Hey Larry, go smoke a joint

Prohibition didn’t work out so well either

From my email box;

Hello everyone,

 

I hope you all had good holiday celebrations. And even better day-after sale-shopping.

 

The immediately-following deals with medical cannabis only peripherally. It would not have happened without the current SDSA campaign to get the issue of medical cannabis into the legislative session beginning in January. It also shows that no matter what we do, our opponents will say that what we really want is to give heroin to babies, or some such.

 

For a couple of years now, Kevin Woster, a writer for the Rapid City (SD) Journal, and one of the moderators for the Mt Blogmore political blog (a Journal property), has periodically, if rather timidly, questioned the efficacy of the War on (Some) Drugs, and has written columns for the Journal in which he has told of people he knows who have used cannabis to fight the effects of illnesses and their treatments.

 

On Dec. 2, he made the following post to Mt. Blogmore…

 

Please, somebody explain how were winning the war on drugs

 

By Kevin Woster

 

I come to this discussion as one who does not smoke pot.

 

I dont want to smoke pot. I dont intend to smoke pot.

 

Whether its legal or not.

 

Ive smoked it, three or four times, way back when. Got no desire to smoke it again. (Yes, Newland, I might change my mind if I had a medical condition it made better.)

 

Mostly, I think pot does more harm than good. But mostly, I also think alcohol does more harm than good. All told, I think wed be better off if more people smoked pot and fewer people drank alcohol. But I think wed be a lot better off if more people didnt do much of either.

 

I have no desire to feel better, as Newland puts it. I like feeling the way I feel.

 

But thats just me. I dont care if somebody else smokes it, as long as they dont do something while feeling its effects – such as driving a car, most likely well under the speed limit, and threatening my safety.

 

But I think your average stoned motorist would probably be less of a threat than your average distracted – by cell-phone chatter and even, amazingly enough, texting – motorist.

 

Or your average fixing-her-lipstick motorist. Or your average reading-his-newspaper motorist. Or your average yelling-at-the-kids-in-the-backseat motorist.

 

Or the average charged-up-on-caffeine-and-nicotine motorist.

 

And as one who has spent a good share of time – sober, or straight – with friends and acquaintances who were either drunk or stoned, Ill tell you Ill take stoned every time. No contest.

 

Beyond all that, how does it benefit anyone in South Dakota to bust those goofy mules from the West Coast driving across South Dakota to deliver a load of pot someplace else? Most appear to be poor, and desperate for dollars.

 

Why should we celebrate throwing them in prison for many years, especially when state taxpayers pay for their keep?

 

Isnt it counterproductive to clog our courts and criminal system for pot offenses?

 

Isnt it a waste of resources? Does it have any real effect on how many people smoke pot?

 

Are we winning the war on drugs? If so, please tell me how?

 

(See the comments on this blog post)

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/politicalblog/?p=2940#comments

 

Read Woster’s response to AG Larry Long; woster-rcj