[Glice]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

I didn't say reject development, I was referring to the problems associated with globalization in the name of development, such as massive debt, arms races/proxy wars, foreign sponsered dictatorships, corporate dumping, toxic pollution in total disregard for people and the environment, self-destructive agricultural policies based upon triangle trade and cash crops [like soy and corn for animal feed or the biofuel crisis in food prices], human traficking etc etc... but that is not the issue nor the point. the point is this, we live in a country where a 15 year old girl can go have a surgical abortion under her own volition, despite the fact that that same girl might need her parents' legal consent for a surgeon to perform life saving surgery, and yet, I, a kind-hearted, socially conscious and sincerely cordial adult can not grow, possess or consume a plant which literally MILLIONS of people us everyday. it is ridiculous. I dont expect you to smoke cuz its cool or something, I just wish that more people would be less accepting of the bullshit laws of this country simply because they do not directly affect them. that is why I brought up the other issues, such as the American revolution [vs the loyalist], abolition [vs the slavocracy], post-civil war reconstruction [vs confederate revival],civil rights movt [vs pro-segregation racist], in all of these times, there were plenty of people who were not affected, and yet it was critical that there be unanamous public support. You dont have to smoke pot my friend, but in order to keep people out of jail and off probation and out of the gutter, we as Americans should all mutually respect the right to grow, possess and consume cannabis.

I'm sorry, I was determined not to weigh into your threads for a while - it's quite clear there's a gaping chasm of different opinions between you and I, to put it mildly. However...

I get quite angry at the trope which seeks to align weed smoking with any liberation narrative. To speak of state improprietry, inconsistency, hypocrisy etcetera is fine and, indeed, an important part of having a political consciousness. To despair of cultural horrors, such as those mentioned in brief above is also fine. It's a conflation of matters to speak of those in the same breath as the personal, incidental choice of smoking weed.

Insofar as I say that, I'll agree there is a good point made about the decision to grow something to get yourself off your gourd. However, to speak of massive, deep-set and vastly complicated problems and somehow invoke an 'injustice' about something so piddlingly unimportant (to the wider world) as how you get off your gourd is ridiculous. It is precisely weed's (allegedly) benign affect which leads it to be very, very low down the pecking order of political issues. I'm not saying it's not political - I'm saying any logical, quasi- or pseudo-logical hierarchy of political issues would stick the decision of an indivual to partake in a harmless (but illegal) activity which alters ones mind to the effect of wanting to listen to shitty Pink Floyd LPs somewhere at about the same level as the sort of paint used in parking spaces. You may invest the argument with all the gravitas you wish, and you may contend that it manifests a wider malaise in 'our' political society - fine. There are much more obvious, much less circuitous arguments with which to hammer that particular nail, and using weed to manifest 'an infringement of civil liberties' always strikes me as perpetuating the 'blinkered, mind-enfeebling' arguments against weed better than it does argue for it.

Assume you're the state. There is an herb, let's call it 'beed' which is suspected to have negative effects on some members of society which your are charged with protecting the health, welfare and safety of. Beed forms a very minor part of a recent history in your country and wider states - lest we forget, in Europe and America 'beed' was transported relatively recently by comparison to the process of sanitising water we Europeans know as 'making booze'. Were I the state, I'd make 'beed' illegal. It may be benign in the majority of people, but like certain e-numbers, the detrimental effects to a minority are enough to warrant outlawing it for all. I'm not saying this is strictly 'logical' in an era of individualism, but the state does not proceed by a strict logic, it proceeds by the edict of protectionism. Beed simply does not offer enough benefits to society, once we factor in the difficulty in controlling its production (booze and fags are fuckers to produce, unlike beed) to merit its inclusion in state-sanctioned 'things'.