The above comment communicated that during prohibition the primary intent of a speakeasy was to get drunk, not just to have a social drink. As you wrote: "nobody went to a speakeasy to have a social drink..."
You might have meant something else, but what you wrote suggested that the intent of drinking was to get "high".
And why were you interested in making the point about getting "high" during Prohibition? Because the parallel would have been "marijuana is illegal, therefore, it could be used more benignly if it weren't for its illegality." That, I believe, is the point of "Who says a joint is the minimum dosage of marijuana."
So, not a straw man. You did, whether you intended to or not, imply otherwise. I think your words can legitimately be read with the meaning I took away from them.
It's possible the thought wasn't transmitted as you would have liked, so I'm open to hearing what you want to say.
I'm an open-minded conservative who is opposed to adding unnecessary or unnatural danger to the culture.
The above is not correct. Social drinking is thousands of years old.
Was alcohol illegal for those thousands of years? If not, your reply does not contradict my statement.
The above comment ["When alcohol was illegal..."] communicated that during prohibition the primary intent of a speakeasy was to get drunk, not just to have a social drink.
That was precisely my meaning, to which your statement, "Social drinking is thousands of years old," was and remains nonresponsive. Is it your position that people exposed themselves to possible arrest, and to the drunkards with which speakeasies were well supplied, just to have a social drink?
Sorry, jsntn, my years of counseling say that no one wants inactive pot and they always smoke for the high.
Straw man - I neither said nor implied otherwise.
And why were you interested in making the point about getting "high" during Prohibition? Because the parallel would have been "marijuana is illegal, therefore, it could be used more benignly if it weren't for its illegality."
"More benignly" does not imply "inactive" - that was your straw man. The point remains that a difference in typical patterns of use (which change with circumstances) is not a difference in the substances. Also note that if pot is always used to achieve some degree of mental alteration, while alcohol is occasionally used purely for flavor or social convention (although anyone who has a drink to "unwind" or "relax" is indeed seeking a degree of mental alteration), that has no bearing on your original point about "increasing my peril of being hit by a dangerously intoxicated driver."
That, I believe, is the point of "Who says a joint is the minimum dosage of marijuana."
No, the point was that you said your criterion for "viewing alcohol and marijuana the same" was "If there were a joint that could be smoked that did not get the person high, and they could then drive unimpaired" - which is an invalid criterion because users can and not infrequently do consume much less than a joint - in fact, only a single lungful - which quite plausibly may have no effect on ability to drive safely.
legalization without controls
Who supports that? Given that Colorado's and Washington's legalizations incorporated controls, there seems to be no reason to expect legalization without controls.