Two Vices Each

Two Vices Each

Tobacco - Killed 400,000 people last year. Shortens a persons life by 10 - 25 years. Costs the health care system in the U.S. 16 billion dollars a year. Causes 14% of the premature births in the U.S.

Alcohol - 100,000 dead, including car accidents, in the U.S. Thousands more suffer from liver and other diseases. Cost to the health care system in the U.S. is more than 20 billion dollars.

Other - All Legal Drugs - 20,000 dead. All Illegal Drugs - 15,000 dead. Caffeine - 2,000 Aspirin - 500

Marijuana - 0

(Source: U.S. Government)

In 1990, problems arising from alcohol and drug use cost American businesses an estimated $81,600,000,000 in lost productivity. 86% of these costs were attributed to drinking alcohol.

(National Institute of Drug Abuse)

First of all, let's get something straight, alcohol and tobacco are DRUGS! These drugs are more abused than all illegal drugs put together! AND ALCOHOL IS A MIND ALTERING DRUG AS POTENT AS, AND MORE DANGEROUS THAN COCAINE AND HEROIN. These drugs are just socially acceptable and protected by the government. Marijuana is not even close to as mind altering and dangerous as alcohol but it is shunned by society and attacked by the government. Why? Because our government is run and supported by alcohol and tobacco users!

I do not smoke or drink. So maybe I can be more objective than someone who does drugs. (Don't forget, alcohol and tobacco are drugs.) I have thought about this a lot. I really think that all drugs not prescribed by a doctor should be illegal. But that has been tried and it doesn't work. Another way to go is to make all drugs legal. But that won't work either, so here is my proposal:

Everybody gets to use two drugs of their choice. Most people would choose alcohol and tobacco. They would get a government permit to buy those drugs. If they are caught with any other drugs then they would be punished. Hippies could choose marijuana and cocaine and if they got caught with booze then they would be punished. Being intoxicated by any drugs while driving would still be punished. It would be good for our economy and it would greatly reduce prison populations. The government could collect taxes on those drugs, it would save money on police and the courts, and we could spend more on helping the addicts of all drugs.

Isn't this country about freedom? Through the years our government has reduced our freedoms and treated us more like children. I hear people say all the time that they are going to go drinking with the express purpose of getting drunk. That's freedom. I think that someone who wants to smoke pot should have the same freedom, instead of getting caught in the sanctuary of their own home and being dragged off to jail. That's not fair and it is a curtailment of our freedom. If alcohol and tobacco are legal, then at the very least marijuana should be legal too.

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