Ms. Universe and Marijuana

I saw Olivia Culpo on Fox and Friends this morning. She's the new Ms. Universe. (I wonder how other sentient beings in the universe feel about that title.)

The thing I want to comment on is that she holds a position against legalized marijuana. She claims that there were serious consequences to its use.

Really? Are they as serious as the consequences to the use of alcohol? Alcohol, a true narcotic drug, is the number one violence-causing drug in America, probably the world, merely from it's use. Alcohol is the third leading cause of premature death in the world according to this article. Of course, smoking is worse, but I'm pretty sure Ms. Culpo is against smoking, too, but would she want Congress to pass laws making it illegal like marijuana?

Can a fifteen-year-old walk into a liquor store or grocery store and by alcohol? Of course not. Yet that same fifteen-year-old can, if he or she wants to, find someone to sell them marijuana. Like Pauline Sabine said when she testified before Congress about the harmful effects of alcohol prohibition:

"In pre-prohibition days, mothers had little fear in regard to the saloon as far as their children were concerned. A saloon-keeper's license was revoked if he were caught selling liquor to minors. Today in any speakeasy in the United States you can find boys and girls in their teens drinking liquor, and this situation has become so acute that the mothers of the country feel something must be done to protect their children."


If marijuana, and other presently illegal drugs, were sold legally in drug/liquor stores to adults upon proof of age, it would be harder for teenagers to get access to those drugs. As to adults, we don't jail them for drinking or smoking, even though alcohol and tobacco are dangerous and addictive substances. It's the right of an adult to decide if he or she wants to use one or both of those substances. It should be the same for the presently illegal drugs.

That is, it would be if we actually believed in the myth of inalienable rights, which obviously, we don't. The principle of inalienable rights states that some things cannot be voted on, that a majority has no legitimate power to negate a person's actions in certain situations. Under the principle of real and true inalienable rights then, an adult whose behavior does not violate the rights of others and does not threaten or endanger the rights of other, has an inalienable right to that behavior even if you or everyone else in the country believes that the behavior in question is immoral.

Immorality is a religious concept and religion should not control our laws. By advocating the illegality of marijuana, Ms. Culpo, you are advocating the imposition of religion into our secular laws. You are following in the footsteps of the relgious groups who lobbied Congress to make certain drugs illegal because they were immoral. That led to the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, which, to me, was a violation of the First Amendment's "establishment of religion" clause of the United States Constitution. The diminishment of inalienable rights has only gotten worse since then.

By all objective evidence, from the prohibition of alcohol to the prohibition of other drugs today, making those drugs illegal only creates more real crime and violence and allows them to be more available to minors.  I strongly suggest, Ms. Culpo, that you study this issue more and, hopefully, come down on the side of inalienable rights, the right of all consenting adults to use the property of their bodies and minds as they wish, just so long as they do not violate the rights of others in so doing. The legalization of marijuana would be a good first step.

Alcohol

"I never gargled, I never gambled, I never smoked at all. Until I met my two good amigos, Nick Teen and Al K. Hall." So goes the opening lyrics of an old Rolf Harris song. It's a humorous song, of course, but there is little that is truly humorous about alcohol for the approximately 14 million Americans who are alcohol abusers or alcoholics.

Alcohol is a true narcotic drug. It's use and abuse causes more harm, damage, disease, and death than all the presently illegal drugs combined.

We are fighting a multi-billion dollar war on other drugs, ones that cause less harm than legal alcohol. If the government has the legitimate power to save us from ourselves--to dictate what we can or cannot smoke, drink, inject, snort, or otherwise use in our own bodies--why then is the government not fighting a war on alcohol also?

Conversely, if it is legal for adults to use or abuse alcohol (where they do not violate the rights of others), then the presently illegal drugs should be legalized because their mere use is demonstrably less harmful than the use of alcohol.

Do your government representatives--local, state, or federal--preach for the continuation of the futile and wasteful war on drugs? Do they drink alcohol, the number one violence-causing drug? If so, then they are complete and absolute hypocrites and should be voted out of office. They are not tough on drugs. They are tough on the drugs that they don't like. Drugs that are less harmful, overall, than the drug they use.

It is a fact that nearly all of the violence associated with the presently illegal drugs is caused, not by the use of the drugs, but their illegal status. If you want to reduce drug-related violence, then they must be relegalized to consenting adults. After all, if a person truly owns the property of his or her body, then that person has a right to use his or her body anyway they wish just so long as they do not violated the rights of others. That's called inalienable rights.

In conclusion, it seems quite obvious, that alcohol should be considered drug enemy number one. Of course, we fought that war once, with disastrous results. Now, we are doing the same with other, less liked, drugs, but with no less disastrous results.

But Alcohol is Legal

Two men, both in similar lines of work, died at the same time and found themselves standing before Saint Peter, in front of the “Pearly Gates.”


St. Peter explained that since they had both died at the exact same moment they were both before him at the same time. He also said they would have to take a “burden of guilt” test to get into heaven.

The two men looked at each other. One of them, wearing a suit and tie, asked, “What is a ‘burden of guilt’ test?”

St. Peter smiled a saintly smile and explained the test was designed to indicate the burden of guilt we carried from what we did in life and any negative consequences to society that we had caused.

St. Peter then turned to the other man, who was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and informed him that Mr. Suit and Tie was the CEO of a major liquor company. Then he told Mr. Suit and Tie that Mr. Jeans and T-Shirt was a cocaine dealer.

The CEO relaxed and smiled. He took the coke dealer’s hand and shook it and told him he was sorry that he had failed the test, better luck next time, and so forth.

St. Peter coughed discreetly and informed the CEO that the test wasn’t a contest between the two of them, with the winner getting into heaven. Then he asked the CEO why he thought, had it been a contest, that he would have won.

The CEO looked nonplussed and explained that the other man was a dealer in an illegal drug, and everyone knew how bad cocaine was, how the government was waging a huge, multi-billion dollar per year fight against the evils of cocaine and other illegal drugs. On the other hand, he explained, he was a pillar of the community, ran a legal business, supported politicians who were tough on drugs, and so forth.

“So, what’s your point?” St. Peter asked. “You were both in the drug dealing business.”

But before the CEO could respond, St. Peter started the test. He asked the cocaine dealer the first question.

“Approximately, how many deaths per year are caused by the mere use of cocaine?”

“I don’t know,” the coke dealer replied.

“About 2,000,” St. Peter said.

He then asked the CEO the same question regarding alcohol.

“But that’s not fair,” Mr. CEO said. “Alcohol is legal. It’s not a crime to make or sell, with the proper licenses, of course. Besides, we always put warnings in our advertisements about using alcohol responsibly.”

St. Peter sighed. “The answer is between 80 and 100 thousand deaths per year.”

The questions came fast and furious then, with the CEO getting buried under the facts showing that alcohol is, overall, much more harmful to society than cocaine.

The number one cause of retardation in newborns is alcohol abuse by pregnant women; over 50 percent of all violent crimes are caused by people drinking alcohol, including 64 percent of all murders in large metropolitan areas, 54 percent of all rapes, 40 percent of all traffic fatalities, with drunk driving being the number one cause of teen-age deaths.

And on it went. Of course the coke dealer’s burden of guilt wasn’t negligible. It was just a whole lot less than that of the CEO of the liquor company.

The cocaine dealer was feeling pretty good by this time but the CEO had gone quite pale. He was sweating and tugging at his tie. He kept saying, “Yes, but alcohol is legal.”

At one point, when the CEO made that statement, St. Peter told him that slavery had been legal at one time too. Didn’t make it right, but it was legal.

Finally, the test was over. St. Peter tallied up our “burden of guilt” scores. He shook his head and frowned, then gave a big sigh.

“Obviously, neither one of you is an angel,” he told us. “Neither one of you can get into heaven. At least, not just yet anyway, for one of you.”

He turned to the cocaine dealer and said, “Your burden of guilt is not nearly as large as the CEO’s. You will have to go to purgatory for a while. Maybe, just maybe, after a time, you can atone for your sins.

“But you,” St. Peter said, as he turned to glare at the liquor company CEO, “are going straight to hell, where you will burn for eternity!”

As the trap door opened beneath us, and during our long fall from grace, the CEO kept screaming, “But alcohol is legal!”