Paul Armentano at NORML points to Sarah Palin's glorification of "Joe Sixpack" in the vice presidential debate. Indeed, one could scarcely overstate the naked hypocrisy of portraying daily drinkers as American heroes, while our nation continues to arrest nearly a million Americans each year for using marijuana.

I usually leave the alcohol analogy alone, assuming that it often speaks for itself, and when it doesn’t, the guys at SAFER can be counted on to point it out. But there are moments -- like hearing a major party VP candidate canonize alcohol users in a massively public forum – that remind us how truly discriminatory and fundamentally illogical this disparity is. If regulated sale is the best policy for alcohol, then it is the best policy for marijuana. And if people who drink a sixpack after work can be American heroes, so too are those who derive pleasure and relaxation from cannabis.

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