Alcohol is legal; smashing up bars is not.
Retired Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy is taking aim at what he sees as knee-jerk support for marijuana legalization among his fellow liberals, in a project that carries special meaning for the self-confessed former oxycodone addict.
Kennedy, 45, a Democrat and younger son of Edward Kennedy, is leading a group called Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) that opposes legalization and seeks to rise above America’s culture war over pot.
The sense of entitlement boggles the mind: why would anyone find him a credible advocate? Or is this a case of the convert being more Catholic than the Pope, as it were? For the record, it sounds like SAM’s ideas are pretty good ones–support for more treatment, treating marijuana as a public health issue–except for opposing decriminalization. (Hint: there would be no need to offer help so that “those caught using marijuana might avoid incarceration, get help and potentially have their criminal records cleared” if they couldn’t be convicted of marijuana use!)
I guess we’ll have to steel ourselves in Colorado for an invasion of a whole nation of Carrie Nations over the next several years. You have to give it to the the temperance movement: however mistaken, they weren’t hypocritical. And it certainly wasn’t led by a bunch of drunks!