Another Thing I Just Don't Get...

..is this view from former pot smokers, who have not swallowed any of the fear-based propaganda about the “harms” of the drug, that it shouldn’t quite be totally legalized because, well… that would just be sorta weird. That view seems best epitomized here, and while I credit Marshall with his honesty and recognition (seemingly) of himself as a (possible) hypocrite, I find this view not just intellectually vapid, but morally repugnant.

If you have ever smoked pot, never had any harmful effects or saw any consequences (i.e. didn’t get caught) and now have just moved on without regret, then aren’t you essentially compelled to support its legalization? Or rather, aren’t you at least compelled to oppose the consequences that might befall someone who wasn’t as - really - lucky as you were? So it was fine for you (successful, educated white guy/girl) to have pot at a party or before you watched Zardoz with your friends 15 years ago and not get caught and have an arrest on your record, or get kicked out of college or not make it into a prestigious grad school, or not land that first job, but you’re fine with a legal system that arrests hundreds of thousands of people per year for the same thing, or for taking the initiative to provide people like you with the pot you wanted to smoke? Or is that had you been caught, your education, parents, skin color, dialect etc. would have allowed you to escape those consequences, and now anyone unfortunate enough to be lacking any of those things can go screw? How does one come to grips with this? Moreso than just an irrational or hypocritical position, how to you reconcile this view with your own humanity?

Taken in the abstract: You have done something. You find it to have been pretty harmless and do not regret it. You are okay with others going to jail for it. What the Fuck!?

Maybe Marshall has a point about “legalization” versus “decriminalization” and exactly the terminology or extent of the prohibition can be debated. And, don't get me wrong, getting out and voting in favor of Prop 19 was not a requirement either. But whatever you want to call it, and whatever you do about it, in your former, non-regretful pot-smoker mind, you should be reflexively opposed to criminal penalties for getting high or you should take up less morally questionable activities like torturing woodland creatures.