A California Republican

One of the newest battles this year (although it has been around for many years) is whether to legalize, and therefore tax, pot sales.

Not stainless steel pots, but rather pot - marijuana.

There are a lot of prisoners in jail for selling pot. If pot was leagalized, the state wouldn’t be sending those people to prison anymore either.

The argument goes like this: California decriminalized pot use and posession for individual use (with the note of a doctor) many years ago. It would save California money because many people wouldn’t be in prison. It would raise money because it could be taxed. Marijuana is no worse than alcohol and cigarettes. Therefore, legalizing marijuana is a good thing and it should be done.

The opposite argument is: marijuana is a drug, it is a gateway drug, it leads to worse things that cigarettes and alcohol so it should stay a banned substance. Of course, it is also a banned substance at the federal level - which is the level that gets to decide what is a banned substance and what is not. Therefore, marijuana should stay banned.

People aren’t going to go buy marijuana and pay taxes on it. There will be a huge underground and black market economy. All this will do is create another set of crimes - driving while under the influence etc.

And does this mean that people can come to work high? People can smoke cigarettes at work and drink at work. Are people going to be able to smoke pot wherever they want - like at parks and ball games? Or will smoking pot be the same as smoking cigarettes. I don’t want to walk down a street and smell pot; most people don’t.

This will never work. Marijuana is a banned substance. Let’s keep it that way. It was banned for a reason - and those reasons haven’t changed.