I had a friend that used to smoke pot. For many years he stayed under the radar and avoided getting busted. He only smoked in his home, didn't flaunt it, and was a really good guy. Unfortunately one day he got busted with over a qp at his private residence.
The way it happened is that an angry family member narced him out to the local police. The sheriff came and said to him "If you give me your drugs, I'll go easy on you." So he, being the trusting and naive person that he was, went inside and gave the sheriff his stash.
I think many of us know this story. 'Easy' resulted in a felony conviction. Prison overpopulation led to an increased fine with time served, plus drug testing and a 5 year parole.
Following his bust, and fearing drug testing leading to a subsequent conviction and imprisonment, he turned from pot to spice, and became a spice addict. He said to me in the midst of his addiction that "this stuff is worse than crack".
His life fell apart and it's a wonder he even survived the whole ordeal. He suffered, his family suffered, nothing good came out of this experience. A decade later he's doing much better, but it was a very close call.
What I'm trying to say is that I get it, the system is screwed. The justice system is not pursuing goals based on realistic principles of potential societal harm. Laws are made to be enforced and not interpreted. There are some leo's who will let it slip when they can, but the majority of encounters will not end up this way.
As possible future 'nicotine criminals', I think putting this in perspective for vapers is important. Hopefully things change and we don't see an increase in 'political prisoners' in this country. If we do, we might get a first-hand experience with the justice system that we never expected to have as prior law-abiding citizens.
I remember a discussion on vaping here where someone said;
"What are we going to do if they make it illegal?"
To which the reply was;
"The real question is, 'How much do you want to vape?'"
I think we should all ask ourselves this, and do some soul searching, to find that answer.
Freedom isn't free. A freedom that is given isn't really a freedom, it's a privilege. Is freedom important to you, or are you content to accept what privileges you're given?
The answers to these questions are going to be very personal. There's no need to share them either, but there is a need to consider the questions.