This is the same approach we need to see many other states take as well.

There is a HUGE tax base out there, and soon enough the politicians will want to get their hands on it, and then they won't be able to leaglize it fast enough.

They are also having a poll on the newpaper site that you can vote in:
Marijuana initiative would allow pot sales at Ore. liquor stores | KATU.com - Portland, Oregon | News

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Marijuana initiative would allow pot sales at Ore. liquor stores

By KATU Staff Video SALEM, Ore. - Relax it and tax it.

That's the motto behind a new cannabis initiative that would allow Oregon's state-controlled liquor stores to legally sell marijuana to adults.

Initiative backers said their plan would send 90 percent of the proceeds from the state's sale of marijuana to Oregon's General Fund, which could lower Oregonians' state tax burden.

Smaller percentages would go to funding drug abuse education and treatment programs.

The initiative would also legalize the growing of hemp, a non-drug variant of cannabis that can be used to make industrial-strength fibers and bio-fuels.

Supporters claim that allowing cannabis cultivation and sales through state liquor stores would add $300 million in combined tax revenues and savings to Oregon's budget.

Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act said the measure would also put a dent in illegal dealing of the weed.

"We want to take marijuana out of the hands of children and substance abusers, who control the market today, and put it in the hands of the state's liquor control commission and the age limit of 21 will be strictly enforced," Stanford said at a press briefing.

Supporters have two years to collect nearly 83,000 signatures to get the measure on the November ballot in 2010.

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oh man, if you want to get some sense into a politician tell him that it is taxable and how much they could make on it and they all your best buddy all of a sudden...

the problem is that even a tax is a mild form of prohibition as the gov regulates the taxation of the good. is this taxation now to high again everyone will grow their own, after all we talk here about the dried flowers of a plant that isn't that hard to grow, and this will trigger a new reaction of the big gov that isn't getting its taxes nor gaining control and therefor will turn MAD on its citizens again...

but sure, i rather a have a mild and watered down prohibition - which i will still ignore anyways as i do with the current form of it as well - then what is going on right now.

besides, never new that it was a big deal for someone below the age of 21 to get a beer, so if they can't keep bottled beer from them how on earth they want to keep em away from something that can grow in a ditch?! any form of governmental substance control is a form of prohibition and every prohibition is condemed to fail before it is even place up on the people that have to suffer under it. take the Norwegians, i think it been them as my last trip there was one long moonshine fuel hangover: a bottle of the cheapest vodka goes there still more then 50 bucks and therefore they have somehow the highest sugar consumption in Europe at least (ask Fred if you don't figure it)


anyway, they got 2 years now on their hands to get every 44th to sign this based on a population of ruffly 3.7 millions and it is a doable task therefore to get it on the ballot for 2010 - who knows if the DEA will be still around by then (hopefully they won't)

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