Marijuana decriminalization

[Pangloss]

How was that useful? You're just passing along someone else's words in an obvious appeal to ridicule. I want to know what you think, Bob, not what Barney Frank thinks. Why don't you make your own argument?

[bob000555]

How was that useful? You're just passing along someone else's words in an obvious appeal to ridicule. I want to know what you think, Bob, not what Barney Frank thinks. Why don't you make your own argument?

 

The fact that I took Barney Frank’s words on gambling and applied them to legalization implies some original thought. How does using the words of a more articulate person constitute and appeal to ridicule; I should think it constitutes not reinventing the wheal of rhetoric. But if the great god Pangloss insists:

 

Not so easy when they are part of the wife's family.

Are you seriously suggesting that the government restrict the rights of others so you don’t have to have the awkward situation of not associating with someone who’s actions your find immoral?

 

And don't forget, when the government responsibility it is our money doing it.

Presently the government spends billion of dollars fighting a “war on drugs” against it’s own people which it can not possibly hope to win. If marijuana where legalized and taxed it would bring a boon in new government revenue,

 

Personally, I have never seen anything constructive associated with pot or any other drugs. Also, I don't like the message that legalising such drugs gives to society. This includes the down classing that pot here in the UK. In my opinion it was one the governments worse decisions in recent years. Far better would have been a new grading system, rather than making marijuana sound "safer" by lowering its class.

 

It is not the government’s duty to ban everything which is not useful, nor is it the government’s responsibly to dictate to it’s people what is safe and what is not.

[Phi for All]

the great god Pangloss

There's a great custom user title!

 

I, for one, didn't see any abuse of power in Pangloss' post. He was asking a poster to dig a little deeper. He does the best job of walking the tightrope between participation and moderation, imo.

[ajb]

It is not the government’s duty to ban everything which is not useful, nor is it the government’s responsibly to dictate to it’s people what is safe and what is not.

 

Is it not the primary function of a government to protect its peoples?

 

Are you seriously suggesting that the government restrict the rights of others so you don’t have to have the awkward situation of not associating with someone who’s actions your find immoral?

 

 

I have made no such suggestion. I am not that self-centred nor do I think as an individual that governments should implement polices and laws on my account. I am thinking of society as a whole.

 

Sometimes the "rights" of an individual need to be restricted for the good of the whole.

Edited December 26, 2008 by ajb
multiple post merged

[Phi for All]

Is it not the primary function of a government to protect its peoples?

Not really. It's primary function should be to provide order. From there it can establish ways to resolve conflicts (including how best to protect the people) but order should be the prime directive, imo.

 

How does hemp compromise our ability to protect ourselves? And again, do you drink alcohol? And even if you personally don't, why should alcohol be legal while marijuana is not?

[padren]

A few other thoughts on the legalization of marijuana:

 

1) In the last town I lived, I honestly believe the fact that marijuana was illegal lead to an increase in use of drugs like meth:

 

The reason is, the schools teach kids how evil "illegal drugs are" and that is everything from pot to meth. If they try pot and find it doesn't impact their life very much, they suddenly become suspect of all drug education - if they can handle pot and it's as bad as all the others, why should any other drug be different?

 

Second, many start by smoking pot, which then dries intermittently as the police crack down, because pot has to be brought in from other areas. Meth, can be produced locally and never dries up, which means it's constantly available. So, someone tries meth because what they are used to is not available, and next thing you know they are in the grips of a seriously harsh drug.

 

2) Why are we so concerned as a society about controlling how other people live? How many great artists and poets that we love to celebrate as a society were heavily self medicated? Who has the final say on "the right way to live" when we are all just winging it the whole time?

 

3) I do support the idea that if someone goes on welfare, they should be assessed for "dysfunctional self medication" after a month of so - essentially, anybody can choose the sort of life they want to live, but if it starts to cost society, I think it is fair to intervene, if it's done carefully. What I disagree with is preemptive intervention.

 

 

 

The truth is too, if you get under the surface just a little, there are a lot of things that a lot of people don't want to tolerate. There are a lot of Christians that believe only through Christianity can people be truly moral - but due to our culture they can't just "clamp down" on those who aren't... but that doesn't mean those fundamentalists wouldn't like to. There are "fundamental atheists" that have similar views about religion. It just feels to me like either we have a society where we respect the right of others to choose their own path whether it is to their own destruction or to some epic win that benefits us all... or we don't, and the only mitigating factor is the strength of competing forces to "conform" society into their ideal (and completely untested) mold.

[ajb]

How does hemp compromise our ability to protect ourselves? And again, do you drink alcohol? And even if you personally don't, why should alcohol be legal while marijuana is not?

 

Is the argument that because something is legal that everything should be legal?

 

I don't think it is as simple as that. Think about what the attitude to alcohol would be if it were discovered today and all the health problems associated with it known.

[iNow]

I think the basis of the point, ajb, is that you are arguing on the issue of protecting society as a whole, which is both fair and admirable. However, the argument seems to break down when considered in light of alcohol, which is legal and could easily be argued to have a greater negative impact on society than pot. So, when taken in this context, we have things like alcohol which are hugely detrimental, and it seems hypocritical to single out other substances like pot for reasons which are relatively weak in support.

 

At least, I think that's what is happening. The point is not that "because one thing is legal, all things should be legal." The point is that the "protection of society as a whole" argument fails the test of reality since alcohol, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, and all manner of other things ARE legal despite the detriment which they cause. Seems like a double standard to many of us, despite the fact that your intentions are without question good ones.

[padren]

I think the basis of the point, ajb, is that you are arguing on the issue of protecting society as a whole, which is both fair and admirable. However, the argument seems to break down when considered in light of alcohol, which is legal and could easily be argued to have a greater negative impact on society than pot. So, when taken in this context, we have things like alcohol which are hugely detrimental, and it seems hypocritical to single out other substances like pot for reasons which are relatively weak in support.

 

At least, I think that's what is happening. The point is not that "because one thing is legal, all things should be legal." The point is that the "protection of society as a whole" argument fails the test of reality since alcohol, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, and all manner of other things ARE legal despite the detriment which they cause. Seems like a double standard to many of us, despite the fact that your intentions are without question good ones.

 

I'll take it a degree further - regardless of the double standard factor (alcohol is legal, pot is not) I just can't get past the part where no one knows the "right way to live" for someone else. If someone goes to the state for help I would say - sure, give them an idea of how to help their life out, based on whatever principles the society has to go on. But short of that, why should someone tell me how to live my own life? I only get to live once, and I sure as heck don't want to be forced into spending it in it's entirety as part of a state experiment on how people should live. I am happy to make all the wrong decisions if I get to make them - and I can live with that.

 

Do we need skydiving, or extreme sports, or a million other things people choose to do that could "reduce the sum productivity" of the nation? I understand the need to regulate things that directly impact the well being of others, but the preemptive thing really bothers me.

 

Throw into it that we are a diverse people - and you really get a mess when you try to create welfare through social conformity. We allow natives on reservations to use peyote because it's use is part of their heritage, yet the rest of us are just mutts without a heritage, so we are now forced to conform to whatever theory abides the most generalized and politically fueled social norms of our day? For me, that's a mentality I just cannot accept.

[Pangloss]

At risk of sounding like a color commentator, I thought there were some really interesting points made in the post above, especially in ajb's interesting question and iNow's well-thought-out response. I've never considered this to be a simple issue and I think this is one of those areas where it's going to take some time and a great deal of public discussion to reach a societal consensus. As with the gay marriage issue, a right can be argued to be impinged-upon here, but it's not one that has to be resolved immediately, and it's important to have a societal consensus and give all parties a chance to be heard.

 

Just to expand on padren's point a bit, let me ask a further question: Might there be a logistical argument along the lines of "they know dealer X (who's not a cop), who points them to dealer Y (who's not a cop)"? I have no idea if that's a realistic scenario or not, but it seems logical enough. What do you all think?

[Mr Skeptic]

As with the gay marriage issue, a right can be argued to be impinged-upon here, but it's not one that has to be resolved immediately, and it's important to have a societal consensus and give all parties a chance to be heard.

 

Um, last I checked, gay people don't get all their property confiscated and themselves thrown in jail. That seems to me more urgent than not being able to get a marriage license.

[Phi for All]

Is the argument that because something is legal that everything should be legal?

No. The argument is that because alcohol is legal, pot should be legal. What you suggest is a strawman.

 

The argument is also that alcohol is legal and growing hemp, even for making fabric and paper and rope and oil, is illegal. There are those who claim that our old friend Big Oil is once again to blame, since prior to it's being outlawed in 1937, hemp was used for many markets that petroleum coveted.

 

I don't think it is as simple as that. Think about what the attitude to alcohol would be if it were discovered today and all the health problems associated with it known.

I think alcohol's deleterious effects are quite well known, and by a majority of people. The attitude seems to be that since it's legal it's OK, even though it kills or destroys the lives of tens of thousands of people worldwide every year.

 

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that we could use hemp again. It's stronger and less harmful than cotton to the environment. We could stop cutting down trees to make paper. We could have renewable oil supplies (I'm pretty sure IC engines could be made to run on a derivative of hemp oil).

 

I've imbibed alcohol and cannabis in the past, but don't use either anymore so I feel I can say without too much bias that there are no reasons why we shouldn't have both if we have one. I can live without both but why should I dictate what everyone else can or can't put inside themselves?

[padren]

Just to expand on padren's point a bit, let me ask a further question: Might there be a logistical argument along the lines of "they know dealer X (who's not a cop), who points them to dealer Y (who's not a cop)"? I have no idea if that's a realistic scenario or not, but it seems logical enough. What do you all think?

 

If you are referring to what I said about "pot is not available, so someone tries meth" I think it depends on the area. Where I lived, most people that would sell pot wouldn't point someone to a meth dealer for any amount of money in the world. One fellow had to skip town after people figured out he was selling people pot laced with meth (without their knowledge) to get people hooked on it - a lot of people were out for his blood.

 

I am sure people become more comfortable and experienced tracking things down though, once they learn how to find pot, they can find almost anything if it's available.

 

But I suspect in other areas it is more common for someone to sell both pot and meth, and generally care less about the welfare of the individual - but those are cities where pot is less likely to dry up in the first place. I can't really speak to it other than the experience I had where I lived.

 

 

For the record I actually don't smoke myself, I just know a lot of people that do.

[Sisyphus]

The debate about legalization of marijuana (or any drug) comes down to two different questions, the ideological and the pragmatic. They can and should be argued separately, but both should be considered. Personally, I think the marijuana legalization arguments are stronger on both fronts, which makes it a very easy call for me: I'm for it.

 

Ideologically, it's a question of whether the government has a responsibility to protect people from harming themselves. And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't. As long as you're not harming or endangering others, you can do whatever you want. That's a free society. Now you can come in with a melodramatic voiceover and talk about how it does harm others, and cite DUI and child neglect and wokka wokka wokka, but none of those things are inherent to using, and they're already crimes in themselves.

 

And pragmatically, you can talk about the "damage to society," which is a reasonable concern that I am actually open to. I just happen not to buy it in this case. Is there damage to society? Probably. But is it worse than the cost of the war on drugs, in the time and money of law enforcement and the societal cost of putting so many people in prison? I really doubt it. Especially since you're not weighing the cost against the harm marijuana does now, you're weighing it against the imagined increased harm it would do if legalized. And I think it would actually do less since it would be regulated (and thus safer) and out of the hands of criminals. Would more people smoke? Probably. But not many more, since, let's face it, it's not exactly hard to come by even now. People who would want to be potheads are potheads. This seems to be universal - in the few places it is legal (like the Netherlands), usage is no higher than average.

 

Some individual responses:

 

ajb, I also know a couple of people who seem to have damaged their lives with marijuana. I also know alcoholics, who are a lot worse, and perfectly analogous. Most people drink alcohol, but only a few abuse it. Most people I know have also at least tried marijuana (including myself - I tried it a couple times, didn't care for it, and haven't touched it since), and an even smaller percentage end up abusing it. And, mind you, this is all while it's illegal.

 

padren, I agree about the credibility gap with anti-drug education, and I've seen the same thing. Pot usually isn't a "gateway drug," but when it is, IMO, it's largely because it's illegal. People see for themselves that it's pretty much harmless, despite the dire warnings they've been given their whole lives, so they scoff at the warnings about other illegal drugs, when those actually are true. Don't do meth, kids.

 

And I think I'll close with this rather apt (and hilarious) excerpt from Dewey Cox:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57DdviStOFo

[Pangloss]

Reading Sisyphus's interesting post above, I had a thought about my own feelings about drug use that lead to a question: Can I be "not opposed" to this, rather than "in favor of it"? Or is that a cop out? What do you all think?

 

Really what that means in the Pangloss Panoply of Political Positions (Book IV, Chapter 8, "Darmok and Gilad") is that I'm not opposed to legalization but I don't consider it a priority; if it became a priority and my opinion became relevant then I would probably become "in favor". But I would have to be convinced that the pros outweigh the cons.

 

The reason I raise it here (why I don't think it's off subject) is that I think it probably impacts on whether this issue ever gets passed. You have to convince people who aren't necessarily in favor of it, but aren't radically opposed to it either, that this is important enough to fix, and that it's worth the new appearance of "costs" that will occur, even if it happens to cause some current "costs" to disappear.

[Mr Skeptic]

Reading Sisyphus's interesting post above, I had a thought about my own feelings about drug use that lead to a question: Can I be "not opposed" to this, rather than "in favor of it"? Or is that a cop out? What do you all think?

 

You can be, but both sides will hate you for it. I am in favor of legalization of marijuana, but opposed to its use... If people want to "destroy their lives", that is up to them, but we shouldn't destroy their lives to prevent them from "destroying their lives". In my eyes, the current policy with marijuana is worse than a death sentence for attempting suicide. I suspect that people who would destroy their lives with marijuana would likely do so with alcohol or other drugs.

[CaptainPanic]

Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that we could use hemp again. It's stronger and less harmful than cotton to the environment. We could stop cutting down trees to make paper. We could have renewable oil supplies (I'm pretty sure IC engines could be made to run on a derivative of hemp oil).

 

I've imbibed alcohol and cannabis in the past, but don't use either anymore so I feel I can say without too much bias that there are no reasons why we shouldn't have both if we have one. I can live without both but why should I dictate what everyone else can or can't put inside themselves?

 

Ironically, we can make ("second generation") bio-ethanol from hemp now. Obviously this is meant as a fuel, not to fry the brains of the entire population. The only real hurdle left is to get cheap enzymes for the cellulose hydrolysis. The technology works already for several years on lab scale. It's just a bit too expensive.

And indeed, hemp seeds are as good as rapeseed for biodiesel.

In short, yes, we can make IC (internal combustion) engines run on hemp quite easily.

And the plants grow fast, and the wide variety of hemp means you can grow it practically everywhere.

 

You can be, but both sides will hate you for it. I am in favor of legalization of marijuana, but opposed to its use... If people want to "destroy their lives", that is up to them, but we shouldn't destroy their lives to prevent them from "destroying their lives". In my eyes, the current policy with marijuana is worse than a death sentence for attempting suicide. I suspect that people who would destroy their lives with marijuana would likely do so with alcohol or other drugs.

 

If you really want to prevent all people from "destroying their lives", you should take a different kind of action than now. People are pretty creative when they are determined to destroy their lives.

 

The Netherlands (where I happen to live) is a country that shows that a country does not go down the drain when marijuana is tolerated. We're still a wealthy country, and the stuff is tolerated for 30 years already. Consumption is lower than in the countries around us.

 

(I wrote a longer post about this before. It includes some numbers about consumption of West-European countries and the USA).

The only example of legalized (tolerated) sale of marijuana is the Netherlands. And luckily for this discussion [the newspaper of 17-11-2008] (Volkskrant) published some numbers on consumption of the groups 15-64 and 15-24.

[...]

 

Article (in Dutch): http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/article1094054.ece/Nederlanders_blowen_niet_massaal

Picture:http://www.volkskrant.nl/template/ver2-0/components/thumbnail.jsp?id=132411

[explanation/translation in the SFN post by me]

Numbers are good for a discussion.

Edited December 30, 2008 by CaptainPanic
saw another post I had to reply to

[ParanoiA]

The reason I raise it here (why I don't think it's off subject) is that I think it probably impacts on whether this issue ever gets passed. You have to convince people who aren't necessarily in favor of it, but aren't radically opposed to it either, that this is important enough to fix, and that it's worth the new appearance of "costs" that will occur, even if it happens to cause some current "costs" to disappear.

 

I think a good example would be to point out the destroyed families of those we have victimized with anti-marijuana laws. I wonder how difficult it would be to get statistics on the numbers of fathers (and mothers for that matter) in prison currently for marijuana charges only. Then we can all simulate by our respective personal experiences the downstream consequences to those families that had their main provider and protector yanked from their lives because of our intolerance to a plant that has killed no one.

 

We can also contemplate, in shame, the pain we have caused in our over reaction to our hypocritical position of selling aspirin over the counter (NSAID's are responsible for thousands of death per year. http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/30#nsaid)

 

What we do to violators of our victimless crime laws is reprehensible and will be regarded by posterity as oppressive and tyrannical and will serve as a further example of the inherent problem with democracy, and why a constitutional wall is necessary, and how ours has too many damn holes in it.

 

I would really like to find the stats on the number of people's lives we're destroying right now with our intolerant government sanctioned bigotry. If I find something, I'll come back and post it because, like CaptainPanic said, numbers are really necessary here.

 

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/120/3/e678

 

The record prison population1 has resulted in an unprecedented number of children in the United States with an incarcerated parent.2 More than one half (54.7%) of all imprisoned US men are estimated to be fathers of minor children, and nearly two thirds (65.3%) of women in prison are mothers.3 Government estimates of the number of children of incarcerated parents,3 adjusted for the current size of the prison population, indicate that 1.6 million minor children have an incarcerated parent.

 

According to the Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, drug offenses make up 59.6% of the 1.5 million total american prison population which equates to 894,000 drug offenders. (http://www.druglibrary.org/Schaffer/library/basicfax17.htm) If Pediatrics is correct in their estimate of 54.7% of male prisoners and 65.3% of female prisoners are parents, then at least half of the 894,000 drug prisoners are parents.

 

So, we're roughly under 500,000 parents doing time for a moral behavior violation that did not impact anyone else's rights but their own. I wonder how their kids are doing. I wonder how they took the punishment, er I mean made the adjustment of losing a parent. I wonder how that will effect their growth and development. I wonder how they'll deal with losing the other parent too, since they have to do "double duty" now - and won't it be great to add another single mom with kids to the stat sheets.

 

Even if you're of the mind that it's perfectly acceptable to force your "right way to live", as Padren called it, onto everyone else, how do you justify the total break-up and breakdown of the family unit in response? Do we need to visit the rate of recidivism and how prison culture ruins previously civil people? All this, for a drug that is safer than aspirin and not nearly as intoxicating and debilitating as alcohol? Dumb. Cruel and unusual punishment for the "crime" committed. How is Pot worse than the punishment we're exacting here? I mean, really.

 

All this because we're ****ing stupid? It's a sham. It's a disgrace to our statue of liberty. I hope the history books roast our generations over this.

Edited January 1, 2009 by ParanoiA
multiple post merged

[Phi for All]

All this because we're ****ing stupid?

All this because, like so many things, supporters get labeled by spin doctors supporting the other side of the coin. It's the "Your against the war? You don't support the troops!" argument. With pot you're a drug addict if you want to legalize it.

 

How much more cotton is sold because hemp is illegal? How much more alcohol? How many more prison get built? How many more trees get cut down? How much more petroleum is sold? How many more political campaigns get financed by moral molesters* because hemp is illegal? It's not stupidity that keeps hemp illegal, it's greed and influence.

 

 

 

 

 

*I like this, this is my new anti-Christ-winger sound byte; people who force their virtues on you *are* moral molesters. Feel free to use it, all royalties will go to NORML.

[Pangloss]

Why is hemp better than cotton? Just curious.

 

Anyway, I agree there's a lot of spin surrounding this issue, but it's also spin to dismiss these arguments as moral policing. Reasonable arguments are being made here regarding impact on society that have to be taken into consideration as well. We can be totally free to F ourselves up, or we can compete in the global economy -- or we can try to figure out the right compromise that allows a reasonable degree of both. That's the real choice. Stamping our feet about specific freedoms is probably not going to be a winning solution in the 21st century. For good or bad, it's going to be about compromise, I'm afraid.

 

BTW, it's not just the right-wing Bible-thumpers who are "moral molesters". The organized special interest groups on the left are just as bad as the ones on the right in that regard. If you don't believe me, take off your seat belt the next time you get pulled over and see what happens.

[Phi for All]

Why is hemp better than cotton? Just curious.

Longer, stronger fibers make a more durable cloth. Just about the time a pair of cotton jeans feels really good, the knees blow out. A pair of hemp jeans gets to that buttery soft stage and keeps going for a lot longer. The first Levi's sold were made from hemp sailcloth.

 

And as far as growing it, cotton requires a lot more fertilizer and pesticides (iirc, cotton uses almost half the pesticides used in the US). It's harder to grow, is more temperamental and can't grow in northern climates. Hemp is a weed, it grows just about everywhere with little help.

[Pangloss]

But aren't there even better fibers? Is the real point just to get people to grow weed?

 

Just asking, I don't know. It just seems like an odd coincidence that hemp is some kind of magical plant that will save the fashion world (at least to hear Woody Harrelson talk).

[Phi for All]

But aren't there even better fibers? Is the real point just to get people to grow weed?

There may be better fibers for fabric. Woven hemp cloth tends to be very stiff when brand new, so I doubt it would be a designer choice. Clothing manufacturers prefer something that's going to wear out quickly or shrink up so we have to buy more often. I had a pair of hemp jeans once and it took a while to break them in, but once they got softer they were fantastic. I ended up donating them because I lost weight, but they lasted years from the point where most cotton jeans would have blown out at the knees (or wherever your body type tends to blow them out). I'm sure hemp fabric could be pre-washed or acid-washed like cotton is, only it would outlast cotton by quite a bit and it should be cheaper and more easily renewable.

 

I just don't think there is a plant that can do as much as hemp does, be as easy for many people to grow in various climates and soil conditions, and be as friendly to the environment as well. It would make a lot more sense as a biomass fuel than corn. As for the intoxicating effects, that would be a problem for a short time while people adjusted, but existing laws and work policies should cover those effects nicely so no new legislation would be needed.

 

The worst case scenario is that everyone in prison for pot now is sprung and suddenly goes on welfare. Does anyone know which costs taxpayers more? IIRC, prison costs in 2005 were around $25K/prisoner/year.

[Mr Skeptic]

But aren't there even better fibers? Is the real point just to get people to grow weed?

 

From Wikipedia:

Typically, Hemp contains below 0.3% THC, while Cannabis grown for marijuana can contain anywhere from 6 or 7 % to 20% or even more.

 

EU and Canadian regulations limit THC content to 0.3% in industrial hemp.

 

I think that someone made a variety of hemp that contains negligible THC, so that this wouldn't be a problem. I think the real problem is that the police are afraid that if people grow hemp they won't be able to distinguish it from marijuana grown for high THC content. However, it seems that growing marijuana for high THC content requires specific growing conditions (female plants only, separated from male plants so they don't get fertilized, and low density so each plant gets more sunlight). Those growing conditions would make it easily distinguishable from hemp grown for legitimate purposes.

Edited January 2, 2009 by Mr Skeptic
did more reading.

[ParanoiA]

I think that someone made a variety of hemp that contains negligible THC, so that this wouldn't be a problem. I think the real problem is that the police are afraid that if people grow hemp they won't be able to distinguish it from marijuana grown for high THC content.

 

According to this article it isn't a problem.

 

http://www.helium.com/items/833112-the-difference-between-hemp-and-marijuana

 

Often it is argued by those who know there is a difference between hemp and marijuana that they could be grown together thereby deceiving authorities and passerby while effectively providing marijuana for those who wish to use it. This isn't an option however. Hemp is grown in rows one to two inches apart. The plants are grown very close together and shoot up toward the sky till they are taller then full grown men. They have a woody core and are stiff and hard to walk through. Marijuana on the other hand is grown with lots of room to bush out. You want 18" or more worth of space between the marijuana bushes. You want them to have lots of low branches (something that doesn't happen on hemp), leaves, and soft flexible stems. These growing methods encourage THC development making it better for use as a drug

 

Growing Them Together.

Growing hemp and marijuana isn't an option. By doing that you get cross pollination which leaves both plants infertile. When they cross pollinate you loose the buds of the flowers and the seeds. With hemp these parts are very useful for a wide variety of uses (oil, food, seed for the following year). With marijuana the bud is the part of the plant that has the most THC, if this doesn't fully develop due to cross pollination then you loose a lot of the material that can be smoked.

 

Edit: Just realized Skeptic and I cross-posted. Seems we google at about the same rate.