of business. I would pay the $1000.00 required to be a grower, and concentrate on the high end crops.
You could aslo look at the bill from Colorado. Thats where I got my $11.25 / quarter tax, they proposed $45.00/ oz. I did some thinking about this and here is how I saw it. In my area bud is readily available for about $150.00 per oz. Most of us poor folk can't afford to buy that much, we are all on some kind of a budget unlike the federal government. We buy our beer and cigarettes every week or we buy our pot and..whatever. You could set the price of a 1/4 oz @ $45.00. Us blue collar, rednecks would actually save $5.00 per week, a little less after after the 6% sales tax. And just like we do for the lottery, we could say it goes to support education or to eradicate the state deficit ( god I wish I could type) or to support....you name it. Now instead of supporting crime, by buying weed from them, we would put all of that Money into the state economy, and believe me, WE NEED TO.
I beleive all of the states must have some type of a referendum system. Its there so you can get things done that the politions don't have the backbone for. They believe they will lose thier jobs and a lot of the money they receive if they support MJ legalization. Go Figure.
The potheads fit in a lot of different groups or maybe not in any groups. Some of us have families and jobs that we think we might lose if we actually out ourselves and start campaining for Legalization. We think the police would be knocking our doors down, and worry later about weather or not the way they did it was legal. I know I'd have to shut down my grow show to campaign. I couldn't get rid of everything I have in a matter of hours. I do have tomato plants on one of the tables, maybe I could convince them that was all I was growing.lol

The last estimate I saw for Michigan's MJ crop said we are growing about 60,000# of MJ. If you set the price @ $45.00 per oz and the tax @ $11.25 it would create a new legal industry with sales of $172,800,000. MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. $43,200,000. in 'sintax' and another $10,368,000. @ 6% sales tax, and I'm not sure how you would figure out the tax on the additional $173MILLION DOLLARS IN 'new business'.
Then you start to realize that is not even the tip of the iceburg. The Mass. example that I posted earlier, with out the 'sintax' would save that state $120.6 MILLION DOLLARS. AND that is just the saving to the state. What about local governments.
I was listening to NPR again this morning. 1/5th of our states general fund goes to pay for the correction department. Man do we need a CORRECTION. I stated it on one of the forums a couple of months ago, and I will state it again, I beleive, with proper research, I could prove that WE could wipe out the deficit, or improve the services, TAKE A BITE OUT OF CRIME, DARE WE do this ( oh yeah thats another $750MILLION DOLLARS of Savings. All while reducing the price we potheads have to pay. And then leap over a very tall building, all before breakfast.
ANd I'm just getting started. What comes next in the words of our govenor ..."and in 5 years were gonna blow you away."