re: so the 2 states with legal pot have their nfl teams in the superbowl

Here's my reply to DwagsLife and Vox:

Hi, I am 36 years old, and I do not smoke pot, I quit smoking cigarettes on Nov. 30 (almost two months without a relapse ), and I only drink occasionally.

I have smoked pot in the past, primarily in my teens and early 20s. Pot and I never really got along - I mainly did it because someone else was smoking it. I had many friends who smoked on a regular basis. While pot was never my thing, I never saw the people who did enjoy it as being evil or losers or bad - hell, some of the regular smokers I knew in college were also honor roll students who have gone on to do amazing things. Though, just as there are morons who abuse alcohol and make dumb choices, there are also morons who smoke weed and make bad choices.

The first car accident for which I was at fault happened because I leaned down to retrieve a cassette tape from the floor. Sober as a church mouse. Dumb, teenage choice.

When I was 24 I had a terrible bout of the flu and took some Theraflu. An hour later I realized that I needed to pay a power bill and decided to drive over to the GP office and drop off the check. I started hallucinating about five minutes into the drive. Scared the shite out of me. I pulled over and found a phone to call my roommates to come and get me. Dumb choice.

I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but like many people, I made some dumb choices in my youth behind the wheel. I still make the occasional bonehead move. None of these lapses in judgement involved marijuana or alcohol, but they were dumb all the same. Not sure anything the government could legislate would have prevented me making those choices, short of raising the driving age, banning OTC flu medicines, or banning cars outright. But, if any of those things were to happen, where does it stop?

Collectively, we've given our government license to legislate a lot of lifestyle choices - things that could potentially affect other folks, but a lot that really doesn't affect anyone but the individual. I don't believe in limiting freedoms that don't affect another's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You might argue that when a person drinks and gets behind the wheel he is doing exactly that. And I agree. And we have laws that say "you can't drink alcohol and drive and if you do there are consequences." But, I don't believe that a "potential" threat is worthy of legislation or making something illegal - it's a slippery slope that we need to stop careening down.

There are plenty of laws protecting people from morons who drink and drive or smoke and drive. We don't need anymore. We don't need anymore laws written by busybodies who think they KNOW how people should live. Keep it simple. Stop criminalizing things that aren't criminal.