Prohibition's special interest groups cover assets in Alaska The headline in today's Anchorage Daily News: Anti-pot team attacks push to legalize it. Predictably, the pro-police-state crowd bring out all the tired arguments. One argument seems new, but it's as weird and unconvincing as the others:
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The governor also said the military plays a great role in Alaska and legalized pot could harm that relationship.
"These are serious considerations for the state of Alaska," he said.
Expanding on that theme, a Murkowski spokesman, Mike Chambers, later said the governor was drawing on his experience serving as a U.S. senator during base closure proceedings.
Chambers said legalization could be an "aggravating factor" in such proceedings. "This could be something that influences someone's decision," he said. "It's going to have a negative effect on our relationship with the military."
Chambers said Alaska is also a major training center for the military. "The fear is that something like this would have a chilling effect on the training dollars and where they spend them." |
Close military bases because of local marijuana policy, without considering broader security issues? I don't buy it, but if true, it seems like more evidence that the war on marijuana does a lot more to undermine national security than marijuana itself ever could.
But, we're here to look at marijuana decriminalization. What's interesting in that respect is that any of the arguments being used against marijuana legalization plans in Alaska could be used against marijuana decrim plans in Chicago. Indeed such arguments have been used in Chicago, though by individuals with considerably less power than those speaking out in Alaska (and without the military angle). The prohibitionist arguments would be just as ineffective and irrational for either plan, but because they hinge completely on the percieved badness of marijuana and the alleged need to use the coercive forces of government to curb that badness, both arguments apply equally to either plan.
10:15:46 AM | permalink |
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