What should or should not be legal?
As a lot of you know I've never had a sip of alcohol in my life. For those of you who don't know I'll explain: I just don't see the appeal. I like to be in control of my decisions and I've seen friends, who I love and respect, basically make fools of themselves. I don't think these are bad people and I believe that they enjoy feeling this way so who am I to stop them? Even my own wonderful husband enjoys drinking and I still love him. But it's not for me.
Some more background of my dislike for alcohol is that I've seen what alcohol can do when it takes control. I got the pleasure of growing up with a family full of alcoholics. The severity went from "I just drink at the end of the day to relax" to "I drink non stop, I have drinks hidden around the house and I also use illegal drugs." No matter the severity these loved ones all depended on alcohol.
Most of them struggle with the conscious daily decision to drink or not, which believe me is much harder than it sounds. And it lead to one family member spending a lot of his life in prison, and another actually died making a stupid decision while drunk. So, do I believe that the part of your brain that helps you make good decisions gets turned off by alcohol? Absolutely. Do I ever want to put my family through the pain of me making a stupid decision while intoxicated and change their whole world? Never ever ever ever. Choices and accidents and 2 VERY different things. I don't want to choose to put a chemical in my body that would cause an "accident".
I know these are extremes and not everyone has been hurt by alcohol, however, open a news paper and see how many people are killed a day by drunk drivers, bar fights, etc.
Now, having all that experience under my belt I was researching marijuana today and realized it pretty much has all the same effects as alcohol plus the cancer causing agents of tobacco. What I don't get is why are alcohol and tobacco legal and marijuana is not? Either way I wouldn't use any of them but, wouldn't it make sense that either all be illegal or all be legal? I mean why not start selling marijuana in liquor stores and tax the crap out of it? People who want to use it do anyway so why not make some money off of it? Or, if the lawmakers really believe that it is too dangerous for citizens to make their own choice about using it, why not make alcohol and tobacco illegal?
If I were to make the laws and would say; Let's educate everyone on the effects of all of these 3 drugs and let them make their own decision. Hopefully natural selection would do it's job. Yea that was harsh and a lot of times people under the influence end up killing innocent by standers and waste our tax money while we pay for them the rot away in prison.
2 comments :
i think cigs should be illegal, or keep em leg, and it's population control i guess.
meg
Good topic.
1) Like you said, you have never done all of the above.
2) Cigarettes are the hardest to kick. It took me 100 trys, 25 years and I finally quit 9 years ago for good. It kills and disables you. I know that for a fact.
3) Alcohol and Drug addiction is a serious problem. Some people can stop and others can't. I personally can take alcohol or leave it but I like the option for a quick relaxer. Pot is not addicting but I never smoked enough pot in my teens to find out if it is habitual. (it was the 70's.....just like the show, get off my case)
4) Pot shouldn't remain illegal because we are losing all our liberties. However, I can make a better case as to why it should remain illegal, so I will take that side. Here's why. The population is getting ridiculously stupid as time goes on. We don't need to give them more options. Let it stay underground.
Point 1 - Drink a glass of any alcoholic beverage and you can function, reason and stay in control. Not a harm to others. (unless you are already an a**hole)
Point 2 - Go smoke a joint. You can function on autopilot but you don't have any ability to reason or make judgement calls. Your extremely short term memory is GONE. You could be a danger to yourself or others immediately.
Point 3 - Alcohol will cause the liver/waist buldge over time but pot creates munchies that will explode the already crisis level of obesity in this country.
In conclusion. Should you be able to smoke pot sitting around your house at night with no chance of jumping in a car or operating something that could hurt others? Yes, but how do you enforce that?
If it were legal, the pharmaceutical companies would lose billions because all the anti depressants and anxiety drugs would be replaced by pot.
If it were legal....and it didn't trash your lungs I would probably partake myself. As an ex tobacco smoker I can't smoke anything ever again so boo hoo for me. Nothing is worth dying a smothering death over.
Pot is not alcohol and can't be treated as such. BTW - I don't think it is a gateway to other drugs. It's merely a safety issue with me.
So there. MOMMY
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