Recently, the media made big deal about the President’s comments about Marijuana and Colorado’s legalization of it. I’ll skip all “Rocky Mountain High” jokes. What I can’t believe is the series of sad rationalizations used:
“Oh, it’s no worse than alcohol.” Oh, that’s a relief. Just tell that to someone who lost a loved one to a drunk driver. At least, they have tests to determine blood alcohol levels. No such test exists for Marijuana.
As far as the medical risks, I’ll admit there hasn’t been a lot of testing on marijuana. But what harm could come from sucking untested chemicals into your lungs?
When you think about it, Marijuana is sort of a cross between drinking and smoking. Alcohol impairs your judgment, while tobacco could give you cancer. So let’s just combine these in a single product. Very efficient. You might get cancer, but you’ll be too stoned to care. What a freaking great idea!
“Imagine all the tax revenue it’ll generate.” You can always count on some idiot who earned a C-minus in economics class to perpetuate this one. Listen, if people weren’t buying pot, they’d buy something else that’s being taxed. If it moves, sits or stands, the government will tax it. Don’t worry about the government finding something to tax. I hear there’s a cranky blog tax coming soon.
“By making it legal, we’d lower crime.” Well, if we legalized murder, embezzlement, rape and kidnapping, the crime rate would come down so fast, we’d have to yell, “timber!”
“We’ll put the drug cartels out of business.” When I hear this one, I know somebody’s three acres short of a family farm. Really? You think a bunch of hard-ass drug kingpins are going to roll over, because they’re getting a little competition from the private sector. Putting any violent counter-measures aside for a moment, they’re just going to push their other product lines harder. You know, crack, meth, heroine, and some I’ve probably never heard of.
What I suspect is someone decided we had a shortage of stupid people and wanted to increase the supply. You know, with the munchies, think of the increased sales of snacks. I wonder if the Colorado-Marijuana initiative can be traced back to the snack-food industry? (I’m sure corporate America always has our best interests at heart.)
By all means, let’s encourage people’s worst natures. What this really means is the geographic epicenter of impaired judgement will be moving from Washington, DC to Colorado.
So, when I say “get off my grass,” I don’t mean smoke someone else’s.
Crank on.
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