And maybe you should start a thread where you're ignoring me in the future, like you said.
The only reason people like you want to place the blame on the law, is because they don't want to assume the responsiblity for what their behavior is creating.
You act like this was a prohibition of food or water.
It's the attempt to stop drug use that is causing the violence and creates the black market. The damage caused by the drug war is greater than the supposed harm of marijuana use. That's why it fails a rational basis test.
I will just post this again...
Why Beef Prohibition Can Work!
Though it would be a mistake, it would probably be more effective in limiting beef consumption than the drug war is in limiting marijuana use. Also, the damaging effects of prohibition would be less.
Similarities
Neither marijuana nor beef show much sign of being physically addictive. They can be habit forming.
Both have rather mild ill effects. When used in moderation both seem to be fairly benign and have some benefits. I would argue beef is more dangerous, though. It can and does kill with a single serving through choking or contamination of the meat. You can’t overdose on marijuana and short of some freak accident you cannot die from it with a single dose.
Alternatives
There are many alternatives to beef (e.g., chicken, pork, fish, etc.) that are readily available in the market. You would not even need to outlaw beef to get people to switch to the alternatives. You could just put a significant tax on it and people would switch to other meats in herds (hehe).
Further, the alternatives to beef seem to be safer. That is not true with marijuana. The alternatives to marijuana are other drugs (e.g., alcohol, pain meds, cocaine, heroin, etc.) most of which are far more dangerous than marijuana.
Production
Let us imagine what sort of problems an illegal cattle rancher might face. How will he conceal his cows? He will need a male and female to continue as a going concern through breeding. Also, he will have one or more that will eventually be slaughtered. With pot a grower could continue with just one plant, though it might not be too efficient, and just clone it before harvesting it. Actually, banning beef might lead to animal cloning advancements, but that would be very costly, for now. So the illegal cattle rancher is going to need to find a place for all his cattle and they will require more room than marijuana.
If a marijuana grower has a growroom in his closet then there are some ways the police or a "concerned citizen" might discover it. They might see it, smell it, notice the grower's electricity/water use had jumped or that he is buying things involved in caring for the plants. All of those would be ways that one might discover someone is raising cattle, but in addition to those problems the illegal cattle rancher has many more worries. A cow is an animal, rather than a plant, which means it moves around. Not to mention, cows are pretty smart while plants are not. Plants won't find some ingenious way to break out of the growroom and wander down the street. Nor will they make noise. Then there are problems with the wastes products of cows and how one is going to get rid of them.
Distribution
Now, let us imagine the problems of a street corner beef dealer. He has got really big problems. The biggest one being, meat rots quickly without refrigeration. The street corner beef dealer is going to have a hard time concealing his refrigerator out on the street corner. When the cops give chase it is going to be a real bitch lugging that thing around. He can't swallow it either.
So seriously, illegal meat distribution would not likely spawn the street corner dealer, who are often the ones hawking their wares to children. I guess, it could be done out of automobiles. But, then, if the cops come after the automobile, the dealer has to escalate to a dangerous car chase or leave the car and product behind, neither of which are very attractive options.
It would, likely, be dealt from buildings or homes primarily. Doing it that way means the customer has to know someone that knows someone.
Ill Effects of Prohibition
Some of the effects have already been noted. The health effects of alternatives to beef, might be a positive. With marijuana the health effect of alternative are decidedly negative.
However, just like with marijuana the health effects of beef would likely increase with prohibition. The fact that meat rots and can be contaminated easily is the reason. It would be very dangerous to eat beef from a black market supplier. The chance that you are going to get some poisoned weed is lower than the chance of getting contaminated meat from a legal market, much less a black market.
Results of Prohibition on Use
The heightened risk of black market meat, the problems facing suppliers in a black market and the fact that so many safer alternatives are readily available means that beef use could be dramatically reduced with prohibition. Still, those depraved individuals that sought it out would be at great risk.
So, prohibition of beef could be a shining success (really, just less of a failure) in the annals of government control of personal behavior.
The Campaign
If you have read this without understanding it is tongue-in-cheek, you might be asking why we should ban beef. I can't give you any compelling reasons (unless you are a member of PETA or a vegetarian) just like you can't give me any compelling reasons to ban marijuana. But we can just follow the drug war game plan.
We'll have to go after the cowboy image. That could be tough. Maybe, we could point out the fact that many cowboy traditions were borrowed from the Mexican vaqueros, so really aren't they really just Mexicans (I am not a bigot, but it is effective propaganda). Then maybe will tell everybody that John Wayne loved cows. I mean, he really loved cows.
So we have some attacks on the images of the beef industry, but we need a cause. Beef, as has been noted, is somewhat dangerous. We can exaggerate those dangers with hyperbolic images of kids choking on meat. Then we could have some commercials, like, these are your arteries... these are you arteries on beef (haven't figured out the visual but...). We can play up the dangers of e. coli even though prohibition would make that danger far worse. Also, we could tell everybody that buying beef funds terrorists. That's a good one.
Conclusion
Marijuana prohibition has not been very effective, if at all, in lowering use and has raised the risks involved with use. The problems created by prohibition are far worse than the problems of use itself. Prohibition of beef would create similar problems, but would probably be more effective in reducing use and therefore might produce some net health benefits. Of course, prohibition of beef would be stupid, just less stupid than the prohibition of marijuana.
