Legal marijuana push gathers steam in Victoria – with powerful union urging government to raise huge amounts by taxing the drug
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- A powerful health union are pushing for Victoria to legalise recreation cannabis
- The Health and Community Services Union want Victoria to grow and sell weed
- They argue the billions in tax revenue could be spend on social services
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Attention Grabbing Headline with ‘arguments’ that are not only nothing but overused ‘memes’ but that have been proven faulty and, in some instances, utter failures in the real world. But hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of ‘good sound-byte’? (https://twitter.com/LeviJParsons87)
Mantras and messages that sound ‘logical’ (especially to the time poor and pop-culture weary and majority non-weed using citizen) but have no basis in purported outcomes are all part of the Pro-pot propaganda process.
You will note in the article the classic mix-messaging with ‘decriminalisation, legalisation, commercialisation’ terms and/or ideas all thrown into the superficial narrative. Again, that is the idea – create hazy definitions and generate dubious impressions to get the uniformed thinking ‘positively’ about legalising weed as an option. And, of course, throw in the term ‘medical’ and you have people ponding the possibilities of what might be?
Yet, a simple spelunking of the already overwhelming data on just the small sample of evidence below, would inform any caring community, family, and children well-being focused individual, that this is not only a bad idea, but a failed one,
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- Failed promises of revenue – utterly – net deficits all round, not including blow outs in escalating health costs. (“For every dollar gained in tax revenue, Coloradans spent approximately $4.50 to mitigate the effects of legalization.”).
- Continuing and increasing black market, and the adding of a third ‘grey market’.
- The lack of evidence of anyone being ‘locked up’ for simply using cannabis is breathtaking (“In total, one tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of all state prisoners were marijuana possession offenders with no prior sentences.” Bureau of Justice Stats) However, it is what the cannabis user does whilst on the drug that gets the criminal charges.
- The failing and grossly misrepresented Portugal policy.
- The public health disaster that greater cannabis use brings.
- Growing Environmental Disaster and the escalating costs with increasing use.
It is time the truth of the short- and long-term harms of Cannabis were as promoted as robustly as the harms of tobacco – harms that go way beyond the litany of physical harms, but also add the devastating psychological harms that profoundly, and often permanently, impact individuals, their families and the community. An already mental health crisis blown wide open.
If you want to go beyond the ‘sound-byte’, for more evidence, not theory, check out…
- Lessons Learned from States Marijuana Legalization
- Cannabis Impact Report – Colorado & California
- Smokescreen Documentary
- Cannabis Conundrum Resource Library
Research & Communications Team – Dalgarno Institute