Congress should change the law. Too many freedoms have been lost so some guy can’t smoke a joint, eat Cheetos, and watch cartoons.
“Congress should change the law. Too many freedoms have been lost so some guy can’t smoke a joint, eat Cheetos, and watch cartoons.”
There are a LOT of people who love seeing a boot on someones neck. On FR many talk about an overbearing Federal government then cheer when some pothead gets busted and his property gets confiscated and his dog gets shot. I think a lot of it is religious for some reason although Cannabis was once one of the most commonly used medicines and no one protested it.
“Some guy” can still smoke a joint, eat Cheetos, and watch cartoons -—in the privacy of his home, even when marijuana is illegal; keeping it illegal is precisely what encourages him to keep it inside where the cops aren’t likely to see, and where his private behavior is constitutionally protected from unlawful search and seizure.
Legalizing it, on the other hand, virtually guarantees “some guy” will be blowing smoke in MY face while he camps out on the sidewalk, aggressively panhandles ME, and shares his wares with MY kids.
It also will guarantee his “right” to come to work stoned, and to sue ME into bankruptcy if I fire him for doing so.
There are lots of other reasons...but suffice to say, we should have kept abortion and sodomy illegal, too. The “people are going to do it anyway so we might as well legalize it” logic only ends up protecting the guilty while unleashing a sh!tstorm on those who otherwise would have remained uninvolved.
It’s a quality of life issue. Society at large has a vested interest in making distinctions between what’s permissible and impermissible, with an eye toward maintaining certain basic standards of civil behavior, at least in public.