Its starting to appear as if marijuana users have become the homosexual lobby of the chemically dependent. What do I mean? Duck Dynastys Phil Robertson could mention one sexual behavior (adultery) as disqualifying someone from the kingdom of God" but mentioning that other" sexual behavior? Thats a boycottin pardner! Likewise theres no shortage of articles about the perils of smoking tobacco about how it causes lung cancer emphysema and premature aging; about how its a dirty nasty habit all without indignant smokers crawling out of the woodwork to protest between hacking coughs that their passion is being unfairly demonized. But dare imply that inhaling copious amounts of marijuana smoke may not be one of Dr. Ozs top ten health recommendations and well the potheads cometh.Lets begin here with a simple but apparently radical premise: habitually sucking into your lungs hot gases containing carbon particles probably isnt the most healthful practice. This is true whether the source is a Marlboro a trucks tailpipe or a bong loaded with cannabis. Agreed?Apparently not. As with this article about pot uses correlation with psychotic behavior such assertions not only bring out the potheads who do seem to have the ambition to defend their vice but also some apologists who claim that marijuana smoking is actually a good. Its for medicinal purposes you see.So we hear about how negative reporting on pot is all Puritan propaganda about how tobacco is far worse about how Im 49 and toked since I were a teen and I funkshun fein about how if you purge the THC its a perfect drug (somehow every pothead is Linus Pauling). And then theres the old standby: alcohol is legal and is worse. Alcohol is more addictive. Alcohol this and alcohol that. Potheads love the alcohol comparison. Okay then lets compare the two.While most agree that casual drinking one or two drinks is fine and may even offer health benefits its universally acknowledged that drunkenness is destructive ugly and reckless. In accordance with the old PSA If you have to drink to be social its not social drinking" its accepted that if you have to get inebriated to deal with life you have a problem. Even drunkards tend to acknowledge this (they just usually deny that they have a problem). And we certainly shouldnt exercise double standards.So Ill say that if you want to have one or two small puffs of a marijuana cigarette fine.But youve crossed the line if you get high.Deal?This puts the lie to the alcohol/pot comparison. There are millions of casual drinkers who may have a beer or glass of wine with dinner but have no intention of getting tipsy. Except however for the few who use pot for legitimate medical purposes (and Im dubious about the necessity of this mind you) the goal of a marijuana smoker is ever and always to get high (drunk). The intention is always to alter his mental state.Always.This is why the proper comparison is not pot smoking and drinking" but pot smoking and drunkenness. It is why legal marijuana doesnt correspond to legal alcohol as much as it does to legal cocaine another drug that takes you from sober to stewed with one dose.And its why theres no such thing in the real world as casual" marijuana use. Millions of drinkers" can honestly say that they have no chemical dependency issue but not one regular pot user can. By definition pot smokers goal is to get drunk."So one drink doesnt equal one joint one bottle does. But to further cement the point imagine alcohol really was pots equivalent that even just one six-ounce drink got you plastered. Would we find any degree of alcohol consumption tolerable? Would Prohibition ever have ended?Note here what I am not doing. Im not making any claims about whether pot is more unhealthful than tobacco; Im not denying that a pothead is a safer driver than a drunkard or opining on whether or not marijuana use increases the incidence of psychosis or lowers I.Q. when used by the young (as another study indicated). Im not weighing in right now on whether or not the drug should be legal. Im simply pointing out that the main arguments used to legitimize pot are pap.And legitimize" is the operative word. When people editorialized against Prohibition their argument perhaps was of the nature G.K. Chesterton presented in a 1935 radio talk when he opined The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not he is not a free man any more than a dog." But I dont know of anyone who claimed that drunkenness should be considered a desired state or even acceptable. Yet this notion runs through pro-pot commentary: the idea that potheads form of drunkenness is okay. And it has to run through it because again to advocate pot use is to advocate drunkenness."So while we may argue about whether pot is a gateway drug advocacy of it is certainly a gateway idea. Inherent in it is the notion that altering your mind is okay getting high is fine. Of course some potheads might tell us that their form of drunkenness is different that the acceptance of it wont lead to the acceptance of getting high via other means. Hey all these things occur in a bubble there is no slippery slope and precedents dont precede. (And where have we heard that before?)Wherever you stand on pot legalization about legitimization there should be no debate. A nation that does not maintain stringent social prohibitions (in the least) against chemical dependency will not likely remain strong and vibrant. Thus we always must be able to unabashedly say: if youre using marijuana habitually face it youre a pothead. Youre self-medicating. Youre chemically dependent. You have a problem. And drunk and stupid is no way to go through life son.This is true whether its by bottle or bong.
