in fear as something too powerful toinvestigate. The lessons from the prohibition of alcohol are so obvious: in the first place, when the Government of those days had the happy notionof simply outlawing the use of alcohol, they at least realized that nothing less than an Amendment to the Constitution would be requiredbefore they could assume the authority for such an arbitrary act of power affecting peoples personal lives. The argument againstprohibition is the same for both alcohol and marihuana: leaving the industry in the hands of an outlaw black market, rather than havingit taxed and regulated, turns out to be an incredible mistake, with negative social consequences everywhere you turn. No matter what you think of alcohol, making it a criminal offense to consume it does not represent the enlightened way to deal with theproblem. The only politically correct way to approach a problem such as alcohol is to educate the public, perhaps most especially theyouth, to a full and clear understanding of the nature, risks, and possible consequences of the use of alcohol. The use or abuse of alcohol, marihuana, nicotine, caffeine, theobromine, sugar, or any other hazardous substance should be considereda health issue, not a legal issue. It is one of the functions of Government to maintain Departments of Health that will look out forimportant health-related issues and make sure to publish important information. This policy has worked quite well in the case ofcigarettes, and there is no reason why an educated public should not be able to make informed choices about their use of marihuana.The only way for so many billions of people to live together on this earth in peace and freedom is to maintain a policy of Tolerance ofDiversity. Tolerance for diversity is related to flowering, and is associated with such times as the Renaissance and the 60s. I find theprogressive narrowing of social tolerances which has been going on for many years now to be a ...
