Fun with comments

In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Cynthia Tucker cautiously moves a step forward with Why not de-criminalize marijuana use?.

It’s a short post that riffs off The Washington Post article I mentioned, as well as Andrew Sullivan’s Cannabis Closet posts.

What’s interesting in this particular case, though, is some of the colorful characters that you discover further down on the page…

Say What?? says:

Why not de-criminalize marijuana use? Hmm, why not de-criminalize the following: gambling prostitution alcohol (for those under 21) crack cocaine imbezzlement voter fraud (you know, help out ACORN) underage sex

Well, first of all, thanks for not using rape and murder. People who can’t tell the difference between smoking pot and rape will quickly stop being invited to the good parties. As far as the others, I’m actually fine with one through five, but imbezzlement [sic] and voter fraud? Really? This guy couldn’t even land a job as stock boy. He’d put the sweat socks and carburetors in the produce section.

El Jefe decides to take the sarcastic road:

Ms. Tucker – your right, we do not have enough lazy slackers in society, we need more.

El Jefe, if potheads are such lazy slackers, how do they manage to keep supplied with pot? And how is it that some of them actually know the difference between “your” and “you’re”?

Joe Matarotz made my head explode:

Being a college student in the early 70’s, I smoked a small forest worth of pot. I can say that it is one of the few things I’ve done that I am ashamed of today. Keep it illegal. Smoking pot is NOT something to be encouraged.

Let me get this straight… Joe is ashamed of all the pot he smoked and wishes it had been illegal so he wouldn’t have smoked it… but… wait, it was illegal and he smoked it anyway. If it stays illegal, will that mean that Joe will be less ashamed of having smoked pot when it was… illegal? I’m so confused.

And what about the notion that making it legal would encourage it? Well, let’s see… I believe that it’s legal to eat camel dung. Does that mean that it’s encouraged?

Wow, did you know that the U.S. government encourages the consumption of camel dung?

Sunshine… Yes, she calls herself Sunshine, and really betrays her name with another “lazy” post

Have you ever seen a pot head with a ‘to do list’ ? The answer is no. Pot heads are too lazy to do anything. The pot heads who are all for legalizing it have probably already pickled their brains and can’t see the damage it does. This country should NEVER, EVER legalize pot.

Sunshine, all your friends smoke pot and you don’t even realize it.

To Do List Get stoned Demolish Sunshine in a battle of wits

CK Hall brings takes the intellectual approach:

For all you “authorities” on Pot–Keep it ILLEGAL!

Kind of hard to debunk that. Sort of like saying “Hey, all you “earth is round” people – keep it flat!”

Public Option Heading South says:

Anyone who has seen a relative or close friend hit rock bottom because of drug addictions knows why marijuana should be illegal. Marijuana is the port of entry for stronger highly addictive drugs like crack cocccain [sic], opiates, meth etc. Alcohol, while a drug that can lead to self destructive consequences isn’t any where near as addictive for most people.

Well, that’s certainly one approach to proving your point. Simply make up shit.

Mutts R Stupid (apparently some kind of self-referential name) came up with this doozy:

Legalizing pot is ok by me, let stupid people kill themselves faster, it will improve the gene pool. My mother was a night ER nurse in a small town, and I recall her telling me a tale of woe concerning young drug users. This teenage boy came into the ER with black, cold arms. It turns out he had been told that injecting peanut butter into his veins would make him high, so that is what he did. He lost both arms.

Marijuana kills people fast, and somehow causes people to inject peanut butter in their arms. I don’t even know how to respond to that. This apparently explains the millions of armless dead pot smokers, and why they put peanut butter behind the counter.

Mutts R Stupid came back with another one…

Have you ever seen what the lungs of a long term pot smoker look like? Worse that [sic] tobacco users lungs by far. At least tobacco has some quality control, and is highly processed, and somewhat purified.

Somehow I doubt that Mutts R Stupid has personally compared the lungs of pot smokers and cigarette smokers (and if it were true, why isn’t the ONDCP trotting those pictures out all over the media?). But it’s odd that he’d oppose legalization because pot lacks quality control — wouldn’t that be a reason to legalize? And I don’t know that I’d want to get that excited about the highly processed “purification” of tobacco.

Of course, these folks are the fringe elements who populate the comments sections of local newspapers. And clearly nobody out there has an argument that could come close to denting the strength of ours.

Part of me is entertained by these specimens of humanity’s periphery, while another part of me is deeply frightened.