In a U.S. context, it is actually really simple. Racism and the age old practice of othering types of people by associating them with a drug (cocaine = rich and white, crack = poor, black and dangerous). That’s it, the full answer is of course a lot more complicated but in the end it is exactly still this dumb and cruel.
politicians across the political divide spent much of the 20th century using marijuana as a means of dividing America. By painting the drug as a scourge from south of the border to a “jazz drug” to the corruptive intoxicant of choice for beatniks and hippies, marijuana as a drug and the laws that sought to control it played on some of America’s worst tendencies around race, ethnicity, civil disobedience, and otherness.
I actually think examining the rise of crack in the US and how it was used as a political wedge and xenophobic tool of fear mongering helps explain why marijuana is illegal in the US the easiest, because the forces and structures are the same for crack being highly illegal as they are for marijuana, just much less thinly veiled and dialed up to 11.
Right, because alcohol is the white man’s drug. Plain and simple.
They made alcohol illegal for a while but it turned out to be too onerous for the white people so it was legalized again. Marijuana laws have caused massive damage to minority communities, so they remain in place.
True after all alcohol is white enough of a drug that you can come from a run smuggling family and still become President and nobody bats an eye.
I could see 50+ years from now some Johnny Appleweed from Humboldt County with a family history in black market grow/distribution op running for President.
One can only hope I suppose
Who was that?
Kennedy.
People from Nixon’s cabinet have straight up said that they made both illegal and started the “War on Drugs” as justification so that they could lock up opposition leaders in both the black and hippie communities.
Read the book Sythentic Panics.
Talks all about this with wave after wave of synthetic drug scares. LSD, ecstasy, GHB, etc. All follow basically an identical pattern starting with a moral panic by mainly religious shitheels and corporate media.
Why be legislators and make progressive policies (ewww hard and so boringggg) when you can just tell stories about who is worthy of empathy and who isn’t?
I don’t know too much about GHB, but from the little I’ve heard it sounds like it has a risk of deadly overdose, which I don’t think is the case for the first two examples you mentioned. You probably know more than me so perhaps you can enlighten me if they deserve to be grouped together?
They tried to make it illegal and the results were disastrous, one could argue the same for marijuana but the campaign to keep it illegal was much more successful.
That’s because cannabis was more popular with black people in the 70s. The racists used the cannabis laws against blacks because it gave them a bonner
It definitely started much earlier than that, but yes.
Well, there was this one time when we tried out the whole “making alcohol illegal” thing and it worked out about as well as the current “war on drugs.” Just like drugs are winning, alcohol won.
The first anti-drug laws weren’t really on the books until Nixon, who definitely used them as a way to pin down and criminalize parts of society he deemed unworthy.
July 1971 was when Drug Prohibition started. Before that, technically everything was legal.
Tradition, mainly. It’s so ingrained in the majority of cultures that you can’t simply uproot it with a law. Although it should be a more controlled substance, no doubt about that. It’s addictive, debilitating, incredibly harmful and it simply destroys more lives than literally any drug known to man.
It’s also one of the most dangerous drugs to try to quit. Going cold turkey on alcohol can very well be lethal.
It can, if you’re drinking seriously large amounts, but one of the most dangerous drugs in this regard? I have no scientific background in this but I’m skeptical there aren’t worse drugs in that regard
Withdrawal from most drugs sucks a lot but not a lot of them are lethal
As an alcoholic 11 years sober, the only substance I know of that can kill you when quitting is alcohol. When AA started, they would keep alcohol in their house when helping others get sober so they wouldn’t die from DTs.
I came here to say this. This is really the real response. “Prohibition didn’t work” isn’t the reason, it’s the results of a response.
what about women?
That would be semen.
lol at the 5 misogynists downvotes.
Using gendered language, such as “known to man,” is outdated and overlooks the contributions of individuals who don’t identify as men. It’s not just about being politically correct; it’s about being accurate and inclusive. Language shapes our perception of reality, and by using more inclusive language, we acknowledge and respect the diversity of contributions across all genders. Calling this out isn’t about policing language for the sake of it; it’s about moving towards a society that values everyone’s contributions equally. Let’s push for language that includes everyone, reflecting the true diversity of human achievement.
Part of it also is that it’s entrenched in virtually all human societies and history. There’s even archeological evidence to support the theory that humans only started settling down to slow them to make more and better beer, count the beer, protect the beer, and tax the beer. They even made bread for the explicit purpose of making beer out of it.
They tried prohibition, didn’t work.
The way I see it: Alcohol is an older drug, it was engrained in society. But the new drug marijuana could be cracked down on. Also because it was hippies that smoked marijuana, but everyone drank alcohol.
*Lock Stock had a scene. “Want a tug on that? [joint]”. Reply: “No I don’t want any of that horrible shit. Can we go get drunk now?”
Also cotton moguls, I think?
sure they had something to do with it, there’s no example of US fuckery that doesn’t involve industrial protection of some kind.
I’d wager also that tobacco and alcohol fought marijuana as hard if not harder than the GOV’s position a lone.
Fair enough. My history books always blamed the cotton industry, but it does make sense that others would be involved. Thanks for taking the time to answer!
Unlike marijuana, alcohol has been an important part of (the western) society for thousands of years. And the last time we tried banning it, it didn’t go too well.
And politicians drink alcohol so they’re not exactly lining up to ban it.
Something about the timber industry
Because you’re not voting in the right people.
Because so many people are addicted to it, even the lawmakers are addicted to it. And as other commenters have said, we tried prohibition in the past and it did not work. Society lost their collective minds.
Years and years and years of lobbying. Also taxes.
Bingo
I’d say for two reasons. First, laws are written by a bunch of old people (at least in the head) that love the stuff. Second, full prohibition does not work anyway.
A bit of perspective: During the prohibition in the USA, both cocaine and heroin were sold legally over the counter.
Most illegal drugs today are perfectly legal when a pharmaceutical company produces it and you are purchasing it through channels where the elite gets paid.
One makes you think less, and one makes you think more haha
Or rather, one makes you act without thinking, the other makes you think without action.
Oh, that is so damn true. You’re just like laying on your bed, like, “man fuck this shit.”
A friend gave his 70-something mother her first edible (first weed in any form, actually) and her only response was, “I feel lazy.”
They lie about marijuana. Tell you pot-smoking makes you unmotivated. Lie! When you’re high, you can do everything you normally do just as well—you just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference.
- Bill Hicks
you just realize that it’s not worth the fucking effort
Unless it’s a big arse sandwich. Including everything that you find in the fridge. Even the stuff that belongs to your roommate, like the slice of ham he was keeping for his breakfast.
Source: I was that roommate.
I mean, it doesn’t magically give one human decency they already lack 😆
That sucks, though.
The drunk driver runs a stop sign and the high driver waits till it turns green.
One has also had studies that shows it causes the user to have more empathy while under its influence. The other is more common in domestic violence.
Patriarchy: MMmmm . . . I’ll take the domestic violence one.
Yep! Glad my state at least finally voted to make me legal lol. I’ll take these homegrown, homemade Aldi fruit loop bars over the domestic violence sauce
