While I'm on the topic of substance abuse
Nov. 14th, 2021 08:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingI was chatting with a friend on Instagram the other day, and I was saying that I was surprised that there was a referendum to legalize marijuana in Pennsylvania on this year's ballot.
What this means is that legislators from Philadelphia are trying to demonstrate popular support to the state legislature. Possession of small amounts of marijuana has been decriminalized in certain parts of Pennsylvania, but it's not legal for distribution or recreational use.
I was surprised because New Jersey just started issuing business licenses to sell marijuana in September, and New York is at the point where they have stores in Times Square. You can smell weed almost everywhere you go in Philadelphia, so I thought it was already legal here. That's why I was surprised that we were being asked to vote on a referendum.
Anyway, my friend was basically like, "I don't think the tax money they'll get from legalizing narcotics is worth the trouble." I liked her message and put down the phone, because that's not a conversation to have over Instagram. My friend is a defense attorney, and her perspective is probably informed by knowledge and experiences I can't even begin to imagine.
Still, though. While I can't deny that any given lawyer sees some truly horrendous shit on any given day, it feels like a stretch to put weed in the same category as, say, oxycodone. I get that there was a campaign to make marijuana seem dangerous and edgy during the 1990s, but the vast majority of the weed you can get in America doesn't do more than alleviate joint pain and relieve tension headaches. Like, if you want to get high off pot, you really have to work for it.
Meanwhile, it's totally legal to grow magic mushrooms in the United States, and there's no law regulating the distribution of spore cultures. I don't know if they're actually easy to grow, but you can get starter kits on Amazon. If your goal is to get fucked up, there are better and easier ways to do it, I'm just saying. Personally I run cheap vodka through a Brita filter and mix it with cranberry juice, and that does me just fine.
ETA: I was doing some research, and I found that you can also buy datura seeds on Amazon. Amazing. It's probably easier to grow mushrooms, though.
What this means is that legislators from Philadelphia are trying to demonstrate popular support to the state legislature. Possession of small amounts of marijuana has been decriminalized in certain parts of Pennsylvania, but it's not legal for distribution or recreational use.
I was surprised because New Jersey just started issuing business licenses to sell marijuana in September, and New York is at the point where they have stores in Times Square. You can smell weed almost everywhere you go in Philadelphia, so I thought it was already legal here. That's why I was surprised that we were being asked to vote on a referendum.
Anyway, my friend was basically like, "I don't think the tax money they'll get from legalizing narcotics is worth the trouble." I liked her message and put down the phone, because that's not a conversation to have over Instagram. My friend is a defense attorney, and her perspective is probably informed by knowledge and experiences I can't even begin to imagine.
Still, though. While I can't deny that any given lawyer sees some truly horrendous shit on any given day, it feels like a stretch to put weed in the same category as, say, oxycodone. I get that there was a campaign to make marijuana seem dangerous and edgy during the 1990s, but the vast majority of the weed you can get in America doesn't do more than alleviate joint pain and relieve tension headaches. Like, if you want to get high off pot, you really have to work for it.
Meanwhile, it's totally legal to grow magic mushrooms in the United States, and there's no law regulating the distribution of spore cultures. I don't know if they're actually easy to grow, but you can get starter kits on Amazon. If your goal is to get fucked up, there are better and easier ways to do it, I'm just saying. Personally I run cheap vodka through a Brita filter and mix it with cranberry juice, and that does me just fine.
ETA: I was doing some research, and I found that you can also buy datura seeds on Amazon. Amazing. It's probably easier to grow mushrooms, though.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-16 11:11 pm (UTC)I'm sure I'm missing huge pieces of context, though.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-18 01:46 pm (UTC)Sounds 100% legit.
I totally missed out on the part of the cultural conversation where people were taught that marijuana is bad, but read people defending its legalization all the time. And to me, this is all very silly. Like, what's the worst that someone who's high on weed going to do? Order a pizza and then drive below the speed limit to pick it up? Do we seriously need to put people in prison over this.
I know I'm not saying anything new or interesting here, but hearing grown-ass adults argue over marijuana feels a little like hearing people argue over anime.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-18 06:13 pm (UTC)I remember being a small Rina in grade school and being taught (this was in DARE era) that all drugs were evil and terrible and would lead you to ruination. Obviously this was somewhat flavored by the fact that I went to private Christian schools and *everything* was going to lead us to ruination, but much like how the sex ed emphasized that all premarital sex would lead to us dying of AIDS while pregnant, the anti-drug education basically involved attempting to convince us that even contemplating the use of any drug would leave us drooling husks.
And the thing is that there are definitely drugs that are more likely to destroy your life than others - the daughter of a family friend, who is four years younger than I, was given heroin (or a derivative? not clear on the details and clearly not my place to ask) without her knowledge, got hooked, and her mother spent her entire savings and sold her house and anything else she could think of to get said daughter clean, which she finally is and is holding on to it for dear life. So I do think that there are some drugs that should be under tighter control, but I absolutely cannot look at the criminalization of addiction and think that this is the correct solution.
Do I know what the solution is? No, but I can sure say "not that."