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Maybe it’s inevitable.  We can’t escape the rapid changes being experienced in American culture.  It’s like a tsunami and there isn’t any high ground (pun intended???)

A writer at an alternative website in Washington State believes Idaho will be the next domino to fall when it comes to legalizing marijuana.  It’s all around us he explains.  Whether just for medical use or recreational use, every neighboring state and country abutting Idaho now has some legal form of marijuana.

The thing is, new research suggests legalization doesn’t diminish the illicit trade.

Voters in Idaho are going to be asked by referendum to approve medical uses.  I think it’s likely to pass.  I know many conservatives and Christian conservatives who plan to vote in favor because they believe it’s compassionate.  Most of us aren’t sadists and we abhor watching others suffer.

Twin Falls County Prosecuting Attorney Grant Loebs also appears resigned to passage.  Many times he has said legalization on medical grounds is essentially legalization of recreational marijuana.

Last summer I visited Weedology in Ontario, Oregon.  Just across a bridge from Idaho.  Customers were almost exclusively from this side of the divide.  The sales figures are astonishing and are driven by Idaho consumption.

The thing is, new research suggests legalization doesn’t diminish the illicit trade.  In fact, it increases.  I first made that argument in a debate in high school 42 years ago.  Only one classmate and the teacher agreed with my point of view.  Because it diminishes people’s moral objections.  The liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus admits when young, she smoked, however.  She fears the end of prohibition will change community standards and not for the better.

I’m often told by proponents people are already smoking in Idaho.  Of course, and some still drive drunk.  So should we legalize DUI?   People are trafficked through Idaho.  Should police ignore the cries of the trafficked?  The battered wives?  Sexually abused kids?

There are stop signs and speed limits on highways.  Because anarchy isn’t pretty.

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