Alcohol Monopolies Fight Against Marijuana Legalization

[Rakhmetov]

By these actions, alcohol companies are admitting that more sensible drug policies could cut into their government-created monopoly on mind-altering substances.

Marijuana is illegal because it is a weed and can be grown in cement and everywhere else, therefore corporate America can't monopolize production and distribution and make billions of dollars. Tobacco is not a weed and therefore can't be grown everywhere. It also needs intense capital inputs and high technology and consequently can be monopolized by corporations.---- Noam Chomsky, Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky


http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/24-5

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/21/this-buds-not-for-you-bee_n_732901.html?ir=Food

[revolution inaction]

i've suspected this for a long time

[erupt]

Marijuana is illegal because it is a weed and can be grown in cement and everywhere else, therefore corporate America can't monopolize production and distribution and make billions of dollars. Tobacco is not a weed and therefore can't be grown everywhere. It also needs intense capital inputs and high technology and consequently can be monopolized by corporations. - Chomsky

Tobacco can be just as easily grown. Consumers of tobacco could easily grow and sustain their own smoke. U.S. federal regulations prevent them from doing so without a license and strict control. Marijuana can be grown easier yet; the plants are like tomato plants almost, but rather than producing fruit they are flower buds. Tobacco has intense capital inputs and high technology because corporations are involved. If marijuana were to be completely legalized in the U.S., different distributors and growers will turn into the new cannabis industry leaders (they already use technology to the max; seeds aren't just sown in the soil and flower buds picked a few months later). If those growers had the capital that tobacco companies do, they would have even more marijuana, and it would be most likely treated with all those horrible chemicals those cancer sticks are. That industry thereby creates a monopoly, as well.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Marijuana is illegal because it is a weed and can be grown in cement and everywhere else, therefore corporate America can't monopolize production and distribution and make billions of dollars.

Do you know how easy it is to create your own alcohol? The answer is incredibly easy...I know this because a lot of people in my hometown made their own homebrewed beer and liquor. A lot of people would buy weed for a nominal fee if it were to become legalized simply because it would be a little more convenient for them than growing it themselves.

Furthermore: the weed that actually gets you high isn't grown in people's backyards. There's a word for the weed that's grown as a result of throwing some seeds in a plot of soil and hoping for the best: it's called "schwag". The best marijuana is grown in carefully controlled laboratory settings, and growing it actually does require a fair amount of work.

[Salyut]

Furthermore: the weed that actually gets you high isn't grown in people's backyards. There's a word for the weed that's grown as a result of throwing some seeds in a plot of soil and hoping for the best: it's called "schwag". The best marijuana is grown in carefully controlled laboratory settings, and growing it actually does require a fair amount of work.

Uh... You might want to look up the whole growing weed thing. Its more or less as easy to grow weed as it is to make some alcohol.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Uh... You might want to look up the whole growing weed thing. Its more or less as easy to grow weed as it is to make some alcohol.

I know how easy it is to grow weed. One of my friends in Alaska (which has one of the most liberal weed laws in the nation...it's pretty much completely decriminalized) grew so much of it that he had dozens of mason jars packed with the stuff...he used to hand out joints like they were cigarettes. And guess what? The weed sucked.

If you want to make good weed, then you need to put some effort into the process. There's a good chapter in a book called Reefer Madness (by Eric Schlosser) in which he details the trials and tribulations of one man's grow room in his basement. When he wasn't trying to fend off infestations of lady bugs or other insects that destroyed his product, he was agonizing over electrical problems that shortcircuited his sprinkler system and destroyed entire crops, or carefully selecting strains of cannabis for cross-fertilization.

[Salyut]

If you want to make good weed, then you need to put some effort into the process.

That is true of everything, including alcohol. If you fuck up building the still or the actual process, real bad things happen to the person drinking the end product. Where as weed...won't blind you or swap your liver with Keith Richard's.

[Rakhmetov]

Do you know how easy it is to create your own alcohol? The answer is incredibly easy...I know this because a lot of people in my hometown made their own homebrewed beer and liquor. A lot of people would buy weed for a nominal fee if it were to become legalized simply because it would be a little more convenient for them than growing it themselves.

Furthermore: the weed that actually gets you high isn't grown in people's backyards. There's a word for the weed that's grown as a result of throwing some seeds in a plot of soil and hoping for the best: it's called "schwag". The best marijuana is grown in carefully controlled laboratory settings, and growing it actually does require a fair amount of work.

Oh that is a lot of cant. If moonshine was as good as corporate alcohol then we'd still have Al Capone gangsters wreaking havoc in Chicago and other cities.

But for the sake of argument let's say moonshine is as good as corporate brew. Corporations can still outsell and undersell their brew than a mom and pop establishment. That's what it means to have a MONOPOLY ON PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION

Workers need to organize to wrest these businesses from their corporate robbers and run it for the benefit of the workers who labor in those enterprises.

[Os Cangaceiros]

That is true of everything, including alcohol. If you fuck up building the still or the actual process, real bad things happen to the person drinking the end product. Where as weed...won't blind you or swap your liver with Keith Richard's.

Yeah, but my point was that people will most likely pay a nominal fee for a quality product than put out the (even minimal) effort to make something that won't make much impact on their THC-accustomed brain.

I mean, people still search around for lost remote controls, even though their television set is within spitting distance. Providing convienence is a big part of capitalism.

[revolution inaction]

i brew alcohol but not constantly, although i intend to do so more often, and when i do the result is as good a a lot of what i can buy from the shop and much cheaper. the reason i did not before was becasue it seemed like a lot of effert and i didin't think it would taste good. now that i have tryed nether of these seems to be true.
so i supose that the reson that most people dont brew there own booze is that its part of the culture to buy alcohol and drink it but not to brew your own, i suspect the same could apply to weed.

[L.A.P.]

I know a lot of you on this forum like to drink but I personally find drinking pointless being drunk is so uninspiring and you forget all the awesome things that happened, I guess I just like highs form drugs like Weed and LSD that change everything and cause you to write pointless poems and notice things you never noticed before. Sorry if this post was off topic.

[Small Geezer]

That is utter bullshit about weed being hard to grow. Weed is piss easy to grow! It's more or less the strain that makes it good.

I've smoked outdoor grown weed and participated in cultivating it. It is very very easy.

All it needs is to be germinated in some soft paper, grown inside untill it's strong enough and then transplanted outside to let nature do it's job.

Explosive situation must have been smoking leaves because, even if it's grown outdoor, the heads will definately get you stoned. In fact I prefer outdoor to indoor.

[The Vegan Marxist]

I know a lot of you on this forum like to drink but I personally find drinking pointless being drunk is so uninspiring and you forget all the awesome things that happened, I guess I just like highs form drugs like Weed and LSD that change everything and cause you to write pointless poems and notice things you never noticed before. Sorry if this post was off topic.

I casually drink. After getting drunk from chugging down a whole bottle of tequila, I've quit getting drunk. I agree, getting high or tripped out is a lot better, not to mention safer.