Up in Smoke

There were two different stories I came across yesterday that both had to do with smoking that got me thinking. The first was the well publicized new legislation that President Obama, a smoker himself, signed into law that will make life more difficult for the tobacco companies. The second story was a piece I happened to hear on the NPR program Marketplace while driving home from the gym last night. This piece was about how recent laws in California allowing for medicinal marijuana have made life much less difficult for pot smokers and their legal suppliers, especially in LA.

Let's start with the pot houses. Medicinal marijuana is a rouse, a way in the backdoor for those who want to legalize marijuana. I used to be generally in favor of legalizing this substance, under the libertarian notion that people should be allowed to put what they want into their bodies so long as they don't pose a danger to others.

Pot smokers are generally too lazy to leave the house and get in their cars, they're more inclined to stay on the couch with a bong at their side and order out for delivery. So they're not liable to be out and about on the roads, or causing a public disturbance as a disorderly drunk. And so the argument goes that if the demon alcohol is legal why shouldn't the herb be as well. Other arguments put forth by defenders of the mean green have to do with it being a natural product (it's not, it's laden with chemicals like most other agricultural products) and the utilization of hemp as an industrial fiber (which is fine, then legalize hemp but not cannabis).

I honestly don't know how I feel anymore when it comes to the legalization question, I'm less inclined towards the liberalization of pot laws though because I know the destructive capability of this not so innocuous product, and while I realize that people will continue to smoke pot regardless, I'm not sure that making it easier is the right way to go, not least of all because of the message it sends to young people. Young people have the most liberal views towards smoking dope, but they are mostly unaware of the negative effects that becoming a chronic smoker can have, and generally underestimate the addictive nature of THC, the active ingredient in pot.

I do know that the medicinal marijuana movement is a joke, the piece I heard described doctors who are willing to write a prescription for just about any reason, and a whole cottage industry that has sprung up around these dope houses where marijuana is dispensed legally. According to the report, there are 650 such locales in LA county alone. One person interviewed said that since these must technically be not for profit operations, the money being made (he was giving his interview from an industry convention) is in ancillary businesses. I would love to open a baked goods shop next door to each pot house, you could make a killing selling sweet treats to "patients" emerging from the "doctor's office" with a healthy case of the munchies.

As for the other story, I am in favor of anything that will make it more difficult for the tobacco companies to make a profit, and anything that will provide an incentive for people to quit smoking. Cigarettes are an unhealthy, nasty, and deadly product, and everyone knows it. What everyone doesn't know is the highly addictive quality of nicotine.

There are two types of non-smokers, those who never lit up or at least who never got hooked and those who lit up and got hooked. The first type knows as much about smoking addiction as somebody without kids knows about being a parent. They have all sorts of moralistic and definitive proclamations about the topic but no real clue. The people who know what's what when it comes to smoking are those, like myself, who have struggled as adults to quit this deadly habit.

While I no longer smoke, I did for much of my adult life, starting up harmlessly (an oxymoron) in college during final exams. I was able to quit, but not after repeated failed attempts and relapses, at one point I had quit for over four years and started up again, which only goes to show that once someone has this sort of addiction they never lose it. Just as an alcoholic is always one drink away from relapse, so an ex-smoker is one cigarette away from losing the moniker of ex.

People like me, and there are alot of us, who used to smoke and no longer do, are generally less judgmental of those who do and more negatively disposed toward the tobacco companies that put out this addictive and deadly product. So anything, and this new legislation seems like a good start, that hurts big tobacco and helps smokers to quit, and more importantly helps young people to never start in the first place, is a good thing. I'm sure that the right-wing rum heads out there are all over Obama for being a hypocrite, but the only hypocrites would be among those critics who are ex-smokers because they know how difficult it is to give up. The critics who never smoked just don't know and their opinion is as relevant as the childless couple giving me advice on child-rearing.

So how to wrap this all up? I am in favor of anything that will hurt and eventually cripple the tobacco industry, and frankly wouldn't mind seeing this product disappearing altogether. I'm on the fence on legalizing pot, but medical marijuana is a joke, either legalize or keep it illegal, but don't allow it in through the backdoor, this will only create a whole new set of problems. Legal or not, you can do whatever you want when it comes to smoking, when it comes down to it I really don't care much either way, just don't touch my Guiness or put a tax on wine and I won't complain.