From: cj@eno.wpd.sgi.com (C.J. Silverio)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: Right to Kill (was Re: Cough Man's hypocrisy)
Date: 4 Sep 92 20:34:57 GMT
Reply-To: cj@sgi.com (C J Silverio)
Organization: SGI TechPubs

---
In article <Bu2HDM.4po@news.udel.edu>, roby@chopin.udel.edu writes:
|chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney) writes: 
|>in America, neither you - who presented the argument - nor the
|>Democrats foolish enough to call you their friend - would be elected
|>to any office again, for pushing the legalization of marijuana. 

|William F. Buckley (a Republican, the last time I checked) supports 
|legalization (he smoked... inhaled... but didn't get high -- one step 
|ahead of Clinton, I guess  :-)

There's more support for marijuana legalization than Chaney
apparently thinks.

Somebody should tell Chaney what percentage of the American
public has tried marijuana at one time or another.  (Hint:  it's
a lot of people.)  Decriminalization was widespread in the 70s.
Marijuana was close to legalization at the time that Reagan got
elected and swiftly stomped out all progress.  (I remember
reading that some companies had gone so far as to trademark some
popular names for pot, in anticipation of legalization.)

It might be another story for other drugs.  Public ignorance
is widespread, since "drug education" seems synonymous with
"hysterical lies".  But the hallucinogens are also safer than
alcohol, ecstacy though less safe has a proven track record
of usefulness in therapy, and there are other drugs which are
also less harmful than alcohol.  An informed public is likely to
support legalization for those drugs, too.

|My feeling is, if you want to outlaw recreational drugs, fine -- 
|but PLEASE be consistent about it.  In other words, you also need 
|to outlaw alcohol (it is a DRUG) -- to not do so is to be totally 
|hypocritical.  Among excessive users of both substances, I've heard of 
|far more people burned by alcohol than by marijuana.

Hey-- let's get all the legal drugs while we're at it.  Let's
outlaw alcohol, tobacco (nicotine has got to be the *worst* drug
value there is), coffee & tea (we have to be consistent about
eliminating stimulants like amphetamine, cocaine, and caffeine),
very spicy food (capsaicin is addictive & mildly psychoactive),
and strenuous exercise (that endorphin high is just another drug
reaction).

Oh yeah-- eliminate chocolate, too.  It's psychoactive.

What?  Doesn't sound like a fun world to you?  What?  Large
corporations are making unpleasant noises about lost revenue?
Too bad!  That's the price we have to pay for eliminating the
scourge of drugs from our society.

Or we *could* just let adults make informed choices about what
substances they put into their bodies.  We *could* take a
consistent civil liberties position and keep gov't out of
private lives.  And why not?

---
cj@eno.wpd.sgi.com      C J Silverio/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
"The greatest danger from smoking marijuana is that by possessing, using, 
buying, and selling this drug, one risks the attention of a group of 
thugs who will steal one's property, abuse one's person, deprive one's 
liberty, and otherwise make one's life miserable." --Russell Turpin