Posted on 03/26/2009 10:13:28 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
The romance with weed is never-ending for California marijuana devotees. Now, they claim their beloved drug can save the state by solving its unrelenting budget nightmare.
State legislation is afoot to legalize and tax marijuana to backfill the state budget. But, like the grandiose daydreams of a stoner, the reality of this plan would be far different from its vision. I won't go all “Reefer Madness” on you or claim that hemp T-shirts are a slippery slope to damnation. The problem with marijuana legalization is simpler and worse.
California cannot afford more stoned people, especially stoned young people. We need a lot fewer stoned people.
Prevention experts understand the problem with legalization: The greater the access to an intoxicant, the more abuse there will be of that intoxicant. Alcohol isn't the most dangerous drug in the world because it's worse than heroin or cocaine. It's the most dangerous drug because it's so easily accessible. You can get large quantities of it anywhere, and cheaply, too. Underage drinking is a big problem because kids can get alcohol so easily.
Legal marijuana would mean more access to marijuana. The number of marijuana users would spike, including teens.
Problems related to marijuana use would spike. Marijuana lobbyists argue that if a dangerous drug such as alcohol is legal, then marijuana should be, too. I've never understood that. With all the problems we have with alcohol, why would we want to legalize another intoxicant?
Right now, there are 127 million alcohol users and 14 million marijuana users in this country – because one is legal and the other isn't. But, most alcohol users don't get intoxicated. About one-fifth of alcohol users binge drink or regularly drink heavily.
The serious problems from alcohol occur when people get intoxicated. With marijuana, you get intoxicated every time you use it. That's the whole point. Marijuana intoxication and alcohol intoxication may be different, but both are bad for society.
Marijuana intoxication means cognitive impairment, grandiosity, short-term memory loss, difficulty in carrying out complex mental processes and impaired judgment. It severely hurts your ability to perform at school and work. It saps initiative and drive. It increases confusion. In other words, it makes you stupid.
An increase in stoners among California's young people and work force would be very bad for the state. Right now, we're in a recession in which people without college degrees are losing jobs twice as fast as people with college degrees. Our future economy will be based on innovation, education and highly skilled labor.
But we're already not producing enough college graduates for our future work-force needs. With many more stoned teens and young people, the problems of an unskilled, uneducated and unmotivated work force will get worse.
Stoned people can't learn or work very well. Marijuana is the loser drug: That's the big problem with it.
What about the idea that California can balance its budget by legalizing marijuana and taxing the heck out of it? You haven't been paying attention to special-interest politics if you believe that.
Moneyed special interests run policy in this state. Look what happened when California criminal justice policies made prison guards one of the most powerful lobbies in the state. The union quickly began dictating policy in its own interest.
The alcohol industry is so powerful in California that beer taxes haven't increased in nearly 20 years; the last time they were raised was by a minuscule amount and the industry almost killed that. A wealthy marijuana industry will soon co-opt policy-makers and dictate how much tax we charge, where we sell the product and who gets to buy it. Why would a marijuana industry be different from any other special interest?
Personally, I don't think the marijuana lobby believes its own arguments. When I talk to legalization proponents, it usually boils down to their angry demand that people should be left alone to get stoned if they want to. That libertarian sentiment shows a complete disregard for the public good. If legalizers can't understand that, elected policy-makers certainly should.
The disingenuousness of the marijuana lobby becomes clear on the subject of medical marijuana. For marijuana lobbyists to push both recreational marijuana and medicinal marijuana at the same time is duplicitous. It's nakedly obvious where their real desires lie.
Recreational drug use and medical drug use have nothing in common. If pharmaceutical lobbyists pushed recreational and medical use of the same drug, they'd get hauled before Congress and slammed by state attorneys. But the marijuana lobby sees nothing wrong with its tactics.
How about a little more candor from marijuana romantics? Like the panhandler standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Why lie? I just want a beer.”
Why wasn’t marijuana even considered banworthy prior to the 20th century. For that matter, prior to the end of alcohol prohibition.
I would rather put up with some stoners on the streets, rather than have our drug demand funding the transformation of Mexico into a narco-state.
As other people have pointed out, even with drugs being legal, you can penalize certain behaviors, such as drugging and driving, with the severity of the penalties increasing with the harder or more exotic drugs (heroin, LSD, etc.).
As for druggies being on public assistance, that’s a good argument for ENDING public assistance. They can keep their minds clear and work like the rest of us, or they can get stoned and sit in the gutter on THEIR dime, not OURS.
Hogarth's prints (actually political cartoons) are relevant to this discussion. Hogarth contrasted the virtues of a traditional "drug" (beer) with a new, dangerous, and foreign one (gin).
The British government proposed to ameliorate the pernicious effects of cheap gin on the lower classes (and incidentally raise some cash) by taxing the stuff.
Hogarth approved of the proposal.
It also gave Bonnie and Clyde another street-battle thing to get involved in (though bank robbing was their main affair). Amazing how little bathtub beer was served in speakeasies and blind tigers. It was whiskey, and the battles over it were bloody.
It’s illegal, but not considered a pre-meditated crime.
Besides, if we are to welcome more self-made brain-dead people on our roads, I want to have a solid torture penalty added, too.
I have no problems with people doing any drug. I have problems when people who do drugs hurt others “while under the influence.” I believe “under the influence” crimes should be considered pre-planned.
BTW: If you don’t live in California you may not realize that marijuana is already “decriminalized” in California. Posession of less than one ounce (28.4 grams) will result in a misdameanor ticket, the outcome of which will generally be a fine. You will not be arrested. Also remember that in California an attorney can handle misdameanor matters, and you need not appear as a defendant.
So basically, the situation, as it exists now, is that many police are not at all intersted in small amounts of marijuana. You will often hear tales of police simply confiscating the drugs, and/or directing the person caught to destroy them in front of the officers, since actually writing the misdameanor ticket will require additional paperwork.
What’s the rectangular confetti like stuff in the picture (for example, falling off the top of one of the background buildings).
I don’t disagree. I just think that traffic laws should be enforced uniformly in a way that makes sense. If we are going to punish people for being under the influence while driving because they could “potentially” cause an accident, why not punish bad drivers, who actually do cause and accident or injury, in the same or a more severe manner. Let’s face it bad drivers no that they are dangerous and shouldn’t be on the road. They understand that they lack the eye hand coordination, decision making, and other skills required to be a safe driver. A glance at their driving record will show that they have been involved in multiple accidents in the past. Isn’t their wrecklessness pre-meditated?
Excellent article.
There’s a reason why they call it “dope.”
It looks like a building in the background is in the process of collapsing, and those are falling bricks.
Google "Hogarth Beer Street" for the contrast. All is in order and happy; the only building in disrepair is the pawnbroker's. There's also some funny anti-French references (I suppose it's funny if you are an English history nerd and know Hogarth's symbolism).
National Lampoon once did a parody called "Coke Lane" and "Pot Street." You can probably guess what it looked like.
Do yu extend that anger to those who drive while not paying attention, while over-tired from lack of sleep, while on OTC or prescription medication?
Do any of those crimes qualify for “under the influence?” I think all of those are extended to everyone, including those who may use drugs specifically MEANT to screw up your abilities.
I do agree that everyone that causes an accident caused an accident. However, inattentiveness is already extended to those who are also under the influence, it’s just that their inattentiveness is superseded by the drugs they took to specifically damage their abilities to function. So those who drive while being inattentive is already allowed for those who might drive purposefully impaired.
If you want to say that anyone who has an accident should be treated as though they were driving while purposefully impaired, then I’d say that is profoundly wrong. I think you would agree.
Certainly most OTC, and perscriptions drugs apply since many of the specifically warn not to “operate heavy machinery” while using.
I'm sure you are aware that the legislative history of marijuana prohibition has precious little to do with public safety or helping people be all they can be. ;0)
In the same vein, the other drug problems we had in those years were due mostly to ignorance (and the many wounded Civil War and WWI vets). From what I have read, people weren't taking patent medicines to get high, they were taking them in good faith as medications to fix some malady. We now have a much better understanding of addiction and the effects of various substances on the body.
That's why I am pretty confident that legalizing even harder drugs like cocaine, heroin would not result in a dramatic increase in users.
I think it's a house collapsing.
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