@TheBuddhistBard
2/29/2020
You hit a blunt, or presumably you do (or at least you have) if you were born after the 1990s, went to college, are still young enough to do so without much discrimination, don’t care about what other people think of you, are or have ever been a hippie, or just like trying new things in life. You’re floating up and some, though certainly not all in this age of anxiety, of your worries are washing off your shoulders. Maybe you’ll color some pictures or watch that new Netflix show. Maybe you’ll play a beat on your synthesizer or lie down and give yourself a well deserved break. Whatever you want to do, or don’t want to do, you’ve decided to partake in something that has been around in human culture since around 494 B.C.E.
Originally used as a medicine in China, marijuana is part of the Cannabacae family (a family which includes hemp, hops, and the hackberry tree). It is a small flowering plant which has stuck with society in medicines, balms, baths, rituals, and eventually in recreation. It grows from the earth; dirt sprouting into green stalks and flowering into bud. It is made from millions of years of evolution, as we are, from farther back than the fields in which it naturally grows, farther than the dirt it sprouts, and farther than the warm-sun which shines upon its leaves. From as far back as the central point of the universe, made of stardust and created through a process of natural selection this herb by some strange inevitable coincidence creates THC which attaches to the cannabinoids in our brain in order to give us the euphoric sense of being lifted to a higher state of mind. It relaxes us. It gives us dopamine. It gives many relief from their PTSD, joint pains, seizures, and other medical needs. Most importantly it makes people happy without harming others.
In the 1920s the United States of America banned alcohol. Well before this time, in 1790 it was said (written in a history.org article at the very least) that America drank an average of 34 gallons of alcohol a year (compared to the 2.3 gallons we drink now). In fact there is a whole documentary about How Beer Saved the World which talks extensively about how beer and pubs were the meeting place and therefore the kicking off point to starting the revolution in the States (which in turn kicked off a lot of other revolutions across the world). Yet, lead by Protestant prohibitionist and one angry woman with a hatchet, the United States banned the consumption, sale, and importation of alcohol across the entire nation. For 13 years you could not legally get a drink here. At first this decreased alcohol consumption but then, presumably once black-market trade routes had been established, the amount people drank sharply grew over the next several years to 60-70% more than it had been before the ban. Crime rates increased with each passing year as well, creating a ripe breeding ground for mob bosses and the corrupt politics and violence we all know from Al Capone movies and Roaring Twenties culture. By 1933 the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st, making it once again legal federally and giving the rights of alcohol consumption back to the States. This happened close to one hundred years ago now and there are still many impacts on our culture, the easiest to see being old prohibition laws in certain states and counties.
Marijuana is going through a similar, albeit more racially grounded, prohibition in the States. For many years, upon our nation’s creation, cannabis and hemp crops were grown freely and with great economic value. In fact, George Washington himself had hemp fields (mind you, while not the narcotic variety it too is going through a prohibition of its own) while cannabis appeared on the ten dollar bill as late as the year 1900. However, this would begin to change when some states began calling cannabis a poison in order to regulate its use in pharmaceutical operations. Eventually more tension between many Americans (especially, I am imagining, white Americans) and cannabis began due to how Mexican immigrant workers would use the drug after their long work hours (in fact the first cannabis raid in the U.S. was in a Mexican neighborhood in Los Angeles). It was then in 1937 a Marihuana Tax Act was created to federally ban the recreational possession or transfer of marijuana in the States, after certain groups pushed for a ban of all recreational drugs (following a similar timeline to prohibition). It would be another 30ish years before Nixon declared a war on drugs (with racial discrimination being a central issue in this proclamation) and almost another 20 after that for Reagan to sign in the three strikes mandate and tougher mandatory sentencing than the nation had ever seen.
There are articles written on cannabis and its cultural impacts. There are obviously disproportionate graphs about cannabis and how black Americans are almost 4 times as likely to be arrested for weed possession even though they smoke about as much as white Americans (in fact statistically a bit less). There are smarter people than I, who you can google yourself, writing about how legalization of drugs in general could save 41.3 billion annually or how it would be cheaper and better for society to spend that money on education and recovery centers for abusive drug use. I encourage you to look into it if you have the time. But I don’t need to hash it out anymore because I’ve written enough about what has happened already and you're probably about ready to grab some food from your local taco-joint after finishing that blunt. What I will say is that things are changing and they will continue to change.
In 1996 California, after being one of the first to put in marijuana laws, became the first state to legalize its medical use. Since then 33 states have medical licensing for weed. Colorado and Washington became the first two states to make it legal recreationally in 2012. It has only been 8 years since then and we already have 11 states with a form of legal marijuana. Practically speaking there are only 8 states left (Idaho, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina) which make weed fully illegal (not even decriminalized). The world is finally getting over its prohibition era thinking and realizing that this war is doing a lot more harm than good. In 2001 Portugal decriminalized all drugs, treating consumers of drugs as patients rather than criminals. Canada legalized weed in 2016 with enthusiasm while Uruguay, South Africa, and Georgia all have variations of weed legalization (and many other countries have medical marijuana). It is changing and with this next decade the ball is only going to keep rolling.
The Rolling Twenties is what 2020-2029 is going to be. More and more states, with each year, ratifying their bills and voting on weed legalization. Millions of Americans changing something that should have been changed a long time ago. Now, of course, it does not end with legalization; there are still many people who are locked behind bars for something that should never have been called a crime, but it is encouraging to think that the times are changing and we can help. So roll up that second blunt, pass the bong to the left, and take two puffs before you cash out; for the Rolling Twenties are here and soon enough, with a bit more fight, we’ll all light one up in celebration to the legalization of this mind-soothing, creative-mooding, finely-crafted, evolutionarily aweing herb.