True enough. The Christian God doesn't feel the need to enslave 72 virgins for the pleasure of one man. Guess he meant it when He endowed mankind with 'certain unalienable rights'...

Good luck with that...

Depends. Do you like to get drunk, or do you prefer being 'high'? Then again, is being drunk and high your thing?

Maybe 'Allah' just creates them out of thin air? I dunno. Is He all-powerful like our Christian God? If He is, then problem solved, right?

Careful there, Bob. You're starting to make sense and you know how government hates it when people make sense.... Like the good Judge said, "It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong".

Operative word being "wasted". Nobody knows exactly how much has been wasted on this ridiculous 'war on drugs' because nobody can even come to a definitive appraisal of what the money is being wasted on. For instance, everyone can agree that police anti-drug activities are an expense, but what about the people locked up in prisons for possession or use? Are they not also an expense? What about the businesses who lost good employees because of incarceration for possession? How do you quantify that loss? The list is very long and extremely difficult to put numbers to. I'd estimate the final cost of the 'war on drugs' in the $trillions. Easily.

"Perhaps it is a national failing, but I prefer moderate hope and some likelihood of success to the dream of perfection and the promise of failure." Well said.

And here it is, in his own words:

http://www.dailywire.com/news/23528/watch-joe-biden-says-man-who-stopped-texas-church-ryan-saavedra?utm_medium=email&utm_content=111417-news&utm_campaign=position1

The man's a class 'A' moron. 'Nuff said.

I haven't touched it in over 30 years, don't feel the need to. It just really bothers me that there are people out there who think they can tell me what drugs I am allowed to use and what drugs I am not allowed to use. I'd be very interested to see where they think they derive the authority or power to do that from and on what basis these decisions are made. Marijuana is classified as a 'schedule 1' drug by the Federal Government, meaning that it has no accepted medical use, along with LSD (acid), PCPy (angel dust) and many others. Here's the list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Schedule_I_drugs_%28US%29

Interestingly, the United States Pharmacopeia listed marijuana in 1850 as a treatment for neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, snakebite, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, yet it is added to a list of drugs that have no accepted medical use in 1970. Of course, since that time, 29 States, plus the territories of Guam, Puerto Rico, and lastly the District of Columbia, as of April 2017, have clearly found medicinal uses for marijuana, since it has been legalized for those purposes in those States / territories, and for unlimited uses in a few of those.

When is the Federal Government going to get out of our lives and leave our personal decisions... Well, personal?

Depends on whether you buy into the biogenic theory of oil production or if the abiogenic theory is more in tune with your beliefs. With the biogenic approach, there is a finite amount of oil in the earth, albeit an unknown quantity at this point in time. It will, eventually, run out completely, leaving us with quite a problem. When that might happen is impossible to predict with any accuracy, giving the 'doomsayers' among us plenty of materiel to frighten us with. In an abiogenic scenario, there is a constant regeneration of oil and the supply, while limited in flow, will be unlimited in time. Abiogenic oil production has been cited as the reason old oil wells, long abandoned, were found to have regenerated in the interim.

What do I think? I couldn't care less. As you said, We'll both be long gone by the time that's an 'issue', if it ever is...

https://www.livescience.com/9404-mysterious-origin-supply-oil.html

So, which is worse, weed or whiskey? Well, the studies are complete; the results are in and the data has been crunched. I was surprised by the conclusions:

https://amp.businessinsider.com/alcohol-marijuana-which-worse-health-2017-11

The number of deaths from marijuana overdose was a particular eye-opener. Go figure.

Mmm-hmm. Sure.....

That's why we have kids!

No business being there in the first place. Be advised, it's all about the oil. Always was, always will be.

Anytime you allow government to stick it's big nose in, you will see prices skyrocket. Healthcare is just another in a long list of boondoggles that literally exploded the costs. There are many 'lists' of these types of government programs and the damage they cause, here's a sample published in April, 2006 but just as relevant today:

http://humanevents.com/2006/04/10/the-10-most-harmful-government-programs/

As for healthcare specifically, Medicare and Medicaid were both instituted in 1965 and had the effect of exploding the cost of what was previously affordable healthcare for all. These are not little nickel-and-dime pork barrel projects, they are very expensive mainstream interventions into what were free markets. Once government started 'subsidizing' healthcare, prices skyrocketed. Why? Because 'government'. $74,165 for an aluminum ladder, anyone?

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/news/vw-18804_1_nut

And that's from 1986! Imagine what it costs now!