Get up, stand up... stand up for your rights
Get up, stand up... don’t give up the fight...
– Bob Marley & The Wailers

Thanks to you, dearly beloved reader, Jim Amrhein and I have a friendly Taipan Daily rivalry going.

It seems Jim’s time spent basking in the glory of an all-time reader response record (for “A Kind Word and a Gun”) was all too short. As quickly as you, the readership, set a new feedback milestone with your outpouring of thoughtful replies on guns and Second Amendment issues, you then outdid yourselves with an even bigger response to Friday’s missive, “Will California Go to Pot?”

So now ol’ Jimbo and I have an excuse to rib each other in the one-upmanship department. Who’s going to raise the response bar next? Heck, maybe Adam Lass will be a dark horse and thunder ahead out of nowhere – we’ll see. Of course, the more you forward these pieces to friends and foe alike, the more the Taipan Daily word gets out. And for that we can only be grateful.

You (the Readers) Have Spoken

There were so many excellent responses to Friday’s tax-and-legalize question, I only wish I could post more of them. As usual, though, I read and appreciated them all. (Rather than keep you in suspense, I should reveal to you, too, that your verdict was overwhelmingly in favor... a loud and clear YES vote, to the tune of roughly nine to one. Y’all are some freedom-loving folks.)

We’ll soon enough get back to Washington, Wall Street, and ways to profit from the world at large. But for the rest of today’s TD, I’d like to highlight some of your more informative and amusing responses (while giving a fair chunk of response time to those who disagreed).

We are already three quarters the way to hell so why not go the rest of the way. A very sad state of affairs on both drugs and alcohol. I thought I bought a financial newsletter not a running commentary on society.

– TD Reader Stuart S.

Hmm. The last time I checked, Taipan Daily was completely free... if you had paid top dollar for a high-powered trading service and were regularly getting pontifications in lieu of recommendations, I would understand.

But as far as we’re concerned, Taipan Daily is a (free) place to get some real thinking and observing done on what’s happening in the world... in respect to matters that affect our freedoms as well as our wallets.

It is interesting you bring alcohol into the “sad state of affairs” equation too. According to many a source, it was Benjamin Franklin who reputedly said “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.” Does that mean America has been on its way to hell from the time of the founding fathers? What about the link between free-flowing alcohol and free-flowing liberty, as Jim previously pointed out here?

Many of you shared sad stories of how alcohol ravaged the lives of friends and family members (in stark comparison to the way marijuana did not). These anecdotes are helpful in highlighting the utter hypocrisy of outlawing one substance yet not the other, but let us be clear: We Also Like Beer! And wine, and bourbon, and whatever other spirits might tickle one’s fancy in a free society where responsible use is the province of the mature individual...

Keep it illegal!
We can spend our way to prosperity without a marijuana tax.
How would the millions of pushers make a living?
What would the thousands of law enforcement and DEA agents do to justify their salaries?
Lose all that confiscated money and property?
How could the Mexican cartels prosper with it legal?
What would the moralists have to rail against?
On what could the schoolteachers blame their failure to educate?
Who would bribe the police and lawmakers?
What would we do with all the empty prison beds?
Keep it illegal!

– Anonymous

Ha ha, I see what you did there. That’s called “sarcasm.” Some say the capacity for subtle humor is a sign of keen intelligence. Clearly you don’t smoke pot...

I would like to buy calls on the first company to market marijuana... here in Canada, they grow it in an abandoned mine for medical purposes.

I personally know one of these growers. He is one of a group of medical doctors. He told me that they have been approached by the U.S. government to grow opiates, it seems that they are running into a shortage of morphine, I suppose due to their spraying of poppy fields around the globe.

I find that ironic and pretty two faced...

– TD Reader “Maverick”

Jackpot! Now where’s that guy who was complaining about a lack of financial commentary? See man, we’re just trying to make some money here... get ready to call your broker and put on a long rolling papers/short black helicopters spread.

My thoughts are this... why in the heck would we legalize something that is not good for people. Your argument is a liberal point of view. We want people to stop smoking and switch to toking?? Yes it is a window for kids to get messed up. I know a few amateurs that still live in their mothers’ garage. These days everyone has an opinion but no wisdom...

– TD Reader D2000

That’s a very interesting starting point: “Why would we legalize something that is not good for people.”

Because, I tell you what, if the rationale for what should be permissible is what’s good and what’s not – or more importantly, what I personally judge as such – then a whole lot of stuff should be illegal.

Take television, for example. I think A.J. Liebling had it right in characterizing television as a “ridiculous gadget” that is “utilized in the sale of beer and razor blades.”

In other words, I think television is seriously not good for people. When you listen to the stats on how many hours a day the average citizen plops his or her butt down in front of a TV, you can almost hear America getting fatter (and many other countries too).

So television kills by way of obesity (couch potato syndrome)... saps drive and morale by presenting viewers with impossibly plastic ideals... deadens family relationships and kills conversation... adds to the moral breakdown of society (I mean good gravy, have you seen some of these Fox reality shows?)... I could go on and on here. So we should obviously ban television outright. Right?

No. The problem with going down that road is that, if you take the thought process to its logical end, pretty much anything that is in any possible, conceivable way deemed “harmful” to someone winds up getting banned. Fatty foods, playground swing sets, you name it – if we try to make our society idiot-proof the idiots will just keep piling up until the lawyers have all the money. You can’t protect foolish people from their own foolish notions in a truly free society.

I don't want to see any more taxes. Period. You have a new program - fund it by removing or reducing something that exists.

Recently had some computer problems. It was labor – no tax. I had some work done at the tailor shop – no tax. How long will that last?

More revenue for government means more government. No thanks. We need to work at reducing the size of government. Is there anybody on the warpath? I suspect there is but the politicians are not listening and the mainstream media blows it off.

It's like a kid in a candy store. I want that and that and that. It never ends.

– TD Reader JR

What truly “never ends” is the mind-boggling tsunami of hidden costs associated with the ongoing drug war – a war that, by any sane measure, we clearly lost a long time ago.

We are coughing up hundreds of billions of dollars a year, maybe trillions, in terms of lost productivity and wasted effort as a result of the unwinnable war on drugs. As many of you have pointed out, prison beds are overflowing – and so are the pockets of the Mexican drug cartels – as a result of America’s utter hypocrisy.

The war on drugs is also a powerful driver for funding and supporting hidden government... various 'black-ops' type wings of the DEA, the CIA, the FBI and what have you. Part of the reason the war on drugs will likely go on and on, with no conceivable end, is because there are far too many powerful entrenched interests in Washington to ever let that gravy train get cut off.

When you make a substance illegal, you raise the “street value” substantially by making it harder to obtain. This is simple supply and demand. What supporters of the war on drugs rarely mention is that the government agencies fighting this war benefit as much from the blood and the crime and the high prices as the drug dealers do. It’s a manufactured problem that has spawned a powerful host of self-serving entities, and the invisible “taxes” they assess are costing us a hell of a lot more than visible, legal taxation would.

Both should be illegal, but as you so eloquently put it “fiscal need” usually wins the day in most cases. Money it would seem directs the political landscape and drives the wind of change in this country. Whether we consider either moral or not is of little concern. When politics becomes involved in an issue it’s all about the money. We all know the Golden Rule, he who has the gold makes the rules (I think they call them lobbyists – bought and paid for by those with the gold).

– TD Reader Mike B.

It is, indeed, all about money and power. One is the currency of Wall Street, the other is the currency of Washington, and both are more addictive (and dangerous) than any illegal drug.

But again, why should marijuana and alcohol both be illegal, even under “ideal” circumstances? Why should a mature and responsible adult be denied the privilege of enjoying something just because others can’t handle it?

Let’s say the hot new fad (among idiots) was to start hitting yourself in the head with a hammer hard enough to cause a concussion. Would that mean hammers should be banned? Or going back to the “what’s good for people” debate, we know that obesity is one of the true “silent killers” in this country. Should those gigantic desserts at TGI Fridays and Applebees (served as a chaser for a mountain of greasy food) be banned?

The central debate, it seems to me, is over what people can handle and what they can’t handle. Those who err on the side of freedom say it is better to live in a society where responsible people can do what they want, accepting of the consequences, and where foolish people must accept the consequences of their actions in a like-minded way. Those who err on the side of legislation seem to suggest that people are overgrown children who can’t be trusted – and hence their prescriptions are those of the nanny state.

I first smoked pot 40 years ago. Having been permanently disabled twice in the space of the last 20 years, I have found marijuana an effective pain-management tool, one that my doctors have professionally tut-tutted against, but privately agreed is probably at least as useful as the drugs they do prescribe for me, including methadone and fentanyl.

As a cigarette smoker of over 25 years – I quit 15 years ago – I also found marijuana to have nowhere near the negative effects of tobacco. Just look at the statistics: alcohol and tobacco kill over half a million people in this country every year. Marijuana? None. And yet guess which of these substances is subsidized by the government with billions of taxpayer dollars every year?

Most people have no idea why marijuana is illegal. Many have just simply bought the propaganda about its “dangers,” which at best are deliberate distortions, and more often just outright lies. Who is behind this, though? Google a guy named Harry Anslinger, a particularly ambitious bureaucrat of the 1920s who inherited the Bureau of Narcotics – a new division of Treasury – in 1930. Realizing that cocaine and opiates alone wouldn't be enough to help grow "his" precious agency, he pounced on marijuana, and with the help of William Randolph Hearst, one of America's most vicious yellow journalists, and the stable of congressional thugs Hearst kept on his payroll, they waged a national campaign of misinformation, fake “science,” outrageous claims, and run-of-the-mill lies, depending heavily on racism and violence. This monster grew into the DEA, which now squanders billions of taxpayer dollars on chasing people who smoke flowers and stuffing the prisons full of non-violent "drug offenders"...

– TD Reader Kent P

Fascinating stuff. I will indeed check out Harry Anslinger, as a number of you mentioned his name and I had not heard of him before.

There is so much more to this topic... many areas worthy of deeper exploration and comment that we simply didn’t have time to touch on. Thanks again to all of you who provided top-notch information, anecdotes and feedback in your replies – including those who disagreed. Your passion is a powerful motivator as we seek to continue making Taipan Daily the most hard-hitting, tell-it-like-it-is, provocative and, of course, profitable e-letter on the Web. Cheers.

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