Formspring Question #345--Weed Whacker Edition

Do you support legalizing pot?

I do not care enough to make it a big issue either way. If pot legalization was a ballot initiative, I would vote yes. It would not bother me if my elected officials voted in favor of legalizing pot. Nor would I much care if they took a moral stand against it. While I am confident pot would be less of a bane on society than alcohol consumption, it is just not that big a deal to me. There are more important things to work on first.

Besides, legalizing pot would not be as great as its advocates believe. We are an absurdly judgmental country when it comes to personal habits. We outright ban smoking even in some bars. Smokers are segregated at from non-smokers even in places where smoking is accepted. Those who partake in alcohol have to qualify themselves as “occasional’ or ’social’ drinkers to avoid being labeled drunks. We even go after food. Vegetarians flip out over those who eat meat. health food nuts are on everyone’s case. You are not even supposed to buy your kids a happy meal these days because some lax parents do not care enough about their bratty young ones to keep them from scarfing down enough junk food to make them resemble the Michelin Man.

If pot were legalized, the stigma of pot smokers as dumb, lazy, and unreliable would persist. There would be even fewer places for pot smokers to partake than cigarette smokers. The end result would be as though pot had never been legalized in the first place.

It likely will not be, either. there is a growing private prison industry that has a vested interest in incarcerating as many as it can for as long as it can. This industry is one of the main reasons we have the highest percentage of citizens incarcerated than any other country. The private prison industry employs lobbyists all over the united states to promote three strikes laws and zero tolerance policies. Considering how many inmates are incarcerated on drug related crimes, one should not expect any slack in drug laws to be forthcoming.

Which is not to say you should buy into the drug legalization myth the majority of those incarcerated on drug related crimes are decent folk unfairly busted for simple possession. As this study shows, the vast majority incarcerated on drug related crimes are extremely violent and dangerous. Nevertheless, pot smokers are not likely to join the side of angels at any point as long as their is momeny to be made locking them up.