Word: use
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...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 prohibited by state law at the time?" If lawbreaking is really the issue, then focusing on marijuana use seems to be a peculiarly narrow way to approach the question...
...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...
...Ginsburg's marijuana use was greeted with revulsion not because of its illegality, but because of its perceived intrinsic moral taint. Even without law, it is something that demands contrition. Why? Because, to summarize much that has been said on the subject, it is a decadent, nihilistic, frivolous giving over of one's consciousness and self-control to the pleasures of a waking stupor. Fine. But any moral reasoning that leads you to call immoral that kind of self-surrender must lead you to conclude the same about drinking, which can get you to a stretch of Lethe-land right...
...answer is no. Which is why it makes sense for society to discourage marijuana use. Not because it is immoral -- it is no more so than alcohol -- but because it is destructive and society has the right to legislate self- protection...
...Marijuana is destructive in two ways. First, you can't learn on marijuana, and marijuana attracts the young. It kills their time, robs their attention and stunts their development. Use it often enough in your teen years, and you get to adulthood having lost crucial months, years, of emotional and intellectual growth. Second, marijuana is a gateway to harder drugs, the stuff like cocaine and heroin that can destroy people in very short order...