Will Pot Legalization Help China Defeat America? The National Media Reacts

Westword ^ | Mon., Jan. 6 2014 | Michael Roberts

[nickcarraway]

As we noted earlier today, the national media's response to the launch of recreational pot sales in Colorado suggests a case of news munchies, with the mainstream press, satirists and everyone in between sharing views on the topic -- including pundits and personalities less than thrilled by the development. Most of the latter are doing their best not to come across like drug-war dinosaurs, but that hasn't stopped one observer from inducting the likes of Tina Brown and David Brooks into the "Yuppie Prohibition League." The New York Times' Brooks created the template for high-brow naysayers with a column burdened with the clunky headline "Weed. Been There. Done That."

Brooks begins the piece by making it clear that he has personally inhaled, writing, "For a little while in my teenage years, my friends and I smoked marijuana. It was fun. I have some fond memories of us all being silly together. I think those moments of uninhibited frolic deepened our friendships." However, Brooks continues, he and his buds eventually drifted away from pot -- not because of the many horrible things about it ("it is addictive in about one in six teenagers," "smoking and driving is a good way to get yourself killed," "young people who smoke go on to suffer I.Q. loss and perform worse on other cognitive tests"), but due to the fact that "stoned people do stupid things." After one such incident, he confesses to feeling like a "total loser."

This acknowledgement serves as prelude to his argument that "in healthy societies...government subtly encourages the highest pleasures, like enjoying the arts or being in nature, and discourages lesser pleasures, like being stoned." And while "citizens of Colorado are, indeed, enhancing individual freedom," they are also "nurturing a moral ecology in which it is a bit harder to be the sort of person most of us want to be."

Presumably, Tina Brown, of The Daily Beast fame, agrees with Brooks's sentiment. Yet she took to Twitter to argue that he had been too polite to say that....

MSNBC token conservative Joe Scarborough took a less erudite tack in his reaction to sales in Colorado. In a video shared by Talking Points Memo, he says, "I don't get it, man. I don't get the legalization thing. I don't want to get too much into it, I mean, seriously, it just makes you dumb. Pot just makes you dumb."

Not that he's speaking from personal experience. He says he stayed away from weed in part because everyone who smoked the stuff struck him as a moron.

Here's the Scarborough clip, from his Morning Joe program:

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi subsequently ripped on Brooks, Brown and Scarborough in a recent post. Yep, he's the one who coined the "Yuppie Prohibition League" handle -- and it's likely he'd sign up Ruth Marcus as an honorary member.

In a Washington Post op-ed dubbed "The Perils of Legalized Pot," Marcus attempts to preempt critics labeling her a "fuddy-duddy" by not only admitting to prior pot smoking, but suggesting that during her next visit to Colorado, she may well try out some Bubba Kush. Yet she believes that "on balance, society will not be better off with another legal mind-altering substance. In particular, our kids will not be better off with another legal mind-altering substance." She underscores this last statement by spending much of the piece citing studies about the harm done to kids who toke and brushing off the idea that Colorado's law limiting legal consumption to those 21 and over will make the slightest difference.

Fellow WaPo opinion writer Ed Rogers takes a more political slant. In his take, "Republicans, Just Say No to Marijuana," published today, he advises Republicans against jumping on the pot legalization bandwagon.

"Without question, we will face more human tragedy and ruined lives as a result of marijuana legalization," Rogers allows, adding that "if the Democrats think they have found an issue for 2014, let them be the ones to promise more pot to the population. And spare me the talk about personal freedom being at stake here. You aren't more free if you are a pothead and freedom isn't measured by marijuana consumption."

Depends on who's doing the measuring, presumably.

[ansel12]

Actually they use it in all ways, while the West from ancient times, has always been against it’s use until the movements started in the 1960s.

[ansel12]

Actually they use it in all ways, while the West from ancient times, has always been against it’s use until the movements started in the 1960s.

[tacticalogic]

Reefer Madness turned out to be counter-productive.

[elkfersupper]

Aspirin wouldn't be allowed today, because of the nanny state.

Aspirin, hell. Try orange juice.

That stuff can trigger a rage.

[ansel12]

Because with or without marijuana they would be the same way.

That is laughable, we have all seen pot heads change instantly,and we all know all about pot heads, we have all seen it many times since the 1960s.

[ansel12]

Because with or without marijuana they would be the same way.

That is laughable, we have all seen pot heads change instantly,and we all know all about pot heads, we have all seen it many times since the 1960s.

[JRandomFreeper]

News for you. People are smoking pot anyway, regardless of the legality. And they are smoking that pot around their children. Now. Regardless of the law.

/johnny

[ansel12]

Reefer Madness turned out to be counter-productive.

How? None of us had ever heard of it until almost a quarter century later, when the stoners started watching it and using it, such as in these threads.

[elkfersupper]

Second hand tobacco smoke will start infants and children (and other adults) on the road to cancers and other health problems.

Second-hand tobacco smoke cured my younger sister of asthma at the age of 3 weeks.

She had an asthma attack at 2 weeks and my folks took her to the family physician.

He advised my father to blow tobacco clouds at her from a few feet away.

That was her first and only asthma attack. She is now 56 years old and doing better than most of the naysayers.

[CtBigPat]

As cannabis is widely legalised, China cashes in on an unprecedented boom.

[elkfersupper]

should we just send them a thank you note with a nice fruit basket?

I'm voting for that.

[RightOnTheBorder]

Legalizing pot will not end the police state but it may shrink it’s scope. My hope is that when all the chicken little predictions of pot addled zombies roaming the streets fail to materialize people will start to wonder why we ever let police seize (and auction off) property without a conviction or kick in doors in the middle of the night to keep people from smoking it.

[ansel12]

Legal pot is not the cure for a police state, to claim it is to sound pot addled.

[elkfersupper]

Legal pot is not the cure for a police state, to claim it is to sound pot addled.

You're right. Eventually, they will get around to mashed potatoes, if they haven't already.

[tacticalogic]

How? None of us had ever heard of it until almost a quarter century later, when the stoners started watching it and using it, such as in these threads.

It, and the over-the-top propaganda that went along with made people dismiss any discussion about the harmful effects as just more of the same. People don't like being lied to.

[ansel12]

You are the one using it as propaganda, as the left has since they started using it in the 1970s.

It was something made by a church group in the mid 1930s and is used as propaganda by the left since they discovered it in the 1970s.

You are using it right now in 2014, the left has many techniques like this, it is one reason Bill Maher and his type are so effective.

[greene66]

Yep, a generation of doped-up wastrels. Pretty much already have that, though. One of the reasons America has devolved into such morally bankrupt cesspool. What an embarrassingly pathetic legacy for this generation... dope legalization and homo-marriage. America, at this point, isn’t even worth ‘trying’ to salvage.

[Bender2]

Dennis Rodman is not only a great American... but he is 100% correct that North Korea is a much better place than the racist United States!

This photo... of studious North Korean students shows why... they are light years ahead of us in education.

As opposed to... this picture of decadent... Bender lead Colorado college students who find beer, wine, hard liquor, smoking pot and making out a better alternative to studying!

Yes, to keep my sense of decorum... I have cropped the above photo of Bender's evil influence on innocent Colorado college students. The full picture is HERE if you must see it in all its horror!

Face it, you right-wing gun nuts hate it when Dennis Rodman and I... are right--

[RightOnTheBorder]

Legal pot is not the cure for a police state, to claim it is to sound pot addled.

Well then it is a good thing I made no such claim but rather indicated it was a step in the right direction. I find straw men are often employed by those unable to attack my actual ideas.

[M Kehoe]

Is Jesse still doing the horizontal bop with Tamara Holder?

5.56mm