Sunday, March 29, 2009

Legal Marijuana Whisky

The legalize pot crowd could make some gains in acceptance by promoting some stigmatization in the agenda. Social conservatives get a strawman argument by saying things like "we don't want people coming to work, or school, or driving while on the effects of pot". Why don't the pro-pot people take that rhetorical device away?

The norm of today's political advocacy is for the proponent group to never mention boundaries for their own cause. I think it would throw off the typical outcomes of debates if the proponent side did some self-critique, laying out some limitations on their own agenda.

So with Marijuana, the pro-pot people should be trotting out the word "Whisky". A catch phrase such as "Marijuana should have the same degree of legality, and acceptance, as Whisky". Pot people should stress that we don't have a society in which someone comes to work after drinking whiskey, they do not drive while drinking it, and we do not say "your boyfriend is always drinking whisky, a perfect guy to marry". We have all these social and legal stigmas on whisky, yet it is perfectly legal to sit in one's living room and imbibe in the hard stuff if one so chooses. It is even legal to drink the stuff till you pass out. Simply, it is with some stigma, and yet legal to consume by an adult while on private property.

Where we stigmatize whisky, lets do the same for pot, and where we allow whisky, lets allow pot.

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