David Michael Miller
When it comes to sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, I’m pretty much a libertarian. As long as you’re not hurting anybody else, well, knock yourself out. It’s none of my business. I take the Scandinavian point of view toward vice. It’s not going away, so regulate it and tax it.
But another thing I like about the Scandinavians is that they’re really tough on things that we should be really hard on. For example, driving while impaired in Norway will get your license suspended and earn you a fine equal to 1 ½ months of your base salary. And the Norwegians define impaired as an alcohol level of .05 compared to .08 in Wisconsin.
Which is part of the reason that I don’t find myself enthusiastic about Madison state Rep. Melissa Sargent’s proposal to legalize marijuana for recreational use. With Republicans in firm control and solidly against it, there’s no chance that Sargent’s bill will pass this session, but it does feel like the wave of the future.
Seven states and Washington, DC, have now legalized the recreational use of marijuana. And it provides a revenue stream that can help with tight state budgets, which has been Sargent’s leading argument in favor of her proposal.
Some of my lack of excitement may be a result of my experience. I did inhale in college, but I never understood what all the fuss was about. It felt like I was smoking weeds cut at the side of the road — which, in the late 1970s, it may well have been. And it ruined perfectly good brownies. Anyway, I never could parse out the effect as opposed to the Old Style beer, which was always consumed simultaneously.
Still, if you have had a wonderful time with the stuff, well, then great. Go for it. It’s not so much that I think Wisconsin should never legalize pot. I just think we should allow a lot more states to go first. Let’s see how it plays out as a public health issue.
The top concern right now seems to be impaired driving — an issue we have enough trouble with here, as ours is the only state in the nation that does not make first offense OWI a crime. A new study by the insurance industry found an increase in crashes in three states that have legalized marijuana. Crashes are up 14 percent in Colorado, 6 percent in Washington and 4 percent in Oregon.
But an important caveat is that, with legalization, it’s possible that drivers were just more inclined to reveal that they were using a now legal drug than they had been before.
In any event, with Republicans in control, this isn’t going to happen in the next two years anyway and that’s a good thing. Let’s see how this plays out in other places, maybe toughen our impaired driving laws — and let’s hope for the rapid adoption of the self-driving car.
I’m not strongly against this; just cautious. Put me down for token opposition.
