Ballot questions -- STATE 2. Recreational marijuana -- NO

Digest and arguments:
http://carson.org/home/showdocument?id=51146

Actual text:
http://carson.org/home/showdocument?id=51138

I'm sorry to raise hackles, but there is no such thing as "medical" marijuana. If there were, we'd have seen properly conducted scientific studies to identify the active ingredient, its medical effects, its side-effects, its medical benefits, its on-label and off-label uses, its contraindications, its safe and unsafe dosages, the dosage to effect the benefit(s), studied and determined in properly conducted clinical trials, and of course properly prescribed and monitored by a legitimate physician -- just like all other medicines. I don't think any of this was ever claimed, offered or provided for "medical" marijuana. (No, but there have been imaging studies that show marijuana literally turns your brain into a sponge.)

What we do know for certain is that for generations marijuana has been a "gateway drug" to other, much more dangerous street drugs, and, like other substances of self-medication, it impairs a person's attention, judgement and physical activities.

Nobody has bothered to provide a reasonable explanation why we needed to turn to "medical" marijuana for relief, and now nobody bothers to explain why we need now to make the jump from "medical" marijuana to "recreational" marijuana. I personally find no "recreation" in being zonked, and had found no evidence of any relief, benefit or recreation among those that I observed being high on everything from marijuana to heroine. (Living in SF has dubious educational value.)

I am libertarian enough to say, hey, idiot, you want to kill yourself, it's your business. Just don't take me with you. Have a car with the safety interlocks to keep you from driving under the influence. Wear bright clothing so I'll see you when you stumble into a traffic lane. But you see, that's where this thing breaks down. There is no such thing as a victimless crime. We are a communal species, not hermits. Everybody has family, friends, neighbors, coworkers. Everything we do affects other people, and especially those who are stupid enough to care for someone on a path of self-destruction. (I've been there too, trying to "save" someone like that; still showing the scars.)

I am also libertarian enough to say that no level of government has the constitutional right to regulate morality. But the immediately practical fact is that even if we legalize recreational as well as medical marijuana, there still are (unconstitutional) federal laws that do remain in effect. So the best we can count on is actually the worst consequence of all this nonsense: expect the feds to look the other way. Yupp, that sure is THE right thing to do, for a nation that so proudly proclaims its faith in the rule of law -- just don't enforce the law… One law for us, one law for the druggies, one law for Hillary,…

Well, good luck with that one. We have the problem of an entire industry having been perpetuated to deal with the problems of drug abuse -- the livelihoods of countless police, drug enforcement agents, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges, court clerks, jailers, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, treatment center operators, politicians and pundits directly depend on it. And no, legalizing drugs would force only some of these people to find productive employment in other areas.

We have enough problems. We don't need to deliberately make more, except maybe a law to retrofit all vehicles with impaired driving interlocks.