Up In Smoke

Townhall.com ^ | November 15, 2018 | Derek Hunter

[Kaslin]

Times change, attitudes change, and (thankfully) hairstyles change. In the last few years we’ve been witness to one amazing change that is surprising in its speed – the idea that adults should be allowed to smoke marijuana, either for medical purposes or because they want to. There’s no reason to think this trend will ever reverse itself.

In the interest of full disclosure, while it’s been more than a decade, I am intimately familiar with marijuana. I didn’t experiment with it, I majored in it in college. But, like most people, I grew out of it. I didn’t make a conscious stop, I just stopped. There comes a certain point when you just don’t do the things you did when you were young, I suppose that’s a roundabout way of saying we grow up.

There also comes a point where everyone (or at least most people) decide they’d rather be able to pass a drug test for a job or not get arrested for possession and walk away. When I think of all the stupid things I did in my 20s, not only were I and my friends lucky to avoid arrest, we’re lucky to be alive. I’m not unique in that.

When I “smoked down,” I knew I was breaking the law, but I never gave it a moment’s thought. It was usually at parties or with friends, it was just what we did. We’re older now and we don’t do those things anymore – parties have seen joints and keg stands replaced with wine and dinner, and we now have kids. We’ve changed. And so have attitudes.

In last week’s election, weed was on the ballot in 4 states – Michigan, North Dakota, Utah, and Missouri. The pro-pot sentiment won in all but North Dakota.

Michigan, where I grew up, essentially legalized pot (where was this when I was a kid?), while Missouri and Utah (UTAH!) legalized medical marijuana.

I’ve always been in favor of medical marijuana, I think the sick and dying should be able to do pretty much whatever they want to alleviate their suffering, and even if it just increases their appetites, more power to them. But I have had reservations about recreational use.

Part of me, cynically, likes to joke that when I was young I had to know a guy who knew a guy and go to a place, etc., in order to buy an eighth, so why should kids nowadays have it so easy? I risked arrest and more, and now people want to be able to go to store? It helped, I joked, meet people and learn to read and trust or distrust people – there was one friend I knew in college I’d not only never buy from again after one experience, I avoided him altogether.

But the less-bitter answer is I would have been fine with marijuana being legal if there was a way to know whether someone was driving while high, meaning high at that moment and not the weekend before. To my knowledge, there still isn’t a test to tell the difference – it’s either in your system or it’s not.

That’s neither here nor there. As is often the case with societal attitudes, they change even if you don’t. I have.

Through a combination of inevitability and my libertarian streak, I’m now on board with legalization. I don’t know if it’ll be a good thing or not, but people have to be free to choose. It’s available and at least decriminalized throughout the country and there’s no going back.

Think of it like gambling. When I was a kid there was Vegas and Atlantic City, with the occasional small Indian casino on a reservation here and there. Then, kind of quickly, they started popping up everywhere. Detroit, where I grew up, now has 3 big casinos, for example. The predictions of doom and gloom didn’t come true. Of course, some people were hurt, gambling is addictive, but by and large it didn’t make much of a difference. People who want to gamble now don’t have to hop on a flight to Nevada or Jersey, they can get in their cars. Marijuana is going to be the same, sooner or later.

I’d rather have the tax revenue and have it above board, out in the sunlight, than run out of a skeevy apartment or bathroom somewhere. I’m not interested, but I don’t want to tell anyone else how to live because I don’t want to be told how to live by anyone else. And that’s the irony of last Tuesday, to me at least. Areas where individuals have won the right to smoke weed if they want have embraced authoritarian liberal politicians who seek to impose so much on those people who voted for personal liberty. Marijuana laws are going up in smoke, hopefully the people who support that will wake up and realize they’re electing people who want most of the rest of their individual rights to do the same.

[zeugma]

Good point, but think of it this way: A libertarian approach that allows people to drink and smoke whatever they want — combined with an authoritarian approach that requires employers to pay for medical insurance for their employees — is an absolute ‘effing disaster.

Are we also going to monitor people's salt intake? How about how much alcohol they consume?

I think the existence of socialist government policy is not a valid excuse to further erode our rights.

[Alberta's Child]

Right -- I agree with you. My point is that libertarianism really only works if it is broad in its implementation. I would prefer to legalize any narcotic but at the same time eliminate most of the regulations we impose on employers.

If I'm paying you to work for me, I'm only really concerned about what affects your work. If I have to pay for medical insurance that covers your whole family, then your entire family is now my business. I have every right to demand drug tests for THEM, too!

[zeugma]

Good luck requiring drug tests for the whole family even with our modern police state.

[zeugma]

My last reply came out a bit more snide than I intended. My apologies.

I see where you are coming from, but from my point of view, I want all the stupid regulations done away with. Rather than waiting until some magical day when we can get rid of them all at once, I'm all for striking any that we can as we go along.

[Alberta's Child]

I know. LOL. I’m just using that to illustrate the inherent conflict presented when you have government meddle in personal or business relationships.

[Alberta's Child]

Oh, no worries. I understood your point completely, and it didn’t come across the wrong way at all!

[Buckeye McFrog]

What kind of a people have to drug themselves just to get through the day?

I have to admit, during eight years of Obama, I thought about it.

[Pining_4_TX]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/10/30/662127406/when-adolescents-give-up-pot-their-cognition-quickly-improves?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social

Giving up pot helps the brain. Between drugs and binge drinking, what will become of the next generation? Already there is more liver damage among 25-35 year-olds than in the older set. This does not bode well for the future.

I understand that many people have tried weed. I am an old gal and never did. It was not so acceptable in my younger days.

[Lean-Right]

“losing all motivation to do anything else”

Except eat...
Many cried when they stopped making
Twinkies.