Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Is It A Good Idea?

I've got to admit, I've got a lot of mixed feelings about Colorado's experiment with legal recreational marijuana, both from a law enforcement perspective and a libertarian perspective.  I've been a cop for 33 years and I've enforced the marijuana laws without rancor or prejudice.  I've arrested people for possession of marijuana, among other things, and I'm not sure what the long-term implications are, either as a legal matter or a social experiment.

However, I'm reading all I can about what is going on in that fair state, and I'm wondering about the implications, both from a tax standpoint, a black market standpoint, the social costs involved.  How are the cops going to deal with intoxication?  What are the ramifications?  I have to admit, I don't know.  However, that's one of the beauties of this great country, that a state can decide to do something revolutionary and the rest of us can watch a bit and try to see how it works out.  That's Federalism, and I'm all for federalism.

This is going to be interesting.  Hopefully, we can learn something from this experiment.

2 comments:

Old NFO said...

I think the price hike was a shock to the tokers... :-)

Gerry N. said...

I dunno. Anything any gov't gets involved in gets worse. How's this going to be any different. The stuff is called "weed" for a reason, it grows anywhere. Controlling it while it was illegal was not possibl. Controlling it while it is extortionatley overpriced differs how?

If I wanted some weed, I'd simply grow my own it a little corner of my garage shielded by a piece or two of sheet rock and lighted by one growlight. The same as when it was illegal. I already grow a couple of tobacco plants.