Professional potheads...

[Anonymous]

How many people out there still smoke the herb,maintain their life well, and resent having to break the law?  
I personally know a pharmacist who smokes.
2 doctors who smokes. A bunch of RNs.
A couple of lawyers, a VERY sucesfull electrical contractor, and an Army Ranger who smokes.  Most of these folks don't like alcohol's effect but choose to unwind differently.
If EVERYBODY who smokes the herb instead of using alcohol walked into their human resources dept Monday morning and told on themselves it would put the system on its head.  They would have to decide whether or not the war on weed was needed more than the employee.
Can you imagine the scene?  I worked at one place where the owner tossed the "drug free workplace" policy because we lost too many good applicants over marijuana.  We would interview, love em, and then couldn't hire them.  Out of 20 no hires like this, with only one  for hard drug (cocaine), we tossed the policy.  It was not worth 10% off on workers comp.

[enough]

Keep in mind that one of the first things that resulted from the economic downturn early in the 20th century was a rebellion against prohibition.

Reason has a good article online right now about how the number of companies that are doing random on the job testing is falling, and how ineffective drug testing is in the first place.

Prohibition has never worked, and it will continue to reveal itself as a failing policy, and become far more obvious in its failure as the economic situation worsens.

The Bush Tax cuts, which overwhelmingly favor the top 1% of taxpayers, along with the huge runup in Federal spending on the military will result in massive budget deficits which will in turn force interest rates higher- tighening the debt markets and making it harder and harder for business' already saddled with huge debt loads to refinance their bonds and other corporate debts- all of this points to a period of massive deflation, and potential recession or depression.

And the last depression led to one  of the most liberal periods in the history of the country. The greatest atrocities are almost always commited at or near the end of a war, and so I think the end of the drug war may well be in sight.

[Antigen]

...tend to make realists out of idealists.

[Tampa survivor]

I agree with your points on prohibition.  I also agree that when times are hard, the liberal view holds much more allure.

Your statement: QUOTE The Bush Tax cuts, which overwhelmingly favor the top 1% of taxpayers, along with the huge runup in Federal spending on the military will result in massive budget deficits which will in turn force interest rates higher- tighening the debt markets and making it harder and harder for business' already saddled with huge debt loads to refinance their bonds and other corporate debts- all of this points to a period of massive deflation, and potential recession or depression.

nts here ENDQUOTE

They said the same thing about Ronnie Ray-Gun.  Partly true, but the early 80s-late 90s prosperity paid off that debt. The spending in aerospace, shipbuilding and defense put a lot of money in real workers real pockets.  I certainly enjoyed that. I was one of 'em. That prosperity also came partly from low interest rates.  Those rates never went so high because profits kept borrowing down by corporations compared to historical data.

Clinton continued the recovery by leaving economics to Greenspan and the treasury dept rather than to congress.  The threat of deflation is horrifing, but very difficult to get into without the fed going totally stupid AND the banks imploding at the same time.  Banks are not allowed to invest today as they did in 1928.  They learned.

I hope history repeats on the economy/mil-spend thing, but I fear it will not.  Our current president is getting us into a nasty fight for dubious reasons.  It was worth the chance to bankrupt ourselves in 1982...the Soviets were very real, and both sides needed the Cold War to end.  I am very glad they went broke first.

On taxes:  the rich pay a lot more taxes than we do.  Look at a rich mans taxes sometime.  THEY PAY A LOT.  Alternative minimum tax for the "richest" creams them at over35%.

Look at a tax return for a sucessful person making 150k a year, and they probably paid over 40,000 in taxes.

I don't want my sucess confiscated at a different %.  I think it is time for a flat rate and dispel the notion forever of rich and poor pay different rates.  Only class warfare results from anything "progressive" about taxes.  

Bill



[ This Message was edited by: tampa survivor on 2002-11-03 13:57 ]

[Anonymous]

On the other hand, I was homeless (lived out of a car) for three months, still managed to make eleven thousand, then the federal government wants eighteen hundred back.  Couldn't they just leave people alone who make under a certain amount?  Who can support themselves on nine thousand dollars a year?  Couldn't they just say -- "hey, thanks for taking care of yourself this year, sorry about all the debt you ran up because of not having health insurance, shall we call it even?"

[Antigen]

Income tax has not turned out to be a good idea. You want people to do less of something (like importing major comodoties, for example) you tax it. But this country was in business for around 150 years without an income tax. Since we've started feeding our government on the gluttony diet, it's gotten all out of hand. I think we should attend to that problem first and a lot of other problems will attend to themselves.

Neither branch of the oligarchy will do that for us. Hell, they won't even invite anyone to a debate who wants to talk about serious changes like that.

[Tampa survivor]

Antigen. The voice of reason again.

  Less said is often best said.
Bill

[enough]

Frank Zappa use to run his presidential campaigns on the premise of eliminating the income tax, taxing the churches and their business entities, and establishing a national value added tax, with exceptions for food and energy.

[kaydeejaded]

[ This Message was edited by: kaydeejaded on 2004-03-03 08:24 ]

[kosmonaut]

On taxes:  the rich pay a lot more taxes than we do.  Look at a rich mans taxes sometime.  THEY PAY A LOT.  Alternative minimum tax for the "richest" creams them at over35%.


Look at a tax return for a sucessful person making 150k a year, and they probably paid over 40,000 in taxes.


I don't want my sucess confiscated at a different %.  I think it is time for a flat rate and dispel the notion forever of rich and poor pay different rates.  Only class warfare results from anything "progressive" about taxes.  


Bill




[ This Message was edited by: tampa survivor on 2002-11-03 13:57 ]

Sorry to go off topic here but it seems to me that a flat tax is a bad idea.  

Two 10% tax scenarios: worker A making 20k and paying 2k in taxes. worker B making 100k and paying 20k in taxes.  

Worker A is barely getting by and that 2k is sorely missed.  Worker B is doing quite well and while 20k is a lot to pay, B is still left the 80k in salary.  

What I'm trying to say is that the value of the money is relative to the individual's situation.

[enough]

Indeed this is why progressive taxation and income taxation is silly. Value added taxation is far more sensible, but the states really don't want the Feds imposing a national sales tax for fear that it will cut into their territory.

Also- on the Alternative Minimum tax- anyone with a good tax lawyer can easily avoid the AMT. A simple trust can generally keep assets and their income sheltered from the AMT. Even somthing as simple as investing in tax free muni bonds can take care of that.

On a side note- Bush and his economic team are currently getting ready to propose repealing the entire corporate income tax schedule and replacing it with a series of value added taxes. But you can bet that they will not be proposing such a plan for we lowly consumers and lower bracket people.

[Tampa survivor]

I have some friends.  We all have histories.  One was a dancer on drugs, one dealt pot for a living, and one had a worthless marketing degree in 1992.  
  Broke every two weeks, blah blah blah.  Paid s/s security taxes and medicaid tax.  About 10%.  It sucked.  Needed that cash.  
We got tired of being broke.
Went to school.  One started a company. WORKED
None are now broke.
Now we pay what we paid before+ a whole bunch more.  
Thanks for the reward for improving ourselves.
I don't want to own muni-bonds. They bore me.  I want to invest in some new idea...the next yahoo/intel/whatever.
Oh well.  Demopublicans run it all.  Antigen was right.
Bill  
ps I worked as an electricain for 7years and would rather deal with a stoner than a drunk anytime.  The drunk will flip a switch stupidly, while at least the stoner will check 43 times that he is turning on the right breaker.

[kosmonaut]

Anyway, yeah I smoke occasionally, like a few times a year.  I also drink alcohol on a regular basis, although I agree with others here that alcohol is a much harder drug than pot.  But hey, it's legal.

[Anonymous]

Weed is a wonderful thing.

[dreammagician]

G 13, Northern Lights, White Widow, Haze, the list goes on from the indica to the sativa strain. Lets face it pot is great, straight only deprived us of our right of speech. Praise ganga