Marijuana Prohibition is a policy designed to assist us with our decision-making ability and effectively segregates middle to lower class marijuana users and makes a minority out of those individuals.
Marijuana prohibition is in place reportedly because marijuana is addictive and we as citizens need help in making responsible decisions in regards to marijuana. First off they tried telling us that it was a gateway drug that led to the usage of harder drugs. Well studies have shown that for the vast majority of users of marijuana that just isn’t true.
They started off saying marijuana was addictive as well, but as we are coming to find out, it just isn’t so. So if it really isn’t that dangerous, why can’t we make our own decision in regards to our marijuana use?
The government will defend prohibition saying that it curbs usage rates. It hasn’t, but let’s think about that for a minute. This “Big Brother” is trying to sell us the idea that they are just looking out for best interests, trying to help us make a decision where they can see that we as a society are obviously lacking the ability to make a responsible choice. This government of elitists that stand atop the hill looking down on the peasants and try to tell us that if marijuana were legal, we would not be able to say no and we would just go crazy and make horrible decisions that would degrade our society. They say that they are protecting us from making those poor decisions. Well, if this is the intention, then maybe they aren’t so bad. But one could wonder…..Where the FUCK were they and are they when the credit industry took hold of us and effectively destroyed the middle class?
It seems like this and most other policy is designed to benefit the top few percent of earners in America. If you take away the liberty to make a decision about doing something that people across the country are doing anyway, who does it hurt? Does it hurt the millionaire on his gated estate? The guy who is friends with everyone on city council, the mayor, possibly even the governor? The guy who won’t be having cops just knocking on his door and even if he does, the pot he’s smoking could be contained in a separate room designed to withhold the smell. We already know that marijuana use crosses all social boundaries, so would the millionaire even be touched by that policy? Or would it hurt the “middle class,” or what’s left of it, that resides in apartments and duplexes and in the inner-cities?
Marijuana prohibition targets the low-income populations of the country by effectively containing them in the prison and/or probation system. The top few percent can afford to not get caught. Sure some of them go clubbing and are stupid, but the people who are simply using marijuana have an unprecedented ability to keep it secret, whereas the middle to lower-class citizens cannot afford so much privacy. Even when “upper-class” marijuana users get arrested, they usually get slapped with a fine or just let go; they will never see a lower class prison or any jail time. I.e. Willie Nelson.
Prohibition cannot affect usage rates because it does not target usage. Prohibition targets specifically the usage by a certain group of people, just as it always has. It started as a way to target Mexicans and African Americans, in the day of Jim Crow policies. Prohibition kept Jim Crow Laws alive under a different guise and much broader target. Where Jim Crow started as a way to keep African Americans as a separate second class minority, marijuana and drug prohibition in general has worked to further marginalize and oppress a much larger group of people. Why is ending prohibition not up for serious public debate?
No comments:
Post a Comment