April 20th, 2010

Happy Marijuana day!!  I love smoking pot, I love being high, and I’m glad that this plant which has given so much joy to so many people for so many centuries finally has its own holiday.  In fact, I’m going to take a break now and smoke a big, fat doobie and then finish writing this article.

There are many reasons for the legalization of marijuana.

It has medical uses, and the stalks and leaves can be used for making paper and cloth, really high quality cloth, the seeds are good in salad or can be pressed for oil, and much, much more.  I just talked to somebody who’d heard of somebody who was using it for insulation, for instance.  In short, it has an important role to play in the economy.

Besides the actual use of cannabis as medicine, to remedy a specific ailment, marijuana is just plain healthy to use regularly in small amounts.  Reduces stress and whatnot.

It’s taxable.  The amount could be pretty high before it reached the level of de facto taxation under prohibition.  Keep the price steady at what it is now, and the government could make a bundle.

Huge savings in dollars and prison space just by letting all the potheads go.

Makes life easier for the police, and eases police/community relations.  Today, nobody wants to talk to a cop if they’re stoned, and more people are stoned more of the time than some people might think.

It’s the right thing to do.  The government shouldn’t be passing laws about what people can or can’t do.

There are no good reasons against it, that I can think of, but I suspect what the powers that be are really worried about (big Pharma, of course, is worried that people who smoke pot won’t have the same need for prescription drugs) is that if too many people are stoned, nobody will want to do the work, people will forget to push the buttons, to send the emails, to keep the economy running.  I must admit, they have a point.

But not everybody is going to start smoking huge quantities of pot, just because it’s legal, so they’re being paranoid.

Happy 420, everybody!