MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION

Seeing into the Future

I recently attended some of "The Chico Great Debate," a series of
speeches, discussions and debates on whether California should
legalize marijuana. I heard speeches from five Chico State students in
the morning and two debates in the evening, including a team debate
with grownups.

Most quoted numbers in support of their positions, often numbers
manipulated enough to be statistics. The speakers seemed to expect all
of us to know a good number from a bad one, and to be in favor of
changing bad numbers into good ones, sometimes at all costs. I think
numbers are trivial by nature and tools of the Great Satan.

Here's what I learned: "Taking money away from criminals is good,"
even though that means simply not calling what they do a crime
anymore. Government determines how many criminals there are. People
evolve whether they're free or not and can end up locked up.

"More tax money to government is a good thing." I don't think I want
to give any more money to any government for anything. They're all
greedy and irresponsible. Let 'em get a part-time job. One student
thought ending "bloody wars" between drug cartels in Mexico and giving
the money to the government was a reason to legalize marijuana. Arming
cartels, bad; arming cops, good. A Czech proverb--The big thieves hang
the little ones.

The pro-legalization people predicted that new green jobs for people
and a tax bonanza for poor government would result from marijuana's
legalization. Actually all of the speakers can see into the future.
They all predicted what will happen if marijuana is legalized, how
society will change. Pretty funny. If we were willing to see what
happens when it happens, there wouldn't be much to talk about. The
students told us their sources--Rolling Stone, The New York Times,
etc.--but the grownups often just said "studies have shown" and let it
go at that.

The anti-pot contingent seemed to be fueled by fear of some change in
society if pot use is no longer just medicinal, that and a thinly
veiled distrust of altered states of mind. Getting high was made to
sound like an unfortunate side effect, rather than the core of pot's
usefulness and popularity. In support of his argument, one of the
anti-pot debaters alleged a correlation between pot use and dropout
rates. "Escapees are bad."

Nobody questioned the right of government to control our bodies; the
disagreement was just about how much oppression is the right amount.

Marijuana is likely to be legalized in California this autumn, and in
other states as society continues evolving no matter what. When that
happens, every person in prison because of marijuana's former
illegality could be released and paid reparations like the Japanese.
The corrections system could actually correct. Wouldn't that be something?