As this election year comes slowly to a close, because there are 5 more days left until election day, I decided I would take the time to write about a political topic. Politics is a topic I have grown fond of after working at a local broadcast company.
Before I really get into the topic, I want to encourage you to vote this year. Early election goes until the 29th of October, and Election Day is Tuesday, November 2nd. GO VOTE. Take a friend to the polls with you. I was shocked when I recently heard a friend tell me she didn't know HOW to vote because no one has ever shown her. Take and show your friends how to vote if they need your help. I have also heard people say they don't really follow politics, so they never vote. I think that's too bad.
While in some elections, we vote, and then determining on who the majority votes for, they send a few people to vote on the majority's behalf. It's what we call the College Electoral. I personally think that this form of voting is out-dated and a bunch of crap, but I will save that topic for a couple more years when it relates.
There are a bunch of elections this year all over the country. You can't help but turn on the television or the radio without seeing or hearing some sort of political campaign. And, is it just me or do the ads get worse and worse every year. I watched an ad yesterday (online) that was running in our nation's capitol that showed pieces of a dead fetus. REALLY? No matter what the stance on abortion was, who in their right mind would think it okay to show this on television during evening programs where kids were watching? It's absurd. Were they smoking crack or something. The station airing it even posted a big disclaimer saying that they had to air it and could not make changes to the ad because of federal law. Looks like we might want to start looking at some of those federal laws. What do you think guys.
But look at that. That just leads me into my MAIN topic for this blog posting. Changing laws. I know, I bet for this blog you were really looking forward to some sort of rant about Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan or the Jonas Brothers. Ya, not really my cup of tea so, if you were, sorry. :)
Right now California has an act on it's ballot that legalize Marijuana. This has been getting a lot of attention across the nation. Some of you (who I will not mention names) have probably been following this like crazy, while some of who may have merely heard about it briefly. What ever you know about it, I hope that I can give you a little insight into the topic, as well as my opinion on the whole thing.
As many of you know, I went through a drug and alcohol addition facility back in 2002 and 2003 in San Diego, California. I had recently been discharged from the Navy on the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, which was just recently over-turned, another topic altogether. Upon leaving the military, I got in to crystal methamphetamine. Of course with that drug, people you start to associate with usually smoked Marijuana and drank alcohol, so of course I smoked and drank too. When entering a drug and alcohol facility, they want to know everything you have done, so of course you tell them.
There is this thing called a gateway drug. And this term is used a lot in recovery. One drug can lead to another which in turn, can open the door for another, and so on. In all the years I have been in classes and going to meeting and reading books, it has always been said that marijuana is just a gateway drug. A gateway drug. I really think it's an interesting term. I remember a kid in rehab that only smoked marijuana and I remember him getting upset because a group of people were telling him that if he didn't stay clean, he would move on to more dangerous drugs because marijuana is only a gateway drug. I was fairly new in recovery, but even at that point, it made me mad to see 4-5 people around this kid telling him these things. Just a quick history so you know why I was mad, his parents had found some pot in his room and sent him to rehab.
So this gateway drug thing. Look at me, I went from crystal methamphetamine and “gateway-ed” to pot. I can see what the gateway term means, but I think that people need to look at is in a slightly different way. It's not the drug that is the gateway, but the people. The drug itself did not make me want to go to another drug, and another drug. No, it was the people I was associating with and the environment and the peer pressure. That's the gateway in my opinion.
So with this new ACT in California, which is called the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010”, I think it's a great initiative set by the state. It is projected to save 1 Billion dollars in criminal costs each year, the states collectors estimate the bill would bring in 1.3 Billion a year in tax revenue, and would save countless hours on our police forces trying to control it.
I read an article earlier from the TIME website where Joel W. Hay, Professor of pharmaceutical economics at USC, says that marijuana is a “Dangerous drug” and that if you look at tobacco and alcohol and see the issues they have caused, he believes marijuana will only be more of a “toll” on society. I would have to respectfully disagree with the good professor.
A toll on society is what Mr. Hay calls it, but I would encourage him to actually look at the act proposed. Hay says that it will have negative outcomes for people at work. Well just like you can't drink alcohol while at the job in most places, the act would still make it wrong to do that with pot. The act goes on to say that you couldn't smoke in public, have it on school grounds, give it to minors and so on and so on. The tax revenue is to fund jobs, schools, health care, etc. So with the billions it would save in criminal costs, Billions it would bring in in taxes, not to mention the businesses and jobs that would be created from it, where is the so-called “toll on society” that this will bring?
Oh, I know. The drug dealers will be out of a good part of their business. People might stop taking the pills that these pharmaceutical companies are making because a natural remedy probably will work better. So who is this Joel W. Hay? He's a Professor of Pharmaceutical Economics at USC. No wonder he is against it.
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