Don't Just Smoke a Joint on 4/20

From CounterPunch:

The movement to end marijuana prohibition is very broad, composed of people who love marijuana, people who hate marijuana, and people who don’t have strong feelings about marijuana use one way or the other. We all agree on one thing though – marijuana prohibition is doing more harm than good. It’s wasting taxpayer dollars and police resources, filling our jails and prisons with hundreds of thousands of nonviolent people, and increasing crime and violence in the same way alcohol Prohibition did. Police made more than 750,000 arrests for marijuana possession in 2008 alone. Those arrested were separated from their loved ones, branded criminals, denied jobs, and in many cases prohibited from accessing student loans, public housing and other public assistance.

More here.

Since its inception in the late 1930s, marijuana prohibition has been fucking stupid. There are no good arguments for it. The arguments that sound good are dishonest. That is, relative to alcohol, tobacco, Ambien, Ritalin, Xanax, Prozac, Viagra, and even McDonald's french fries, marijuana is rather benign. Marijuana does not cause crime. Marijuana is not a "gateway drug." Nonetheless, for reasons about which I can only speculate, we spend billions keeping the devil weed a contraband substance. That, alone, is a damned fine reason to end this chronic folly. But there's much more. Pot prohibition illegitimately makes criminals of millions. We lose millions of dollars in tax revenue because the entire ganja market is underground. We violate the spirit, if not the letter, of our Constitutional right to privacy when the government, without cause, prohibits a relatively harmless activity.

I mean, there are some pretty stupid arguments in favor of legalization, too, like the dubious hemp based green economy thing, or how taxing pot would pay the national debt. But the stupid arguments don't invalidate the good arguments: marijuana prohibition is stupid bullshit that costs our nation dearly. Fortunately, as the above linked article asserts, attitudes appear to be changing. Indeed, come November, California may very well be the first state in seventy years to make marijuana use and possession legal. What will happen then?

Anyway, I'm very seriously considering writing my legislators on this issue. The time finally seems right. Maybe our society's pompous and fat politicians are now capable of considering the issue on its merits, rather than through a drug war induced haze of incompetence.

Here's Reefer Madness:



$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$