Weed legalized in Cali and age to buy Tobacco is raised to 21. Seems weird to celebrate both.

[Warren DeMontague]

38. "tightening smoking laws" isn't the same thing as outlawing nicotine.

I don't know who in the ol' gang put out the payday loan memo, why that one keeps coming up in these threads. Like clockwork. (Odd that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is so in favor of putting marijuana users in prison, is so fond of the payday loan industry)

but it's not on topic. Regulation is a very different thing than wholesale prohibition. Alcohol is regulated, so is lending. We regulate where people can smoke.

However, it is a particular and specific sort of conceit that says that the government should be putting people in jail for doing "unauthorized" shit with their own bodies and nervous systems.

If they're not hurting anyone else, I have a lot of fucking trouble figuring out why they should be charged with a crime.

Michael Jackson managed to do what he did under the current system. The laws in place didn't stop him. So what's the answer- more laws? More mandatory minumums?

Also, precision in language is important. I realize there are people here who think "decriminalizing" marijuana is the height of forward-thinking progressivism, but states (starting with Oregon) have decriminalized the stuff since 1973. Marijuana, at least at the state level, is LEGAL in California. Not just "decriminalized".

Decriminalization is an excellent approach, mind you, for these other drugs you mention. Keep the commercial trade illegal but stop throwing users in jail.

Dogmatists? There are people on this board who think the sports illustrated swimsuit issue and "blasphemous" cartoons should be outlawed. In that context, I hardly think it's "dogmatic" to say that putting nonviolent drug users in prison is a wrongheaded policy.

So, sorry if I get a little peeved with the authoritarian tendencies.