I believe that we should make pot legal, regulate it, and tax the hell out of it. Part of that regulation should address issues like driving safety while under the influence - direct, or residual, and also the changes in the brain as it relates to other safety issues, including firearm ownership, and activities that might put others at risk like hunting.
Really? That's hard to find realistic.
We need to be objective about all drugs and their effects, we need to understand what drugs do and don't do, in demonstrable, quantifiable ways, as we do with alcohol. In taking a more objective approach we trust people to make their own decisions, and we hold them accountable for those decisions.
Decriminalizing pot would put a huge dent in the money in the coffers of the drug cartels. It would remove a huge and expensive burden on our society and government, and it could be an excellent generative source for revenue.
Additionally, as we better understand the brain interaction of the active chemical ingredients, taking a page from the tobacco industry, which has systematically changed the chemical levels in their tobacco plants, it would conceivably be possible as a condition of regulation to require a very low level of any chemicals that have a destructive or negative or dangerous effect on our brains, while allowing or even encouraging higher quantities or stronger acting qualities of the beneficial effect producing chemicals.
We have the technology; we should use it rationally. The advance in our understanding of so-called recreational pharmaceuticals should as well encourage us to make more and better use of drug testing for a range of actions where impairment or altered judgment is an affect, including driving privileges and firearms permits. We see daily that people are routinely in denial about those things which alter their performance and their ability to act, from text messaging while driving, to driving or other activities while using alcohol, pot and other substances and activities. If we seek to replace the subjective with the objective, then we must agree to the importance of implementing testing and measurement.
Mike B is the one who sounds delusional and paranoid. I'm more worried about those willing to give up liberties than a lazy pothead too stoned to get up off the couch. Decriminalization is a good first step, but drawing a connection that simply doesn't exist only goes to show how far the anti-gun/anti-rights lobby will go.
If this is the path we take, I expect a future where a DUI conviction is justification to deny Second Amendment rights to citizen, or alcohol use in general.
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