Sin taxes are regressive.

And they give politicians too much incentive to encourage, or at least tolerate, abuse, because the money from sin taxes lets them solve their fiscal conundrums without political blowback. Bad policy all around. Also: regressive taxes are bad. Bad.

Oh, that's just CRAZY talk...

Dan, Dan, Dan. You can't legalize the Demon Weed. If you did that, all the pot users would move on to heroin and start raping white women.

Also you can get a situation where sin taxes are so high that it restarts the black market, like for cigarettes in a lot of places or liquor in Russia.

Though his situation is tragic, I can help but feel offended by the father's quote at the end. “We talk to our kids about sex. We talk to our kids about drugs, and we talk to our kids about drinking and being responsible. But how can you talk to your kids about something you don’t even know about?” The fact that he differentiates between alcohol and "drugs" is telling, and scarily illustrates that the kind of conversation he'd had with his son was probably the completely wrong one (i.e. DRUGS BAD AND ALL THE SAME BADNESS, BOOZE ... okay). When will people learn that their kids will ask more questions if the dialogue is open and the small indiscretions/mistakes they make (and they will) won't lead to shameful knee jerk reactions. Also being truthful about the fact that pot/=heroin/=caffeine/=cocaine/=alcohol/=etc. in terms of danger can be effective.

How did I know, before even reading the article, that the prohibitionists would deploy the trusty old "it made some kid kill himself" argument? I mean, really, is there anything you can't justify banning, based on that kind of logic?

@7: hence the death of the diving board in america

This was my next hit while surfing today and I just couldn't resist posting it. The deliciousness of the headline next to this story is great!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/100708/ca…

This is the stuff they should be criminalizing ... (smile).

Here's an idea

Legalize LSD — and tax it and regulate it — and there won't be a market for strychnine-cut acid.

Given that smoking near anyone is now equivalent to exposing yourself in public, wouldn't the same apply to Mary Jane?

Where are all these legalized druggoes going to toke...I don't want it near me.

@10 That's the spirit!

@1 Sin taxes are not regressive--they are optional taxes, just like pull tabs, Keno, and all other kinds of state supported gambling. Your slippery slope theory for sin taxes is as bad as the slippery slope theory of gay marriage detractors. It doesn't wash. Sorry.

@11: If they distilled THC into pill form only as the only delivery method for legal distribution, it might get around that second-hand-selfish-smoke thing. But I don't think Marley-loving wastafarians will want to wear a t-shirt with a red, gold, and green capsule on it. Somehow it doesn't have the same semiotic punch to it as a dorky leaf or spliff does.

I believe hash brownies and vaporizers also do an end-run around 2nd hand smoke, as both use the oils.

We have bars for the legalized imbibing of regulated booze. What's wrong with hash bars?

@14: It's not the smoke so much as the putrid odour.

"Rock the hash bar! Rock the hash bar!"

@16 tomayto, tomahto, putrid, perfume.

I would much rather smell the putrid odor of fake marijuana, than the putrid odor of the trustafarians smoking it.

there are several ways to ingest that won't hurt your delicate sensibilities. There are hand-held vapes, for instance.

am all for decriminalizing pot but if it's legalized how long will it take for Philip Morris to do to pot what they've done to tobacco?

They'd rather have their kids doin' manly 'merkin stuff like huffin. Makes a real man outta ya! ... dumber than a post!

What do merkins have to do with pot? I'm TOTALLY confused.

@18: Well, here's one for ya: take that "perfume" and show neighbourly civility by assuring that it doesn't waft outside one's own dwelling and over to everywhere else within its radius. I don't want to be smelling skunky crap from two doors down the way, all from the "convenience" of my home. I know I'm not alone.

The odour is — for someone who doesn't consider it welcoming and fragrant — as obnoxious and intrusive as when your next door neighbours have their 7.1 stereo speakers blasting an action film on a Wednesday morning at 2:30a.

In other words, these are matters of intrusion of spacing into other parties' personal spaces who did not sign up to be a part of that activity. These matters fall under the oeuvre of civility — not unlike noise by-laws which make it illegal to fire up construction equipment in a residential area at, say, 1:00a, or having zoning by-laws prohibit a small livestock lagoon next to a residential area.

One person's Obsession by Calvin Klein is another's Honeybucket.

@6 - I don't think it is so telling - booze and drugs are worth differentiating when talking to your kid because they result in different penalties (underage drinking charges vs. illegal substance charges). Not because they are all that different as far as both being 'drugs'...

@24: Since when do you, of all people, know even the first thing about civility?

@24 Everyone goes on and on about the smell and how obnoxious it is. My neighboring building has filthy-piss-smelling dogwoods out front, and I have to smell it from my damn porch, and I work a block from Abercrombie, so I have to smell that brain-meltingly putrid stench every time I walk to or from work. Unpleasant as it may be, it's nothing to get yr knickers all in a twist about.

Maybe you should just chill out. Relax, smoke a bowl.