Word: marijuana
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...marijuana use wrong? Most of the penitents who have rushed to confess to smoking dope have agreed that it is. "It was a mistake," said Babbitt. "I wish I hadn't," said Gore. "I hope that the young people of this country, including my own daughters, will learn from my mistake," said Ginsburg, withdrawing. Conversely, Columnist Tom Wicker, in a biting critique of the phony moralism and "sudden piety" of Ginsburg's attackers, felt compelled to preface his remarks about marijuana smokers by assuring his readers that "I am not now and never have been one of them...
Polls or no polls, the fact is that marijuana use can jeopardize one's < chance for high office. We are stuck with the Ginsburg test, so we might as well think it through...
...classic to be mocked by stoned viewers at the midnight show in the local art house. The Zeitgeist of that generation is now wildly reversed. Public figures who used pot at that time express regret for the transgression. Political survival demands that they not offend the new cultural norm. Marijuana use now carries a moral taint...
...agitation about this particular law out of the thousands on the books, out of the dozens that every non-monastic citizen has broken at one time or another. If law is the issue, then the press ought to be asking public figures not "Have you ever smoked marijuana?" but "Have you ever broken the law, any law?" We could start with "Do you speed?" Or "Have you ever driven drunk?" Or "Did you ever read pornography before the relevant Supreme Court rulings that made it legal?" And, for the bolder reporter, "Have you ever engaged in any variety of carnality...
...just narrow, but unconvincing. What if it had turned out that Ginsburg smoked dope only on camping trips to Alaska, where marijuana possession for private use is, under state law, entirely legal? Would Ginsburg still be a candidate for the Supreme Court? Not a chance...