Reply #70: Why I think Pot is still illegal

[jmowreader]

1. The Religious Right is against it.
The Religious Right is probably the most dangerous political movement I've ever seen. These people will stop at nothing to turn this country into a theocracy.

If a rational politician, and yes there are some, were to seriously recommend legalizing Marijuana, the Religious Right would do everything in their power to get that politician defeated. And the rational politicians know it. Ain't much work for a politician the RR ran out of office because he thought Getting Our Children Addicted To Dangerous Drugs was a good idea.

The RR is against Marijuana legalization because (gasp!) Marijuana isn't in the Bible. I don't think that matters much--the Bible is full of instances of Jesus either drinking wine or enabling others to do so, and the RR will gladly tell you that Jesus hates the thought of people drinking wine. (Which is why Jesus converted 120 gallons of water into high quality wine at the Feast of Cana, right? Don't believe the fundies when they tell you Jesus was into fruit juice. It was wine and Jesus made enough of it to float a battleship.)

2. There's not currently a scientific test that measures intoxication
This one's actually legitimate. Highway safety is very important, and driving while stoned doesn't safeguard the public.

Marijuana's active ingredients are fat-soluble, not water-soluble. This makes producing a chemical test kinda difficult. Alcohol is easy. You test for the presence of alcohol, and if you find it at a level we've accepted as performance-degrading, you can be assured the person is impaired by the substance. Pot's a different story. If you smoke a joint on Saturday night, you won't be stoned on Sunday. If on Wednesday you are driving, swerve to miss a cat, wrap your car around a telephone pole and are tested for THC, you'll show up positive. You haven't been stoned since Saturday, but you'll be cited for Driving While Impaired.

There are tests that can prove intoxication, but brainwave monitors are expensive and so are their operators, hence the test is expensive. There has GOT to be a test that's easy enough to give that a police officer who hasn't been to nursing school can administer it, and inexpensive enough that every police department in America can have it. Without this, you've just turned pot from an illegal police department revenue enhancer (PDRE) to a legal PDRE as the crimes change from possession, distribution and production to driving stoned.

Without this test, I don't support legal pot--because the potential for abuse by the cops is far too great. "We need $50,000 by Thursday to buy a new police car? I know! Let's pull over random drivers and piss test them!"

3. Shortsightedness on the part of the Legal Drugs industry.
The Legal Drugs industry in this country consists of two branches: the Tobacco Branch and the Alcohol Branch.

The theory goes that if marijuana is legal, tobacco and alcohol consumption will go down.

I call bullshit. People who smoke tobacco cigarettes will continue to smoke tobacco cigarettes because marijuana cigarettes are not a drop-in replacement for tobacco cigarettes. It's okay to smoke a cigarette as you drive. Smoking a joint while you drive is a different proposition entirely. Marijuana is also nicotine-free; someone who's addicted to nicotine and wishes to remain addicted to it is not going to accept a nicotine-free product. People will continue to drink. Lots of people will smoke pot once then go back to their old drugs.

The other problem with this theory is it excludes the possibility that a legal drugs manufacturer will decide to enter the pot business. Philip Morris is a good example of a diversified Legal Drugs producer--they make both cigarettes and beer. Of course they could add marijuana to their product portfolio.

Oh yeah...if Our Government suddenly admits that pot isn't all that bad for you, then the masses will start to suspect that a few other things Our Government tells us aren't quite right either--you know, like that Iraq had chemical warfare agents, planes flying into the World Trade Center can cause it to collapse in a manner that looks EXACTLY like a controlled demolition, NutraSweet is benign and the ten worst criminals in the last 100 years haven't all been affiliated with the Bush family.