MAKING CRIMINALS OUT OF ORDINARY CITIZENS

Carrie Nation

From The Writer's Almanac:

The Eighteenth Amendment, the Volstead Act, and better known as Prohibition, took effect on this date in 1920, a year after it was ratified. It made the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor illegal. The temperance movement had been fighting this fight for almost 80 years. Its activists wanted to protect families and communities from the horrors of alcohol abuse. They saw the 18th Amendment as a major victory for morality — but in reality, it made criminals out of a lot of ordinary American citizens, and made liquor even more desirable than it had been before.

The law was surely honored more in the breach than in the observance throughout many parts of the country, including south Louisiana.  I believe the citizens in the states who voted to legalize marijuana did the right thing.  My father was an alcoholic, who was periodically on and off the wagon as long as he lived, so I'm well aware of the evils associated with alcohol addiction, but prohibition was and is not the solution.  Nor does prohibition seem to be the answer for marijuana, for it makes criminals out of ordinary citizens who wish to use marijuana, which, so far as I can discover, is no more harmful than liquor or cigarettes.

MORE GOOD NEWS FROM ELECTION 2012

 

Besides the reelection of President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joe Biden, Election 2012 resulted in other good news for Democrats.

•Democrats gained two seats in the US Senate.  In states where the incumbent stepped down, Democrats retained the seats.   Democrats gained seven seats in the US House of Representatives.

•Women now hold 20 seats in the Senate, a record, and a record number of seats in the US House.

•In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin was elected the first openly gay or lesbian member of the US Senate.

•The States of  Maryland, Maine, and Washington voted yes to gay marriage which brings the total to 9 states and the District of Columbia that allow gay marriage.

•Minnesota voted down a constitutional amendment that would have defined marriage as the union between a man and a woman, which may make allow for the possibility of civil unions.

•Massachusetts voted to legalize the use of medical marijuana.

•The States of Washington and Colorado voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana.  Federal law still prohibits recreational use of marijuana, so we'll wait and see how the laws will apply in practice.

I AM SHOCKED!

From Charter News:

SIERRA BLANCA, Texas (AP) — A U.S. Border Patrol spokesman says country singer Willie Nelson was charged with marijuana possession after 6 ounces was found aboard his tour bus in Texas.

Patrol spokesman Bill Brooks says the bus pulled into the Sierra Blanca, Texas, checkpoint about 9 a.m. Friday. Brooks says an officer smelled pot when a door was opened and a search turned up marijuana.
....

Sheriff Arvin West didn't immediately return a phone message left at his home Friday, but he told the El Paso Times that Nelson claimed the marijuana was his.

Pot on Willie Nelson's tour bus? I can't believe the marijuana was Willie's. A mysterious someone surely planted the pot and the pot smoke on the bus.

Picture from Wikipedia.