incredulity

  Just another bit of incredulity. I'm listening to the morning news about the legalization of Marijuana in the state of Maryland. That bit of legislation passed and will soon go into effect. As I have pointed out many times in the past it isn't really a legalization of pot, it's a legal ignoring of federal law. It's still a federal crime. It's something only a lawyer could understand and make sense of. Attorneys specialize in double talk! But whatever the case is the discussion was about how to use the expected revenue from the sale of marijuana. The state is expecting quite the windfall from that. I expect they are correct. No matter what state the economy is in people will have money for pot; same as alcohol, cigarettes and tattoos. So, the politicians are circling like sharks attempting to get their piece of the proverbial pie. The Baltimore city council is certainly salivating. 

 Now here is the part that I find incredulous. It was explained how a certain demographic was targeted in the past for marijuana use, sale and possession. It was explained how all that was just unfair, prejudicial, racist and targeted! As a result, arrests were made, people now have records and some even spent time in jail. It is only right that a portion of the revenue generated from the sale of pot should be used to pay reparations to those people that were affected by all that injustice in the past. Yes, the proposal is this; those that broke the law in the past should now receive reparations for having broken the law. No one is saying that any of those people didn't break those laws, no one is arguing that point, just that they were singled out for prosecution. It wasn't fair. The ones breaking the law were arrested! Not fair at all. 

 That's about all I have to say about that. I can't think of anything else to say. That statement alone says it all. We are going to allow the sale of a federally listed illegal drug. Yes, it is listed in schedule one of the Controlled Dangerous Substance act. In addition to that we will pay those that used that illegal substance, breaking federal law because: they broke the law and were arrested.