Mexico gives us weed and we give them guns.

What's ironic is the pot from Mexico isn't that good. The best stuff comes from California and Canada.

Hillary did something right? Osana in exelcis. Look, like I was trying to tell all the lefties, the Clintons had nothing to lose by going farther to the left....!!! Now, just you wait to see a left streak in the White House.

Weed is magical. It cures nausea. You can make rope and sails with weed and explore the sea. You can make garments fit for stoned Mayan chieftains. And of course, you can watch the "Knife Show" on QVC for hours with a fascination normally reserved for children, children who like knives.

Weed was too magical for 1920's-era racists, who cruelly snatched it from the poor, calloused hands of the Mexican immigrant and from the poor, jazz hands of black jazz players. Damn the man who snatches the weed. Damn the man.

Fin.

P.S., Now give me an editors choice star.

Legalize all rec drugs.

I get mine from Humboldt county, right here in California. And why the hell don't we legalize and tax it already?

Wake up Senor Sirota. You just laid out the numbers for Cannabis, 36 billion domestic and 9 billion on Mex Weed.

Doesn’t that tell you the story. The Mexican Drug Cartels are not interested in Weed, that is just a distraction. The Mexico Mafia makes pays their bills with our appetite for Meth, Blow, and Opiates.

We don’t need to legalize pot, the medical market has already done that in states where it is important. The last thing we need is Government Pot as it is sure to go up in price and down in quality. Think of anything else the government has gotten involved with… with the possible exception of Elliot Spitzer's call girl.

If the devil were to set out to devise a scheme to use the existence of mind altering drugs to do the most harm to our nation and to our neighbors, it (the devil) would be hard pressed to come up with a more effective plan that which is in place.

Legalizing pot is long overdue. Would it be a revenue source? Hell yes! Would legalizing it save tax $ spent on fighting it and imprisoning people? Hell yes! Is it a milder drug than alcohol or tobacco anyway? Hell YES! I've seen plenty of people beat up during alcohol-related rages, people killed by cirrhosis or the liver, and otherwise f'd up due to alcohol; most of them family. Yet while I know many regular pot users, many of them family, the worst thing that has resulted from pot is getting mellow and in some cases a bit fatter. Most pot users don't even leave the house when high; they're too busy cooking or eating delivered pizza or discussing interesting shadows on the wall. Pot is less addictive than liquor or cigarettes, yet remains illegal. It is truly bizarre. No one I know who uses pot has gone on to cocaine, heroine, etc.; the 'gateway drug' thing seems to be typical government propoganda.

I don't use pot myself, though I'd probably benefit from it. I could use a little mellowing out, and I've never heard a decent explanation of why having legal access to mary jane would be a bad thing. The bs argument is protecting "the children", as usual, but the children have easier access to drugs than anyone. They have since I was in school, still do, probably always will. Only politicians would try to delude us into thinking otherwise.

We live in a world where people are opposed to legalizing pot because supposedly it would destroy society whereas one can legal practice banking and pursue a career in financial services and both of those industries have ended up costing us 12 TRILLION dollars. I am sure that if you added up all of the costs of every single crime ever committed in relation to marijuana growing, sales and use and then multiplied that number by 10 it still would even be a fraction of what the banks cost the government with their 30 to 1 leverage schemes for investing in bubble after bubble.

Who makes the LAWS around here anyway? Not "the people" that's for sure. I have been smoking weed since high school. Fuck the government and fuck capitalism. There never has been nor will there ever be a recession in the black market. Remember that.

You've been real lucky if you've never seen the dark side of Dope. Believe me, Many have gone off the deep end with weed and never come back. Psychosis and extreme paranonia are not that uncommon, especially with today's high potent weed. I'm not saying that your good luck is a fantasy, but many of my fellow pot heads live in a delusional world. Regular users lose all motivation and evolve towards the vegi world. I've seen several very bright, creative guys turn into boring, stale turnips. I guess it's great that you've never experienced this side of cannibus absuse, but believe, it's real and not too pretty. OH, almost forgot, I've seen research that shows weed to be every bit as addictive as cigs and beer...

Wake up Senor Sirota. You just laid out the numbers for Cannabis, 36 billion domestic and 9 billion on Mex Weed.

Doesn’t that tell you the story. The Mexican Drug Cartels are not interested in Weed, that is just a distraction. The Mexico Mafia makes pays their bills with our appetite for Meth, Blow, and Opiates.

Let's go back over the math again, Senor Nothelpin.

According to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Americans spend about $9 billion a year on Mexican pot.

Add that to the roughly $36 billion worth of domestically produced weed, [...] Mexican drug cartels reap 62 percent of their profits from U.S. marijuana sales.

First thing, domestic cannabis happens to cost around four times as much as Mexican cannabis. So $36 billion of domestic represents about the same amount of cannabis as $9 billion worth of Mexican.

That means more or less equal amounts of cheap Mexican cannabis and expensive domestic cannabis are being consumed by Americans. So the Mexican cartels sell about half the marijuana being smoked or vaporized in America.

If the Mexicans earn $9 billion from cannabis, and cannabis makes up 62% of their profits, then that means their hard drug revenues must amount to around (1 - .62) * 9/.62 = $5.5 billion.

They rake $9 billion from pot and only $5.5 billion from all the hard drugs combined.

It sure sounds to me like legalizing cannabis is the answer to fighting the cartels.

BTW -- I remember when Wanda Sykes was on Jay Leno promoting some movie she was in and he asked her, "So, now that you're making real money, what's the biggest change in your life?"

"I can buy the good weed now," she said, implying that she no longer had to buy Mexican but could now afford to buy domestic.

Mexican and domestic cannabis don't really compete in the same market. The lower income half of the market is still a big market and since those people can't usually afford domestic, it's a stable market. It's not going anywhere.

In fact -- the recession is likely to make it even bigger.

The market for expensive domestic cannabis will most likely decline and the market for the cheap cannabis smuggled in from Mexico could very well skyrocket over the next two years.

This really is the time to bite the bullet and stop all the nonsense, because blood is flowing and more will flow until we get this right.