Puffin’s Place

It often seems that the issues that most galvanize Americans are those that involve legislating someone else’s behavior. My state of North Carolina has ruled that all state school system locations will be entirely smoke-free. Most states tell cyclists what they must wear on their heads. Some states still outlaw anal sex. The current Feds salivate at the possibility of making same sex marriage unconstitutional. Oregon once approved physician-assisted suicide and the US Attorney General tried to reverse the decision.

We are never so springy in our step as when we plant a foot on the rights of another.

Good for Barney Frank for his reborn attempt to end Federal penalities for those carrying less than 1/4 a pound of pot. According to today’s Washington Post, the Senator is taking another whack at the government’s invasion of personal rights:

“The vast amount of human activity ought to be none of the government’s business,” Frank said during a Capitol Hill news conference. “I don’t think it is the government’s business to tell you how to spend your leisure time.”

“The Massachusetts Democrat and his supporters emphasized that only the use — and not the abuse — of marijuana would be decriminalized if the resolution resulted in legislation.”

Such commonsense is especially welcome when one thinks of the number of those combating illness who have been proved to find Marijuana either comforting or actually medicinal. From the American Medical Marijuana Association to the Science of Medical Marijuana and other such sites, it has been shown that at the least marijuana used for medical reasons does no harm and often does great good.

It goes without saying that recreational pot is a winner. Those who argue that smoking pot immediately leads one to become an inert toad sucking on roaches are those who find offense in someone else’s choices.

My only problem with the Frank effort is that I am not sure why the group would penalize what they call “the abuse” of marijuana. We have not made alcohol abuse illegal, and booze is far more physically harmful.

But then I would legalize all drugs and put the DEA and the local Barney Fifes out of business. Sell it in Short Shops and let those who opt to have their teeth fall out, their brains cave in, and live like unkempt trolls have a merry life. As with smoking, people have an inalienable right to the means of their going hence.

And it would be nice to see the last of the Goody-Two-Shoes business in this country.