Cannabis industry could move West Virginia ahead of the country
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There is much to be said about the mountain state, though if we look for West Virginia in national headlines, more bad than good comes to light. Sure the state has its share of problems, but most of them can be fixed by introducing new industry in the region, offering more jobs. What better industry to fill in gaps than cannabis.
West Virginia is consistently ranked in the bottom five for public education in the United States with some of the lowest-paid teachers in the country. Since Colorado has legalized recreational marijuana, the taxes have been funneled into funding its education system. West Virginia needs all the additional educational funding it can get when budget cuts are leading to layoffs in K-12 schools and departmental cuts in higher education. This is a loss of jobs and programming the state cannot afford to lose.
President Obama has dubbed the state the epicenter for the opioid addiction epidemic. Medical use of marijuana will not only help those recovering from addiction, but it will prevent addiction by replacing opioid painkillers in some patients. Giving doctors another option to treat chronic pain will lessen the addiction rate and diminish the over prescription of opioids.
West Virginia is losing population at an alarming rate; as a whole, the populous is aging and the youth population is leaving West Virginia looking for job opportunities. Marijuana legalization will create jobs in STEM-related fields, agriculture, tourism, business and medical fields.
All these things will make West Virginia a more attractive and viable option for out-of-state businesses to come here to branch out. Successful industry will help bring broadband internet across the state, something that has kept West Virginia economically behind. People will want to come to the state and stay in the state, and it will no longer be the only state in America that is consistently losing population.
We cannot deny any longer the decline of the coal industry as the country looks toward more sustainable energy options, and the state can no longer use it as its last crutch. Legalizing marijuana and welcoming the industry that comes with it can put the mountain state ahead of the country, instead of consistently getting left behind.
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Malcolm Kyle • Apr 20, 2016 at 4:16 am
Our policy regarding drugs is in the hands of frauds, liars and two bit crooks. Until they are removed from office or/and in handcuffs, poverty will increase, injustice will prevail and perversity will continue to rule.
A rather large majority of people will always feel the need to use drugs such as heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, hallucinogens, alcohol or caffeine.
Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced and widely used by those who desire to do so.
Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
The massive majority of people who use drugs do so recreationally – getting high at the weekend then up for work on a Monday morning.
A very small minority of people will always experience drug use as problematic.
Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement – even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
The involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
It’s not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste hundreds of billions of our money in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the prohibited drugs have ever done.