The biggest thing standing in the way of cannabis freedom is HUMANS.
People are weird creatures with strange beliefs. At some point conditioning and propaganda overcame common sense and compassion. It is difficult to grasp that anyone on earth would think it is still okay to take other humans to jail for decades over some weed. I will NEVER understand that logic…..ever.
I do not give a shit about what your Sunday school teacher, or some cop told you about weed. Numbers don’t lie. Weed is safe, and by all measures ENJOYABLE. It is also good for a variety of medical conditions, and has given people a path to their deeper conscious. What it has NOT done is kill anyone….ever.
As I continue my journey on this strange planet inhibited by bizarre creatures that refuse to consider logic and reason in their decision making process, I am often confused and conflicted. It is not just the subject of weed that makes people drink the crazy juice, but a lot of other basic issues that seem like common sense to me. How people can take something like religion (or law) and twist it into a belief system of oppression and bigotry is beyond me. You fucking humans are something else.
Let gays marry. Quit hating brown people. Leave women alone. Quit taking people to jail for weed. You know…the basics.
So how do we overcome knee jerk responses based on faith in some strange God and the interpretations of his holy book? Or the brainwashing of the drug warrior rehabilitation experts who continue to make people believe that the terrible things they did were because of the drugs and not because they are an asshole? Or the “holier than thou” losers who believe that they have some moral higher ground because they drink booze, while you smoke your “illegal” weed?
Here is how…..We ignore them and/or admonish them.
People gain power for their strange beliefs by us giving them that power. When we react in anger or frustration we give credence to their points. If we simply laugh at these idiots and paint them as the absolute fringe that they are, they will cease to have any power.
They will, in fact, retreat and begin to change their position. Why? Because they need the power. They need some recognition for their beliefs. If they understand that their position is no longer relevant, they will adopt and evolve their position so that they can again be relevant to the discussion.
We see this phenomena happening a lot right now in the gay marriage debate. People who used to spout off about their hatred of gays and why they should not be married, are now finding less harsh positions to take on the subject. Even the most staunch opponents have somehow found a way to approve civil unions and whatnot.
As a community, it is up to us to foster beliefs that are compassionate, understanding, and based in reality. We must begin to crush the status quo and continue to change the debate. It is happening. We see it every day.
It is no longer risky to support cannabis legalization for adults. In fact, it is very popular. This is why the tired moral and legal arguments continue to fall on deaf ears. We have changed the conversation. We are laughing at the crazies now instead of listening to them.
There will always be a very stupid human element to our society that forces us to challenge common sense to understand where our fellow man is coming from. Our cultures have evolved with some very weird cultural and religious norms. People believe things for no other reason than that they believe they should based on some teaching or belief they have latched onto in their development.
In a lot of ways these beliefs probably keep a lot of folks on track and from being terrible people. If that is what folks need to not just axe murder other humans then God bless them
But when these belief systems begin to interfere with other people’s freedoms, and result in mass incarceration of good people we MUST put an end to it all. It is no longer okay to let your beliefs interfere with logic and reason.
Weed will be legal soon, and some people need to come to terms with that and figure out how to wrap their beliefs around that. Evolve…or don’t. We are smoking our weed, goddamn-it.