I had a discussion about the legalization of marijuana, and the person reminded me that marijuana is actually rather easy to grow, especially because once you buy a pack of seed, you no longer need to buy any more seeds, making it very hard to tax if legalization of personal growth happened.

So he and I formulated a possible idea specifically for growing: a growers license.

Restrictions on the license would be simple:

a) You do not have to have a reason to get the license. If it's for medical purposes, you note that only to get a discount.

b) The license itself is $10, but you also have to pay to grow a certain amount of plants. We came up $5 for every 5 plants or something like that (for a medical license, it'd be, like, maybe $3 for every 5 plants).
c) You must be at least 18 for the license. (My friend thought that you should have to get parental permission [from 18] until you turn 21, but I'm not so sure about this, especially since some 18-year-olds still declare independence these days, so it would suck if they, no longer being dependent on or living with their parents, still had to get permission to get a growers license.)

This would ensure the ability to tax the growing of marijuana, because what you're paying for the license and the number of plants you can grow would be that tax.

Obviously, there would have to be rules just to ensure societal pressures are met. This is what we came up with:

You suffer consequences for the following:

-Driving while stoned (it's a hell of a lot safer than driving drunk [I have yet to hear about a driving accident caused by marijuana], but it's still a hell of a lot more dangerous than driving sober)

-Missing a significant amount of time of work or school for no obvious reasons (that is, you miss something like two weeks straight and the best excuse you have is a cold)

These are the only two we thought of, really.

There's a 4-strike system:

1st offense: A week's suspension on the license

2nd offense: A month's suspension on the license and a fine

3rd offense: A year's suspension on the license and a larger fine

4th offense: Marijuana is now fully illegal for the offender; being caught with it after this would result in all the same punishments marijuana users deal with now

I should note that major companies could still sell their "marijuana cigarettes", even though, admittedly, being able to grow would cut their business on this.

For me, I'd rather grow my own then purchase hat comes from Big tobacco, so this is something I would not only be interested in, but if this license (or something similar) ever did come out, I would be one of the first to purchase it.

But what do y'all think? Any other offense you could imagine falling under the 4-strike system? Would you purchase the license? Is it too restrictive? Let me know your thoughts.