One of the most disturbing aspects of the political conversation around the issue of the legalization of cannabis is the distinction between and hierarchical categorization of types of uses. On the one hand, you have "medical" use and on the other, you have "recreational" use. As a political talking point, this distinction serves only to distract from the fact that the government has criminalized the possession and use of a beneficial plant - or, at the very least, a plant that is no more harmful than alcohol when it is abused by the user. This is not to say that there are no purely recreational uses for the plant or even abuses of it. Certainly, there are. But, as proponents of the legalization of pot, we do ourselves a disservice to downplay the role of recreational use in our daily lives for the purposes of being taken seriously on the political agenda. It appears to me that the suppression of language around the issue of legalization (and the guilt associated with that suppression) merely plays into the larger social phenomenon of emotional repression and the downplaying of the critical role of recreation in adulthood. This is how the "lazy stoner" stereotype was born and why the antiquated and inaccurate stigma of cannabis being a lazy man's drug, or of it being a psychological escape, still persists today. Cannabis can certainly be sought out to induce those dulling effects, in much the same way that alcohol or any other substance capable of being abused can be sought out for its psychologically placating effects. These are private considerations that have no place in the political discussion except as a matter of potential regulation of industry as a matter of public health. The point is not that some people abuse cannabis recreationally. The point is that people abuse lots of things to gratify their psychological needs, including alcohol, food, prescription drugs, sex, religion, exercise, plastic surgery, and many other things. The point is also that each of those things has potential uses that are incredibly beneficial, so much so that the social cost of prohibiting their use cannot be justified in light of their potentially beneficial applications. The same is true of cannabis. Beneficial here can (and should) mean pure enjoyment, along with medicinal applications. The recreational component is just as legitimate as the medicinal component in light of the fact that prohibition of such items on either grounds is a hallmark of totalitarianism - a society that subjugates its freedoms for no worthwhile reason than to confer power over the individual's mind and body to the state. ...