Over the weekend, The New York Times called for the U.S.A. to legalize marijuana.
No surprise; that paper is far left on its editorial page, so its stance is predictable.
The real reason many liberals want to legalize pot is not to put another intoxicant in the market place, although they generally don't object to that.
The unspoken marijuana play is contained in The Times' editorial:
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: “The social costs of marijuana laws are vast. ... [T]he result is racist, falling disproportionately on young black men, ruining their lives, and creating new generations of career criminals."
There you have it. The left believes American law enforcement targets African-Americans for drug prosecutions. Therefore they want drug sales to be categorized as nonviolent offenses and marijuana to be legalized.
It's about race, not drugs.
Now some facts:
According to the U.S. Sentencing Commission about five-thousand criminals were sentenced for marijuana offenses in 2013 at the federal level.
Almost 98% of them for sale.
Average prison term: 41 months.
And here's the kicker: 63% of those convicted were Hispanic, just 11% black.
The legalization of marijuana is full of unintended consequences. It sends a signal to children that drug use is an acceptable part of life.
The Times says marijuana is not a gateway drug, that it does not lead to other drug use.
That is false. According to a recent study by the Yale School of Medicine, adolescents who use pot or alcohol are three times more likely to abuse hard drugs than children who do not use intoxicants.
As for the poor precincts in America, does it make sense to make intoxicants more available in those places?
Drug use and sale has devastated poor neighborhoods in this country.
Let's take New York City for example. In 1990, there were 2,245 homicides in this town, an average of six per day.
In 2013, there were 335 homicides.
So what happened?
Under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, The New York City police cracked down on open drug use and sales, and those convicted of selling drugs were given much harsher sentences by the state of New York.
No one disputes the murder rate was driven by the drug trade as gangs shot it out all over the city.
But now the left wants to go soft on drug use and criminal sentencing. Apparently The New York Times and others want to go back to the days where there were six murders daily in the nation's largest city.
That's just insanity. Drug use is a public menace; it helps no one.
Same thing with alcoholism, same thing with smoking tobacco. But you don't add to the problem by legalizing marijuana. That's stupid.
What the authorities should do is to decriminalize pot use.
You want to do it in your house and not bother anyone, fine.
Go outside with a joint, you pay a fine -- a hefty one if I'm running the show.
But sell marijuana, you go to jail.
America used to have standards of behavior in public, but today they are collapsing all around us.
