Sometimes you read a news article that perfectly encapsulates a certain mindset. When I read in today’s Marin Independent Journal about the soon-to-be enacted anti-smoking ordinance — one that excludes marijuana and herbal cigarettes — I thought to myself “That’s it! That’s the perfect example of Progressive totalitarianism nicely packaged with the usual dollop of hypocrisy.” Here’s the story:
Marin’s war on smoking was blunted Tuesday as a measure cracking down on tobacco and other “weed” was sent back for revision to make clear the crackdown does not include marijuana.
Although supervisors were in agreement with the policy when county staff last month asserted an ordinance outlawing smoking in unincorporated-area apartments included marijuana and other herbs as well as tobacco, the county board Tuesday abruptly called for revisions making clear tobacco was the only weed at issue.
The move came at the urging of Supervisor Kate Sears, who called for changes in ordinance language defining smoking as puffing “tobacco, weed, spices, herbal or other plant life” to make clear only tobacco products were involved.
[snip]
The county law, modeled on a strict anti-smoking measure in Larkspur, outlaws smoking in private indoor spaces including balconies, carports, decks and common areas; requires landlords to set up “smoking permitted” areas; requires existing apartment complexes to be 80 percent smoke free and new complexes to be smoke free. Landlords and condominium boards could seek exemptions for up to 20 percent of units, which would then be grouped in a “smoking section.”
[snip]
The law would be enforced by county health officials and violators could be fined $100 and/or five days of community service. A second violation would generate a $300 fine and/or 10 days of service, and a third violation within one year, $700 and/or 15 days of community service.
When asked why she made the exception, Sears said that marijuana is already illegal. Of course, as Sears well knows, the fact that it’s illegal doesn’t stop anyone from smoking it. Her answer strikes me as somewhat ingenuous. After all, goal behind the law is to protect third parties from smoke, so that it shouldn’t matter whether the smoke is generated legally or illegally in order to achieve that goal. Indeed, one of the supervisors, Susan Adams, understood this, since she “expressed concern about those who inhale second-hand marijuana smoke….”
I happen to loath the smell of tobacco smoke. I’ll do anything to avoid it, and happen to benefit a great deal from the ever-increasing number of non-smoking laws. Having said that, I still find disturbing a mindset that thinks it’s appropriate to dictate to people what they can do in their own homes if they’re unlucky enough to rent, not own.
These kinds of prohibitions are a bizarre form of redlining, one that bans poor people (who, in Marin, are more likely to be renters) from an activity in which richer people can freely engage. More than that, this kind of policing strikes me as hypocritical when it comes from the very same people who routinely lambast conservatives for trying to impose control over people’s private lives.
Naturally, this kind of “liberal fascism,” to use H.G. Well’s peculiarly infelicitous phrase, is par for the course here in liberal Marin, which only recently banned grocery stores from offering their customers plastic bags and that forces them to charge for paper bags. What makes the above story so delightful to those of us who enjoy the ethical tangles in which Progressives manage to trap themselves is the way in which marijuana gets thrown into the mix.
There’s good evidence that marijuana use is just as damaging, in its own way, as tobacco use — but marijuana, unlike tobacco, is a counter culture drug. It therefore comes complete with the politically correct stamp of approval. The net result is that Marin’s poor people are barred from engaging in Dangerous Behavior “A” because it’s associated with capitalism (i.e., Big Tobacco) while they’re free, under Marin ordinances, if not under criminal law, to engage in equally Dangerous Behavior “B”, because it comes under the pop culture/counter culture rubric. Likewise, third parties in Marin will now be relieved from the burden of inhaling politically incorrect second-hand tobacco smoke, but must still suffer the hardship of inhaling hip, politically approved second-hand marijuana smoke.
Stories such as this one remind me that one of the best things about leaving liberalism behind is the fact that I no longer have to grapple daily with the cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy that is an integral part of the “liberal” mindset.
Bookworm – You said: “Stories such as this one remind me that one of the best things about leaving liberalism behind is the fact that I no longer have to grapple daily with the cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy that is an integral part of the “liberal” mindset.” I just want to correct you when you use the term ‘liberalism.’ It is not liberalism, its fascism. So-called liberals appropriated the name because ‘fascism’ doesn’t have a great reputation these days.
Fascism? This is plain insanity. If Americans are putting up with this then they aren’t Americans but bleating sheep. And people whine about sharia – how is this any different?
What I do, even in a rental, is nobody’s business. It’s not like it’s a frickin’ window display. Honestly I’d live in Egypt before Marin County. I’d have more freedom and that is no exaggeration when it comes to what’s done in a rental there.
What a sad, sad story and commentary on how far we have fallen. It’s a perfect example of why who is President is a fools game because the enemy is us and our nearly mindless devotion to political correctness.
Facist isnt even the proper word,NAZIS is the correct name
The Führer thanks you from the grave:
Hitler was a Leftist
Hitler’s Anti-Tobacco Campaign
One particularly vile individual, Karl Astel — upstanding president of Jena University, poisonous anti-Semite, euthanasia fanatic, SS officer, war criminal and tobacco-free Germany enthusiast — liked to walk up to smokers and tear cigarettes from their unsuspecting mouths. (He committed suicide when the war ended, more through disappointment than fear of hanging.) It comes as little surprise to discover that the phrase “passive smoking” (Passivrauchen) was coined not by contemporary American admen, but by Fritz Lickint, the author of the magisterial 1100-page Tabak und Organismus (“Tobacco and the Organism”), which was produced in collaboration with the German AntiTobacco League.
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id1.html
Yes bookworm I see the hypocrisy in what Marin is trying to do. But please, before making a comment about hemp cannabis, please read the book “The Emperor Wears No clothes”, by Jack Herer and you’ll see the real hypocrisy and lies that we have been living with for 74 years.
I think this helps me understand why tobacco is bad but dope is good (anything counter culture has to be good, because somehow it must be sticking it to the man). I was wondering how on the one hand “society” could be trying so hard to eliminate tobacco products but on the other hand make it legal to smoke pot. It made little sense to me.
By the way, once pot becomes “legal” when will the efforts to make meth/snow/blow/crack/coke/etc. legal begin. After all, when I hear someone is arrested for pot possession, they also seem to have other drugs in their possession. I’m sure there will be someone who will say, “well, they made pot legal, and cocaine is only a little worse than marijuana.” It will never end.
The convoluted reasoning in the Marin County ordinance is a perfect illustration of why there will always be an illegal drug market.
When and if the government decides to “legalize” illegal narcotics, they’ll make a hash of the whole process that excludes narcotics use by a majority of those already using it, thus preserving the underground market in drugs.
If pot ever did become legal, and pot production then became a big business just like tobacco, these busybodies would probably start going after it just like they are targeting tobacco.
“liberal Marin, which only recently banned grocery stores from offering their customers plastic bags and that forces them to charge for paper bags. ”
The thing is, I use those plastic bags as garbage bags. So do many others, rather than buying plastic garbage bags. Which means that Marin is forcing people to spend money for plastic garbage bags.
So Marin County will now become the home of the Reverse Blunt, in which the aroma of tobacco will be disguised by encasing it in marijuana, instead of the other way around?
I sure hope the marijuana sellers don’t package their products in plastic bags and they do charge extra for paper bags. Maybe there is a market in Marin for designer reusable dope bags.
Won’t be long before some enterprising botanist develops a strain of pot that produces effective levels of nicotine…
…and California regulates it.
vb – Marin could ban paper and plastic grocery bags entirely, if they’d simply require every retailer to offer county licensed, regulated and approved re-usable hemp bags. For a nominal fee, naturally.
That’ll fix it.
Hemp has thousands of uses, one as you stated bags. You could even make hemp disposable bags. If it wasn’t for Hearst, Dupont, and Mellon industrial hemp would still being growing in the United States. This whole fight is about taking away our civil liberties. Government at all levels should stay out of our lives. Yes they have the duty to protect us but this smoking thing is completely ridiculous.
“What hemp?”
—Igor, in “Stoned Frankenstein”
IJ was no longer published.
Duck Soup! Groucho uses smoking to point out the hypocrisy of our rulers.
However, Did Groucho use smoking as an example because of the absurdity inferred? : That a law against smoking is ridiculous and could never happen.
OR
Did Grouch call it that long ago?
It’s “loathe.” If you loathe something, you feel loathing, and are loath to do it. You are free to loathe me; I am entitled to have you spell it out.
This reminds me of the old joke:
If you want to legalize marijuana and ban tobacco, you might be a liberal!
Santa Monica has the same two laws re: smoking and plastic bags.
The politics of marijuana legalization are also interesting. In theory, liberals are for it because of the counter culture angle. However, the only reason small time dealers and growers are being able to make money off it is because it’s illegal/semi-legal. If decriminalized, pot will cost as much as any other herb. With the increasing prevalence of “medical” marihuana dispensaries, reality started to hit home, and the dealers rallied against legalization which was on CA ballots in 2010. So basically we want pot completely socially acceptable but illegal.
If pot is legalized it will follow the path of booze and tobacco:
small group of politcally-connected drug-cartels will corporatize pot,
government will heavily tax pot,
and both will use their crony power to dictate, regulate, mandate how pot is grown, sold and consumed.
The ad agencies will make billions simultaneously producing both TV/Print/Radio ads dipicting the fabulous coolness of pot smoking and government PSAs about the horrors of pot,
the Dept of Tobacco-Firearms-Booze will collect billions in tax to fight ‘moonshining’ pot growers,
IRS will collect billions in taxes to fund childrens free health care,
multipule ‘humanitarian’ mommy-nanny groups like MADD will upstart another dictatorial damnation about the evils of pot
and in the end all the pot-heads who advocated legalized pot will go Uncle Cranky Ronulan crazy about how their lives are being controlled by corporatist and governments.
Only Big-Government Statists, and brain-damaged pot-heads too brain-dead to understand, want pot legalized.
I’m not a big government statist and I hate pot, but I do want to see marihuana legalized. Negative effects of subsidized agriculture that you described pale in comparison to the cost of the drug war. The morality of government policing the minor vice of pot addiction is another issue.
I don’t think government intervention will be needed to keep small dealers out of business because they will be wiped out by sharp drop in prices. In fact, the prices are already falling as more and more “medical” dispensaries open up. A guy growing a few plants in his closet and a few plants in his yard might make a living today because his customers pay for him to take risks. If the drug is legal, he’ll have to grow on industrial scale or look for another job — and that’s a good thing.
I once made an earnest, well-meaning undergrad cry when I forced him to realize that legalized pot meant the end of his favorite head shop. Given the availability of Marlboro Blunts at every convenience store, who’s really going to go out of their way to roll their own any more? I mean, how many smokers do you know who roll their own cigarettes?
If these people could see what they’re doing, and how it runs counter to what they think they’re doing, well, they’d be Tea Partiers, wouldn’t they?
Ahh, marvelous, uptight Marin, as we used to say in the ’70s. Gave us Barbara Boxer and Lynn Woolsey (from Sonoma County, but Marin elected her, too), the dumbest senator and representative, respectively. Now there is a family in Mill Valley who made it into People Magazine for being able to put all of the “waste” they generate over a year into a single jar. The Board of Supes should honor them next, and make all Marinites do the same. Since the Board of Supes is a likely source for the retiring Woolsey’s replacement in the House of Representatives, I am confident that Marin and Sonoma will codntinue their tradition of sending unqualified liberal fascists to Washington.