In Conclusion...

        Running this blog has taught me many things. It has taught me how to work hard at night when I'm tired, it taught me to not put in anything late,

        JUST KIDDING!

        Well, maybe it did contribute to those things, but that's not really important right now. Running this blog has taught me a lot about weed and people and things. I'll just make a list.

        1. People who use marijuana recreationally should not be judged for it although they should be aware that them smoking it is bad. Invest in brownies, kids.

        2. Cannabis use for physical health can be really beneficial, depending on the person and the condition and whatnot. We just have to work on getting it legalized and then people being able to get it as a prescription.

        3. Using weed for mental health can be tricky because it can help you or trip you out. As I mentioned, it's about the person and their condition. We can't judge people who use marijuana for their illness because we don't know EXACTLY how they feel.

4. Anything that people say about marijuana abuse is false. I know it is. As I said before in other blog posts: I'm right, you're wrong. Just remember that you'd have to smoke around 1,500 pounds of weed in 15 minutes to die. Yeah. Impossible. My point exactly.

5. We really have to get away from pills doctors prescribe. In some cases, they do more harm than good. We need to make people, especially doctors, realize that a natural remedy, even though controversial, can be better.

6. YOUNG MONEY CASH MONEY BILLIONAIRE. Seriously. I want to go to university for free. Legalize weed so that the tax on it can pay for mine and other kids' post-secondary education. There's all the money going to social services and other wonderful things.

7. (I hate the number seven. It makes me cry at night). I feel like when we legalize (thanks to Trudeau I can say WHEN and not IF) marijuana, there will be less stigma around it. We only have to wait. *pulls out plastic folding chair and noisy kids with iPads to wait on the Parliament hill*

        8. QUITE FRANKLY I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE THINKS just kidding guys you should care about what people think. Well, at least the people I'm talking about. I think it's a matter of time before the idea reaches their heads and everyone in government realizes that by legalizing weed, they are doing themselves more of a favour than us.

        9. IF MARIJUANA WAS LEGALIZED, THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE. CASE CLOSED. Honestly! Go to the last blog post and skim through. Pay attention to all of the benefits. IT'S AMAZING, ISN'T IT? (Also, I just discovered last night that there's thing coming out called HempCrete. Like concrete, but with hemp! The weed makes for good isolation and it's quick to build It can be used for places suffering from natural disasters.)

        All we have to do is wait. And wait. And wait some more. I'm waiting. Still waiting.

        OK, I'm done with this blog.

        LEGALIZE IT!

If Marijuana Was Legalized...

        I know I have already pretty much touched on this point in my other blog posts, but I really want to be precise about the benefits.

        IF MARIJUANA WAS LEGALIZED, OR SHOULD I SAY, WHEN MARIJUANA IS LEGALIZED, there won't be any more "middle men". What I mean by this is that purchasing will be direct, so all of the money goes towards marijuana and not to someone's profit which is good for adults who buy it. This also means that there won't be need for as much criminal activity as if it were illegal. With the legalization of marijuana comes the legalization of possession of marijuana and I'm pretty sure that they won't arrest anyone with weed that's 19 and under. It's like people under 19 who have cigarettes on them: they won't get in trouble for it, but they can't go buy it themselves.

 That being said, I do think that there will be a lot of people buying weed for minors. Even if
there was and even if it was illegal, would you rather someone buying alcohol for a minor, which is harmful? This is a problem that the authorities know about and can't really stop. So, let's not really look at this. Let's stay positive, it's Tuesday.

$5 BILLION IN TAX REVENUE. REMEMBER THAT? YEAH, STILL THERE. $5B to the government that will collectively help society. I hope Canada will follow Colorado: they spend some of that money on post-secondary tuition. I think that will end up happening, especially if we're looking at having free tuition for low-income families. There are quite a few low-income families, and tuition costs quite a few thousand dollars...

        I'm just happy I get to go to university for free.

        Moving on.

        Jeffrey Miron, professor at Harvard, said that street violence would drop. The reason why is that when things don't go to a certain's person's way, they try to resolve the conflict with violence. If marijuana was legalized, you could go get your own weed and not worry about things. If there was really a problem, however, you could go to court with the person bothering you.


Not only will these wonderful things be the product of cannabis legalization, but JOBS WILL BE CREATED. Yeah, JOBS, remember? That thing everyone picks on Windsor for? The thing I can't get even though my CV belongs in a glass case? Yeah. JOBS. Not only will there be JOBS, but there will be a variety of JOBS in: agriculture, technology, supply, retail, transportation, distribution, packaging, manufacturing, inspection, engineering, quality control, health research, financial and accounting services, marketing, tourism, communication, PUBLIC EDUCATION (praise the most high - see what I did there?),  

        AND A MILLION OTHER THINGS. I had to name most of them to show you JUST HOW MANY ARE THERE. If you're in high school like me, you don't even worry about what field you're going into because you know that one of those jobs up there will be open for you!

  All of this is to say that legalization will do a lot of good. It's just a matter of getting there for us Canadians, for the U.S. to get there, and because they're the most powerful country in the world, hopefully everyone else will follow suit. I saw, in fact, a few articles while looking online that 2016 will be the year it happens for America. I hope so, for the sake of PEOPLE KNOWING THE TRUTH.

BYE.


(1) http://stories.avvo.com/rights/marijuana/7-ways-america-would-change-if-marijuana-became-legal.html
(2) https://bc.liberal.ca/files/2013/01/DRAFT-Marijuana-Policy-Paper-Jan-13.pdf 

The Money Behind Marijuana

        The fact that weed helps medicinally and is used for recreational purposes are the only ones that reach the world's attention. No one ever truly thinks about where/how teens get the money to buy it secretly. No one ever truly thinks of the profit this plant can make. Well, that's what I'm here to do today.

        CIBC World Markets (finally, a source relevant to Canada) said that the country's provincial and federal government could make up to $5 billion annually from selling marijuana legally. (1) That is a whole lot of money, especially on one thing! But that's not even the best part. What's amazing is that Justin Trudeau not only vows to legalize, regulate, and tax this product, but all revenue will serve for public health and addiction problems. ISN'T THAT GREAT?! More money towards a cause that is pretty important! And maybe, just maybe, if the government is getting that much money from the cannabis industry, they might cut taxes people pay from their pay cheques! WE SAVE MONEY BECAUSE THERE'S MORE MONEY COMING IN! (I think that's how the economy works. I'm in 10th grade).

        Let's look at the American side, since they obviously have more experience than us.

In a month, Colorado collected $13 million dollars in tax revenue. (2) IN A MONTH! That's crazy cash, even though I think that month was one of the earlier months of when pot was legalized. In a year, they collected, in total, $996 million.(2) Even though this is a total, there are a whole lot of taxes on marijuana right now, especially since it's so new, so most of that goes to the government. WOAH. They made lots of money AND WE COULD TOO! YOU HEAR THAT JUSTIN?!
*screams and jumps on Parliament hill hoping to get Prime Minister's attention*

        Just kidding. Trudeau's government said they'd legalize marijuana during their time in office; I just hope that they get to this obviously more pressing issue first.

        I'm bluffing, relax.
       
Now, people may be concerned that marijuana will still cause problems with the law because people like to be hush-hush (or should I say, hash-hash? No? OK.) about their business. The Liberal Party of Canada released a draft (2) saying that black market marijuana issues won't be there anymore because they will assure that their pot is just as good or even better than anything you can buy on the street. Also, it'll definitely be cheaper and they will further regulate importation and exportation (meaning there isn't any). They will make legal punishments more severe and they will even allow people to grow some marijuana at home.





Monday, April 4th, 2016 - "Reschedule 4/20 Event", protesters are walking to the White House carrying an inflatable joint. 

        Why would you want to buy marijuana illegally after having fought for it to be legal? Just go to a dispensary and chill out. People didn't basically hotbox the White House's south lawn to not say anything. People want weed. And us who are in Canada will most likely get it (don't we all love Trudeau?). Those in the States have a bit more work to do.

BYE!

(1) http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pot-revenue-government-5-billion-1.3423705
(2) http://www.thecannabist.co/2016/02/09/colorado-marijuana-sales-2015-reach-996-million/47886/

The Taboo Behind Marijuana Usage

        Just to start this off, here's the definition of "taboo" according to my trusty dictionary, Google.

taboo: a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing. 

We'll be concentrating on the "thing" in this blog post, starting off with the social custom.

I hate how marijuana has this stigma around it. (IT WON'T HURT YOU. JUST HAVE SOME.) I mean, I hate how sometimes, things have to be socially accepted to be right. It's like eating with your mouth open. The only reason people say it's rude is because other people say it's rude and all of this is because one person a long time ago had a weak stomach and said eating with your mouth open is disgusting. And everyone listened to them, and that was the birth of not being able to eat with your mouth open. I hate the terms "socially acceptable".

        You know what is "socially acceptable"? Alcohol. Even though it's more harmful. People haven't criminalized alcohol, even though it can kill someone. No one really cares when people say they went out to drink for fun. That's because as a society, we accept it. Alcohol has been around for quite some time, ever since hard liquor didn't exist and there was only fermented grape juice (also known as wine and apparently it's really sophisticated). Well, I'm sure it's really sophisticated that alcohol kills 88,000 people per year (1) whereas marijuana killed ZERO. But yes, it is socially acceptable to go drink.

        Sigh. Don't we all love how the world works?

        Social stigma is unnatural. Cavemen didn't have social customs and rules. They could eat with their mouths open. They could have all the pot in the world if they wanted it/could find it/I'm running out of ideas/let's move on to my next point.

     

 What about religious customs? My personal definition of religion is just to not be a jerk and give out some good to the world. Many people, however, want to follow their religion by the book. If that includes not even giving a chance to something that might help them, then so be it.

        I skimmed through a bunch of Bible verses online. The Bible's views on marijuana, even though it doesn't say marijuana or weed or cannabis or pot or whatever literally. are actually pretty cool. It says to stay sober but to not shame God's work. EXACTLY! STAY SOBER IF YOU DON'T LIKE CANNABIS BUT DON'T GO AGAINST IT OR PEOPLE WHO USE IT. MORE FOR THEM. CASE CLOSED.

I wish. But this is a blog post. I have to keep going. I hate elephants.

        The Quran is against consumption of marijuana because it labels it as a drug and drugs are bad. It's also pretty negative about gambling and alcohol because those two, along with weed/drug (according to the Quran) bring the devil. I don't know if I find that a bit better. At least they're much more explicitly against alcohol than the Bible.

         Long story short, there are a bunch of things people say and people have said and that are written somewhere that say something is bad. I believe that people should look at scientific proof and
not what their friends say or what is collectively believed. The taboo behind marijuana usage is just the same as any other taboo: it originated from fear of the unknown and so people simply decided to ignore it. If you don't ignore it, it would be a bad thing. I think that people that go against what they're supposed to conform to are very strong. Just like the person who said that eating with your mouth open is rude started a chain reaction and had everyone believing their thing, the person who said that eating with your mouth open is OK starts the same chain reaction. Only that time, they have to go against the current and fix everyone up. That's what makes them strong.

This blog post was very hard to write. I could barely find pictures. You're welcome.    

Sources:

(1) http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/alcohol-facts-and-statistic