Few things, if any, will erode your moral authority more than hypocrisy. You simply can't be taken seriously if you fiercely condemn some people for using intoxicating drugs while simultaneously glorifying others who use, sell or promote them. Yet, through the false dichotomy of "alcohol and drugs" that's precisely what we're doing. Saying alcohol and drugs is like saying cocaine and drugs or linebackers and football players. It just doesn't make sense. How is the guy who smokes pot such a social pariah that we need to lock him up, while Joe Six-pack, whose drug is alcohol, is celebrated as a virtuous, salt of the earth American. Bear in mind that you can't claim marijuana is bad because it's illegal. Since we make something illegal on the premise that it's bad, an argument that something is bad because it's illegal and illegal because it's bad would be circular and fallacious. This begs the question, why is pot illegal and alcohol legal?
Let's examine which is the greater scourge by comparing the dangers and problems associated with the preferred drugs of Joe Six-Pack and Joe Dime Bag. After indulging, which of these two is more likely to knock his wife from one end of the trailer (or mansion) to the other? Which is much, much more likely to fall prey to a crippling addiction and all that goes with it? If you said Sarah Palin's beloved Joe Six-Pack to both of these, give yourself 10 points. Numerous destructive social ills are inextricably tied to alcohol consumption, while Joe Dime Bag is unlikely to do anything more harmful than eating a teeming bowl of Cocoa Puffs followed by a lengthy contemplation on how the brown milk in the bottom of the bowl represents the combined essence of the milk and the puffs. Well that certainly doesn't tell me why we banned marijuana rather than alcohol! Okay, the analysis of the pot smoker was done somewhat tongue in cheek, and all mood altering drugs, marijuana included, carry certain perils that extend well beyond eating cereal. Nevertheless, in all seriousness, violent anti-social behavior is undeniably more closely tied to alcohol than marijuana, and alcohol is also far more addictive.
Every society has a drug of choice, and in the United States, that drug is alcohol. We tried to prohibit it by Constitutional Amendment, but we learned that even with all the social pathologies that attend legalized drinking, that prescription was worse than the disease. I'm embarrassed that we can't see the parallel and apply the lesson of our ill-fated prohibition to the disastrous war on drugs. We don't have to legalize more dangerous drugs, but marijuana should immediately be treated like alcohol. It's clearly less harmful than booze, not more harmful. Sell it in what amount to liquor stores, replacing criminal profits with legitimate jobs and tax revenue, while saving billions of dollars in criminal justice expenditures. Whatever negative consequences might accompany legalization, like the repeal of prohibition, the pluses should vastly outweigh the minuses.
