I’ve got an op-ed in today’s Baltimore Sun urging lawmakers in Annapolis to keep an open mind (as many of them indeed seem to be doing) on the growing movement to end the war on cannabis. One plan proposed by delegate and gubernatorial candidate Heather Mizeur (D-Takoma Park) would legalize and tax the plant; others have suggested various degrees of decriminalization. I did not at all care for the reaction of one of my own representatives, Del. Kathy Afzali (R-Middletown), who told a reporter: “It’s my firm belief that marijuana makes you lazy and stupid, and while this may really encourage Delegate Mizeur’s base, my base are the hard-working taxpayers of Maryland who are probably not the ones who are smoking marijuana and being lazy.” Yikes!
8 Comments
We each have the right to be as lazy and stupid as we choose to be, and to bear the consequences. Legalize.
Takoma Park: “You shag one sheep and…”
Legalize and tax? How about butt out? How about tax prescription drugs? They’re the bigger health threat. The un-taxed, un-regulated, un-controllable market in cannibas has done fine for years without the help of the self-absorbed nitwits in government. This idea of taxation and control is just another angle on their proclivity for fascism.
Canvasback, you think that taxing marijuana is over the top? This is Maryland. They tax everything. I just got an additional $90 added onto my property tax for the Maryland rain tax.
How about getting the government out of the drug regulatory business. It is not working and making money for gangs and terrorist. The restrictions on pain medications have gotten well out of hand and don’t do a thing other than penalized law abiding citizens. Many countries have stopped drug regulations without consequence and have actually improved the drug situation.
I’m not sure what I think of this anymore. Are we stopping at marijuana or does the logic apply to all drugs? I’m not worried about a slippery slope so much as just trying to figure out the real argument. You tone here is pretty moderate. I wonder if that was so people like me don’t get freaked out.
Very cool that they published your editorial. It was what I thought it would be: great writing and reasoning.
[…] I consider immoral” [one of several Baltimore Sun letters to the editor in reaction to my piece on marijuana legalization, and Gregory Kline's […]
Legalize!