Legalize Marijuana on St. Croix

i was sitting in the Dr. office Monday and almost every other person had lost their jobs or would be loosing their jobs. One woman walked out from her exam and hearing us discussing jobs started railing about the injustice of being the only person working in Mental Health at Charles Harwood and she had been let go. How were her patients needs going to be looked after and why were senators relatives and friends who had just been hired in the summer and had no experience not let go first? She had been there eighteen years and was close to retirement. This place is going to contract economically faster than we can absorb she cried and then who will we blame?

She was a dynamo, capturing the entire room in her travails but leaving undefeated for she was fighting back. She was not going to roll over and accept her job firing. She was going to start discussions with everyone she could and still find space to laugh about her situation.

Most of us there were discussing new ideas to help move the island into a better place for everyone. The mood was not defeatist at all in fact it was very optimistic. All of us recognized the need for an economy built upon demand that could be self sustaining. But the form that was going to take eluded us. We needed someone like her to go out and fight for a new identity.

For too long we have been known as the industrial island not a vacation mecca like St. Thomas or St. John. This has hurt us commercially and financially because we really aren't well known, we are off the vacation radar.

Everyone, i don't care if you are rich, poor or in-between wants to live in a peaceful place. They want to live their lives unencumbered by fear of home invasion, robbery or unintended death. Unfortunately St. Croix has its problems that are brought on by a lack of jobs, lack of education and a thriving drug industry.

Eight indicators reflect a peaceful society according to research that has been done by the Institute for Economics and Peace, you need:

• Well-functioning government
  

• Sound business environment
  

• Equitable distribution of resources
  

• Acceptance of the rights of others
  

• Good relations with neighbors
  

• Free flow of information
  

• High levels of education
  

• Low levels of corruption
  

These are items that we as an island nation could easily work on and market to the world. St. Croix needs an identity and one such identity could be that unlike the tourist islands we are a residential island that seeks residents that want to transform the island into a place that we can all live on peacefully.

Our society is involved in self defeating thinking and behaviors that continue to depress living standards. “Peace is statistically related to better business environments, higher per capita income, higher educational attainment and stronger social cohesion,” says the Institute for Economics and Peace.
In order to create that environment for all of us it means that we as a community have to work at building structures that can contain violence, or get rid of structures that encourage violence.

With the economic turmoil that has wracked the island over the past few months we are looking at the very real potential for increased criminal activity and all its assorted negative impacts upon us.

We as a community can either sit back and let it happen or try to deflect those repercusions.
i think one method of deflection is to legalize marijuana. Make St. Croix, just like we did the casinos, the only island where marijuana can be grown and sold legally. We all know where to buy it even if we don't partake. We have lots of people that are hustling every day making a living off illegal drugs because they have no other options. If we legalize marijuana all these young men and women would have instant jobs. We could create a new economy, generate new taxes and cut down on some of the senseless killing that takes them out. Maybe we could even see our crime rates plummet bringing on that peaceful environment.

i know this may be a rather radical suggestion, others have made it before me and California has tried passing laws that have failed so far. NORML works all over the country trying to legalize it and Hawaii is trying to decriminalize along with over two dozen other states that have various forms of laws they are trying to pass. It is coming, some state will pass a law legalizing it and start gobbling up the money. Why shouldn't we be first, reaping the economic benefits instead of always being last. Think about it.

See ya next week.