It's not, but it could be, more or less

The ongoing discussion at Bound Not Gagged (and elsewhere. o, for centuries, now, but just lately, i mean) inspired me to make the following observation in the comments of one post:

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It feels like…I dunno, like a group of NORML activists and anti-War On (Street/Some, depending on who you ask) Drugs from an anti-State Power POV were butting heads against the “Just Say No/DARE” people. and every time there’s a meeting it’s like,

“We’d like to decriminalize marijuana for reasons x,y, and z”

“Do you KNOW how many people meth kills?? Or heroin??”

“I wasn’t talking about meth or heroin. I’m talking about pot. Here’s why–”

“Well, la di da for you, I Just Want To Smoke Pot In My FancyPants Hot Tub, it’s all right if you want to rot your -own- brain and give -yourself- lung cancer, but -innocent helpless people are dying.- Think of the children!! God, you’re so SELFISH. You and your “I gotta get high and that’s all I care about.” What have you done to save people from DRUG-CAUSED DEATH?? What have you done to get people off the street? Huh?”

“Well, first of all, it’s -not- just ‘getting high,’ although I personally don’t see anything -wrong- with that. But, one, I don’t think the State should have so much power over a consensual activity, and two, while some drugs are more dangerous than others, medical marijuana–”

“SHOW US YOUR CREDS!”

“Well, okay, I -was- going to talk about getting medical marijuana to cancer patients, but since that clearly doesn’t count for anything, I’ve taken addicts into my home and helped them detox, helped get them jobs. I helped set up a needle exchange program for heroin–”

“Those don’t help. They actually just lead to more heroin addicts. Studies have shown that.”

“Which studies?”

“These studies here. They’ve got graphs and footnotes and academic endorsements and -everything.-

“Okay, those studies there were funded by a pro-abstinence think tank, and furthermore they aren’t in any peer reviewed journal.”

“What is all this fancy talk? You and your ivory tower graphs and footnotes and academic endorsements! We’re talking about REAL LIVES. People are DYING, did we mention?”

“…Look, can we just get back to talking about the pot thing, since we’re clearly just talking past each other when it comes to this stickier stuff?”

“Why do you hate America?”

“AAARRGGGGHHHH” *breaks things*

“You see? You see how irrational and abusive you are? Maybe if you weren’t rotting your brain with all those DRUGS, you’d understand that we’re -just trying to help,- and you’d get out of our way and let us get on with it.”

…lather, rinse, repeat…