The case for legalizing marijuana

The Geiger Counter

Our state might abolish a law that most people have already broken. A decade ago it would have seemed radical. Today it seems almost quaint.

And yet, petty politics, old grudges and fervent tribalism will surely make it difficult to come to an agreement about something on which most people actually agree.

More than half of American adults have used marijuana. An estimated 35 million of them use it on a regular basis. It is, to put is simply, a fairly mainstream thing. It is not counter-culture anymore; it’s just plain culture. 

Legalizing it seems like getting rid of those blue laws you sometimes hear about, the ones that make it a misdemeanor to cross the street while eating a cupcake with blue frosting on it, or the ones that say you have to get a special permit to braid your horse’s tail.  

It’s a rule that has cost the country billions in lost tax revenue over the years. It’s a nonviolent offense for which an estimated 40,000 people are currently being held as prisoners. It is also a law that forces people who merely want to experience a mild and temporary euphoria to do business with drug dealers who also peddle much harder, much more dangerous drugs. And of course, the fact that it is illegal provides the genesis for violent and ruthless cartels that are responsible for innumerable deaths. In much of the country, it is a legal, growing industry. Elsewhere, fathers are locked behind bars for life because they sold it, or bought it. We can certainly quibble about the way I’m phrasing some of these points, but they are generally statements of fact.

Often missed in all this, is that marijuana laws, which run contrary to public sentiment, put our police officers in an impossible position when they are required to enforce them. If people want to help mend the raw wounds that opened up in this country between civilians and those who put on a uniform each day to protect them, perhaps it would be wise not to ask police officers to perpetually confront and arrest people for doing something that most people believe is completely harmless.

It’s like if, in order to be a writer, I was asked each morning to make sure I kicked a puppy or slapped an ice cream cone out of a little kid’s hands. It would make my life much harder. It would make me seem less trustworthy. It would probably make people question the legitimacy of some of my other work, too.

While everyone loves to say (on social media, over and over again, in the most peacocky ways possible) that they are advocates for equity and racial justice, getting rid of a law that constantly puts black men in jail seems like a very easy, very painless way to actually help fix the problem. But it doesn’t require cancelling anyone or strutting around bragging about our own morality, so it seems not to gain much traction. 

The situation with marijuana is a poignant reminder of what is wrong with Democrats and Republicans. Because neither party adheres to its own principles or ideologies. They seem to exist, particularly in Wisconsin, only to thwart each other at any cost.

I have progressive friends who literally marched in the streets to demand that the United States bring home its troops from the Middle East. When Republican Donald Trump brought them home, these same people were outraged. Not by what had been done, but by who had done it. I recently saw a series of hilarious tweets by a writer for one of the biggest newspapers in the world. She is on the left, which is fine of course, but the tweets pointed out something endemic to our current situation. She posted photos of liberals, leftists and progressives gathering in large numbers – thousands of people – for Democratic causes. Political celebrations and protests and the like. She called the images inspiring and beautiful. She also posted pictures of conservatives gathering – to hold signs, yell about politics, or in the case of Floridians to just drool. But with these images, she made several critical comments about how irresponsible it is to gather in large numbers during a pandemic. She saw nothing wrong with her tribe gathering and sharing germs, but she was quick to notice, and judge, when those from other tribes did the same.

She is not uniquely blind in this area. We all seem to be.

As a general rule, the political left is more enthusiastic about rules and regulations than their conservative counterparts. If given absolute power, those on the left would unquestionably create a fascist system in which all dissent would be punished, and we would no longer have any agency in our own lives. Our very words and feelings would be belligerently policed. 

You really wouldn’t be able to braid your horse’s tail without a permit. 

But if their conservative counterparts were given absolute power, the country would swiftly descend into anarchic turmoil of apocalyptic levels. We would all have to wander through rivers of toxic sludge while being shot at for the mere sport of it. If the right were given absolute power, you would probably be allowed to light your horse on fire with no questions asked.

Neither sounds desirable to me. That’s why I’m in the middle. (Or, as people on Twitter call it, “A COWARD!”)

I would personally like to retain some rights (free speech chief among them), but I am glad to give up parts of other rights in order to ensure that we all live in relative peace and harmony. I would like to live in a country where politicians on the left stand up for my right to live in a world that is vaguely peaceful and orderly and not coursing with channels of raw sewage. But I would also like to live in a country where politicians on the right stand up for my most precious rights and civil liberties, so that I can still pursue truth and meaning in a dynamic and authentic way, even if my journey doesn’t fit the prevailing narrative of the time. Ideally, I would also like other people, perhaps even those outside my close circle of friends and family, to enjoy these same rights.

With all this said, you would think that Democrats, with their general enthusiasm for rules, would be the ones you would have to win over in order to get marijuana legalized. Republicans, who think (rightly, in some – but not all - cases) that people should usually be allowed to think for themselves and do what they want, would be the ones championing the cause.

Yet here we are. Republicans seem to oppose it only because Democrats support it. 

The left wants to legalize marijuana, and the right will fight it tooth and nail, despite the fact that it is an inherently conservative idea. The reason is simple: At any given moment, people on both sides feel compelled to oppose ideas because, and only because, people on the other side support them. It’s as if two teams were playing football, and a volcano erupted nearby, so one team suggested leaving the field and going to a safe place, but the other team, so caught up in the game, decided to oppose running to safety simply in the spirit of competition.

Politicians, and by extension the lonely, angry civilians who care inordinately about politics, have abandoned the very idea of ideas. They care only about tribes, and about their fights, in and of themselves. They are fighting merely to fight, and not to achieve any actual goals.

I checked my email yesterday, and I received six messages from politicians at the state and federal level that started with the name of the opposing party. In other words, every email from a Democrat started with, “Republicans…” and every email from a Republican started with, “Democrats…”

What followed was always angry nonsense directed at the other party. Both sides say they want to keep people safe and help them, but none of them actually put forth any ideas.

It occurs to me that complaining incessantly about your enemies is the behavior of someone whose well of good ideas has run totally dry. It’s basically begging the public to support you, not because you are good or virtuous, but simply because your opponents are sinister and vile, and you are, at the very least, not them. They confuse not being something, with being something’s opposite. They are not always the same thing.

Do you ever get into a fight with your spouse or your kid, and eventually the fight becomes about the fight itself, swirling perpetually outward in a frenzy of self-indulgent and righteous outrage? It becomes a fight that cannot logically be solved or fixed, because it is not about dirty dishes, which can be cleaned, or homework, which can be completed. No, it is only about itself. It is a self-centered, narcissistic argument that feeds on its own madness and wants only to exist, and to grow.  

It’s like being famous for being famous, which is the most common reason for being famous these days. I keep hearing what various people think about various complex and nuanced social issues. When I ask why I should care, I am told their views are important because they have half a billion Twitter followers, and therefore their views are shared with many people, making them of particular importance. The logic, I suppose, is that a logical fallacy said loudly enough, or said to enough people, is more correct than a demonstrable truth stated to five friends around a campfire or a kitchen table.

Marijuana’s effects are not something I personally seek right now. It tends to make the world look and feel more immediate. It makes things hyper-real. It can make the world insist upon itself. That’s considerably less fun when the world already seems far too real, anyway. I don’t need to think any more deeply about how much we spend on medical bills, or what kind of state society will be in when my daughter is my age. I don’t need to watch a movie in which Meryl Streep is playing Margaret Thatcher and think, while she is giving a speech on labor unions: “Meryl Streep is a real person. She sometimes eats broccoli! I don’t eat enough broccoli. I wonder if I have heart disease. How tall was Margaret Thatcher? Did she die of heart disease? Is she dead? She was a real person. Everyone is real. Oh, my god. Everyone is real. I like Sour Patch Kids. Wait, what’s happening in this scene now?”

I already have more than enough questions about the universe and my place in it. I’m not in the market for more. I am already unsure of my own views, which means I am a dimwit, but also fairly harmless, because only people who are stalwart in their beliefs are truly dangerous to others.

If ever the world needed people to be less sure of themselves and their ideas and their causes, this is the time. I’m never afraid of any idea. I fear only people who are 100 percent positive that their ideas are correct. For they are the ones who will lead us all to ruin and despair, if they go unchecked. If marijuana does anything, it certainly does make people question their own beliefs. And that is fundamentally good for the vast majority of people.

I suggest our state lawmakers travel to a state where it is legal. (It won’t be hard; we are surrounded by them.) Maybe they could even try it. Maybe they could see things differently. Then they could talk, honestly, about getting rid of a law that most people don’t follow. Instead of starting all their sentences with the name of the opposing party, they could get really creative and start them with a much shorter, much better word. A word that begins a famous Preamble: “We.”

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