Marijuana


September 16,2002
There is a current push to get Marijuana legalized in Canada. I
realize there is always a push for this but the Canadian Senate is
actually recommending legalization this time. I am quite obviously
very anti-drug. I'm about as clean cut as you can get. If I had to
choose between anti-drug and anti-American, I'd be drug free and red,
white, and blue.

The logic behind this new recommendation is based around a comparison
to Alcohol and Tobacco. I find this logic ludicrous but not all that
surprising. Comparing marijuana to current legal drugs is the best
course of action when seeking approval. What we, or at least
lawmakers, need to realize is that just because these specific drugs
are legal that doesn't mean that their legalization was an entirely
good idea in the first place. Making the same bad decisions again is
not always the best move.

Now I'm not proposing prohibition and the criminalization of tobacco,
but you have to admit that a case could be made for both and perhaps
a stronger one than is being presented for the legalization of
marijuana. Let's look at the amount of alcoholism in the world today
not to mention the number of drinking and driving fatalities each
year. I'm not sure why the human race has such a need, or at any rate
such a desire to alter it's brain chemically, in order to have a good
time, but it is clear for the most part we do not have the common
sense or will power to do so at a safe level.

More so take a look at the can of worms that will be opened up before
legalization occurs, because once it is "in", it's next to impossible
to get "out". Does anyone think for a second that tobacco could
obtain legalization today? It's a proven addictive drug, which causes
cancer, not only in the person smoking it, but in those around the
smoker as well (via second hand smoke). If smoking wasn't a multi-
billion dollar industry it would have been made illegal years ago.

I have two major concerns with legalization. My biggest concern is
one with second hand smoke. It's one thing to want to impair your own
brain, but the effects are never completely confined to the user.
Does anyone think there won't be hundreds of cases of Mom and Dad
sitting at home smoking marijuana in the same room with their kids?
How much second hand pot smoke does it take to impair an infant's
brain? I'm guessing not much, and I am definitely not in favour of
seeing a bunch of stones babies. You know this can and will happen,
far to many, parents put their wants and needs ahead of the
children's. There are complaints by parents, in Calgary, about a bi-
law prohibiting small children from be seated in smoking sections in
restaurants. The parents want to smoke during dinner and feel their
need for a nicotine fix out weighs their kid's right to breath fresh
air. If I can borrow an expression from my father, "You can't idiot
proof the world", while that is true, do we really need to give those
same idiots another drug to get stupid by?

There is also the concern with impaired driving. Marijuana dulls your
reflexes and slows your reaction time. Based on that, driving a
vehicle while stoned on marijuana should be illegal. Are there means
similar to a breathalizer to tell if you are too stoned to drive? Do
we really want to increase the number of cases of impaired driving
fatalities, just so some people can enjoy a good high? There is also
the problem of the second hand high. You could be at a party never
have a drink or smoke a joint and still end up stoned enough to
effect your driving responses. How is someone to gage that, and how
do we charge someone with driving while under the influence of second
hand smoke? The complications from this issue are endless.

If all of that isn't stupid enough, they are even recommending that
if legalization does occur, that any criminal marijuana charges from
the past be wiped out. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. If
they raise the speed limit on a stretch of highway, do they erase
past speeding ticket from your driving record and refund your money?
Of course they don't. You broke the law at the time you do not
deserve a reprieve if the law gets changed down the road.

I think the best way to look at this is as follows. With all of the
things we need to improve on in this world, should providing an
easier way to get high be anywhere near the top of that list? I think
not!

Something to think about till next week,
Lance