You really should read that US Federal government report in the link that I posted.Other countries are growing it. Russians are growing it at Chernobyl to clean radioactive pollution from the soil. England is growing it and making cars out of it. Look up the 2010 Lotus Eco Elise. Germany is growing it and doing well. But the country that is doing the best is China. China grows $500 million worth of hemp products which are imported to the US. $500m a year. $500m leaving our economy and going to China for the same plant fibers that our DEA spends $20 BILLION a year to cut down and burn. We can keep that money in our economy without putting more people in prison, costing the taxpayers even more, if we legalize it and charge an appropriate tax, just like we did to win World War II.But the one thing you don't seem to have a grasp on is if hemp were such a great raw material other countries would grow it, process it and export the products to the US. Like I said you will likely understand by the time you get our of Jr. High school.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32725.pdf
Hemp and Marijuana are Cannabis Sativa Linneus. 99% of the "Marijuana" destroyed by the US Federal government each year is wild hemp. Industrial hemp is the real target of Marijuana prohibition. Marijuana the drug is not dangerous because it has not killed anyone, ever. Not one overdose, ever. The science is in. It was in a long time ago. Nixon appointed the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse in 1972 to determine just how dangerous Marijuana is. The report of the Shafer Commission concluded that Marijuana is not dangerous and that Marijuana should be legalized, and the War on Drugs has escalated every year since.
Americans who grew marijuana in 1942 were called patriots. Now we're called criminals. Go fuck yourselves, GOP.
WOW, 500 million is a 15 trillion economy, yep that could save us, NOT. Tell me, who is lining up to process the plants being raised for commercial sale in CO and WA, once the buds and leaves are harvested there is a lot of waste.
You didn't count the $20 billion each year that the US spends on marijuana prohibition, plus the billions more on incarcerations, legal proceedings, prison and jail maintenance, plus the billions upon billions more for over-inflated medical bills caused by toxic pills with terrible side effects because a natural remedy from Cannabis is unavailable. Plus the TRILLIONS spent on war for fossil fuels and the TRILLIONS more spent on constantly upgrading the world's most advanced military to "stay one step ahead" of the black market terrorist groups and drug cartels that wouldn't make those black market profits if the drugs were legal and taxed.
So, yes, marijuana prohibition is keeping TRILLIONS of dollars going up the 1% every single year instead of that money circulating among society.