Get it right, California.

It’s about time we start legalizing pot, and throwing out the dishonest arguments. MSNBC just aired a segment on the possibility and, surprise surprise, the Heritage Foundation is against it. Then again, the Heritage Foundation probably worships at the alter of Hearst.

The same arguments are still in use against marijuana as ever, despite having been shown to be wrong over and over.

I’ve been hearing “gateway drug” since I was eight I’d venture, in DARE classes. But you know what? Pot hasn’t ever made me try cocaine, meth, or heroin. It hasn’t made me drop acid or take any drug I wouldn’t already have considered. I don’t even drink, both for not liking the feeling of drunkenness and for the knowledge I’m a genetic land mine of alcoholism.

You know what pot made me try? Unusual pizza toppings and exotic brownies.

Pot is safer than any other drugs on the market, and I mean the legal ones too. Adderall causes horrid withdrawal and suicidal tendencies. Alcohol poisoning is a very real thing, people die from drinking too much and nothing else. Nobody has ever overdosed on pot. THC isn’t a power toxic substance. It would take 1500 pounds of marijuana to kill someone, within 14 minutes. The LD50 is 1000 times the effective dose, whereas alcohol is 10. If you’re buzzed on a shot of tequila, ten can kill you. If you’re high as hell off one bowl of pot…well, good luck smoking enough to overdose.

I’ve seen someone try to overdose on pot. He couldn’t do it, not because of the lack of pot, but because he forgot how. It’s self-limiting, he had all his vapor bags set up, and he just forgot how to do it. He’d hold it up to his mouth, and nothing happened.

Beyond the fact it’s less addictive and less toxic by far compared to alcohol, it’s also a way to reduce the power of criminals. When it’s legal to grow, the cartels that have taken over Mexico lose the profit from the drug. Law enforcement benefits from that, AND not having wasted time and money in war on a drug that’s responsibly used by so many. We can even tax it and make money off it, plus regulate it to remove so many of the dangers that can be involved. We can stop spending money putting people in jail for vice crimes where nobody is actually hurt but the user, if even that person.

Prohibitions are historically known not to work, even when we take them all the way to a constitutional amendment. We’re wasting time and money on this, particularly when we admit to ourselves that marijuana is less harmful than the alcohol and tobacco we support now. The same laws that apply to alcohol or any other intoxication can apply now, there’s no reason they shouldn’t. Don’t be a nuisance, don’t get behind the wheel, and don’t smoke around kids.

It’s time to get beyond that. Most of our founding fathers, the men and women we look up to so much, were on drugs. Cocaine was commonly used in the past, opium was everywhere, and marijuana was far from frowned on. Historically, people have always found a way to get high. Peyote, cactus juices, dodgy berries and mushrooms. Now people do something that really can get dangerous, kids even. They choke themselves and huff paint, or raid the medicine cabinet. The Tussin is a powerful thing.

Now what’s more harmful? A regulated drug that most of the last three generations have tried if not used regularly, that plenty of good presidents and other great men have used (and still do, even), or depriving yourself of oxygen?

It’s time to move beyond the propaganda. There’s no doubt in this country one loud, well-funded voice can do years of harm. People still listen to Dr. Harvey Kellogg, afterall, a quack in every sense of the word. Now it’s time to stop listening to William Randolph Hearst and his anti-hemp interests.