Yet another sitting judge is in the news discussing his belief that, based on his experience on the court, marijuana is far safer than alcohol.  As you might recall, a Montana judge was just in the news saying the same thing. 

From the Quad-City Times:

“I guess that’s not what a judge is supposed to say,” he added. “But, from what I’ve seen, it doesn’t cause people to do bad things. It doesn’t make them angry. Unless you work with it like I do, you wouldn’t know that.”

To be clear, the judge does not advocate pot smoking. He is, in fact, opposed to any form of smoking, because it is harmful.

“But I also know what alcohol does to people, and it’s pretty severe,” he said. “I don’t see marijuana itself hurting people. Cocaine does that. Methamphetamine does that. In my opinion and my experience, marijuana is not like that.”

Read the entire story at: http://qctimes.com/news/opinion/editorial/columnists/barb-ickes/article_99f843a6-1b9f-11e0-aaa5-001cc4c03286.html

In a story that appeared today regarding what the “The Great Montana Marijuana Mutiny” (as the Wall Street Times dubbed it), Missoula County District Judge Dusty Deschamps -- a former prosecutor -- made the case that marijuana is not remotely as problematic as marijuana.  In fact it's "a hundred times" less of a problem...

As the Helena Independent Record reports: 

In the 2010 poll, 58 percent of those in the western United States support legalization. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Count Deschamps among that 58 percent.

The judge and former Missoula County attorney said he’s “more or less” convinced that marijuana should be legalized in some form, despite being “much alarmed at what I consider to be rampant abuse of what I think was a well-intentioned initiative” — that being the 2004 statewide voter initiative that legalized medical marijuana in Montana. Deschamps also voted for that initiative.

We’ve seen some downside in the medical marijuana thing, but I’m reasonably convinced that, over the years, I haven’t seen very many criminals go out and commit horrible crimes under the influence of marijuana. Alcohol is 10 times the problem marijuana is, a hundred times.” (Emphasis added)

Check out this fantastic column out of Canada. The writer from the Toronto Star truly hit the nail on the head.

But strangely, people who use the nastiest drug of all, alcohol, are  
home-free. The angry old white guys who are the beating heart of the  
Conservative party are drinkers, and not charming ones like Rooster  
Cogburn in True Grit. Regular Canadians smoke pot and smile  
beatifically. As always, Conservatives get everything upside down.

I write this as New Year’s Eve approaches, the biggest drinking night  
there is. We drink lavishly, not with the same sense of purpose that  
Brits do, and not armed as Americans tend to. (But when we get sick on  
the sidewalk, it freezes and stays there till March. This is no small  
drawback in this cold country, especially when it’s pasta.) And we  
don’t know when to stop, we are hateful, and horribly ill the next  
day, but that’s okay because alcohol is a normalized drug and pot  
isn’t, not yet.

How I wish Canadians who need a night off from their own head could  
legally smoke dope this New Year’s Eve instead of drinking themselves  
faceless. (Confession: I quit smoking pot decades ago. I miss it.)  
Wouldn’t it be a pleasure to sit around with The Dude-like friends and  
stare at the tree quietly shedding its needles and the ornaments  
thumping as they slip off the drying branches. Months pass. And then  
we’d get inflamed over leftover goose skin and those President’s  
Choice thingies, chocolate or chicken tikka, it’s all the same  
deliciousness. We could gaze rapt at the fireplace. It need not have a  
fire in it.

I have a neighbour who is an alcoholic of 50 years standing and it  
isn’t pleasant to see or hear. Think of the physical damage of a half-
century of gin, the health-care costs, the stricken children, the bad  
smells, a life all over but the shouting. I’d have preferred decades  
of pot smoke drifting out over the lake, and probably so would she,  
given the choice.

Perhaps one day we’ll have that choice.