4/20
Happy 4/20, everyone!
Today is the stoner’s holiday, and I love it. I love the idea of an in-joke shared by everyone. I enjoy it when counterculture bubbles up to the surface.
For the record, I’ve never tried marijuana, and I can’t say I ever will, even if it were to be legalized.
I do lean more towards legalization than criminalization. I understand that marijuana’s harmful to one’s health — but so is alcohol, tobacco, and driving a motor vehicle, and those happen to be legal. The historical backlash against cannabis seemed to be more about controlling immigrant populations than limiting citizens’ bodily harm. But, just as some people can’t hold their liquor, there are plenty of stoners who will drive high and do other stupid things while baked.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
At least we all get to enjoy the day. Even if the most significant countercultural thing I’ve done all day today was drink an Otter Creek Kölsch.
Tags: 420, beer, counterculture, marijuana
April 23rd, 2010 at 4:18 pm
What about the ol’ gateway argument? Personally, I say legalize it for people over 21, since it’s in essence very similar to alcohol except instead of worrying about your liver you should worry about your lungs, but I just noticed you hadn’t addressed the common theory that marijuana may lead to more dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines.
April 23rd, 2010 at 11:03 pm
@Pat: Great question.
I don’t really buy the gateway argument. I know a lot of people who either smoke pot now or have in the past, and if it were such an evil gateway drug at least one of my friends would be junkies.
The truth is that people (including teenagers, of course) aren’t stupid and they understand the idea of relative harm. They know that alcohol and cannabis aren’t going to ruin your life as long as you use them in moderation, while meth and heroin are scary shit. Given the large difference in the percentage of usage of each, I don’t think that the gateway-drug argument carries much weight.
April 27th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
I agree. If people can smoke their lungs and drink their livers into oblivion, why not let them smoke pot, too? Not only that, cannabis seems to have several medicinal spplications, not only treating glaucoma, its most widely known use, but for certain types of cancers as well. I’ll never touch the stuff, of course, unless I wanna start looking for a different livelihood, but there’s not really a legitimate argument against it anymore, except for mostly the fear factor.