President Obama answers questions on YouTube

[Waking.Up]

Originally Posted by shiftmonkey

[B][COLOR="YellowGreen"]Sorry about the rant but I just wanted to comment on legalization since it's an issue that is very close to home for me.

Medical marijuana is already legal here in California and the growers here aren't convinced that legalization will benefit anyone except the government and big corporations. It certainly will not benefit the growers as they will tell you first hand.

Most of the growers here are families that work very hard to earn a living at it. Yes some make a good living, but they are very meticulous in their growing methods and most grow organic. They are already under an insane amount of imposed state restrictions that just keep piling up.

After legalization the federal restrictions will further undercut the small family operations and open the door to big corporations like Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds. These companies already own thousands of acres in South America just waiting for the legislation to go through. Restrictions will be such that it will be illegal to grow your own medicine.

Ok, I'm just curios how do you know what the restrictions are gonna be? How can it with legalization on a federal level be possible to still be illegal to grow your own pot? It seems pretty obvious to me, if you don't want to smoke corporation pot - grow your own.

Originally Posted by shiftmonkey

[B][COLOR="YellowGreen"]
The rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper my friend

You are confusing marijuana with hemp. Industrial hemp is quite different than marijuana. It's a completely different plant with a completely different growing and harvesting process- and it will only give you a headache if you try to smoke it. Yes, it is in the same "family" as marijuana but still very different.

The hemp/marijuana obfuscation was the key to demonizing the plant. It was done to protect the interests of the paper and timber industry. Hearst Paper pulled that one off in the 1930's.

A book called "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" is what you want to read. Below is a link.

You might also want to take a look at my last post about why legalization (the way the federal government wants to do it) might not be such a good thing.

I'm not confusing. I'm not American, so my vocabulary is not that detailed.
I'm aware of the differences between hemp and pot, and that's exactly what I was talking about. The true good side of the legalisation would be a new raw resource for the gigantic paper and clothing industry. Thats the most important thing in the legalisation of the plant, and that is where the money lays. So, I'm not all that assured that the corporations will focus on marijuana, because it will still be grown by small buisnesses, or on your own, but on hemp which would turn in to a multi-billion dollar industry.

Just my 2 cents.