Six Media Blowhards on Marijuana Legalization
Since Colorado began selling marijuana in stores to adults absolutely nothing shocking has happened. The sky did not fall, the earth did not open, and the Apocalypse did not occur. But some people are so willfully ignorant about cannabis they can be duped into believing that somehow thirty-seven people overdosed and died. That would be an infinity percent increase in the marijuana death rate, since nobody has ever died of cannabis toxicity.
How can these people be so uninformed? Maybe because they spend too much time reading and watching people like:
FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly: “Only dealers, Juan. There’s no mass arrests of users. … No, they get a ticket, Juan.”
Since President Richard Nixon declared war on us in 1970, there have been 23,180,951 marijuana arrests. Over the past couple of decades, 88% to 90% of those arrests have been for simple possession. Just last year, Bill, there were 658,231 pot smokers whose lives were impacted by an arrest for mere possession, and 39,218 were arrested in New York City where you tape your show! Well, probably not in Manhattan where you tape, but certainly uptown.
Headline News’ Nancy Grace: “When I’m at work, I don’t want my babysitter high on pot. The ones that are disagreeing are lethargic, sitting on the sofa eating chips. Pot, it makes you fat and lazy,”
Nancy, Michael Phelps on line 1 and you’ve got the NBA and snowboarding holding on 2 and 3. And psst, to work for you, your babysitter would have to be on some kind of indica. Speaking of which…
Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus: “Next time I’m in Colorado, I expect, I’ll check out some Bubba Kush. Why not? Still, widespread legalization is a bad idea, if an inevitable development.”
Do as you say, not as you do, Ruth? She cites numerous reasons why we shouldn’t legalize that all come down to What About the Children (WATC). Indeed, Ruth, if we care about the kids, how about we start carding them? Since we’ve done that for alcohol and smokes, among high school seniors we’ve gone from over 90% drank and 70% smoked, at least once, when I graduated in the Eighties, to under 70% drank and 40% smoked, at least once, now.
New York Times’ David Brooks: “For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships. …[But] I’d say that in healthy societies government wants to subtly tip the scale to favor temperate, prudent, self-governing citizenship. In those societies, government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned.”
You mean, David, that subtle discouragement of armor-clad SWAT teams breaking down your door at 3am, shooting your dog, terrifying your kids, hauling you away in cuffs, seizing your property, and subjecting you to lifelong second-class citizenship status because you had a cannabis plant in a closet?
New York Daily News’ S.E. Cupp: “We’re told pot users will ‘responsibly’ use marijuana in the privacy of their own homes. But what barometer are they using to determine that persistent recreational drug users, who have presumably broken the law before by possessing marijuana, are responsible people?”
That same barometer, S.E., by which we measure the drinkers who drive their cars to the parking lots of taverns and presume they’ll not break the law by driving impaired. We’ve accepted that people are responsible enough to handle the most harmful drug (tobacco) and the most dangerous drug (alcohol). I think we can handle some legal marijuana.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough: “Unlike alcohol, pot rarely makes you an angry stoner. Unlike coke, pot rarely makes you bankrupt. And unlike heroin, pot rarely makes you dead. Nope. In my three decades or so around a multitude of pot smokers, I have found that all too often, pot just makes you dumb.”
Joe, the ghost of Carl Sagan on line 1 and you’ve got Jon Stewart and Bill Gates holding on 2 and 3. And psst, David Brooks and Ruth Marcus smoked pot. Dummies!
