LEGALIZATION OF Pot: IT WAS AND IS AWAYS ABOUT THE MONEY

The proponents of legalization are deluding themselves if they believe their supporters were interested in anything else other than making tons of money

The proponents of pot have told us over and over again that if we only legalized marijuana, law abiding citizens would no longer be jailed for smoking a joint, the illegal sales of pot would dry up, the Mexican cartels would go out of business, and the states would reap a bonanza of taxes.

Well, let’s see now. First of all, when possession of pot is illegal, those who smoke a joint are not law abiding citizens, they are lawbreakers. In both Colorado and Washington, the legalization of pot has not dried up the black market. On the contrary, the illegal sales of marijuana have flourished because the pot heads prefer to buy their joints tax free. The Mexican cartels are still doing business as usual, shipping loads of pot to Colorado and Washington. And the millions of dollars in taxes collected by Colorado have been a tiny drop in the bucket when compared to the state’s multibillion dollar budget.

Ah, but the growers and distributors of legal pot in Colorado and Washington have become filthy rich, and that was what the legalization of marijuana was really always all about. And now big investors are getting into the marijuana business. According to the Associated Press:

Founders Fund, the $2 billion San Francisco venture capital firm run by Silicon Valley stars including Peter Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of Paypal, is investing in Privateer Holdings, a marijuana company that owns several pot-related brands.

The companies declined to disclose the size of the investment Thursday, but described it as a "multi-million dollar" participation in a $75 million fundraising effort by Privateer.

Privateer, based in Seattle, owns the Canadian medical marijuana producer Tilray and the pot information service Leafly. It is also launching a brand of marijuana and products with the family of Bob Marley called Marley Natural.

Founders Fund partner Geoff Lewis, who is leading the firm's investment in Privateer, said in an interview that he believes the broader legalization of marijuana is inevitable.

So stop kidding yourselves. The legal pot backers are not interested in your right to smoke a joint. They are not interested in drying up the black market. They are not even interested in the medical benefits – questionable as they are - of marijuana. They are only interested in making money. They could care less about the Mexican cartels as long as those criminal organizations do not interfere with their getting filthy rich off of pot. And they know damn well that the taxes collected from the legal sales of pot will not even begin to solve a state’s money problems.