Another e-mail:
K-Lo, I see your readers dissent, and I can’t help but think that we’re so caught up in the emotion and debate over whether or not pot is bad that we aren’t seeing the forest for the trees: the debate that conservatives should be having isn’t whether or not pot is bad and who gets to decide how bad and what the moral imposition upon the people should be. The debate for us to be having, at a national scale, is by what right is the federal government telling us all how to live? That is a question that conservatives should be able to answer with unity.
I have absolutely no quarrel with readers who write in saying that pot is so bad that it must be illegal. Ok, fine. If the people of Illinois or Virginia or Florida want to proscribe pot consumption and possession and expend the resources enough to enforce the law – if it’s that important to them – then you’ll hear no complaint from me. I’m involved in the lives of people who have been utterly destroyed by drugs and all kinds of other habits and hangups (through a Christian ministry called Celebrate Recovery), and I totally get how bad they are, and how good it would be for many people if it were simply outlawed. I get it. However, it’s simply not in the federal government’s purview to do that. The feds can rightly police interstate trafficking and import/export rules, but the remainder of the anti-drug regime in this country should be left to the states in its entirety. Period, full stop.
Many states would then outlaw pot (and various other drugs). Others would entertain a greater level of licentiousness. The laws wouldn’t be the same in every state, and each would have to deal with the consequences of their decisions. And peace would reign throughout the land, and we could stop spending so much money on powerful federal agencies that fight an endless “war on drugs” (not to mention the added benefit of taking away a potential crisis for convenient use by nascent liberal fascists!).
Hoping to remind everyone that the forest is bigger than any one tree