“Is marijuana becoming more socially acceptable than a pack of Kools?”

posted at 12:40 pm on May 28, 2009 by Patrick Ishmael

That’s the question I’ve posed over at the American Issues Project blog. Here in St. Louis we’re creeping ever-closer to a region-wide smoking ban while right over in Illinois the Senate just approved a proposal to legalize medicinal marijuana.

The measure by state Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, passed 30-28 after tottering on the verge of failing until the 30th vote clicked ‘yes.’ Bills need 30 votes in the Senate to pass. The bill, Senate Bill 1381, now heads to the state House where its future is unclear as the Legislature looks to wrap up its business by the end of the weekend.

I know that from time to time Hot Air has addressed the pot issue, but I’m curious what the HA community thinks about pot’s cultural ascendance and cigarette smoking’s simultaneous descendance. There’s a common strand, I think, of straight up individual rights in play — people asserting the right to do as they please with their bodies — but yet, smoking bans fly in the face of property owners’ rights to manage their bars, restaurants, and other establishments as they like.

What do you think we’re seeing here?

Blowback

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Kools are favored by African-Americans.
You must be racist!
/sarc

Pervygrin on May 28, 2009 at 1:57 PM

I think it’s a combination of people asserting their rights to do what they want with their bodies (i.e. smoke pot) but also to not have things done to their bodies (i.e. smoking bans to protect people from secondhand smoke).

I’m sure that if pot smoking becomes more prevalent, we’ll see public smoking bans extended to cover that sort of smoke as well. Cigarette smokers and pot smokers can argue all they want over which smoke is more toxic, but, those of us that smoke neither find all of it to be noxious (side note – although I don’t smoke, I vote against all restaurant/bar/etc smoking bans as I think it should be up to the property owner to decide whether or not to allow smoking).

Of course, we might end up with a weird hybrid policy as they did in Amsterdam. They instituted a smoking ban in restaurants and bars, but pot was given an exemption. You could be fined for smoking a cigarette but the guy next to you smoking weed was alright. That is, of course, unless his joint contained even a tiny bit of tobacco…if it did, it was illegal again.

JadeNYU on May 28, 2009 at 2:07 PM

Of course, we might end up with a weird hybrid policy as they did in Amsterdam. They instituted a smoking ban in restaurants and bars, but pot was given an exemption. You could be fined for smoking a cigarette but the guy next to you smoking weed was alright. That is, of course, unless his joint contained even a tiny bit of tobacco…if it did, it was illegal again.

JadeNYU on May 28, 2009 at 2:07 PM

That’s a really weird policy that I had contemplated might emerge, but that I presumed wouldn’t and didn’t exist because of its contradictory nature. Is tobacco smoke more harmful than pot smoke?

Patrick on May 28, 2009 at 2:31 PM

Patrick on May 28, 2009 at 2:31 PM

I’ve heard pot smokers argue that cigarettes have harmful additives that make the smoke toxic whereas pot is all herbal. However, if someone rolls their own cigarettes from pure tobacco, their smoke will be just as herbal as the smoke from a joint. I’m not sure if there’s something in pure tobacco that makes the smoke worse than something in pure marijuana though.

JadeNYU on May 28, 2009 at 4:43 PM

I think that restaurant owners would encourage pot smoking in their establishments so that everyone would get a contact high case of the munchies.

Dorito and Funions sales would skyrocket.

Techie on May 28, 2009 at 6:05 PM

Legalize it, tax it and let people make a profit from it and watch the usual lefty suspects whine about it and then denounce it.

StevefromMKE on May 28, 2009 at 9:16 PM

The problem is, pot is easy to grow. Consequently, it can’t be controlled like tobacco. (i.e. Taxing it and prohibiting sales to minors)

kooly on May 29, 2009 at 7:49 AM

I think I’ll just grow my own tobacco and refrain from smoking in public as I’m not interested in frying my brain with pot.

I don’t mind the effort. Pot is a weed tobacco is a crop and effort obviously is not a valued property in our now forum of easy peasy thank you weasy.

seesalrun on May 29, 2009 at 9:53 PM