Straight Talk on Marijuana Legalization
The truth is I don’t give two shits about whether or not we legalize marijuana, so long as we have a 25-year-old age limit. Everybody knows I’m the age limits guy. I just think it’s socially responsible.
I’ve spent a lot of time reading the work of Dr. Dan Siegel. He’s a Harvard trained physician who is “currently clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine where he is on the faculty of the Center for Culture, Brain, and Development and the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center.” His most recent book, Brainstorm, is already a New York Times bestseller. What Dr. Siegel proves is that the adolescent brain, and he defines adolescence as between the ages of 12 and 25, doesn’t stop maturing until around the age of 25. He describes in detail (please read Brainstorm; it’s a great book) how not only is the brain continuing to develop from ages 21-25, but how adolescents don’t have the capacity to truly understand the long-term impact of their choices. It’s simply a matter beyond their developmental capacity.
Let’s be straight. Marijuana is addictive, especially when people begin to use it in their teenage years, but it’s also less harmful in the short term than prescription drugs, and alcohol for sure, and I think that’s what the President and the Atty. Gen. were actually referring to in their recent statements.
I also think it’s reprehensible that although white males and black males use marijuana at about the same rate, black males are almost 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than their white counterparts. Is the enforcement of drug laws furthering a racist agenda, either overtly or unconsciously? Perhaps so.
Here’s something more that I haven’t heard anybody talk about… It is so difficult for the majority of Americans to get ahead at this time in our history, who wouldn’t want to be stoned? I mean with the immense poverty that we have in this country, who the hell wants to go through that lucid? Home foreclosures. Long-term joblessness. Record numbers of people becoming dependent on supplemental food programs while “food stamp” benefits are being cut. Watching your children do without basic necessities. Who wouldn’t want to escape this poverty trap? Getting stoned is a cheap way to do it.
I believe there’s a certain learned helplessness that has taken place by the majority of these continual pot smokers…. It’s just basically a belief that they can’t improve their circumstances. “What’s the use?”
Look at it like this. For every Bill Mahr or Willie Nelson, there are at least a 1000 twenty and thirty somethings still living at home with their parents, waking up at noon to a big fat bong load, unemployed or underemployed, screaming for their mother to make them a sandwich.
For the vast majority of continual marijuana smokers, there comes a lack of motivation, almost a paralysis to do almost anything whatsoever to be productive, but naturally we all focus on the few geniuses in our culture that are so immensely gifted that when they talk about getting stoned inspiring them or enhancing their creativity, we think we can emulate them. Really though, we are a nation of depressives who’ve been beaten down by our inability to succeed and are self-justified in getting high.
So all I’m saying is if you want to get high, go get high. I don’t really give a shit. But let’s give the youngest among us, the most easily influenced, the ones whose brains aren’t even fully developed yet, a shot at a life worth living. We’re supposed to be getting better as a society, we don’t smoke in restaurants anymore because we know second hand smoke is harmful, and we’re now required to wear seatbelts because we know it saves lives. Come on people, let’s do the right thing here. We need an age-limit of 25 on marijuana legalization.
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