[zanny]

Being an invasive empire doesn't make people like you? What an interesting proposition. It might baffle a few dozen suits who run the military industrial complex, before they go back to laughing while wiping their bums with $100 bills of taxpayer money.

Same way the pharmaceutical industry, for profit prison industry, and lumber industry (last one is debated plenty) will continue to shove money into politics to keep drugs illegal and prisons nicely packed full of pot smokers. It is all about the money, not the morality. That went out the window decades ago.

[Zimahl]

> lumber industry (last one is debated plenty)

The lumber industry? You're seriously comparing Big Pharma and for-profit prison companies with the timber industry?

I'm not sure if you are talking about America in the 2010s, but the timber industry is tanking. Maybe if you were talking about the 1970s I might peripherally agree.

The timber industry is so bad right now that it is cheaper to buy 2x4s to burn in your fireplace than firewood harvested from logging scraps.

[DanBC]

The Lumber Cartel is an ancient Internet meme. (People against spam must be shills of the paper trade, paid for by the lumber industry.) It gets mentioned when you're talking about cartels just because.

[dinedal]

I think he included them because they were the original reason for suppressing marijuana, not Big Pharma

[zanny]

I like how I put in parens that it is debated, and it gets debated :P

But yes, they were the original reason for the widespread propaganda spree against pot, but today it is due to big pharma. And people on the internet always argue about it!