Obama enjoyed smoking pot, but since he became a politician, his line has been that people should go to jail for smoking pot. He didn't go to jail, but he felt like other people should go to jail for doing what he did. But now he is backing down from his draconian position a little bit, seeing the direction that the political winds are blowing. Two states have legalized pot, and more are permitting medicinal use of pot, because pot has many medicinal benefits for the human body, unlike alcohol.
I was amused to read all the hand-wringing the Obama Administration has had over Washington and Colorado's decision to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. There were conference calls between the Attorney General and state officials, memorandums published, press conferences, meetings and deliberations. Goodness gracious! Such a big deal. One would think that they were proposing to make liquor and firearms legal, or something dangerous like that. Everyone should know that marijuana is a non-toxic and non-addictive herb that is used for medicinal purposes, recreational purposes, spiritual purposes, or sometimes all of the above.
Reuters refers to freedom advocates as "marijuana advocates," which is a misnomer. Many people support legalization, yet do not "advocate" anything. I support aspirin being legal, but I don't use aspirin. I support most anything being legal, so long as there is little possibility harm will come of it. But in some cases, such as firearms, we find that people want these things legal even if there is a certain degree of risk. With marijuana, there is very little risk. There is less risk with marijuana than there is with aspirin. Aspirin can kill easily. There are no cases of death by marijuana. Not one.
Now if freedom advocates are wrong, and the prohibitionists are correct, and marijuana should remain illegal, then the human race is doomed. If humans cannot handle a non-toxic and non-addictive herb, then there is no possible way they can handle liquor, firearms, and the list goes on. How can we possibly handle motor vehicles, credit, employment, conscription, war, childbirth, accidents, or natural disasters? Least of all can the nations of the world handle nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. There is no hope for humans at all, following the logic that flows from Prohibition. Thus, we must develop contingency plans and send humans into outer space, because the planet is doomed. Another idea would be to imprison every human being to make sure they don't encounter anything dangerous, such as aspirin or shampoo, either of which can be ingested and cause sickness or even death. The prisoners could then be fed and cleaned by robots, and robots can be designed to maintain the robots. The government has been making great strides in putting people in prison. Our nation has the highest percentage in prison of all the nations in the world. A large number of those people in prison were involved in some manner or another with the lucrative illegal drug trade.
For my part, I think there are too many laws and too many lawyers today. What we need are people in politics who understand how things work--scientists and engineers. There do not seem to be many politicians around that understand how things work and why they work. Politicians are more interested in power and using the law to further their own ends, which are based not upon reason and understanding, but upon personal ambition, misinformation and misunderstanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment