{"id":28520,"date":"2012-06-14T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-06-14T17:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28520"},"modified":"2012-06-14T07:51:41","modified_gmt":"2012-06-14T12:51:41","slug":"choom-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=28520","title":{"rendered":"Choom Nation"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got nothing in particular against marijuana. \u00a0I’ve never smoked it, in part because I’m just not a “mellow” kinda guy – if I did a drug, it’d be cocaine, hands (and nose) down.<\/p>\n

And I personally support legalizing pot. \u00a0Making this cheap commodity the focus of a federal prohibition has contributed to untold deaths and incredible misery in America’s inner cities. Decriminalizing pot would at least remove some of the expense and dislocation that our failed “war on drugs” has caused.<\/p>\n

But with all that out of the way? \u00a0Stoners annoy me. \u00a0There is nothing in the world more annoying that numbed, hemp-reeking munchy-grubbing cackling drone of the Chiba Monkey set. \u00a0 I’ll sit in a chair and listen to Shakira’s fingernails on a chalkboard all weekend before I listen to stoners babbling in Shaggy-Doo cant without forcing bongs down peoples’ throats.<\/p>\n

So I’m glad to see that, along with Hollywood, government worker unions and plutocrats, America’s muzzy-headed hemp-clad frito-guzzling bong-o-nauts are\u00a0among Obama’s big hopes in the coming election<\/a>, as several state roll out pot legalization bills at least in part to try to turn out America’s Dave Matthews-listening, cheeto-searching, High Times<\/em>-reading, neo-comatose Baked Caucus to vote for Obama.<\/p>\n

Getting more young people to vote has long been a Democratic fantasy, since they tend to vote so heavily Democratic. But past attempts to bong the vote have been disappointing, in part because stoners aren’t the group anyone would most count on to bother filling out a ballot. Ahead of the 2010 midterms,\u00a0The Wall Street Journal\u00a0ran the story,\u00a0“Democrats Look to Cultivate Pot Vote in 2012,”\u00a0noting that California’s pot-legalizing Proposition 19 was being studied to see if similar measures “could energize young, liberal voters in swing states for the 2012 presidential election.” But exit polls that year showed no spike in young voter turnout, and marijuana legalization was\u00a0the top issue for just 1 in 10 voters, the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0reported.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Also carefully note, all you Paul supporters who think pot legalization is your path to the presidency)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got nothing in particular against marijuana. \u00a0I’ve never smoked it, in part because I’m just not a “mellow” kinda guy – if I did a drug, it’d be cocaine, hands (and nose) down. And I personally support legalizing pot. \u00a0Making this cheap commodity the focus of a federal prohibition has contributed to untold deaths […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,7,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-12","category-crime-and-punishment","category-culture-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28520"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28523,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28520\/revisions\/28523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}