Street-Legal Weed: Another Social Experiment?

Not to judge too harshly, but the news stories showing the lines at recreational pot shops in Colorado lately might say volumes about whether this great experiment will work.  I’m sorry, but I didn’t see too many executive types in those long lines, nor did I see what I might describe as geeks (meaning those techies who create new and exciting things for us).

     Instead, I saw what I would have stereotypically expected to see: old hippie types, tatted up and ratty haired stoners, and a general bunch of those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale.  Of course, there are executives, et al, who smoke the devil weed but I really doubt they would be interviewed on national TV to say they couldn’t wait to get home, lay on the couch, and light up.

     While I clearly am generalizing, I don’t think I am too far off the mark to say that this experiment may show its downside way before we can see some socially redeeming value.  No doubt there was lots of pot out there before legalization, and ironically it probably cost less than what the new shops are charging now.

I have seen many teen stoners online praising the legalization, and also saying they want to move to Colorado as if their whole life now revolves around smoking and getting high.  Wow!  And do they know that the legal age is 21 and that it cannot be smoked in public?  Getting together with a few buds (and “buds”) at the playground to take a toke or two would still be illegal.  And the fines would likely be higher than before.

     But who knows, maybe it will make our country a little mellower.  Maybe we will generate more intellectuals, more creative geniuses finding the cures for cancer, or more literary giants.  Or maybe, just maybe, we will have more unemployed, more traffic accidents, more neglected kids, and less incentive to make a better life.  Just as long as they have weed to take away the sharp edges of life, who cares about college, career advancement, and role modeling.  I think this experiment is going to stink up the lab.

Afghanistan - At What Cost?

I read today about the U.S. efforts to help Afghanistan get electric power to the 90% who do not have it. I first read with pride that we have financed and built a generation plant that would ease the suffering of this stone-age country.

I read further that the plant had huge cost overruns, along with shoddy workmanship and the requisite corruption. That plant, built at a cost of about $305 million dollars (and who knows if this is the real cost), is now mostly idle because the Diesel fuel required to run the turbines is too expensive. So the Afghans are importing cheaper electricity from other sources. They say, "thanks, but no thanks" to our now completed power plant. We have spent over $60 b-b-billion for this war in Afghanistan. We are fighting an essentially unseen enemy, who looks like every other civilian in the area. Our troops are required to hold fire to avoid killing civilians. They have to be shot at first (with that method's concomitant troop losses), before they can engage. Then when they do engage in a firefight and a "civilian" is killed while they were having lunch with a Taliban fighter, the U.S. gets raked over the international coals for its actions.

I probably am not for a precipitous withdrawal allowing the Taliban and their pals in al-Qaeda to have free rein, but we'd better develop new Rules of Engagement that allow us a chance to win this war. $60 billion could have bought us about 20 Nimitz-class aircraft carriers - not that we need them...yet.