Seen and Heard on the Bus...Pothead Edition

I work in a major metropolitan area with a good subway system, and I can comfortably afford to drive and park at work.  But I take the bus, because it's the most efficient mode of travel for me in terms of convenience, time, and cost.  And it gives me a little time to think about strange things I see and hear along the way...


So on today's ride in to work, I noticed an ad on one of the bus stops promoting the legalization of marijuana; the ad's "pitch" point was to the effect that states that legalized marijuana had lower or reduced rates of theft.  Now I don't know if the particular statistic they cited was valid or not -- crime statistics can be a very malleable thing. 


But it got me thinking...why would that result occur?  Well, I think the assumption that most lay people would read into it is that, if it is legal, drug addicts won't have to steal things to get money to buy pot.  Simple enough, and intuitively provocative and appealing to an anti-legalization bias.  But that got me laughing, because the pro-legalization lobby goes apoplectic at any suggestion about marijuana being habit-forming.  (Personally, I'm willing to entertain the proposition that it's not physically addictive, but I absolutely believe that it is socially, psychologically, and/or culturally addictive, based on what I've observed anecdotally.  And I trust what I observe.)


OK, so they couldn't have been stupid enough to sell their pitch based the assumption that pot is addictive, could they?  Well, what else could there be?  I guess you could say, if it's legal, the price in a regulated market will go down relative to the price in a black market, and if the price goes down, they won't have to steal to get enough money to buy pot.  That got me laughing again, because it presupposes that you've got to buy the pot, and that you'll steal to do it if necessary.  Which of course either suggests it's addictive in some form, or that perhaps it's just bad people that smoke pot.


Now that couldn't possibly be either, could it?   I mean, it's a medical thing, and we all want to reduce health care costs, right?  Especially for the aging generation soon to be eligible for Medicare.  Or maybe it's just coincidence that the push for pot is happening when aging baby boomers are coming into the time of life when they are trying to revisit the heady (pun intended) days of Woodstock and Haight-Ashbury, regardless of whether they've ever actually been to either of those places.

Seen and Heard on the Bus...Youth Edition

I work in a major metropolitan area with a good subway system, and I can comfortably afford to drive and park at work.  But I take the bus, because it's the most efficient mode of travel for me in terms of convenience, time, and cost.  And it gives me a little time to think about strange things I see and hear along the way...


Yesterday I was sitting in front of two boys, each about 15 years old.  One says to the other, "Back in the day..."


WTF?  You weren't even BORN "back in the day."