Jon Stewart has rightly had some laughs over the last few weeks by pointing to a 32 oz. soda, and 1 oz. of marijuana, and smirking with incredulity. The punch line of his 'bit' is:
"Just to be clear, this soda is twice as illegal as this much weed," he joked, holding up two plastic cups filled with the substances. "And you know, here's the sad thing: they go together so well!"
Although he's being funny, I would like to take issue with his comparison of the two. The marijuana fine is for simply possessing the drug; the soda fine is for selling the sugary treat. The two things are different.
The fine for selling marijuana in NYC is far higher than $100. Indeed, if you sold that 1 oz. of weed instead of just possessed it, you could face 3 months in prison and a $500 fine. Equally, if you just possess 32 oz. of soda (let's say you carry a huge bottle into a football stadium that you bought at Target a few weeks before) you're not committing a crime that the Mayor would want to punish under the proposed law.
Selling marijuana has a higher sentence than selling large soda, and possessing marijuana has a higher sentence than possessing a large soda. So in each case, soda is 'less illegal' than weed.
Having said this, I'm sympathetic to attempts to curb obesity, and I think a large soda ban might be a good way to go. If accessibility of high-calorie foods contributes to rising obesity, then maybe we should make it harder to get lots of these foods by limiting the ability of people to buy them. A soda ban, it seems to me, would do exactly that. I'd be interested to hear what you think, so please feel free to add comments, and I'll pick this topic up in my next blog post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/08/jon-stewart-marijuana-soda-video_n_1580552.html
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/marijuana-law-in-new-york.html
No comments:
Post a Comment