While farting about on the intar-webs yesterday (namely, sites like reddit and digg), I couldn’t help but notice there were more articles on the legalization of marijuana than is typical. Good.
I’ve never smoked a blunt in my life. I’m not sure if I would were it legal. I mean, let’s be realistic here. I don’t do a lot of things that are legal…like pop prescription pills, smoke cigarettes, or take out life insurance claims on my employees…not that I have any. Still, I say “Good.” Talk about it. Keep talking. Prohibition doesn’t work. Make it legal. Tax it. Regulate it. Make it safer, for gosh sake (do the same for cigarettes and other substances while you’re at it, bozos…additives usually=health problems). Put an age limit on it, like cigarettes and alcohol. Better, put it behind the prescription counter at the pharmacy, not behind the counter of a corner store. Of course, people will get a hold of it anyway…but most of us have been to a drunken high school party. They can get it whether it’s legal or not. Make it really difficult for drug dealers to do their jobs, not by policing them and wasting our tax dollars on imprisonment, but by making their roles obsolete.
The problem is that “They” don’t want them to be obsolete. As long as there are as many “criminals” as possible, there is reason for us to fear. When there is reason to fear, there is reason to follow. The powers that be do not want fewer criminals. What they actually want are more criminals, so we will ask them to protect us by gradually removing our freedoms. It’s for our own good, isn’t it?
I’m not saying that drug dealers don’t do horrible things. Drug deals go horribly wrong. People are hurt in the process (often in tragic ways). If dealers are obsolete, however, those shady deals going on outside on your sidewalk where your children play will slowly go away. Yes, “other” crime will still be happening. Gangs will still be there. Husbands and boyfriends on power trips (usually drunk, not “high”) will still be beating their wives, girlfriends, and children into comas. There will still be dumb-fucks drunk off their asses acting belligerent and getting into violent trouble. The previous two sentences are describing situations typically caused by a legal substance much more damaging to your brain and body than pot, by the way. Although, I doubt I really need to mention it. Again, we’ve all been to parties. The drunks are falling down stairs, hitting on women who aren’t interested, getting in fights, and having the cops called on them by irate neighbors. The pot heads are in the basement pretending they know who the hell Aristotle is and giggling to themselves about lord knows what.
What about addiction, you may ask? I ask, what are we really doing to solve issues of addiction by putting addicts in prison? Most people come out of prison worse off than when they went in. It hardens you. A few find God, and I’m happy for those people. Most make new “friends” and create more enemies. I say, write them a controlled prescription and give them real help. Take those tax dollars away from the prisons and put it into health care facilities and rehabilitation programs.
If I had to define in one sentence the problem with the way things are done in this country (not regarding legalization specifically, but in general), it would be this: We put too much money into what doesn’t work.
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