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.
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