An Absurd Argument Against Legal Pot

Writing this week on the San Diego News Network, former Nevada Assemblyman Steve Francis comes up with one of the more ridiculous anti-legal-pot arguments I've heard in a while: we can't legalize and tax pot because people will grow it themselves to avoid paying taxes. He writes:

Taxing pot is not a feasible proposition. Legalization advocates must answer the fundamental question: how would taxes be realistically collected from a controlled substance that is - at its essence - a modicum of soil, a planter, and a weed?

Come on, Steve. Those fighting against legalized marijuana are talented at tossing red herrings, but this is a new low. It's such a ridiculous argument that I don't even know where to begin. Let's see. If pot smokers have to choose between walking to their local pharmacy and cultivating a sensitive plant for weeks to harvest its buds, which will they choose? If Francis' argument had merit, pot dealers would be out of business now, because Americans could get marijuana more cheaply by just growing it themselves. I wonder why nobody has begun growing hydroponic tobacco now that cigarettes have hit $10 a pack in New York City.

In all fairness, Francis does raise some more serious points in his column, as well - hitting many of the usual arguments.

He says age restrictions won't work and teenagers will get their hands on the drug. He says all of the organized crime currently behind marijuana distribution will find another outlet for their misdeeds. These are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed and discussed before we take the step of legalizing pot, but they aren't insurmountable.

Francis says that even if we were able to collect tax dollars from legal pot, taxpayer obligations would outweigh it. He backs that up with numbers from a different - and more harmful - drug: alcohol. That's comparing apples and oranges.

And then at the end of his column, Francis moves from the absurd to the offensive, writing:

"Legalizing marijuana is a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist."

Tell that to the 45,000 people in prison for marijuana-related offenses and their families. Tell that to the glaucoma patient who can't get access to the drug that could improve his condition. Throwing red herrings is one thing, denying the existence of the problem is another.