Richardgrabman, “Web Log Comment” Alternet.org. Alternet. 2014. Web. 03 Aug. 2015.
Article was originally posted to Dollarandsense.org
The controversy that I am doing is the economic benefits of pot legalization. For my paper 2 I am analyzing the articles “Pot Economics” the source that I am summarizing is a comment posted on Alternate.org reposting of the Dollarandsense.org story. This is a direct comment to the story and will help teach me about the audience that has read the article.
In regards to the credibility of the writer there is barely any. There are two main pieces that help give the Richardgrabman credibility is that his comment is grammatically accurate which shows that he took consideration when posting the comment. The second would be the credibility of the audience. Given that he has posted a well written comment there is little denying that Richardgrabman has read the article and put his opinion in it. Moreover, Richardgrabman is a frequent commentator on Alternet stories amassing close to 2000 in his 6 year stint. The website itself Alternet.org is a website that targets the people that follow alternate media so it is probably well respected within that community.
Richardgrabman makes notes of some of the arguments of the article. He argues that while Schneider gives a nod to the potential problems with legalization in regards to Mexico and United States relations, there still the question of exportation. Richardgrabman asks what if the legalization would really help the Mexican agriculture crop as he sees it more as a grab for corporate executives (like Vicente Fox, which Schneider brought up in the article.) He then points that it would better if it didn’t happen as it would pressure the growers to want to grow excessive amounts in order to make a profit. He then follows this up with a point that marijuana crops are take a lot of water to grow and could effect Mexico hard as it has limited water resources. Furthermore, Richardgrabman addresses the comment made by Schneider about the cheapness of Uruguayan marijuana noting that the two things have nothing to do with each other. As a reply to another comment, Richardgrabman says that Uruguayan marijuana is targeted more domestically instead of for export. He emphasizes that the legalization was more so created to combat the Paraguayan marijuana problem.