THE WHEAT AND THE CHAFF OF RULE MAKERS

While I might have to stop and think a couple of times about some names, others seem quite fixed in memory.  Who shall forget Joseph McCarthy (an American politician)  G W Bush, Osama bin Laden, Jeffrey Dahmer, and so many other good as well as evil men the we know and have known?.

Today we hear a bipartisan attempt by Barney Frank, Dem- MA and Ron Paul, Rep-TX to introduce a Bill in the House of Representatives to legalize marijuana.  This action should be considered long past due.  Unfortunately, too many slippery slope people believe all sorts of horrendous things will happen and it will lead to harder drug addictions and crime.  One women, a radio personality, seems not too bright in her thinking and commented that the repeal of Prohibition was supposed to stop all crime but it hasn't!  With powerhouse thinkers like that on media, is it any wonder that other gullible people stalk our neighborhoods.

The truth is that so many prisons have been privatized in the United States and many of them are lobbying to keep their cells filled with 'ideal' prisoners...easier, non-violent people who give the system fewer problems.  Cannot our countrymen look at world statistics and note that we have so many outmoded incarcerations in our justice system like this one?

We should all work to eliminate the money that we waste on the 'War on Drugs' and convert it to better services for the many.  We also would find that legalizing marijuana brings much needed money to states that grow it instead of to the illegal drug cartels.  How long will we have to wait for our voters to take their blinders off and the political lemmings to stay on shore?

NEW MOONSHINE ENTREPRENEURS

Sometimes the government overprices what many people want, thinking they need. If the makers and distributors are not greedy enough, Federal and State taxes on liquor are making the price prohibitive for many people who both want to use and entertain others with alcoholic beverages.  New Hampshire is a state with no sales tax which makes some people think that buying liquor there will afford them great savings.  It has become a myth many Massachusetts residents are beginning to see through.  The price differential between New Hampshire and Massachusetts liquor prices has shrunk as markedly recently as the thermosphere.

However, man's creativity in a financial pinch is equaled only by the greed of others who see an opportunity to cash in on something they can market at less than that which is legally sold and subject to obscenely high taxes, in their opinion.  A new wave of illegal stills, to defeat the 'revenooers' of the Prohibition years, has resurfaced run by a more sophisticated group of entrepreneurs.  See more details here.   No longer are most of them using their bathtubs as in the late 1920s.  Even in  Africa, the "informal" brewing market is worth an estimated $3bn (£2.1bn) a year. "With names like "Kill me quick", "The dog that bites" and "Goodbye Mum", African moonshine has a frightening reputation. Over the years, thousands of Africans have been killed, blinded or rendered sterile by drinking these lethal concoctions".  For more of the problem in Africa, click here.

If marijuana is legalized, the price of taxes on both liquor and 'weed' at half rate should produce about the same annual income to the government.  Instead, the government prefers to let the drug dealers make all the profit themselves.  Some foolish people think it will deter those who want to drink or 'smoke'.  The tax that could be gained by legalization would help pay back the national debt instead of allowing the drug cartels to live so luxuriously..