Obama on marijuana

I think Obama is generally pretty good. But something he just did made me lose some respect.

He is taking questions online, and answering the most popular on video. This is actually a really neat idea, so I have to commend him for that. It lets questions that may be interesting, but outside the usual political discourse get through. Like the following:

“Why is marijuana still illegal? Cigarettes and alcohol are far more harmful, and with the taxes put on the legal distribution of marijuana the US could make millions”

A legitimate question, I think. Too bad it was laughed about:

He completely ignored the question of marijuana’s actual harm as compared to alcohol and cigarettes, and did not explain the rationale for it still being illegal. Instead he focused only on the economic side, dismissing it quite flippantly.

Minor edit: there were actually many questions about marijuana legalization, some of which only asked about economic benefits. But as there were so many, he certainly  must have read and ignoried the question of why it is still illegal.

I’m no expert on economics, but it would seem quite obvious to me that if we legalized a substance that is already below the “maximum legal harm bar” as assumedly determined by alcohol and cigarettes, a substance that already has a substantial, though villified, market, we stand to make billions off of taxes, tourism, and saved law enforcement costs. We also stand to create jobs, and by that I mean an entire industry that will probably be on par with the alcohol and cigarette industries.

I might be wrong, of course. But I’d rather be wrong and understand why, than have the question treated like a joke.

No, what the problem really is, is that it’s still politically incorrect for anyone with a say in public policy to publicy endorse pot. Because god forbid anyone ever gets a little high in the privacy of their own home.

But have a blast destroying your liver and lungs.

…

Marijuana suggested as having economic benefits! What a silly question, let’s all laugh about it!

Temporary Location for blog

My hosting service expired and I don’t feel like spending money on something I hardly use at the moment. Thus, for the time being I’ll just post here.

Today I was elected VP External of the UAAA, which will be a nice change from my old VP Internal position, in that I’ll get to write press releases whenever we do anything that might piss someone off. Well, something other than just existing.

Last friday we put up a bunch of posters saying that God probably doesn’t exist. By now, most seem to have been ripped down or covered up with other posters. It’s hard to not picture outraged religios ripping them down or covering them systematically, considering the really insidious stuff, such as the pro-life junk, usually lasts the week. But when your idea is simply indefensible, what more do you have than a petty, pathetic attempt at censorship? So I can see their motive. We’ll put more posters back up, of course, because it’s just dickish to try to silence people.

I’m certainly not surprised, though. After all, our large banner was vandalized earlier in the year by some self-righteous zealots. When you dare offer a contrary opinion to someone’s irrational, yet cherished, belief, you are, as we all know, a “faggot”, to quote Annonymous [sic], who was dumb enough to reply to Ian’s post from a campus connection.

Not that I expect anyone to go chasing the guy down. This’s Alberta an’ we’s god’s folks here. Them atheists gots wut’s comin to’m.

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