The real reefer madness

A lot of scare tactics were used to stop the cultivation of cannabis in the US, in the beginning of this century and continuing to the present. Even the name "marijuana", which is the spanish word for the plant, was likewise cultivated to use racial tensions to demonize cannabis. Among the most famous, campy portrayals of the supposed dangers of cannabis was the film "reefer madness" which depicted people jumping out of windows and performing many antisocial acts due to smoking it.

Of course it was and is untrue, but unfortunately this caused a backlash from otherwise rational, thinking cannabis users to think that no only was cannabis not as dangerous as portrayed, but that it wasn't dangerous at all and was in fact good. The results of the flowering backlash are so vast that cannabis is now misunderstood in the opposite direction.

I recently watched a movie called "humboldt county", which starts innocently enough, involving an unhappy man having sex with an insane woman: The cornerstone of human prorogation. From then, it starts with a pretty bleak portrayal of lifestyle cannabis growing and use, and slowly throughout the course of the movie the portrayal lifts(or drops) into a more sympathetic, and loving position. Cannabis users and growers, though not criminals, are not noble figures. Nor are they evil. They just devoted their life to a single drug, which is fucking stupid.

Fun Facts:

-Cannabis does make you dumber. The drop might not be of much consequence, but it's true. There may be high-functioning examples of potheads, but that is not the norm.

-Most cannabis users are only superficially concerned with environmental issues, just like the rest of us. Though they could ingest their drug in other forms, they smoke it. Why? Because they get a better high. Burning anything pollutes.

-(this happens in all drug movies) Everyone who doesn't use cannabis is not a total square. There are so many history-making radicals who thought that drugs were of no importance. Even the average cobe on the street, sober out of his goddamn mind, is not neccesarily lame. In addition, not everyone who uses a drug is a broad, creative thinking person. Many are complete squares themselves.

-Cannabis is not a natural enemy of any other drug. What advocates of maintence-drugs often do is demonize "competing drugs", as if to make the case for their own drug by negation. This is pretty mindless, as the hate for other drugs is usually as ill-founded as the hate for their own. Legalizing all drugs is sensible. The idea of legalizing some and not others is what got us into this mess of locking up pot-growers in the first place.

And the problem with these misconceptions is that it causes a false sense of security. This particular movie depicted a backwoods community in which cannabis was the equivalent of a ticket out. In such situations, people literally do go nuts over the ticket, and being high on cannabis does nothing to "medicate" said individuals. Anyone who thinks legalizing drugs would stop all drug-related crime is lying to themselves. People will always steal eachothers cannabis crops for the same reason they steal eachothers TVs and stick each other up for the money in each others pockets. Bad laws do propagate some crime, but not all of it. A bunch of potheads sitting around talking about how "if only" the government would change it's position; they could all be saved, is naive. There is more to contend with, like a drug addicts nature. Not that they get DT's when they don't smoke, but that they're willing to do anything to build their lives around pot, including stealing from others. That's the real reefer madness, and it does exist.