I've been officially in favor of marijuana legalization since I became a blogger back in 2009. Because of all of the people who are in prison in America thanks to the War on Drugs. And lot of these people simply aren't criminals, they are people who take marijuana for recreational. Use or for medical reasons that are suggested for them because of their doctor and the fact that. Marijuana is probably about as dangerous as alcohol, similar side effects. You don't want to operate an automobile while you are high or posses guns or use heavy machinery and use a. Lot of marijuana but for recreational reasons if you by in large live a healthy lifestyle. You are probably okay with marijuana, similar with a beer after work or wine with dinner, a. Martini with your appetizer that sorta thing, marijuana could be dangerous if you smoked a pack a day. Like with tobacco smokers but other then that we are not talking about a drug that kills people on the. Spot like with heroin or cocaine where you can die from it by overdosing from it. So thats one reason why I'm in favor of legalizing marijuana, at least getting the Federal Government out of. Way and taking a more Federalist approach with how we deal with drugs in this country.
But thats just one reason and how I would backup my position if I were debating this somewhere. But my main reason for me as a Liberal from an ideological standpoint, gets to the whole freedom of choice aspect of it. And gets to individual freedom and responsibility, that I don't believe government should be in the position of trying to protect people from themselves. That its governments job to regulate how we interact with each other and not try to save us from. Having to make decisions, decision making is one of the advantages for living in a Liberal-Democracy. And then get the responsibility to deal with the consequences of our decisions. I don't think we should be locking up people for simply possessing and using marijuana. Now if they were to break laws while on marijuana like driving while high that sorta thing. Then of course should step in there and arrest those people but for simply using marijuana or. Possessing it is not a good use of tax dollars and jail as well as prison space.
So again when it comes to marijuana, it should be treated like alcohol, hell I would treat tobacco like alcohol as well. Twenty one or over to use, posses or sale and have to have a license to sale but we also have to look at how we treat cocaine, heroin and meth. Does it make sense to lock people up in prison for simply possessing or being on cocaine, heroin and meth. Or would be better off getting these people in rehab at their expense in private facilities. Put those stays on their medical records instead of criminal records. And just strip people of their cocaine, heroin and meth for simply possessing those drugs. And have them pay a fine for having them rather then sending them to jail and prison. Which would be my approach that I may layout in a future blog.
