Mary Jane / Marijuana / POT

I, Karl Behm, candidate for Florida's Green Governor, will work to legalize marijuana for medicinal usage for the State of Florida. California has already taken this measure. I intend to tax it 100% and apply the extra money to our schools. People who have a legitimate doctor's prescription should be able to obtain marijuana that is grown and provided by the State of Florida.

An idea I am toying with is to have inmates grow the marijuana and be permitted to test the product. My feeling is that prisoners who are high on marijuana will be calm and mellow, and thus they will be less likely to become violent and riot. This may seem a bit on the radical side, but short of giving them valium, I think this may decrease the amount of violence in our prisons. I am not sure if this is a viable idea, but I am willing to explore ALL OPTIONS for manufacturing marijuana and selling it to the public, which will create a huge increase in revenue for the state of Florida.

Legalizing marijuane so Florida can gain increased revenue will reduce the need to tax homeowners! I estimate that $100 million per year will be saved by not incarcerating non-violent pot-smokers. Our jails should house violent criminals, sex offenders, murderers, and other hard core criminals - NOT peace loving citizens that like to smoke a little weed while in their own homes, minding their own business and harming no one.

Legalizing marijuana should also increase our revenue at least by $100 million dollars per year, and this is extra money that we can put to good use. I would like to see some of this extra revenue be applied to programs that will help people who are addicted to hard-core drugs, such as cocaine, crack, heroine and other methamphetamines, get the help they need to break their addiction. This will require effective treatment, rehab and follow up. This will create more jobs for us.

I am open to suggestions and any input you may have to make the legalization of marijuana work in the state of Florida. So please feel free to share your ideas with me, I am here to LISTEN to what you have to say and if it is a good idea, and I think it can work, we can work together to implement different strategies to help make this work. I would like to see regular, otherwise law-abiding citizens, whose only offense is smoking pot, de-criminalized and back in their homes, where they belong. Help me help you.

Many of you have either smoked some pot in your life time, currently enjoy smoking pot, or know someone who likes to smoke pot. Many of these people are your friends, relatives, neighbors or colleagues. Some of you know what it's like to be jailed for having possession of less than one gram of marijuana and you understand the injustice of this. Pot smokers do not belong in jail, murderers, and rapists, do!