4 ms·

Get a company like Monsanto interested in the commercial cultivation of marijuana and it'll be legal within the day.

swombat 15y ago
1) This is not something that "sane, enterprising individuals" can reasonably achieve. 2) Silver bullet solutions? Yeah, I believe in them. And Santa, too.
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Swombat you have a brand here -- don't throw it away with low quality comments. It is not very difficult to convince Monsanto if they can make more money in some other way -- it may not be something that can be solved by gcc, but when has raw computer programming talent ever been the deciding factor for a computer programmer?
  - swombat 15y ago
    I don't see it as a low quality comment. If it's not very difficult to convince Monsanto of this, then please do it right away, if it has the benefit of ending the war on drugs. If you can't be bothered to do it yourself, then pray tell us the 5 easy steps to convincing Monsanto to start exploiting Marijuana and therefore decriminalise all drugs. Unless you think, as I do, that the above is a fantasy and has no practical value as a line of action.
    - asto 15y ago
      There is a big downside to getting it done by companies like Monsanto (or tobacco companies as mentioned in another thread below) - Insane public opposition. Drugs and their users are already perceived to be "morally bad". Club them with a company that people don't like for similar reasons and you have a solution that will never see the light of day.
zotz 15y ago
Companies such as Monsanto and DuPont (not to mention a host of others) are among the ones that were glad to see hemp made illegal back in the 1930's. Any hemp-based economy is a threat to centralized industrial concerns. With the invention of the hemp decorticator in the 1910's (the cotton gin of hemp) by George Schlichten, hemp's potential as an industrial crop to replace petroleum was unlocked. Large, centralized industries have no interest in seeing their monopoly threatened. Remember, hemp is illegal, not just marijuana.
- gcv 15y ago
  > hemp's potential as an industrial crop to replace petroleum was unlocked. Could you clarify this statement? Are you saying hemp can be efficiently used as a fuel?
  - heynk 15y ago
    You can easily dig around for more sources, but I've attached the wiki link, which has some information about fuel usage and many other uses. From what I can remember it's about as viable as biofuels from corn (maybe a bit better) but still not really production quality. Hemp's biggest advantage is the strength of it's fibers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp
  - asto 15y ago
    Hemp as fuel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Fuel
  - zotz 15y ago
    Anything that can be made from a hydrocarbon can be made from a carbohydrate. If hemp got the same subsidies, protections and considerations from the government that petroleum does, I suspect it would be cheaper than petroleum in the long run. Popular Mechanics was touting hemp in 1938: http://www.globalhemp.com/1938/02/new-billion-dollar-crop.html http://www.globalhemp.com/1938/02/new-billion-dollar-crop.ht...
rst 15y ago
Even now in the US, moneyed interests don't necessarily get everything they want --- AT&T couldn't push through the T-mobile merger, to cite a much less controversial example. In this case, there would be money on both sides. The drug war itself is a massive industry at this point --- look at the power of prison guards in California. There are also a whole lot of politicians with a massive ego stake in the existing set of laws. And Monsanto, the tobacco companies, and agribusiness all have much easier and less stressful ways to preserve profits by lobbying. (Maintaining agricultural subsidies, for the first two, for starters.) So, don't expect this to happen really soon.

1) This is not something that "sane, enterprising individuals" can reasonably achieve. 2) Silver bullet solutions? Yeah, I believe in them. And Santa, too.

tomjen3 15y ago
Swombat you have a brand here -- don't throw it away with low quality comments. It is not very difficult to convince Monsanto if they can make more money in some other way -- it may not be something that can be solved by gcc, but when has raw computer programming talent ever been the deciding factor for a computer programmer?
- swombat 15y ago
  I don't see it as a low quality comment. If it's not very difficult to convince Monsanto of this, then please do it right away, if it has the benefit of ending the war on drugs. If you can't be bothered to do it yourself, then pray tell us the 5 easy steps to convincing Monsanto to start exploiting Marijuana and therefore decriminalise all drugs. Unless you think, as I do, that the above is a fantasy and has no practical value as a line of action.
  - asto 15y ago
    There is a big downside to getting it done by companies like Monsanto (or tobacco companies as mentioned in another thread below) - Insane public opposition. Drugs and their users are already perceived to be "morally bad". Club them with a company that people don't like for similar reasons and you have a solution that will never see the light of day.

zotz 15y ago

Companies such as Monsanto and DuPont (not to mention a host of others) are among the ones that were glad to see hemp made illegal back in the 1930's. Any hemp-based economy is a threat to centralized industrial concerns. With the invention of the hemp decorticator in the 1910's (the cotton gin of hemp) by George Schlichten, hemp's potential as an industrial crop to replace petroleum was unlocked. Large, centralized industries have no interest in seeing their monopoly threatened. Remember, hemp is illegal, not just marijuana.

gcv 15y ago
> hemp's potential as an industrial crop to replace petroleum was unlocked. Could you clarify this statement? Are you saying hemp can be efficiently used as a fuel?
- heynk 15y ago
  You can easily dig around for more sources, but I've attached the wiki link, which has some information about fuel usage and many other uses. From what I can remember it's about as viable as biofuels from corn (maybe a bit better) but still not really production quality. Hemp's biggest advantage is the strength of it's fibers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp
- asto 15y ago
  Hemp as fuel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Fuel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Fuel
- zotz 15y ago
  Anything that can be made from a hydrocarbon can be made from a carbohydrate. If hemp got the same subsidies, protections and considerations from the government that petroleum does, I suspect it would be cheaper than petroleum in the long run. Popular Mechanics was touting hemp in 1938: http://www.globalhemp.com/1938/02/new-billion-dollar-crop.html http://www.globalhemp.com/1938/02/new-billion-dollar-crop.ht...

rst 15y ago

Even now in the US, moneyed interests don't necessarily get everything they want --- AT&T couldn't push through the T-mobile merger, to cite a much less controversial example. In this case, there would be money on both sides. The drug war itself is a massive industry at this point --- look at the power of prison guards in California. There are also a whole lot of politicians with a massive ego stake in the existing set of laws. And Monsanto, the tobacco companies, and agribusiness all have much easier and less stressful ways to preserve profits by lobbying. (Maintaining agricultural subsidies, for the first two, for starters.) So, don't expect this to happen really soon.