"I have smoked pot all my life, and I have never, at any time, advocated legalizing it. I think it should be way decriminalized, but legal? No. I just can't see how the wholesale introduction of another drug into society can have any positive net result."
Are you afraid you might start smoking it if it becomes legal? Oh, wait, you already do smoke it, as do millions and millions of others in this country. In fact, most adults under 60 have in this country have already tried it, at least that's what the government surveys say. I guess it's a little late to worry about "wholesale introduction" of marijuana into this country. That introduction took place decades ago.
No, "wholesale introduction" means when you see it next to the wine at Safeway and 7-11. When you have marijuana smoking lounges with faddish "micro-brew" varieties. When every little mom-and-pop store has the faded marijuana poster next to the faded beer poster. "Wholesale introduction" is when Brown and Williams gets ahold of it and starts having different brands of pot, along with enticing commercials, and every other type of Madison Avenue push that the law will allow.
I know what the availability of marijuana in the United States is like. I know what it's been for the last 30 years, I know what it is now, and I know which direction I don't want it to go in the future. Just because some vice exists now, that doesn't mean that we are under some obligation to push it further. Are we going to do that with prostitution too? Or with any of the other 1001 vices that mankind has been living with for the last 5000 years?
I'm not preaching, I'm not ignorant, and I'm not a virgin. Yes, it might be easier for me if I could go down to the corner store for my bud, but I'm trying to put my own self-interests aside for a moment, take an objective look at things, and do what I believe to be in the best interests of my country and my society. Pushing another drug? Sorry, still don't buy it.