Mike Riggs wants to do (pot with) your mom

21Oct/108

Mike Riggs wants to do (pot with) your mom

Once again, my opinions are my own and not necessarily those of POWIP, Dan Collins, Hale's Ales Brewery - Seattle or the Nair Hair Removal empire.

Alternatively titled: My major blog address on drugs

Mike Riggs is a writer for the Daily Caller, and if you're familiar with his work and/or his twitter feed you know he wants pot legal yesterday. He wrote this about the Women's Marijuana Party and California's Prop 19, which seeks to treat pot just like alcohol. OK! The Women's Marijuana Party is not your hippie uncle's pro-pot group. Co-founder, Jessica Corry, is a wife, mother, life-long Republican and not a pot smoker. This group is different in that its primary focus seems to be how current marijuana laws aren't fair and aren't working. I think I like them for the same reasons I like Feminists for Life on the abortion issue. They're starting a new conversation based in common sense and throwing out the talking points that activists have been chasing their tails with for 30 years.

Jessica Corry on FNC

(Yes, she dodged the question about where to draw the line.)

I've written about the ways my politics have changed over the years, but one stance that hasn't changed has been my position on pot. (I call it pot. Anything else seems douchey or fuddy-duddy to me.) My husband, who is in law enforcement, and I have gone around and around on this. Neither one of us will budge. I'll omit his arguments since he's not here, he's wrong and he's not bringing me a t-shirt home from Bangkok.

The debate on medical marijuana should be over. Most illicit drugs began as legal drugs with very legitimate uses. At the very least, pot should be treated like any other prescription drug. Beyond pot, there's a valid case for drugs like LSD and ecstasy to be beneficial when used in a controlled environment. I don't think a hit of X would have hurt Jon and Kate Gosselin one bit. Everyone knows about treating diseases like cancer and AIDS with marijuana, but there is growing anecdotal evidence of medical marijuana helping with autism. If my son gets to the point where we need to look at medication I'd sure prefer pot to Ritalin or Adderall, which is basically meth. Like alcohol and cigarettes, no one wants kids taking these drugs or anyone abusing them. All people like me ask is that people step back and evaluate each drug or vice, legal and illegal from an objective, scientific standpoint.

Look at the prescription drug problem we have. Doctors were handing out Vicodin in the 90s to any woman who complained of cramps or migraines. EVERY WOMAN HAS CRAMPS AND MIGRAINES. Honestly, in our society if you don't feel like crap you're probably not a real woman yet. But there's this stigma that some drugs are safe and some drugs aren't based on archaic stats and mores. Often, that stigma is perpetuated by "experts" that have no experience to speak of. No drugs are safe. There are side effects to everything. Let's find out what being uptight and narrow-minded is a side effect of and make that illegal.

As for recreational use, anyone who has experience with alcohol and pot will tell you alcohol has as many, if not more, negative effects than pot. I'm sure there have been people who got belligerent and violent after using pot, but I'm confident the numbers wouldn't hold a candle to the dumb stuff people do when they're drunk. At least that's what I've heard. (Insert joke about stoners sitting on the couch eating Doritos here. Actually, don't.) And people do need something to use recreationally. Cultures have been finding self-destructive ways to unwind since the beginning of time. God saw that working all day was hard, and so he made nighttime. And He made it dark out for a reason.

The standard argument against pot being legal for recreational use is that it's a "gateway drug". I submit that pot is a gateway drug because in order to get it people often have to enter the gates of a dealer that is also selling harder drugs. Welcome to the wild west that is the black market. You're on your own, kid.

I mentioned that Jessica Corry dodged the question in that interview about where to draw the line. I would have too. Some want to make all drugs legal. I'm not so sure about that, but the war on drugs is a failure. A FAILURE. I don't see why we can't have a conversation about alternatives. To put it in DEA speak, these substances aren't the big fish. Addiction is. Addiction is a total asshole. Let's wage war on him.

Let me be clear, I am not a current pot smoker or doer of anything illegal. Although I have updated my twitter bio to reflect my interest in cheating on my taxes. Geithner, call me!

crossposted at KillTruck

Kill Truck

KillTruck is a wife, mother, blogger and native midwesterner now living in Eastern Washington state. She writes about politics, pop culture, parenting, wifing and a few other subjects she has no authority to write about. She has macabre fascinations with prostitution and/or cannibalism. In her free time she enjoys eating and/or drinking her feelings, liveblogging Lifetime movies, thinking about Scott Brown and mocking things she doesn’t understand.

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Comments (8) Trackbacks (1) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

Kill Truck
October 21st, 2010 - 21:07

Dan,
I know we’re supposed to use categories, but i don’t know what any of those mean. I just put everything under the boobs one.

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Dan Collins
October 21st, 2010 - 21:43

Dudette!

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snaqwells
October 21st, 2010 - 22:53

for now, I’ll just chime in on your husband’s side. I would say either legalize it or don’t (I prefer don’t), but the whole medical marijuana thing, as it’s been given to us, is scam.
There is no other medicine that we allow criminals to make in their basements and pass out without any follow up on dosage, effectiveness, purity, side effects, etc.
As for the effectiveness of drug laws, my statement on this is simple. If the purpose of drug laws is to eliminate drug abuse, they’ve been a failure. However, if the purpose is to reduce drug use, they’ve been a success. We’re then left with debating whether the cost is worth it.
Far more than I intended to say when I started writing. :D

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- KillTruck
  October 21st, 2010 - 23:02
  
  “There is no other medicine that we allow criminals to make in their basements and pass out without any follow up on dosage, effectiveness, purity, side effects, etc.”
  
  I don’t like the way it’s being done now either. It should be regulated like any of Rx.
  
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  - snaqwells
    October 22nd, 2010 - 16:04
    
    While the benefits of THC may well be documented, so are the side effects of smoking marijuana (a higher cancer risk than cigarettes, of all ironies). The societal risks of unregulated “pharmacies” are becoming more and more documented as various states have experimented with medical marijuana.
    
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Javelina Bomb
October 21st, 2010 - 22:59

So let’s see, as we’re outlawing tobacco, we should be legalizing pot? I think you should just admit that you’re a tool of Big Marijuana. Big Marijuana!

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Leslie
October 21st, 2010 - 23:08

There are no documented cases of anyone ever overdosing on pot and I’ve never seen anyone become violent on it. It is not addictive, and contrary to the so-called experts, who don’t have a clue what they are talking about, it is not a gateway drug, which alcohol is. I’m not saying that some pot smokers don’t graduate to hard drugs, but it isn’t the pot that makes them do it, it is their own choice.

The first doctor who recommended I use marijuana as an alternative to highly addictive prescrription pain killers that all make me violently sick to my stomach, was 22 years ago in a state where you could still go to jail for possessing a single joint. Since then I’ve had three other doctors make the same recommendation, all to combat both pain and nausea. (I had had 5 major surgeries in 4 years.)

When I fractured all 5 of my lumbar vertebrae and had no health insurance, I went to our local walk-in clinic that charges $50 per visit to see if I could get some help for the near suicidal pain. I was offered prescriptions for several different meds, but all were ones that past experience had shown would make me sick and every one of them could become seriously addictive. The doctor said that if I was his wife or daughter he’d give me a medical marijuana prescription and asked me if I wanted to go that route since it was legal here in California. Also, without insurance the prescription pain killers would have a monthly cost of between $75 and $130 depending on the med.

I didn’t know anything about the MM clinics at that time and I was hesitant, but ended up taking the prescription. It took me weeks to get up the nerve to go to the clinic closest to where I live and I had no idea what to expect. What I found was the nicest and most caring people I’ve come across in my whole life. Since I was looking for pain relief, they suggested I try the strains that give a “body high” instead of the “party or head highs.” They also showed me an oil extract that mixes with juice or soda in place of something to smoke or the edibles that have similar properties. The average age I see at that clinic appears to be the sixties and seventies. The two younger guys I saw were both obviously there for something besides a high. One had been in a seriouss accident that left him with some brain damage, the other was there because of ADHD and he told me that his mother had begged the doctor to help her with something that would calm him down and stop him from trying to self-medicate with alcohol.

Don’t get me wrong, I know that there are many many people who get MM prescriptions who don’t really need them, but there are also many many who get them for legitimate reasons and find pot a great relief, especially for nausea caused by chemo, or in my case post stomach surgery, 4 knee surgeries and major spine problems.

As to the clinic in my area, they sell high quality pot that is grown locally by their co-op members. No Mexican dirt weed, no smuggled pot, no cartel connections. Grandmas make the edibles, from traditional brownies and cookies, to puddings, cheesecakes, butters, jams, candies, popcorn balls, muffins, etc. The waiting room looks more like a senior center gathering of church ladies than some old hippy hangout, as I’ve heard it described by those who pontificate about the evils of pot.

Most of the people of my age group are voting yes on Prop 19 as am I. OTOH, my son and his friends are voting no. As a Mom, if I had my druthers, I would much rather see my adult children use pot rather than drink alcohol. In fact, I cannot stand to be around drinkers, especially since alcohol seems to turn people either violent or stupidly obnoxious, neither of which have I seen with pot. And when I hear the argument about how re-legalizing a natural product that has been used medicinally for thousands of years because it sends the wrong message to children, I wonder how many of these same people have no problem knocking off a bottle of wine, a 6-pack of beer or a 5th of whatever in front of their children. The liquor lobby was the prime mover in getting pot made illegal back in the early part of the 20th century. It was all about the money and it still is. The idea that our government would have marijuana listed as a schedule 1 drug equivalent to heroin is what is really criminal. People who have no problem popping highly addictive prescription drugs, with tons of bad side effects, like dilaudid, vicodin, percadan, demerol, oxycotin or any other of these types of pain killers will look aghast at the idea of pot. This is what the brainwashing of our population has brought about and why so many have been denied a safe substitute at far less cost. For instance, with an MM prescription, a patient can grow up to 6 plantts for their own consumption. Plants right now run approx. $18 a piece and 6 would provide enough for someone like myself for a year. Want to bring down healthcare costs and prescription drug costs, make it legal to grow your own for personal use and stop throwing gramps and granny in jail.

And no, I do not support legalizing all drugs like some libertarians advocate. No heroin, cocaine, meth, etc. But pot is not a drug, it is a natual substance. And if you don’t want it for medical purposes, then grow it for the hemp, a renewable resource with hundredss of uses and save a few trees along the way.

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- Bob Reed
  October 22nd, 2010 - 22:33
  
  tl:dr
  
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