By MOX News
United Kingdom officials are beginning to recognize that cannabis prohibition is a costly mistake. A recent UK Treasury study revealed that cannabis prohibition has been a failure and that legalization could increase the country’s tax revenue derived from regulated marijuana sales. The results were submitted to BBC’s Newsnight, but the study was never published and released publicly.
Aside from all the powerful economic interests which have fought to keep marijuana illegal all these years regardless of the cost to the public, there has always been a strong component at the lower levels of police and prosecutors of an emotionally-driven personal campaign which is indistinguishable from hate crime except for this brand of hate having official sanction. It wasn’t just that they were “doing their job”, it was in part that they loved smashing down the doors of and pointing guns at “drug users”.
The question arises now of what these people who hate marijuana users will do when they lose their official sanction? Will they go quietly into the night, breathe a sigh of relief, or will they find other ways to f**k with the people they still hate? Will the haters go underground like the suppression and terrorizing of blacks continued after the American Civil War through the Ku Klux Klan? As marijuana users and growers no longer need to hide their activities and become more open, will the marijuana haters violently lash out at anyone they think they can get away with attacking, perhaps with a wink and a nod from police?
These questions were made freshly pressing to me after a comment I made online a few days ago drew a reply from Disqus member Americades, who said “Drug dealers and users should be executed immediately.” After nearly a century of drug prohibition, society is rife with people who have been so propagandized from grade school on that they are foaming at the mouth with their hatred, which gives meaning to their lives. Controlling their anger when they realize they have lost their pet hatred will need to be part of the legalization package.