Why marijuana's moment has arrived

CNN ^ | August 11, 2014 | Julian Zelizer

[ConservingFreedom]

A few decades ago, marijuana was a topic that relatively few people, mostly counterculture musicians and comedians, spoke about in public. The comedy team of Cheech and Chong made films such as "Up in Smoke" that extolled the pleasures of smoking pot at a time the subject was still taboo.

"When trouble times begin to bother me," they sang, "I take a toke and all my cares go up in smoke." On the fringes of American society, it was usually possible to find activists who wanted to legalize it, as the reggae artist Peter Tosh famously sang. Efforts to legalize the substance in the mid-1970s failed.

Now marijuana has gone mainstream. Twenty three states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana. Colorado and Washington have legalized pot for recreational use. The media has featured lively debate over the issue.

Joining other media outlets that have run articles supporting this cause, The New York Times editorial page published a number of high-profile pieces that call for making pot legal at the national level and outline specific steps that should be taken to ensure that the industry evolves in a safe manner.

How did we reach this point? How have we come to the brink of ending the national prohibition against a drug that has been roundly condemned for years as a grave danger to health and a gateway to drugs that can be devastating over time?

Here are eight reasons: [...]

[ConservingFreedom]

So making it MORE AVAILABLE

To what segment of human wreckage is it not already available?

[thefactor]

Find marijuana stocks. Buy them.

[DiogenesLamp]

I agree. I have relatives who are dopers. They are always in debt, always wanting to borrow money and taking forever to pay back friends in bits. Even though their income is $5K a month from a settlement, or was before they borrowed large chunks from future payments that already arrived, they are always in debt.

Gotta get more. Now they have to get their pot, but they also want pills now.

I agree. Over the years I have known lots of stoners and dopers. Utter drain on everyone around them.

[KSCITYBOY]

Agreed

[DJ MacWoW]

That works so well that we have a stoner for President. Most of the Communist radicals in DC were/are stoners and were pushing "free love and drugs" in the 60's. How has that worked out genius?

[ConservingFreedom]

his primary message of “drugs are good”.

Show where I ever said drugs are good.

[tacticalogic]

I didn’t say that. But making it so that everybody who buys allergy medicine is inviting having the DEA kick in their door certainly isn’t going to make Johnny a patriot. The modern version of Kennedy’s speech is “ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country IS doing to you”.

How's that Wickard v Filburn thing working out for ya?

[DiogenesLamp]

Drinkers get angry and riot while pot heads are functionally wards of the state with no sting. Limousine liberals aim to pacify the envious mob, with drugs if necessary.

[ConservingFreedom]

A lot of “libertarians” want dope legalized. They also want open borders.

I don't want open borders.

[DiogenesLamp]

A stoned populace is a pacifist populace.

Drugged sheep are easy to herd.

See my previous post.

[areukiddingme1]

“Show where I ever said drugs are good.”

People generally plant their flag and defend what they believe in, generally, if they are not stoned or stupid.

[stephenjohnbanker]

” That works so well that we have a stoner for President. Most of the Communist radicals in DC were/are stoners and were pushing “free love and drugs” in the 60’s.”

I was a teen in the 60’s and remember THEM well!

[DiogenesLamp]

Because for 3 generations now, getting onto the 4th, the majority of each generation has smoked it illegally at least for a couple of years if not good chunks of their lives, then went on to have normal productive lives. And finally there’s enough of them that know the government lies to turn the tide against laws that never should have happened in the first place.

Oh. Well if it just ruins the bottom 24% of the population, that's all right then.

[Responsibility2nd]

Nothing about legalization would prevent the military, or any other employer, from retaining a zero-tolernace policy on any mind-altering substance.

_______________________________________

Really? Just like nothing has kept the military from curbing Christianity while endorsing faggotry in the ranks?

If you think Obama’s military will have a zero-tolerance approach to smoking dope, then you’re a bigger troll than you’ve lead us to believe.

[Fester Chugabrew]

moderation in all things, even moderation.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Post of the day!

(Sad, but true)

[DJ MacWoW]

Me too. Getting high was their only goal besides subverting America.

[discostu]

Drugs don’t ruin people. People ruin themselves, sometimes drugs are the tool they use, but that’s like the article today blaming guns for suicide, it ain’t the tool’s fault.

[DiogenesLamp]

Oh it’ll come back. The freedom - control pendulum swings back and forth. Won’t come back in our lifetime, but it’ll be back.

Tampering with your brain is not freedom. It's psychosis.

[stephenjohnbanker]

Good shot!