the magic of smoking

The legalization of weed.

I certainly won't be campaigning for weed to be legalized. However, I'm not necessarily against its legalization either. My main concern is the restrictions that would be placed on marijuana use if it were to be legalized.

Weed as a backyard recreational thing? Fine. I don't believe it's more harmful than alcohol or regular cigarettes (neither of which I am a fan, but neither of them are going away any time soon). I simply do not want people to be given free reign to use it in public. Obviously, there are many people who smoke in public and even more who attend school and other places stoned, but even they have to be somewhat discreet about it. It's annoying enough to have to walk through a cloud of disgusting cigarette smoke and I'd rather not have to dodge the smell of pot, too. I suppose the best way to approach the situation is to treat it like a "public intoxication" thing - it doesn't matter so much what you do in private, but once you bring it outside, you can be charged for it.

I suppose the real stupidity of the situation is that outlawing weed isn't really benefiting anybody. Tons of people smoke and never get caught. Those who do get caught usually don't face severe punishments. I believe it's illogical for the punishment of weed to be changed to something more severe because it would take even more time away from police officers who could be doing something more constructive (as far as breaking the law goes, you could do far worse than get stoned).

At the same time, though, I'm somewhat opposed to its legalization on moral grounds. In comparison to other substances, weed isn't that bad. I'd rather have weed legalized than, say, heroin. And yes, I know that marijuana is "natural" and a "herb" and is therefore better * for you than harder drugs, but it's still a drug, as far as I'm concerned. Maybe you can't be physically addicted to it, but you can definitely be psychologically addicted to it, which is almost as bad. Maybe weed isn't as damaging to your health as cigarettes, but look at how low the standard is! Cigarettes list the same chemical that goes into rat poison as one of the ingredients, for God's sake. Nobody's going around claiming that smoking is good for your health. Maybe nobody has died directly because they were smoking weed, but I don't think you can argue with the fact that it changes your state of mind. For better or for worse, you're not thinking the same way when you're high.

I don't know what the best course of action is here (if you couldn't tell). At any rate, I don't know how likely it is that marijuana will ever be fully legalized. After all, which politician or president wants to be known as "the one who legalized drugs?"

The other thing that I am extremely frustrated about - and this is with almost everything, not just weed - is the difficulty of finding accurate information. Abortion: pro-life groups often lie like crazy; pro-choice groups often ignore the negatives. Drug use: pro-legalizers act like it's the best thing ever; the government won't admit to any potential benefits. Everything else: Fox News is insanely conservative; MSNBC is ridiculously liberal. Everybody is so damn biased. Why the hell can't somebody establish more organizations that actually TELL THE TRUTH?

How goes the novel writing?
Oh... that.
Heh. It's alright, except I'm behind a few thousand words. The thing is, I can't find the time to write. Now, I know that's not a good excuse because tons of people who overachieve far more than I complete (or at least make good headway into) NaNoWriMo... but Jesus it's difficult. I love to write, I'm just not disciplined at all.

Who is your favorite YouTuber?

* better being a relative term, of course