It is incredibly strange to have something be true for the first thirty seven years of your life and then cease to be so. I found my parents' divorce at eighteen quite startling, but that was a Deeply Localized Fact that did not have an effect on incarceration rates. Remember that all of this hubbub is about a substance that has, as its primary effect, the not doing of anything.
Because of the winky, nudgy way "the marijuana" is always characterized until it's time to go to jail, and because of the sort of but not actual legality, it's hard to know what's actually true sometimes. I am told that the situation implied by Wednesday's strip is, for example, profoundly illegal. Ha! Wow. That's good to know. I wonder if they have wi-fi in prison.
It's an ongoing process in my state, and crucial parts of it are yet to implemented. Long term, Washington's intention (and even some proponents disagree with this aspect) is that a stoner is the equivalent of a drunkard. We accept that such people exist, are members of society, and until such time as they endanger others they do not become our concern. This is a fairly radical reconception of the user, who before we might have described as a wastoid, a shivering thing Outside The Wall who is in ways definable and indefinable the Other.
Ultimately, when you turn twenty-one here, the "mods" one might apply legally to that coming of age ritual will be expanded. And this "new challenger" is situated within our society, which means that these indiscretions are situated in the regular continuum of human experiences. This makes it possible to discuss, which makes it possible to minimize harm. So when my son asks me about it, we can talk about it like we talk about cell division or wind turbines or any other thing. We can talk about timing. I wont be compelled to repeat the obviously untrue things I heard, was literally forced to hear, as a boy. I don't know; that seems better.
Something else is happening today, I forget what.
(CW)TB out.
