IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN, BUT IT’S NOT …
|| By WILL FOLKS || A few weeks ago, I offered an advocate of medical marijuana legalization the opportunity to run a guest column on this website.
Why did I do that? Well, this is an issue FITSNews has consistently supported – and several advocates have previously published guest columns related to its advancement on the site (here and here).
I believe the legalization of marijuana and other drugs – both medically and recreationally – is a liberty issue, to say nothing of an economic and taxpayer issue.
Basically, there’s no good reason to continue pot prohibition … and costly government efforts to enforce said prohibition aren’t working. With deadly consequences.
Unfortunately, efforts to decriminalize medical cannabis have been unsuccessful so far …
One reason? Some of the people pushing this reform just don’t get it.
Don’t get me wrong: I’ve had wonderful experiences working with amazing pro-pot advocates like Jill Swing and Jonathan Lubecky, but the “blunt” truth is that far too many advocates in the medical marijuana movement think far too highly of themselves for my taste.
Or they are far too intractable on this issue to be dealt with rationally.
For example, one Midlands advocate no longer speaks to me because I refused to stop supporting recreational legalization in addition to medical legalization.
According to this advocate, FITSNews support for recreational pot “plays into the hands of our law enforcement critics.”
That may be true … but it’s not a good enough reason to stop arguing on behalf of a common sense reform. And it’s sure as hell not a good enough reason to publish a column opposing recreational pot legalization, which is what this advocate would have had this website do.
Then there’s the Upstate medical marijuana supporter I invited to appear on our pages. This wasn’t a solicitation, mind you. Someone forwarded me an article she’d written on some poorly-trafficked website and I offered her the opportunity to republish – with credit to the original source.
Her response?
“No thanks … FITS is too gossipy.”
Really?
Too gossipy?
You know, it’s true I enjoy the occasional reality show headline. And to be fair, a lot of political theater in the Palmetto State involves “he-said, she-said” chest-puffery (including on this issue).
But is this really a fair critique?
FITSNews has broken hundreds if not thousands of substantive stories over the years, and advanced or provided insightful commentary on thousands of other stories. In fact I’ve broken investigative stories on this very issue – most recently an exposé on the extent to which South Carolina tax dollars are subsidizing the fight against medical marijuana legalization.
I wonder: Was that story “too gossipy?”
What about FITS’ recent post on the current status of marijuana taxation? Or my website driving the debate over the release of a dashcam video in the shooting of Zachary Hammond (a 19-year-old who was shot and killed last summer over a dime bag of pot)?
Or what about that time I called out the most powerful law enforcement officer in the state for his ill-conceived opposition to medical marijuana legalization?
Were those stories also “too gossipy?”
Sheesh …
And all that’s just on this one issue … I cover hundreds of other issues with the same substance.
Look, I get that certain people want to diminish what I do by calling FITS a “gossip site.” I’m used to that. Hell, they used to do the same thing years ago by calling FITS a “porn site.”
I also get that some people hate my website so much they hack it to pieces in an effort to keep the message from getting out. Again … that comes with the territory. I view it as a badge of honor.
But know this. Remember it. Write it down. Take a picture, if you want. I will be double-dipped in shit before I let a couple of self-important cunts fire off on me like that.
Yes, this post is a staggering (and suddenly crass) overreaction. And I’m not sure it isn’t motivated in part by other stuff I’ve been dealing with recently.
But like Jed Bartlet, I’ve never seen the virtue of proportional responses.
Don’t like what you read here? You are one click away from never having to read another goddamn word.
So use the fucking button.
Now, as for those readers who do want to reach the hundreds of thousand of people who read the website I’ve built, well, I continue to offer my microphone to anyone who wishes to use it – whether I agree with them (or have criticized them) or not.
Will Folks is the founding editor of the “gossipy” website you are currently reading.
WANNA SOUND OFF? Send your letter to the editor HERE …