Killing 2 Birds with 1 Stoner: Marijuana Legalization Could Repair the Economy and our Environment

At the risk of sounding like a studious stoner, I would like to expound on the marijuana/cannabis/hemp situation we discussed in class. Yes, I have lumped “hemp” and “marijuana” together because -- although they are genetically and functionally distinguished -- the US government puts both under Schedule I of the most dangerous controlled substances known to man (Thank you feds for making it possible to describe the two simultaneously.). After completing a 50 page thesis on the topic last year (entitled Fiscal Fuel: Marijuana Legalization and the United States Economy), I feel I can add some useful new knowledge to what Katz wrote about. In the end, prohibition of this plant is concurrently an environmental and economic burden.

Basically, I’m going to list some facts...the syllogism is implicit:

1. fossil fuel dependence and consumption are the leading sources of political turmoil abroad, foreign manipulation of our domestic economy, and GHGs that facilitate global warming; forests are the number one source of photosynthesis that helps to counter these greenhouse gases [GHGs] that enhance global warming
2. the paper industry is the number one cause of deforestation, which in turn is the number one cause of habitat loss worldwide
3. the paper industry is also the number one source of sulfites, sulfides, and sulfates in the atmosphere, which in turn are the number one cause of acid rain
4. acid rain pollutes water systems and soil, ultimately being biomagnified and incorporated into future plants and trees
5. 1 acre of hemp yields as much paper as 4 acres of trees in the same amount of time
6. the sulfur concentration needed to process hemp pulp into paper is MUCH less than that needed for tree pulp
7. Biofuel (or fuels derived from plant biomass) is derived from plant cellulose, which is why corn is a good candidate (relatively high cellulose)...hemp has the highest known average cellulose composition of any plant, upwards of 6X that of corn
8. In a horticultural sense, hemp is superior to cotton in terms of required pesticides, upkeep, rotation, and soil damage (This is why it’s called “weed”--it can grow in virtually any environment on earth!). In a textile sense, hemp has proven superiority to cotton in terms of potential softness, durability, thermal quality, and ventilation
9. the USDA owns some 90 million acres of vacant and arable land in the continental United States called the “Soil Bank”

What about pollution associated with biofuel combustion?

If we grew enough plants to ultimately satisfy our thirst for fuel, the sheer amount of photosynthesis would theoretically surpass that of pollution

What about algae for biofuel? After all, it is even easier to cultivate and convert to fuel...

Cannabis/marijuana/hemp is still the winner in an economic (and arguably environmental) sense; can we clothe the world in algae? Does algae reduce air pollution to the same extent? Can we make algae paper? Would “highly efficient” algae demand the creation of as many farming jobs? Finally, can you get high off algae and tax it as a legal intoxicant?

Did you know that non-biodegradable plastics and polymers are also from petroleum and could instead be made by natural hemp cellulose, just like with fuel (=implications in the plastic industry)? That the hempseed is one of the highest known sources of crucial Omega 3, 6, and 9 fatty acids (=implications in the food industry)? That oil from cannabis (due to the three omega’s) actually penetrates and hydrates human skin whereas modern toiletries and cosmetics at large merely coat the skin(=implications in the cosmetics industry)?

Some sociopolitical things to ponder...

The US jails proportionately more of its own citizens than any other country in the world. Roughly 70% of those are there solely on drug charges, the majority of which are from marijuana. In essence, we pay tax money to support institutions that often mentally and physically devolve “criminals” into even less productive and therefore more costly citizens if/when released; we pay money to lose money. If decriminalized or legalized, more law enforcement resources would go toward violent crime and we’d be paying less tax money to do a better job at containing the particularly harmful criminals.

Not only do our marijuana laws affect us domestically, but there are severe foreign implications as well. To finish my rant, our marijuana laws hurt other countries (namely Mexico) which in turn hurt us. The best way I can describe the situation is by recapping a conversation I had with my friend Greg last week...

Me: If we regulated or decriminalized or legalized marijuana, significant funding of the cartel-infused Mexican government would be eliminated and the crime problem in Mexico (and the crime that spills over here i.e. kidnapping) would be assuaged. By eliminating or reducing government corruption in Mexico, we would also be reducing a driving force behind illegal immigration (they wouldn’t need to immigrate in the first place if our laws didn’t inherently support the black markets that fund their corrupt government).

Greg: Yeah, but it would be easier if we just sent some troops down there to kick some ass and enforce legitimacy and democracy. It would take too long for us to change laws and let the change slowly happen.

Me: But why do we fund these cartels in the first place?

Greg: Because Americans love weed.

Me: Won’t they still want it after the cartels who supply it are gone?

Greg: Sure, they’ll just find it somewhere else or grow even more here.

Me: But marijuana would still be illegal, so--given the fact that drug demand is inelastic and that the rest of the supply would be moved to the US if we cut off foreign suppliers--crime rates would drastically rise in the United States.

Greg: So we’d legalize it and the criminals wouldn’t have the chance to grow from it.

Me: So why don’t we skip all that crap before and legalize it to begin with, like I said?

Greg: Oh.

Basically y’all, prohibition is ignorant and regulation is realistic. Like communism, prohibition works only in theory; it fails in practice because it clashes with human nature, the laws of supply and demand.