State Senator Constance Johnson has once again introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana in Oklahoma. Like her earlier efforts, and unlike a joint, this one has no chance at passing.
From KFOR:
Whether states should legalize marijuana is a debate that continues.
That debate is heating up this week on the tales of a newly released, controversial interview with the president.
President Barack Obama is quoted in a recent article in the New Yorker magazine as saying he doesn’t believe marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol.
State Senator Constance Johnson is taking it even farther, saying alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana and should be legal.
Don't you like how having "common sense" and "knowing facts" is considered "taking things farther" by the news media? Here's a statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
There are approximately 88,000 deaths attributable to excessive alcohol use each year in the United States. This makes excessive alcohol use the 3rd leading lifestyle-related cause of death for the nation. Excessive alcohol use is responsible for 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) annually, or an average of about 30 years of potential life lost for each death.1 In 2006, there were more than 1.2 million emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking. The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion.
Of course, you probably know what the CDC has to say about marijuana:
From 2005-2009, there were an average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States — about ten deaths per day. An additional 347 people died each year from drowning in boating-related incidents.
Yeah, I went with the drowning stat! That's because marijuana is so harmless that nothing's listed on the CDC website. The odds are higher that you'll be killed by a Minotaur than die from a marijuana overdose. Now, I'm sure some people have gotten cancer or whatever from abusing the product, but even then, it's not on the same scale as the 88,000 deaths due to alcohol.
To get the whole story on Mary Jane's chances of coming to the Sooner State, KFOR went to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics – the same agency that receives funding to crack down on illegal marijuana use and distribution – to see what they thought about the push to 'legalize it.'
Prepare to laugh your ass off like a group of stoners watching Chapelle Show:
Mark Woodward, with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, said, “I’ve seen [marijuana] wreck more lives than any other drug.”
Yeah, that's real. The spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics – the state agency that enforces drug laws – really claims that he's seen marijuana "wreck more lives than any other drug."
Uhm..... was he stoned when he said that, or was he simply referring to all the non-violent offenders who are locked up in Oklahoma prisons and / or had their life ruined due to felony marijuana distribution charges? I hope it's one of the two, because if not he may just be the biggest idiot in the world.
Seriously, what a pile of resin. How can he get away with saying something that asinine? Do people actually buy this crap? At last check, there are still drugs called meth, crack, heroin, oxycontin, Tylenol and even alcohol that are way more dangerous and life wrecking than marijuana. I'd like to see Mark tell the family of someone who overdosed on heroin, battled meth addiction, or died from alcohol poisoning his thoughts on life wrecking drugs. Then I'd like to see that family smoke a bowl and forgive him.
Anyway, as a spokesperson and drug expert, shouldn't Mark Woodward be fired for saying something so... wrong? He's supposed to know his facts, right? That's the whole point of being a spokesperson. You say things that are informed, correct and factual. Unless, of course, you have to follow some sort of agenda like keeping a substance illegal so the state agency you work for can continue to operate and waste taxpayers dollars. Then you do whatever it takes.
p.s. - Here are 10 reasons why marijuana should be legal in Oklahoma.
