Pubdate: Mon, 31 Oct 2005
Source: Oklahoma Daily, The (U of Oklahoma, OK Edu)
Contact:  2005 The Oklahoma Daily
Website: http://www.oudaily.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1371
Author: Andrew Heaton
Note: Andrew Heaton is a history and religious studies junior. His 
column appears every other Monday, and he can be reached at LEGALIZE POT, STERILIZE POTHEADS

I have a brilliant plan that will save tax dollars, please hippies,
increase tax revenue, kidney-punch organized crime and significantly
shorten lines at the grocery store.

We legalize marijuana, tax the hell out of it and then add a lot of
sterility drugs.

Every voting demographic can find something to love about this plan.
Legal pot: Green Party, Libertarians, many Democrats. Taxing evil:
Republicans. Sterility drugs: Me.

I estimate that the federal government blows $8 billion or so annually
on prosecuting marijuana sales and possession. If Mary Jane were
decriminalized, those same tax dollars could be spent on more
worthwhile expenditures, like combating poverty or sending a
chimpanzee to Titan.

If we let the IRS smack weed business around, we'll even generate some
extra revenue. (Better them than crime syndicates. Slightly.) Think
about how much money the government makes off of the tobacco and
liquor industries every year. That's three or four more chimps we can
shoot to Titan, or maybe even Europa.

Oklahoma itself produces a substantial amount of weed, albeit shoddy
from what I've heard. The amount of revenue we would suddenly generate
exporting weed to dumber states (like Minnesota) would be enormous. We
could slap some tariffs on the trade and effectively do two things:
thwart evil South American drug lords and put more money into state
education. (Or send our own chimp to Titan. There's really no way to
know if we have sufficient revenue for a state space program until we
acquire better economic projections.)

As I see it there are two major arguments against legalizing
marijuana. The first argument is that marijuana is a gateway drug, and
by legalizing it, we'll expose youth to worse drugs. The logic here is
that most heavy drug users also smoke or have smoked marijuana, so it
leads to even nastier stuff. The problem is that most heavy drug users
also smoke cigarettes and drink, but neither tobacco nor alcohol are
thought to tumble into acid trips.

Legalization might well have a reverse effect. By sanctioning
marijuana, potheads wont have to go through illicit dealers and will
therefore have less exposure to more horrific drugs. No one at the
liquor store ever tries to get me hooked on ecstasy or hallucinogenic
mushrooms when I'm standing in line to buy port.

The second argument is that, because marijuana will be more available,
marijuana consumption will increase. This is a fair argument but,
judging by the epidemic usage of marijuana regularly asserted by
statistics, I'm inclined to give up on that $8 billion we fritter away
each year and resume blasting apes into space.

We need to take a big-picture view of legalizing marijuana and also
recall that we'll be loading it chock-full of gamete napalm. In one or
two generations, only the sort of people who beat their children for
trying drugs will actually have any, and the matter will resolve itself.

This brings me to my next point, which is that everyone needs to quit
copulating so damn much. Have you ever been in line at Wal-Mart and
thought, "Wow, I hope there are more people tomorrow?"

Me neither. I think, "Man, I hope all of these people are barren. I'll
probably be in this miserable line next year and folks are living
longer nowadays."

I have been informed that chronic use of marijuana lowers sperm count.
That's not what I'm talking about when I say "sterility drugs." For
one thing, women don't even have sperm, so it's not helping them much.
If you've ever kissed a pothead, you know that he or she tastes like
traif, but that won't deter most men.

No, when I say "sterility drugs," I mean something that will
obliterate any chance of procreation for at least a decade. We'll add
chemicals that will, when taken in the right dosage (say, one bowl a
day over a two day period), eliminate reproductive possibilities for
experimental college students until they enter their mid-30s.

This might sound a little harsh, or suspiciously like a eugenics
program, but are there really that many potheads who are going to
care? I bet if you told most reefers that their grass wards off
pregnancy they'd say, "Awesome!" and then go eat some Cheetos. I've
never seen someone get high whilst reading Dr. Spock.

The only foreseeable downside is that, what with all of the stoners
smoking their legacies into oblivion, there could be some kind of
national demographic shift in population. Certain groups will smoke
more and others will smoke little to nothing. That's why we should go
ahead and deport 10 to 20 percent of the Baptists and Mormons to keep
them from ganging up on us.

Probably to Canada, but someday, with a lot of hard work, to Titan.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake