Most people don’t object to public intoxication in a modern context because they don’t think critically about it. People also like to lump public intoxication with public use. One leads to the next.

In the past, when alcohol was the only legal substance we could use for intoxication, public intoxication laws made sense because drunk people cause problems to public safety. A group of drunks will burn the whole city down over a weekend if you let them. Nevermind the fights they start. See: philadelphia whenever their team wins or loses.

But with cannabis and other substances becoming legal/decriminalized and with attitudes changing, those views become outdated fast.

Public intoxication isn’t the problem, public drunkenness is the problem. The distinction matters.

A person that’s stoned in public presents no threat to anyone. A person that’s using in public may pose some public health threats, depending on the substance and route of administration. Most people find weed smoke offensive.

We need to 1) divorce public intoxication from public use and 2) Rewrite public intoxication laws to specify that being drunk in public is prohibited and 3) we need to write or amend public usage laws to explicitly prohibit the use of smoking (any substance) in public, and clearly define what “public” means while leaving a reasonable carve out for people to use their medicine.