The Politics of Pot

The legalization of marijuana is a popular topic following the election in which legislation legalizing the use of marijuana was passed in both Colorado and Washington. ThinkFast ThinkNow wrote an interesting post about the consequences of legalizing marijuana. While there are many consequences, I think that some other issues need to be raised in the debate.

Let’s face it: drugs are a problem whether they are legal or illegal. Despite the consequences of marijuana use, I believe legalization may be the right course of action.

It is true that there is no test to determine whether someone is under the influence of marijuana while they are driving because marijuana stays in the blood for 30 days or more. I think that tests could most likely be developed similar to sobriety tests but that would need to be researched a lot more. Unfortunately people are going to drive high whether marijuana is legalized or not. Currently people with medical marijuana prescriptions or those using marijuana illegally are driving while under the influence.

I think the question is not what are the consequences of marijuana use but how will marijuana use change if it is legalized?

I think medical marijuana is worse than having marijuana legalized in some ways. In the majority of cases, medical marijuana prescriptions are abused by people with headaches, chronic pain, insomnia, stress, etc. I have all of those things and so do the majority of my classmates. We shouldn’t be treating these symptoms with marijuana. We should be treating those symptoms with lifestyle changes and other ways to relieve tension and stress in daily life.

I believe marijuana should be treated as a recreational drug similar to alcohol. The side effects are different though not necessarily more severe. Both alcohol and marijuana have been known to be detrimental to developing brains yet alcohol becomes legal at 21 (18 in most countries) while marijuana remains classified as an illegal drug.

Teenagers are taught about the consequences of alcohol abuse and how to drink safely. All freshmen at USC take a course called alcohol.edu where they learn how to drink responsibly. Maybe there needs to be a course that teaches people to use marijuana responsibly. When used recreationally I do not believe it is more detrimental than alcohol. Although marijuana use can trigger anxiety and more severe effects in people with bi-polar disorder, alcohol abuse can have severe impacts as well. Drinking is far more likely to bring out reckless or violent behavior than smoking is. Drunk teenagers are more likely to go driving or dive off a cliff while high teenagers are more likely to waste time in front of video games. While neither is healthy, the latter seems safer to me.

I believe that the legalization of marijuana would not change the current abuse of the drug. In high school it is often easier to find weed than alcohol so the people that currently choose to smoke excessively have plenty of access. Legalizing marijuana wouldn’t change that. I think that the people that abstain from smoking who would choose to use it if it were legal fall under a smaller category of people who like to recreationally use marijuana as they do alcohol.

While this would still pose an issue with the fact that you cannot test for high drivers, I am not sure that legalization would increase the number of high drivers that significantly. I would hope that with increased education the number of people driving high would decrease as people saw how dangerous it can be.

I think that marijuana should be classified in the same category of drug as alcohol and similar laws should be applied. There will be issues to work out but the dangers of driving high would be better addressed if it is acknowledged as a real problem on the same scale as drunk driving rather than disregarding the issue because getting high is illegal. 

The End of the World

In case you haven’t been paying attention to the news, the world ended a little earlier than the Mayans predicted. We’d been waiting for doomsday to come this year but didn’t expect it until December. However the Facebook and Twitter-spheres have confirmed it: November 6^th was the end of the world.

After Obama’s reelection, it has become clear that all hope for America is lost. It’s time to surrender, drop out of school and start selling death dogs on the way to the Coliseum (credit to one of my distraught Facebook friends for this idea).

See this is the difference between Democrats and Republicans. Republicans are going to sell hot dogs instead of living off of federal aid!

I think I’ll stay in school, work hard and get a good job anyways but don’t worry, I’ll be sure to tip you well when I’m on my way to the awesome seats that I got with my promotion.

This anonymous twitter user really exemplifies the kind of factual information that gets passed around on Twitter which is why I rely on it as my primary news source.

Except the 10 most educated states voted for Obama and 9 of the 10 worst educated states voted for Romney but who’s counting?

What makes this tragic loss even harder to cope with is that Romney should have won. It makes sense that Republicans were shellshocked when he didn’t because he would’ve been president of the America that he envisioned and campaigned for.

The election results if only white, males could vote

The only thing that gives me hope now is that all 50 states have come to the smart decision to jump off the sinking ship and petition for secession (Although some of these petitions were started by residents of other states...) True Republicans have such a strong devotion to America that they cannot possibly remain a part of this nation while it is being destroyed by Democrats. (Remind me again how seceding is patriotic?)

Luckily for us grieving members of America, Ann Coulter has a dream. “If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream”. Don’t worry Ann, I’m sure if you move to the states that secede, you won’t be able to vote. What a relief that will be!

I say let them secede. It will be a win-win situation. The states that secede will be free to elect an extremely conservative leader and create a society free from social benefits and public healthcare. They won’t have to deal with hiring women because all the women will be too busy raising their ten children because there won’t be any birth control. They will be happy and we won't have to listen to them whining on Facebook anymore.

It’s a win for America too because “Six of the seven states with more than 25K signatures received more than $10 million in federal government aid in 2010”. If these states seceded, they wouldn’t have to accept all that federal aid anymore (phew- because it takes money from hard earned workers and gives it to lazy people) and we would be able to allocate that 23% of federal funding to other states.  

At first I was frustrated by the Republican reaction to the results of the election. I’d never witnessed so many people (especially ones that I personally know) have such a ridiculous overreaction to an election before. Their lack of understanding of our political system is saddening. Although I disagree with the sentiment that Obama is ruining our country, if I did believe that, there is no way he would succeed. The president cannot pass a law without the approval of Congress. No one really paid attention to who was elected to Congress when the balance of power in Congress is going to have more of an effect on what laws are made than the President will. 

Even if Obama did hold all the power, the fact that people said they should just drop out of school reflects a lot more poorly on their character than on the job market. The post-election reaction was very anti-American, ironic coming from the party that frequently criticizes democrats for not being patriotic.

But if you want to drop out of school or attempt to secede, I won’t stand in your way or try to convince you otherwise. I say good riddance. 

Conservation Before Desalination

While desalination seems like one of the only options for increasing our freshwater resources, in addition to the environmental degradation, it is currently not economical. A proposed plant in Carlsbad is estimated to cost $700 million dollars and will satisfy only 8% of San Diego’s water needs. For this 8% of the water supply it will use as much electricity as 45,000 homes, which is an additional recurrent operating cost on top of the $700 million. The amount of energy required for desalination is extremely high and will be very costly.

The cost of water from the desalination plant will be tied to the cost of energy and as the price of energy rises, so will the price of water. “The Public Utilities Commission has approved a plan to allow publicly traded California American Water to potentially quadruple water bills on 40,000 ratepayers in order to pay for the proposed plant”. Consumers are unaware that the cost of desalination plants will be passed on to them, which is why they are cost-effective for the owners of the plant.

In terms of the allocation of state money, while our education system struggles on budget cuts, Proposition 50 (passed in 2002) provide $50 million to support desalination projects. Last year, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reduced its conservation to $10 million while allocating $350 million for the Carlsbad desalination plant and promising $250 per acre-foot of fresh water produced to future desalination plants.

Rather than spending tons of money on desalination plants that are harmful to the environment, we should first focus on maximizing conservation. While at some point, desalination might be necessary for human survival, we should increase our conservation first. “In parts of Southern California, up to 70 percent of all household water is used outdoors, mostly to water lawns, and an estimated 1.3 billion gallons of wastewater drains into the ocean each year.”

Southern California is a desert and people living here need to accept that they cannot have a green lawn. If you want a green lawn, move to Northern California or Oregon. Otherwise plant some native plants that don’t need as much water and stop exploiting our water resources just to have a pretty front yard. In terms of in house conservation, low-flow toilets and showerheads, efficient washing machines and dishwashers could all be made extremely affordable if state subsidies were reallocated from desalination plants to conservation technologies.

It is my opinion that desalination plants cause too much environmental degradation and are too expensive to be implanted when so much more can be done as far as conservation. We should reevaluate the need for desalination plants when excessive water use has been reduced significantly.

SOURCES:

http://www.dcbureau.org/20110303169/natural-resources-news-service/conservationists-push-back-against-desalination-in-california.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124708765072714061.html

Forward.

Progress: gradual betterment, especially the progressive development of humankind. It’s something we all strive for. It’s moving forward, not looking back. For women’s rights, it’s a fight that began over 150 years ago and I for one am not ready to stop. Apparently the women voting for Mitt Romney would rather travel back in time.

Mitt Romney’s beliefs on women’s rights are backwards. Women, we’ve come so far. Don’t start regressing now. The solution is simple: come Election Day, don’t vote for the Romney.

To be fair, Romney has a pretty good slogan: “Believe in America”. I do believe in America, but I believe in the future not the past. That’s why Obama’s is better. “Forward”. That’s the kind of thinking I want for our country.

Some people call him Mittens, but I think Flipper seems more fitting. No one knows what Romney’s stance on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is. Not only has he issued different statements but it seems to be that he has NO stance on the issue. How can the women of America stand behind a man who won’t stand behind them?

He can’t seem to make up his mind about abortion either. He claims to “believe that abortion is the wrong choice except in cases of incest, rape, and to save the life of the mother” yet says “there's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda” despite his support for the Hyde amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for abortions.

Romney promises to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood. 97% of their services are preventative care like breast cancer screening. The repercussions of eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood would be huge. The number of unplanned pregnancies would increase with lack of affordable birth control, which in turn would increase the number of abortions. Millions of women would be cut off from access to birth control, cancer screenings, HIV testing, STD testing and treatment. No woman should ever be denied a cancer screening because conservatives don’t believe in abortion. That’s just common sense.

In the first presidential debate, Romney said we don’t need a board of people (or the government) “telling us what kinds of treatments we should have”. Well Mr. Romney, it seems like you’re making a pro-choice argument. With abortion being legal, everyone is able to follow his or her own opinions and beliefs. If you don’t believe in abortion, don’t get one. If someone else gets one and you have a problem with it, well, we can’t all be friends. But if Romney is elected on November 6^th, our right to privacy and control over our bodies will be threatened.

Abortion and fair pay aside; Romney’s attitude towards women is demeaning and disrespectful. When addressing gun control, Romney suggested that single mother’s could be blamed in part for gun violence because two parent families significantly reduce the likelihood of living in poverty. This misogynistic remark was disrespectful and ignorant as most single mothers (despite what Romney may believe) did not choose to raise their children alone. If poverty affects gun violence perhaps suggesting ways that he would fight poverty might be more conducive to fixing the problem than blaming women. And Romney, just some food for thought, maybe single mothers wouldn’t be raising their children in poverty as frequently if they didn’t make only 77 cents to every dollar a man makes.

Romney’s track record with women in the workplace shows just how much he cares about women; he even has a special place for them in his cabinet. That’s where he keeps his binders after all. When Romney left Bain Capital in 1999, only 9 women out of 95 vice presidents at Bain Capital. In case you are mathematically challenged, that isn’t even 1%.

This isn’t an issue just for women. It’s relevant to men too. Think about your daughters or your future daughters. What kind of America do you want for them? I want one they will believe in. One based on freedom of religion, right to privacy, and equality for all. Vote to move forward, not backwards.