Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Hm.

Ran across this little information-dump: Pot isn't so green, after all
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I saw the last image in that list, and my first thought was: "I don't smoke pot. So can I have my incandescent bulbs back, please?"

(I really, really dislike CFLs. I haven't yet tried LEDs, which my parents tell me give better light, because they're SO EXPENSIVE and I sincerely doubt they will last as long as claimed).

I don't know. The little-l libertarian part of me says, "I don't give a flip if someone smokes pot, as long as they don't get out on the road after doing so (or as long as they don't show up stoned to my lab class the week we're using hazardous chemicals)" but I do think there are going to be serious unintended consequences to legalizing it for recreational use.

There are a few legislators in my state eyeing it as a possible tax cash-cow, and while normally I am all about taxes I can choose not to pay (like playing the lottery), I just think it would be better for all other states considering legalization to wait five or ten years and watch what happens in Colorado.

I also worry that legalization for recreational use will lead to more pot-users, and more users losing their jobs, and possibly disability claims of "I can't work because I 'have' to smoke pot and no one will hire me now" and then the rest of us will be on the hook to take care of those folks. I don't know how likely that is but it's something that makes me uncomfortable.

Also, I want the right to throw students who are high out of my class. I had to do it once with a drunk student; he stumbled in boasting loudly about how he was at a bachelor party the night before and was "still really hammered" and it was a week we were going to be dissecting starfish, and I just didn't want him taking a fingertip off with the scalpel, so I told him that he had to leave, that he obviously wasn't "feeling well." (Luckily, he did, without too much issue. And I knew he lived in the dorm, so it wasn't an issue of him driving somewhere.)

But I will say: I don't want any self-righteous pothead claiming how his habit is "better for mother Earth" than whatever habits I have (tea, chocolate, buying fabric....)

1 comment:

Dave E. said...

Pretty amusing to see that article show up at Mother Jones, of all places. I predict a subscription disaster.