Funny thing that in a recent post about inane laws I would say that I “wish we could do something about the easy availability of foolish laws” only to see one of the silliest laws I have yet to see proposed:
Rep. Mitch Greenlick, from Portland, is sponsoring a bill that makes cigarettes a Schedule III controlled substance, meaning it would be illegal to possess or distribute cigarettes without a doctor’s prescription.
Under the proposal, offenders would face maximum punishments of one year in prison, a $6,250 fine or both.
Other drugs and substances that are considered Schedule III controlled substances are ketamine, lysergic acid and anabolic steroids.
You would think the bastards didn’t learn diddly squat from Prohibition. As usual, there is no shortage of people who think that because something is unhealthy or unwise, doing it should land them in prison:
“I hope it passes and I hope people actually think about it,” said Rick Cannon of Salem. “You know there’s less and less smokers everyday because they know how bad it is for them, so I just hope people wake up and realize how bad it actually is for them.”
Sure, smoking is bad for people. A lot of things are bad for people. But what possesses these nitwits to imagine that jailing people for doing bad things to themselves is a great idea?
Sheesh.
I wish I could say I’m surprised and shocked, but I’m not.
Comments
9 responses to “Speaking of “the easy availability of foolish laws”…”
Sigh, and here I’d thought Oregon was (comparatively) sane. I’d move there if I got something deadly and debilitating.
Or maybe not, if I couldn’t have a cigarette while I lay dying. 🙁
Sheesh.
It is a plan to jail the schizophrenics not currently in jail.
It was predicted by Charles Whitebread
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/whiteb1.htm
Let me conclude, and again this is my prediction — I will tell you I don’t think it is subject to opinion. Just look at it. Just take a look at what has happened now and what will happen. I will tell you how inexorable it is. If we get together here in the year 2005, I will bet you that it is as likely as not that the possession of marijuana may not be criminal in this state. But the manufacture, sale, and possession of tobacco will be, and why? Because we love this idea of prohibitions, we can’t live without them. They are our very favorite thing because we know how to solve difficult, social, economic, and medical problems — a new criminal law with harsher penalties in every category for everybody.
Eric, you lived in the Bay area, didn’t you? You know how crazy our helpful minions are.
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Forcing the 1 in 5 Americans who smoke to quit, would seem a good way to spark some violence and prove the need for more State power. The micro-managed health insurance industry will also help since smokers (unlike other high risk customers)can be charged a hefty penalty for their behavior and the Nanny State won’t pay for it.
http://news.yahoo.com/penalty-could-keep-smokers-health-overhaul-205840155.html
Not surprising. The state legislature here in Oregon passed in 2006 a law requiring a prescription for sudafed or anything with pseudofedrine etc. that could be turned into meth.
They’ve supposedly cut down on local meth labs but meth use and cost seems to be the same as before. Cascade Policy institute here did a study but the cops and politicos won’t do anything to repeal it.
Will,
The Democrats get the young pot smokers. The Republicans get the old tobacco smokers.
Brilliant.
The Culture War sucks so bad. It almost seems to have been invented as a political machine to maintain political power with very little work. The “liberals” and “conservatives” manipulate the petty fears, and emotions of the voters, who fret and worry, and end up electing one “side” or the “other” — getting nothing of substance in return and helping both “sides” remain in power.
The war on smoking has always been a war on liberty. This early indicator of the fascist heart of progressive policy drove me out of the socialist camp thirty years ago. The campaign used all the tools of bad character: falsehood, deception, exaggeration, demonization, ostracism, theft and moral vanity. It was the paradigm of all subsequent socialist persecution–and the dumbass conservatives went along with it out of a sense of puritanism.
The lies are so ubiquitous that even defenders of smokers believe the lies. Far more than one in five Americans smoke–the persecution has simply made secretive liars out of most of them. The exaggeration of their success is the typical falsehood that characterizes all left wing discourse.
Brent you got that right! Another point both “sides” can agree on is that just as “DRUGS=TERRORISM” so also does “TOBACCO=TERRORISM”:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/mali/9829099/Revealed-how-Saharan-caravans-of-cocaine-help-to-fund-al-Qaeda-in-terrorists-North-African-domain.html
***QUOTE***
Among its most prominent beneficiaries is none other than Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed jihadist and smuggler who has claimed responsibility for the mass hostage-taking in al-Qaeda’s name.
Nicknamed the Marlboro Man for his lucrative cigarette smuggling empire, Belmokhtar, who helped found Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is thought to have diversified into drugs a few years ago, earning himself the moniker of “le narco-Islamiste” on the smuggling routes between Mali and his native Algeria.
***END QUOTE***
Why so many people buy into such garbage thinking, I do not know. If I said that “MONEY=TERRORISM” or “OIL=TERRORISM” people would yawn dismissively. I guess they have been bamboozled for so long that that they are no longer able to think.
Ugh.