More Drugs, Less Service

Dinner conversation at my dining table tonight: Should marijuana be legalized?

(Reuters) - Pot smokers formally gained the right to light up in Colorado on Monday...

The topic was explained to our youngest child- the problems of taking the drug itself and the current legal consequences of ownership/inhaling. My husband added, "and we wouldn't need to pay prison guards to supervise the community service hours."  Our daughter observed, "but Mom loves community service," and she is right! I'm just glad I don't have to volunteer in an orange jump suit while being supervised by gun-bearing guards!

So, if pot-smoking becomes legal in our state, or country as a whole, won't that provide more paying jobs and less opportunities for community service? Who will clean up our freeways? Who will movies make fun of? Who will video tape themselves doing flash-mob versions of Michael Jackson tunes?! Who will get to sell their land to the farmers and benefit from the "second hand" "weeds" that blow over into their yard? 

Another great question, posed by our teenager, "Why is it legal to smoke cigarettes and drink beer?" That spun off into an entirely different direction while explaining lobbyist, company bribery, and the lack of integrity our nation exhibits. But most of all, how slippery the slope really is between right and wrong, freedom and slavery (addiction), safe roads and impaired drivers. If it is OK to vote at 18, why is the age limit to buy cigs and beers at 21? Do the law-makers really think that underage peeps are not getting their goods? No matter what an age limit is, or how illegal a product is, someone will always want to have it and share it, and someone else will always have to monitor their behavior (and consequences) for them. Same thing goes for obesity...

My mass media professor stated, "The drug war is not about drugs."  

Owning atomic bombing equipment and nuclear warheads is illegal around the world. Would making them legal mean the owners wouldn't have to work so hard to pretend they don't have any?

Hmmm...

~ET