One of the least productive efforts a thinking society could engender is the legalization of marijuana. Now that we have failed, miserably, to control the entry of drugs into the United States – not because we can’t control them, but because we have not the collective will to do so – pot-heads are using that failure as a reason to legalize.
Then there is the old saw, “Alcohol is even worse, so give us our dope.”
Liberals and other statists can’t wait to, quote, “regulate it,” unquote, and tax it… ohhh, my gawwd… tax revenue. Ohhhh. Wow.
Dopers and those who will profit from their pot habits, point to traffic accidents tied to booze and say that those statistics “prove” that pot is less harmful, so let’s party, man. To them it’s also proof that we long-ago relinquished our societal right to limit anything people want to do for pleasure. Besides, since those who most want to restrict pot don’t use it themselves they have no right to limit those who do.
Clearly if your skin is not brown you have no right to pass judgment on a brown-skinned law-breaker; if you’ve never raped a girl you can’t understand or condemn a rapist; if you didn’t grow up poor you can’t criticize rioters.
So I can’t criticize pot users, but a few facts are still pertinent. I was going to say timely, but the irony would be lost… eventually.
Like any psychoactive substance, marijuana messes up mental function. It has its own set of effects, but its common effects are well-known and the subject of much humor. Today it’s politically incorrect to joke about alcohol problems and drunkenness. Marijuana’s effects, on the other hand, are still funny, still mocked, still mimicked… and we laugh.
As marijuana gains popular legitimacy through various forms of disingenuous ballot initiatives (you know “medical marijuana” is a giant lie; if it were “medical” it’d be sold at CVS) prompted by looming profits and the intense desire of pot-heads to gain permission as it were to do something “wrong” and slightly stupid, politicians – social leaders, they – are finding ways to gain votes by helping to destroy the social fabric. The fact that we appear to have “lost” the war on drugs is proof only that we have never truly fought it, not that widespread drug use is “inevitable.”
Despite what you may have heard, pot use does often lead to use of stronger drugs. Pot that will soon be “recreational,” or, better, “de-creational” is 10 times stronger than what the great leaders of the ‘60’s messed around with. And the euphoria of toking comes from interaction with the same pleasure receptors as do cocaine and opioids, which we still, sort-of, think are bad.
That child development is severely messed up by pot use – as is their future success and mental balance – should lead us to make it harder to get the stuff. Not so according to great pot-conflicted, or pot-afflicted, political “leaders.”
Pot, I believe, has a lot to do, pre-natally, with the rapid increase in ADHD and autism-spectrum disorders. Not to worry, we have renamed amphetamines to help some of those, and other drugs may come along to counteract other drug downsides – like Narcan.
It’s all depravity but repackaged to be rational because alcohol is bad for some people. To the degree that some drinkers become alcoholics, so do pot smokers become addicted and / or strongly habituated, suffering withdrawal reactions when cut off from it. What a victory for society. You think the Constitution protects license as much as liberty? Is there a line you won’t cross in that descent? Why not this one?

Prudence Leadbetter