Actually, there are two common sense solutions to our deficit. One is to quit spending about half of our toil and treasure on defense.
The one I have in mind to blog about is – legalize marijuana everywhere, and tax the heck out of it! It’s just not dangerous, as almost all of us know. It’s pleasurable. It doesn’t give us lung cancer. When we’re high, we don’t rape or murder, we don’t get in our cars and use them as deadly weapons. Just hand someone who’s high their bag of Doritos or whatnot, and let them munch and smile their way to sleep. Cuddling happens, rape doesn’t.
I cannot believe our state of denial on many, many issues – but this is certainly a major one. It’s not a gateway drug – a minuscule number of folk go on to become addicted to drugs in general. The only drawback I’ve seen is that a few folk don’t get anything done. They make a grand plan, and a year later, the same plan is presented, with no progress. Of course, that happens without folk getting high.
The dangerous drug, to my mind (besides all those legal prescriptions that lead to suicide), is alcoh0l. And it is clearly a gateway drug, in the sense of the large number of folk who become alcoholics. And, in a practical sense, cost us a fortune in medical care as they get liver transplants and die eventually of cirrhosis. And as we pay for all those injured in wrecks with drunk drivers.
The way to enjoy alcohol and not move to addiction is clearly to be embedded in a healthy community and a healthy family. Then the pleasure doesn’t turn negative and become a self-medicating escape.
It’s a good thing I know the paradigm shift is coming, and we’ll discover much more about happiness, and be much more willing to be happy. Otherwise, this insanity over marijuana, among many other denials, could lead me to despair.