General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I hate cigarettes, hate cigarette smoke, and wish no one smoked them... [View all]Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)However, there is no logical basis for cigarettes and alcohol being legal and people being thrown in prison for smoking pot.
What we SHOULD do is end the fucking drug war and adopt a philosophically consistent baseline approach of saying "your body, your business". That applies to consenting adult sex (in front of a camera or in exchange for money, even) that applies to the drug war, that applies to birth control and abortion, that applies to terminally ill people being able to choose a dignified, pain-free exit, that applies to a whole TON of areas where control freaks and church lady busybodies have taken it upon themselves to set themselves up as moral arbiters of other peoples' lives.
I'm against smoking, my dad died of lung cancer, I do think it's legitimate for states and municipalities to regulate where people can't smoke smoke, i.e. indoor, public spaces and the like...
but banning? No. Consenting adults need to be free to make their own damn decisions about their own lives and bodies. Too many self-described "progressives" are pro-choice* with-an-asterisk, the asterisk meaning "as long as I approve of your choice, otherwise I'm going to write some lengthy blog screed full of some red-herring laden slippery slopes, along with authoritative-sounding psychobabble gibberish stating exactly why you making a choice I don't agree with means you're not really an adult and/or not really capable of consenting."
The number of allegedly liberal-minded people who are all too gung-ho to ban porn, or cheesecake-filled pancakes, or happy meals, or cigarette smoking by individuals IN THEIR OWN HOMES, or whatever-the-fuck-it-is that has their burlap shorts in a bunch... where do they get all this free time to fantasize about running everyone elses' lives?