We live in a crazy world, dear friends. Does anyone else find it a tad odd that marijuana will land ya in the pokey, but ya can drink ’til ya puke night after night. Hmmmm . . . .
First off, I smoked marijuana than a tractor trailer could carry. They claim it harms your memory – well, I thought I heard that, but now I forget . . . .
Which substance, alcohol or marijuana, is responsible for more Human misery?
When peeps drink they get a tad rowdy, a little ballsy, a little too full of themselves, etc. They say and do things that but for the Jack Daniels, they would never do. Budweiser will swell a man’s impression of himself and damned fast too!
How many persons have used the previous night’s alcohol misuse as the justification for sleeping with an otherwise undesirable partner? Cheating on your significant other? For saying the unwise thing? For acting like an ass? For abusing friends or family? Getting into a physical altercation that but for the booze, would have never happened?
What about drinking & driving? Alcohol is responsible for what, 10,000 hiway related deaths per year? What percentage of serious accidents involve alcohol? Is it 20-25%? Maybe more? What about the drunk and mean SOB that beats his wife cause he’s tore up from the floor up? How many friends have killed another friend due to alcohol impairment? Brothers kill brothers when alcohol is involved. Happens all the time.
So, do any of you know any pot heads?
When I was sucking on a bong, I got mellow; the exact opposite of aggressive. Yeah, I was just wasted, and it was all good. I wanted to kill some Twinkies, maybe some pizza, but never another person. Stoned folks ain’t arguing with anyone. They are listening to Zeppelin and thinking to themselves “Whoa, I’m stoned, Bro.” Oh yeah, that’s a danger to the public.
How many times have you observed a high dude hassling someone? NEVER! Stoned peeps just wanna chill, laff some, watch Beavis & Butthead, listen to some jams and murder the Lays’ Classics in that there bag over there, but that’s about it. And gettin high is illegal! Let me tell ya why.
If one looks into the history of drugs in America we see a dichotomy between drugs and alcohol. Remember how all that brilliant thought in the early 20th Century railed against alcohol? Led to Prohibition. How’d that work out, dogooders?
Prohibition led to the rise of organized crime. Look at the history of the events. Crime exploded. Murder, protection schemes and many other undesirable events manifest as a result of Prohibition. And there is a great deal of money in alcohol. The manufacture and consumption of alcohol is a multi-billion dollar industry. Travel the cities of the Northeast. Ya can’t swing a dead cat over your head without hitting a bar door inviting ya in to imbibe.
Alcohol has lobbyists – lots and lots of lobbyists. Marijuana growers, sellers and users have no such power, no such avenue to preach their case. So, given the facts, ya think the cats that make Seagram’s Seven, my personal fav, want to see marijuana legalized? Yet in real terms of damage to society, Human misery and money, alcohol is a terrible thing, yet it’s legal, but the mellowing effect of marijuana is illegal.
Alcohol, in terms of dollars spent or lives effected is a killer to our economy, the medical system and the lives of millions of persons. Auto insurance is high partially because of the need to offset the cost of insurance claims due to alcohol related accidents.
Medical rates are high because of the number of poor people who find solace in alcohol. And then we, the state, have to provide them with care. We have to repair the lives alcohol has harmed. We have to protect the innocent from the effects of a person who has consumed too much and acted in a detrimental way to our society.
This costs money friends – tens of billions of dollars per year for the authorities to police the drunks on the road, the fights the cops have to break up, the jailing of the offenders, and to repair the damages done by those that abuse alcohol and then harm others, intentionally or otherwise.
The medical system is being taxed to deal with the effects too – to fix the broken bodies of the accident victims, the wife and kids abused by the drunk man of the house, the peeps who ruin their liver and health in general due to alcohol abuse. Who pays? If the person has no insurance, you and I do. To the tune of billions upon billions of dollars per year. If they have insurance, we still pay through an increase in premiums.
I would be willing to bet perhaps 100 billion dollars per year are the actual costs – direct and ancillary – for the abuse of alcohol. So, how much does sucking down too much reefer cost the nation?
If it were not illegal, there would be little if any costs. Like I said, do you know an aggressive pot head? I don’t, and I’m used to hanging with some rather generically aggressive type folks, but when mellowed on herb, it’s a party, 24/7. No fighting, no one wanting to hurt anyone else. No one perceiving that that other cat is looking for trouble.
Pot heads, by virtue of pot making one a tad paranoid, want to be left alone. Alcohol causes one to puff up – herb causes one to want to laff, eat Twinkies, crank up the tunes and play Spades all night. And if ya smoke too much, what do ya do? Ya pass out! Ya don’t kill anyone behind the wheel of a car.
So is it any wonder that alcohol is legal and marijuana is not? Alcohol is a well entrenched part of our economy and many person lives. If we actually lived in a world where cost/benefit analysis were the measure of any endeavor, alcohol would be a pariah, and marijuana would be the order of the day.
And before the hate mail starts rolling in, this IS NOT an advocacy for the use or legalization of marijuana. This is an endeavor to point out the sophistry of the situation. That money lies behind all of this. Again, I am not advocating anything – just pointing out the hypocrisy of the situation, and the seeming acceptance of that hypocrisy by our society. I do not advocate anyone take drugs nor do anything illegal. Have I made that clear?
