The best reason I've heard of why the government hasn't legalized smoking, growing, buying and selling weed is because it's too easy to grow on a personal level, and thus too hard to tax. Considering the amount of senators and presidents who have been rumored or proved to have debilitating drug habits, it's hard to perpetuate the "drugs are killing the country" argument they advertise on their campaign commercials.
If there's a real reason not to legalize marijuana, it's to prevent potheads from having anything else to brag about. I can't tell you the dread I feel when someone comes up to me and says "Hey...do you smoke weed?"
*Sigh* "No."
And then whoever this random person is suddenly turns into Ralph Nader with all the grit and none of the nobility of Harvey Milk.
"Why? You do realize it's good for you, right? I mean it is the best medicine for Glaucoma. You do know that don't you? Why wouldn't you do something that's good for you?"
Furthermore, the increasing legality of medicinal marijuana, pot clubs and so on seem to be paving the way for an eventual full legalization of pot. So, as I so often do, I'm going to offer my opinion on this.
If marijuana possession, use and distribution is legalized, the right to smoke should come with a license, like a driver's license. To earn your license to smoke, you have to log 500 hours sober as monitored by a state official (like a driving instructor), hanging out with potheads.
Stoners only have three conversations, as far as I've ever noticed. The first goes like this.
"Hey, do you ever wonder if like...the world around us isn't really like...real? Whoa."
"Yeah bud, I saw The Matrix too. Very cute."
"Naw, man, not like that...just like...as far as things being real. Y'know?"
"No."
"Whatever, man, you need to learn to think outside the box."
Sometimes your friendly neighborhood pot-smoker will switch from a neo-existentialism to a more Lovecraftian doubt of perception, and taser you with this type of discussion.
"Hey man, do you ever wonder if, like, the colors we see aren't really all the colors? Like, there are more out there we don't know about yet?"
"No. All visible colors in the spectrum have been tested and found, hundreds of years ago probably."
"No man, I mean like...besides those."
And the worst, the teeth-grinding horrible talk...
"Dude...you can't tell me I'm not a hippie."
"Um...ok."
"But also...that doesn't mean I am one."
"...good for you?"
"Yo...just because like the hippies smoked a lot of weed and loved trees and protested the government, and I do too, doesn't mean I'm a hippie."
"I never said you were."
"But you can't even identify me, because just because I'm not wearing sandals and tie-dye doesn't mean I'm not a hippie. You just need to let go of your labels, man."
So if you can deal with 500 hours of this, while sober, and it can be proven in a court of law that you've done so, by all means, light up that bong, brother. Hell, have a cop light it for you, because God knows you've earned it.
