Pubdate: Thu, 6 May 2010
Source: Chico News & Review, The (CA)
Copyright: 2010 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.newsreview.com/chico/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/559
Author: Anthony Peyton Porter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California)

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? 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake