I have traditionally HATED articles that are titled with questions as they are often excuses for somebody to ramble on about preconceived ideas that don't REALLY jibe with Reality™ and are mechanisms to let the author wax on at length.
A lot of times, said 'pieces' are filled with links that would purport to represent 'research' having been done and corroborating evidence is woven into the presentation of the idea or theory.
I see examples of this on the rec list today: a rather conspiratorial piece musing about earthquakes being caused by fracking - which I think DOES stand to reason, but could be completely full of horsefeathers.
There's one that simply lampoons the CT piece, and then there's a piece complaining that the 'community spotlight' has erred due to a lack of scientific oversight and, I suppose, arguing said CT piece maybe shouldn't have been posted.
So, far be it from me to pull a time-honored Daily Kos stunt and post apiece about MY issue and topic with the clever headlines of those articles mentioned above.
And because they title structure so BEAUTIFULLY lends itself to a brief reminder that marijuana prohibition is built on lies and horseshit and nothing less and that yes - it is entirely manmade. ALL the reasons for marijuana prohibition are nonsense. There isn't a salient reason for keeping the weed so illegal, so demonized; there's no reason to arrst people for it, there's certainly no reason to kill people over it, but it still happens.
There's no reason for cops to treat marijuana prohibition as Job #1 as it doesn't impact crime in this society. American police arrest 800000 Americans a year for nothing and you're not one bit safer, you're being billed out the wazoo for it and many of the people reading this are JUST FINE WITH IT.
This is because they actually believe the horseshit of ages - that reefer mad nonsense we were taught in school, that crap you see in Super Bowl ads, on the sides of buses, on the wall at the airport and all over tv and any webpage that happens to mention "marijuana".
All of it 100% Grade A propaganda bullshit.
As long as tobacco and alcohol are tolerated, anybody who opens their mouth to DEFEND the continuation of cannabis prohibition simply looks and sounds like a complete moron.
What? Marijuana MIGHT harm your lungs??????
Tobacco gives your ling cancers, and you don't even need to smoke it yourself - just be around it regularly. Everybody knows this.
What? Marijuana may alter your mood?
Alcohol is absolutely celebrated for mood-altering. Had a rough drive home? Have a drink to soothe those frazzled nerves.
What? Marijuana will cause you to go on to harder drugs?
Look... this is one you have to stop talking about. If you are going to talk about "a gateway effect" put on a flapper dress or wax your mustache because here in the 21st Century, that crap has been beaten to death repeatedly - prohibitionists are the ONLY people who still carp about this crap. Them and truly ignorant people. But then I am being redundant.
What?? Marijuana will make you stupid?
I had always heard this and I suppose - yeah - if you smoke up like Cheech and Chong, you might dull your brain, but that's really more bullshit too:
Taken together, these studies demonstrate that popular stereotypes of marijuana users are unfair and untrue. While it’s definitely not a good idea to perform a cognitively demanding task (such as driving!) while stoned, smoking a joint probably also won’t lead to any measurable long-term deficits. The Dude, in other words, wasn’t dumb because he inhaled. He was dumb because he was The Dude. (All those White Russians probably didn’t help, either.)
Furthermore, there’s some intriguing evidence that marijuana can actually improve performance on some mental tests. A recent paper by scientists at University College, London looked at a phenomenon called semantic priming. This occurs when the activation of one word allows us to react more quickly to related words. For instance, the word “dog” might lead to decreased reaction times for “cat,” “pet” and “Lassie,” but won’t alter how quickly we react to “chair.”
Interestingly, the scientists found that marijuana seems to induce a state of hyper-priming, in which the reach of semantic priming extends to distantly related concepts. As a result, we hear “dog” and think of nouns that, in more sober circumstances, would seem rather disconnected, such as “leash” or “hair.” This state of hyper-priming helps explain why cannabis has been so often used as a creative fuel, as it seems to make the brain better at detecting those remote associations that lead to radically new ideas.
I apologize for falling back on scientific studies, but sometimes it's necessary to have "facts" even though many otherwise intelligent, educated people SIMPLY BELIEVE everything they have ever been told about the weed. And they are WRONG.
What?? Relegalizing marijuana will put your children at some sort of risk??
Hardly. Relegalization MEANS REGULATION.
JUST LIKE ALCOHOL AND TOBACCO. Regulated.
Currently "prohibition" is really a massive celebration of marijuana being UNREGULATED and most of the people I buy from are younger. Young people have considerably less to lose than us old folks, which is upside down and backwards.
Regulation means somebody else produces marijuana - a proper company, not a criminal cartel.
Regulation means that there are limits on how it is sold and to whom - prohibition fails miserably on this front as well.
Regulation means taxation. You know "generating revenues"? Revenue is what the government calls your money when it takes it. Americans will GLADLY generate revenue by buying marijuana legally at a store of their choice.
Meanwhile, your kids join those bozos hanging around in parking lots trying to find somebody to buy them beer and cigarettes. You'll notice we don't make beer and cigarettes illegal just to keep them away from "The Chillllllll-drennnnnnn".
Nope.
We sell them REGULATED and ENFORCE the LAWS in an attempt to PREVENT SMOKING.
So, yeah, this whole "marijuana is evil" schtick is just bullshit, created by men.
Artificial.
Spurious.
FAKE.
It's totally and completely false but America has a complete ad undying allegiance to it and it's profound, mind-numbing stupidity.