Wars

The War on Christmas is fake and has zero casualties.

The War on Drugs is real and an utter failure.

I find it laughable that one of these wars is dusted off each year by the same people who claim to be in favor of personal liberty and responsibility (and of course fiscal restraint) but the other one is lauded as necessary even as it fails in its goals, sends tens of thousands of people to prison for non-violent acts, clogs up the judiciary, and wastes billions of taxpayer dollars.

Just think: we could regulate and tax marijuana, easily funding a jobs bill for veterans, start investing in needed infrastructure, maybe pay down some of our debt.

But, no, advocates of personal responsibility evidently prefer to demonize freethinkers and the activists who seek to preserve the religious neutrality enshrined in our Constitution, rather than addressing expensive policies that do little other than remind us of the well-known failures of prohibitions.

Tobacco is actually addictive and actually kills people. Ditto for alcohol. Both are regulated and taxed out the wazoo. Weed should be treated the same, and it would be so cool if we could earmark the resultant savings for useful investments in our economy. Hell, how about using half the savings to refocus our efforts on drugs that actually do major harm--especially to our young people--like meth? Or how about getting serious about prescription drug abuse?

A country with ~4% of the world's population should NOT be using over 90% of the world's oxycontin production. Wouldn't you say that's a more immediate health concern?