MShipley wrote on 01/04/13 at 14:36:24:Havnt smoked weed in 30 years but have always thought it quite hypicritical for society to OK booze and not pot. People dont get high and think hey lets go rob a bank.........unless there are twinkies inside.
Very wise and solemn observation.
While attending Staff College in the UK I had the opportunity to write a Term Paper on the issue of "light drugs" and had the courage to go upstream, look at the issue with a different approach, authentic "thinking out of the box".
The issue over light drugs is purely cultural. I'll say it out loud, the issue is
culture.
There are Nations in this world where it is legal, no, it is
customary to chew on herbs and carry on your daily work, because you will feel less fatigue. Yet nobody will commit a crime by OD'ing those herbs.
There are Nations where alcohol is an integral part of life as much as fruit&vegetables, and wine is served openly; yet drunkenness is seen as a vile and debasing thing, and socially unacceptable.
You can have dinner at a restaurant and a bottle of wine (not a glass, they will leave the whole bottle on the table) and you will walk home undisturbed.
There are Nations who take pride in declaring themselves dry during weekdays, yet will go on drinking sprees on weekends, and people (teenagers too) will be picked up semiunconscious with their faces in the gutter the next day.
Those nations often hold the record for crimes and violence related to alcohol abuse.
The issue is culture. Demonize something
because you can't socially handle it, and two things will happen:
- organized crime will make the best of it,
- people will
pretend SWEAR they don't consume it, until they get caught.
Just as it is useless, from a cultural point of view, to allow teenagers to drive at 16 yet outlaw the consumption of alcohol before they're 21, it is just as useless to ban the consumption of a herb which doeas have its advantages if used
wisely.
Quite simply,
learn to use it wisely.
If it has
medical properties, allow its consumption through a medical prescription and its purchase through a Pharmacy, period. And, just like for other medicines, this should be valid nationwide, else there is the infringement of the rights of the ill who are forbidden a cure, or at least a palliative.
If it has
recreational qualities, allow its use and sale in the same terms as other "recreational" substances such as spirits. If a 21 y.o. can buy a bottle of Jack Daniel's, why can't he buy a 5-pack of "pharmaceutically controlled" weed?
Mind you, I wish the same applied over here as well. And NO, I wouldn't smoke it anyway.
But it would take a whole lot of money away from organized crime and into the industry => into taxes.
By the way, my Term Paper was highly applauded for its corageous thinking and unexpectedly unconventional approach.
It was also rejected because "it went against the Nation's interest".
So much for thinking out of the box... maybe one day... when
. I . will be Prime Minister...
Not gonna happen---
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