Monday, April 23, 2018

Week of 04/23/2018


The 420 Hypocrisy
Let’s get this out of the way so there is no misunderstanding.
I do not smoke either marijuana or tobacco.  Not now, never have, and probably never will.  I’ve known plenty of people who did either, including my parents when it came to tobacco, but I’ve never partaken in either.
Having said that, I cannot help but notice a glaring hypocrisy of late when it comes to marijuana.
April 20th is the annual push to glorify marijuana in all of its forms.  Whether it is for medicinal oil, edibles, or out-and-out smoking, people treat 420 like it’s free reign to partake, and they talk about it in the traditional media and showcase it on social media.  And now that several states have either legalized it outright, or legalized it only for medicinal purposes, or just decriminalized it, it seems to be more of a thing to show it off.
And yet this is coming from the same basic groups that are demonizing tobacco and are doing everything in their power to ban or otherwise eliminate it from social discourse.
That, my friends, is a glaring hypocrisy.
Now, I’m sure some of you are reading this and would tell me that I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.  That tobacco is a “far more dangerous drug” than marijuana because of all of the proven health threats of the plant combined with all of the dangerous toxic chemicals added to tobacco by big tobacco corporations.  There’s “science” that proves this.  People have died from tobacco-related diseases.  Yes, I know.  I have family that died because of it.
And… what?  Marijuana is just full of herbal goodness and vitamin C and has nothing but rainbows and unicorns?
The truth of the matter is that we don’t really know the full extent of marijuana on the human body outside of what negative stories exist because the United States government prohibits research on substances deemed “illegal” like marijuana… mostly in the fear that it could reveal something beneficial and be used to overturn such bans.
And, yes, a lot of the research of tobacco and what it can do came from the tobacco companies themselves and they hid that research for so very long because they didn’t want to lose customers and money.  And that was wrong and they have been taken to the cleaners because of it.  I’m not dismissing the wrongness of what the tobacco companies did, but I also can’t buy the delusion that one addictive plant is better than another simply because one’s been co-opted by big corporations.
Here’s a news flash for you… now that marijuana is becoming legal in states, guess who’s taking a look at it?  That’s right… big corporations.  They’re seeing the potential billions at stake and now they want in on the “wacky weed”.  John Boehner, the chain-smoking crybaby former Speaker of the House with the fake Donald Trump tan and an avowed anti-drug chickenhawk has just joined the “advisory board” of one of the big pot-companies.  He would not be doing that if there wasn’t serious corporate money to be made.
So how long do you think it would take before “Big Pot” would do what “Big Tobacco” did to the product?  How long before they would start to introduce new “additives” and “enhancements” to make the product more “enjoyable” and, coincidentally, more addictive?  How long before they put pressure on the pot shops to only peddle their product?  How long before they bring in their friend Boehner to put pressure in the legislature to make the home-grown and small-time growers illegal, so that only “Big Pot” would be the “official producers and distributors” of the product?
In other words, how long before “Big Pot” becomes no different than “Big Tobacco”?
But I’m sure that doesn’t factor in your brains right now because you’re too busy enjoying the high.
Let’s get brutally honest here... there is really no difference between pot smokers and tobacco smokers other than one is still illegal in several states and in the United States in general, and the other is heavily marketed, heavily regulated, heavily taxed, and there is a continual heavy push to demonize it.  But both are partaken for a common reason, namely to alleviate the pains of the world.  Some because of medical complications, others because the world is just too damn cruel.
The people who push for pot legalization – either for medicinal purposes, or to decriminalize it, or to outright legalize it and regulate and tax the hell out of it – need to make sure they’re on the same page on this as they are with tobacco.  They sure as hell cannot say that one plant substance is “better” than the other simply because there is more research on the latter than there is on the former.
It’s important to note that marijuana is still considered a crime according to the U.S. government, and there are plenty of chickenhawk drug warriors in Washington who want to keep it that way.  So until the matter of legalization can be settled nationwide, those who do partake in the “wacky weed”, either legally or not in their state, should really keep a low profile of it.
But until it is, here’s a thought... would you be so flippant about the weed if it was allowed under the exact same restrictions as tobacco users?  Keep it out of kids, taxed like there’s no tomorrow, with glaring warning signs about what “could” happen to you on the package, prohibited from advertising or being seen on TV and movies, and told you can only partake outside and far away from any door or window... would that be something you would support?  Probably not.  And yet tobacco users face that every day, and that’s considered legal!
As a practical libertarian with nothing to gain or lose on this subject, this is a matter of freedom for me.  And from what I can see, pot advocates really should be nervous about what happens should they ultimately prevail.   It’s not going to be “High Times” for anyone except for big corporations... the very groups that made tobacco so despised.
Be careful what you wish for, people.  You may not like what you get.

No comments: