What if Pres. Obama decided to legalize marijuana? He just came out and said that were wasting too much money and too many lives on this illogical war and he’s done with it. He made it happen, with a few restrictions such as the one’s put on alcohol, and that’s that.
Considering if it’s even possible for something like that to happen easily, how do you think most people would react? I would say that public opinion would tolerate it and may even favor it. Once people recognized it for what it is, it would become no big deal. The only drawback I could possibly see would be in the economy that’s centered around it.
What about other topics you hold a strong opinion on? Feel free to add your own what if and comment on mine.
It’s not really his decision to make. He’d need to convince Congress to pass the appropriate legislation. I don’t see him deciding to invest his efforts on that at this time and, even if he did, I don’t think he’d be able to convince a majority to follow him.
In the spirit of the OP (disregarding the how-to get there part … just pretending -poof- marijuana is treated just like alcohol) …
At first there would be a groundswell of anti’s. It’s all you would hear about for six months. Fox ‘News’ would have a nightly, “High Nation! Special Report”. Then it would start to die down until an afternoon joint was regarded in the same light as a beer with the boys down at the pub.
Once the Panama Red and Maui Wowie commercials hit the Superbowl, we’d only have a fringe groups of anti’s that would routinely get laughed at.
And I would stop smoking pot, because it wouldn’t be that fun anymore.
I doubt pot would ever be treated at mundanely as alcohol. First of all, for certain things it would be treated like tobacco: Only allowed in public places (and in certain places like California, only in designated areas), not allowed to advertise, etc. It would likely only be available at state-run or state-authorized outlets, taxed heavily, etc. There would definitely be a groundswell of usage for the first few months and in the areas it became legal until the novelty wore off, plenty of protesters and such. In the end though, once the dust settles and it starts becoming as ordinary as alcohol, I can’t really see it being treated much differently than alcohol.
IMO, it’d be sold like alcohol. Treated like tobacco with regards to how you can smoke it in a bar (that also sells it, if possible), but I’d imagine that it would also be similar to alcohol, in that you wouldn’t be allowed to sit on a bench in a park and light one up, just like you can’t drink a beer there.
It’d be a much calmer world though. I’d spend far more time at a “coffee shop” than I would at a traditional bar, if it existed in the Amsterdam model.
Actually, with all the anti-smoking laws being passed, I can see that it would be likely you could smoke outside on the park bench, or on the smoking patio of your local bar, but not be able to smoke it inside the bar itself.
I thought the anti-smoking laws were put in place because of the nicotine and harmful additives in tobacco smoke. There wouldn’t be any of that in pot smoke, no?
You sort of have it right at the start, then it goes wrong. One thing that marijuana smokers I talk to seem to not really grasp is the steady, gradual, slippery slope of the country, especially with respect to local and State regulations, towards tobacco prohibition. And there is very, very little reason to believe that smoking marijuana will be somehow exempted or treated differently when we have brigades of teary-eyed mothers blaming secondhand smoke on everything from their kids’ Aspergers to the incredible explosion of anal sex in elementary schools.
I think the great irony is that about the time marijuana becomes legal, smoking will be so highly regulated that you’ll only be allowed to smoke in your house, with no minors, pets, or nonsmokers present, with fire and CO detectors in every room, and you’ll be paying a $5 per cigarette/joint tax.
I’m pretty sure smoke is bad for you whether it comes from tobacco, wood, or pot. My bet is that the same rules would apply. Plenty of people don’t want to be subjected to your stinky smoke, no matter where it comes from.
