POWIP Piece of Work In Progress – Former Abode of Dan Collins

Mike Riggs wants to do (pot with) your mom

Once again, my opinions are my own and not necessarily those of POWIP, Dan Collins, Hale's Ales Brewery - Seattle or the Nair Hair Removal empire.

Alternatively titled: My major blog address on drugs

Mike Riggs is a writer for the Daily Caller, and if you're familiar with his work and/or his twitter feed you know he wants pot legal yesterday.  He wrote this about the Women's Marijuana Party and California's Prop 19, which seeks to treat pot just like alcohol.  OK!  The Women's Marijuana Party is not your hippie uncle's pro-pot group.  Co-founder, Jessica Corry, is a wife, mother, life-long Republican and not a pot smoker.  This group is different in that its primary focus seems to be how current marijuana laws aren't fair and aren't working.  I think I like them for the same reasons I like Feminists for Life on the abortion issue.  They're starting a new conversation based in common sense and throwing out the talking points that activists have been chasing their tails with for 30 years.

Jessica Corry on FNC

(Yes, she dodged the question about where to draw the line.)

I've written about the ways my politics have changed over the years, but one stance that hasn't changed has been my position on pot.  (I call it pot.  Anything else seems douchey or fuddy-duddy to me.)  My husband, who is in law enforcement, and I have gone around and around on this.  Neither one of us will budge.  I'll omit his arguments since he's not here, he's wrong and he's not bringing me a t-shirt home from Bangkok.

The debate on medical marijuana should be over.  Most illicit drugs began as legal drugs with very legitimate uses.  At the very least, pot should be treated like any other prescription drug.  Beyond pot, there's a valid case for drugs like LSD and ecstasy to be beneficial when used in a controlled environment.  I don't think a hit of X would have hurt Jon and Kate Gosselin one bit.  Everyone knows about treating diseases like cancer and AIDS with marijuana, but there is growing anecdotal evidence of medical marijuana helping with autism.  If my son gets to the point where we need to look at medication I'd sure prefer pot to Ritalin or Adderall, which is basically meth.  Like alcohol and cigarettes, no one wants kids taking these drugs or anyone abusing them.  All people like me ask is that people step back and evaluate each drug or vice, legal and illegal from an objective, scientific standpoint.

Look at the prescription drug problem we have.  Doctors were handing out Vicodin in the 90s to any woman who complained of cramps or migraines.  EVERY WOMAN HAS CRAMPS AND MIGRAINES.  Honestly, in our society if you don't feel like crap you're probably not a real woman yet.  But there's this stigma that some drugs are safe and some drugs aren't based on archaic stats and mores.  Often, that stigma is perpetuated by "experts" that have no experience to speak of.  No drugs are safe.  There are side effects to everything.  Let's find out what being uptight and narrow-minded is a side effect of and make that illegal.

As for recreational use, anyone who has experience with alcohol and pot will tell you alcohol has as many, if not more, negative effects than pot.  I'm sure there have been people who got belligerent and violent after using pot, but I'm confident the numbers wouldn't hold a candle to the dumb stuff people do when they're drunk.  At least that's what I've heard. (Insert joke about stoners sitting on the couch eating Doritos here.  Actually, don't.)  And people do need something to use recreationally.  Cultures have been finding self-destructive ways to unwind since the beginning of time.  God saw that working all day was hard, and so he made nighttime.  And He made it dark out for a reason.

The standard argument against pot being legal for recreational use is that it's a "gateway drug".  I submit that pot is a gateway drug because in order to get it people often have to enter the gates of a dealer that is also selling harder drugs.  Welcome to the wild west that is the black market.  You're on your own, kid.

I mentioned that Jessica Corry dodged the question in that interview about where to draw the line.  I would have too.  Some want to make all drugs legal.  I'm not so sure about that, but the war on drugs is a failure.  A FAILURE.  I don't see why we can't have a conversation about alternatives.  To put it in DEA speak, these substances aren't the big fish.  Addiction is.  Addiction is a total asshole.  Let's wage war on him.

Let me be clear, I am not a current pot smoker or doer of anything illegal.  Although I have updated my twitter bio to reflect my interest in cheating on my taxes.  Geithner, call me!

crossposted at KillTruck

Kill Truck

KillTruck is a wife, mother, blogger and native midwesterner now living in Eastern Washington state. She writes about politics, pop culture, parenting, wifing and a few other subjects she has no authority to write about. She has macabre fascinations with prostitution and/or cannibalism. In her free time she enjoys eating and/or drinking her feelings, liveblogging Lifetime movies, thinking about Scott Brown and mocking things she doesn’t understand.

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