Thinking Outside The Box: Marijuana Is The Solution, Not The Problem

As the Supreme Court put the screws to those ‘evil’ pot smokers out there, I got to thinking about one of my longtime ideas for changing the world. I have a lot of these ideas, and once entertained the notion of compiling them all in a book. I even have a working title - “Outside The Box”. I want to challenge people to take their blinders off and relax their boundaries of thinking. Think “Outside The Box”. Don’t dismiss ideas because “It’s always been that way” or “That’ll never fly”. Humor me… for just a few minutes.

Decades ago in our country’s evolution our elders went through a period called “Prohibition”. Some religious do-gooders decided that alcohol was “The Devil’s Poison” and outlawed it. For many years, while the police & courts tried to enforce this stupid law, people everywhere were trafficking and drinking alcohol within the ‘Black Market’. Eventually the government realized they couldn’t suppress it any longer and decided to legalize alcohol and profit from it as well from massive taxes. So, here’s my question to you, the reader:


Why is marijuana any different than alcohol?

No argument that smoking Marijuana, outside of its medicinal value to those already sickened by cancer, glaucoma and the like, is unhealthy in most respects. But so is alcohol. No argument that smoking Marijuana has affects on one’s personality, judgment, response-time, and breath. But so does alcohol. Over 85,000 Americans each year are killed in alcohol-related accidents, murders, and domestic violence. I question if many those people would still have been killed if the perpetrators were ‘high’ instead of ‘drunk’. In fact, I would challenge anyone to argue that Marijuana is any worse for you (or society) then alcohol. So here’s my whacky idea:


Legalize, regulate, & tax Marijuana

Our society doesn’t have to condone it. And we can surely regulate that only those over the age of 18 are permitted to smoke it. Otherwise, what would be the harm? Just imagine the worldwide benefits if Marijuana was legalized and taxed. Just imagine what the infusion of a new multi-billion dollar industry would do for our economy, and other’s around the globe. Just imagine the jobs it would create. Just imagine the problems and headaches it would alleviate by not having to police, prosecute, and punish those who just want to get high. I have absolutely no doubt that legalizing Marijuana would be a boost to our economy, and many others. And the tradeoff is that some people would be high on occasion, instead of (or perhaps in addition to) drunk. That doesn’t mean we’d want them to get behind the wheel of a car in that condition, mind you.

So, what do we need to do to make this happen? We need to get to those idiots who decide for us what is moral and what is immoral. These are the same people who profess that all life is sacred in their quest to outlaw abortion, and then cheer on the war in Iraq where over 1600 American soldiers have died and countless Iraqi civilians have lost their lives. These same pro-lifers advocate for capital punishment as they sit down to a nice steak dinner (I’m sure they’re not all vegetarians, so they’re regularly killing animals). These are the same people who want to ‘protect marriage’ by making it illegal for gay people to make the ultimate commitment to their life-partners, yet they have multiple divorces. These are the same people who want religion infused in our politics, yet regularly break one or more of the Ten Commandments (You couldn’t convince me for one minute that these people aren’t having extra-marital affairs, downloading music, pirating software, or saying “God Dammit” every now and then). Who are they to impose on me what is moral and what is immoral?

And so, dear reader, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Marijuana is NOT immoral. It’s the solution of many of our problems. It’s not the problem. The real problem is that we have idiots, brainwashed from the religious-right, deciding for us the line between moral & immoral. Wake up sheeple!