Outrageous!

          It appears that our elected officials in Washington and Harrisburg have little or no respect for the people they represent.  They seem to do little but work to get reelected and pad their pensions while ripping off their constituents. They take advantage of many liberal benefits while as a state and country we get deeper and deeper in debt.  But just when you think it can't get any worse, it does.

          Senator Daylin Leach is a leading proponent of legalized marijuana in the Harrisburg Legislature.  He recently took a $5,000 taxpayer-funded trip to Colorado to observe that state's legal marijuana industry in action.  That is $5,000 of our taxes paid by hardworking Pennsylvania citizens.

          And if that wasn't enough, according to the Associated Press, he has said that he took two hits from a vape pen, similar to an e-cigarette, at his hotel.  Apparently this device vaporizes a form of marijuana and is smokeless.  I guess he not only wanted to see the industry in operation but he wanted to experience the highs of the drug.  The good news is that at least the drug wasn't purchased with our tax money.  It was a gift from the facility that he visited.

         But it does get worse.  According to the AP, "Leach, D-Montgomery, said that on the last night in Colorado he wanted to use the drug for the first time in about 25 years because people have told him potency is greater than it used to be."

          "I did two hits, which was less than I would have done when I was in high school.  I definitely felt the effects of it."

          "He said the legal weed caused him to giggle a bit through dinner, and afterward in his hotel room he did something uncharacteristic - he watched a romantic comedy on television."

          Now I imagine that we taxpayers also probably paid for the movie in his hotel and who knows what type of "romantic" movie he really viewed in the privacy of his room.

         Well at least for $5,000 we taxpayers now know that this legal weed can make you giggle and want to watch romantic comedies.  How wonderful!

          Too bad he didn't watch the evening news where they recently showed the problems all Colorado's neighboring states are having with people bringing the Colorado legal weed into or through their states where it is illegal.  The police are being kept extra busy making arrests as people break the law in their states.  Arrests have skyrocketed.

          But, as expected, the news of his trip has not made the front pages of newspapers nor has it appeared to have caused any controversy.  And he will probably not only be reelected but he will probably be successful in his attempts to make the weed legal in Pennsylvania.  It's just a matter of time and it's also just another example of the slippery slope that we as a nation are experiencing.

          Outrageous!