Matthew, your post leaves the aftertaste of sarcasm. Or maybe just b.s. My first impulse was a "w. the f. is matthew making up?" but them I remembered that the last time I felt that way about a story-(when kelsey told me about how her teacher had gone to cambodia to visit his boyfriend and gotten stuck in jail after being accused of involvedment in a cambodian child pornography ring) the story turned out to be true. So I have decided to suspend my disbelief.

that aside,
My stand on marijuana is much like my view of abortion- I don't like it, but nor do I assume the position to deny anyone their own decision. Speaking for the drug, its legalization has its pluses.

first, though physically marijuana is not addictive, it still poses as a gateway drug in many senses because marijuana acquisition is often cause for a person's first interactions with drug dealers. With such shady acquaintances, other harsher drugs are more easily acquired, and kind of more familiar. And breaking the law to acquire the drugs is no longer a large event- it's already been done to acquire the marijuana. Its not unlike the disregard for the law that stemmed from Prohibition.

second, the U.S. govt. itself would gain much from legalizing marijuana- millions of dollars in tax revenue- The taxes could be obscene and still render marijuana at a cheaper price. And money wouldn't be spent on catching growers.

third, the hemp plant has incredible practical uses. I'm sure you've all heard about how the Dec. of Ind. was written on hemp paper. Well, hemp makes stronger material than cotton, better paper than paper, and about a million other things that i've all forgotten but aren't taken advantage of because of the incredibly high tax on growing hemp (marijuana plants with ultra low levels of THC). The tax, I think, is in part because of the expensive and tedious examinations to check and make sure that the hemp plants are indeed hemp, and not their more potent relatives.
I did hear this last part from a less than reliable website, though- perhaps it is true, perhaps not.
Anyhow, these are just a few of the many arguments for marijuana legalization.

So far as my personal stance on it- no, i do not think it is wrong, whatever "wrong" means anyways. Nonetheless, something about the whole business stinks. Here, there exists a distinct stoner personality- bland, bored, boring. Marijuana kills motivation- it seems to me that this is what reduces people who smoke to the 'stoner' type. My stoner friends argue that if marijuana quenches motivation, it is only because it great enough to leave one satisfied and unwanting. Still, something reeks of the whole business. What is higher virtue than motivation?

Teehee, my dad and I were listening to Peter Paul and Mary today and my dad told me that Puff's "land called Honalee" is none other than Hanalei, Maui. makes sense.

posted by aimee   [2:22 AM]

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