Legalizing Pot

First I want to apologize for taking such a long break from blogging.  I know that long hiatuses cause visitors to stop reading, and again I apologize for that.  I needed to attend to some personal business, and those of you who know me know what that was.

My trip to CERN is still on, and I've been following the status from CERN by reading the CERN Courier.  In addition there is a CERN bulletin that anyone can sign up for, and I am following that as well.  The ring is progressing well, and almost all the sectors are at their operating temperatures.  CERN is working very carefully this time, so I think that when I attend CERN they will absolutely have protons not only circulating in the injector ring, they will also have them in the main ring, and the beams should be colliding, although at lower speeds.  They plan to ramp the speed up to 3.5 TeV  by Christmas break.  At that level they should get interesting results, but they plan to ultimately run the beam at double that, 7 TeV.

Enough of that.  While mowing the lawn today I was mulling over stuff, and I got the following idea.  I think that marijuana will eventually become legal in the US, and I think it will be the tobacco companies and their congressman that bring that about.

Let me say I have never tried pot, ever, and I am agnostic on the legalization argument, although at this time the arguments for legalization make the most sense to me.  Essentially legalizing pot would allow the government to regulate and tax it and it would free up much needed prison space.

I got my idea because in my opinion, in the US at this time, it is the ultra-rich, the executives at major corporations, who actually have the real power in our society.  I think this is fairly obvious.  I do like to talk specifically about the people and not just the corporations, because if we get side tracked talking about corporations we lose the point.  The point is that the ultra-rich people hide behind corporations and use them not only as camouflage but also as an excuse for their immoral behavior.  Talking specifically about the executives themselves helps us focus on where the ultimate power lies, and hence where the ultimate solutions lie.

So to legalize pot you need a champion from the nobility, and it seems to me the tobacco company executives fit that role very nicely.  If they were smart they would see that as tobacco becomes less prevalent in the US they need another revenue stream, and pot fits the bill very nicely.  For one thing, it grows where tobacco grows, and those areas of the country already are used to making a living providing more or less banned substances - moonshine and then tobacco.  Sure I know you can grow pot anywhere, but you *could* grow tobacco almost anywhere, at least indoors, and you *can* brew your own beer, and still the major corporations are able to have a very lucrative market in both of those.  It is a matter of branding and marketing for the most part, along with some pricing and providing a consistent product quality.

Is this going to happen?  Beats me, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.  In the same way that it took Nixon to go to China, I think it will take a Southern-based tobacco company to legalize pot.  Yeah, I know, currently those same people have demonized pot, but the people who buy that argument could also be easily persuaded that 'pot is OK.'   Critical thought and consistency are not their strong suit.

So what do you think?  Am I full of it?