**Booze and pot for minors and penalties

Ironic that SD is hellbent on demolishing old buildings at the state mental hospital in Yankton when there seem to be so many legislators and lawyers testifying there that need to seek help with their mental problems.

Somehow, while moaning about the costs of the South Dakota prison system, the legislature also apparently gives serious consideration to having a 10-year mandatory prison sentence for anybody selling one ounce of pot to a person under the age of 18. Penalties expand up to 25 years for larger amounts.

This is such a wonderful idea, that it calls for a modest proposition of penalty expansion Make the same penalties apply to those who provide even one can or bottle of beer to a person under age 18 and make the penalty 25 years for dispensing a whole six-pack of beer or one of those liter or larger containers. Those who push wine and distilled spirits down the throats of those with young impressionable minds should be give life terms.

But, I forgot. The same legislature is so loaded and loaded with booze hounds that it can't even pass legislation to increase the price of a bottle of beer 10 cents because that would unfairly tax responsible drinkers. The incredible social costs related to the sale of booze is readily apparent. I don't drink or use pot either, but it does not seem to me that the dreadful problems claimed to relate to pot even exist. The truly bad consequences appear to have more to do with legal penalties than pharmacologically related dangers.
I will leave such arguments to people like Bob Newland who may have experience with both pot and booze.

I assume the same legislators don't give a rat's rear about shifting the unnecessary costs resulting because of drinkers and drunken drivers to property tax payers and those who must license highway vehicles It is rapidly becoming apparent that the term "responsible drinkers" is an oxymoron...especially when they also happen to be in the state legislature or sucking contributions from the liquor industry.

Napoli of Rapid City is pushing for repeal of term limits. I think that makes a lot of sense. If we don't think any legislator is representing us instead of special interests, we have elections to get them out of the legislature. It is obvious that term limits have not kept the completely demented out of the legislature anyway.

**Stay tuned if for nothing else than to read my bitching about the coming really crappy weather-- Doug Wiken