Don’t Fool Yourself: The Legalization of Marijuana Will Absolutely Lead to More People Smoking Pot

by Thad McKraken on May 9, 2013

One of the strangest things about being an enthusiastic pot smoker is that you constantly meet people who aren’t high all the time, which often leaves you wondering “What the fuck is wrong with these people?” I have no idea, but what I do know is that pot’s illegality absolutely influences this decision for most of them, often subconsciously. Don’t believe me? The second legalization passed in Washington, members on every side of my wife and my family were all of a sudden looking for a hook up. Christmas shopping was super easy. I got weed for nearly everyone, because that’s what they fucking asked for. I’m not joking. Some of these people haven’t smoked in years.

Because of the drug war, pretty much everything said about recreational drugs publicly is essentially insane. About the biggest argument conservative types can come up with against loosening weed laws has always been, but, if we legalize marijuana, more people will smoke it. Yep, exactly. What’s funny is that a lot of pro-legalization advocates lie and argue, no it won’t, look at the numbers in Portugal or whatever. Total shit. Weed being legal is going to lead to a lot more people smoking it, and that’s probably the best thing that’s happened to our society culturally in ages. I personally think getting baked should be mandatory for anyone who is way too type A or high strung, which is why I always have a bag ready for my step mom when I visit. I feel bad for my dad.

Something I wasn’t aware of at all until just recently is just how few people actually get high on the regs. According to some data, that number’s as low as 14% in America. 14 fucking percent? We can do better than that. We need to get that number up to say, 80. I’m on it. But marijuana can increase schizophrenic tendencies and make people lazy, and I have this one friend who can’t handle it and, blar-ditty-blar-ditty-blar, shut the fuck up. You know how awful booze is for you? We drink it constantly…CONSTANTLY. Our entire social culture revolves around it. A specialty beer store opened up a half block away from my apartment about a year ago. The place is continuously packed to the point that it’s now difficult to find parking on my street. Because alcohol is fucking everywhere and officially condoned by society, people don’t think twice about slavishly devoting themselves to the culture that surrounds it.

I’ve always found these people sort of embarrassing and goddamn there’s a lot of them. “Beer! Beer! Beer! Fucking Beer man!” I’ve known so many folks like this over the years and what’s sad is that often it’s like watching a feedback loop of marketing made flesh. Yep, that is exactly the attitude that the people who profit from alcohol sales would love you to have. It’s also the most conformist position in the history of the universe. Yeah, that one recreational drug society lets you do legally. How benevolent of them to give us that illustrious privilege. Never mind that constant use keeps you stupid, ugly, lazy, and easy to control.

Now, me dissing booze is a bit hypocritical taking into consideration that roughly a year ago I was still pounding roughly 30 tall boys a week, but here’s the thing, I was largely doing this solely to fit into society. I’m well aware of that. I don’t fool myself. I drank a ton because that’s what people do and it was rather irresponsible. How irresponsible? Well, I’ve tried most illegal drugs and I’ve come up with this simple equation: If you take all the stupid shit I’ve done on all the illegal drugs I’ve taken over the years combined and multiply that number by a thousand, that’s roughly the stupid shit I’ve done drunk. Driving around Seattle completely blacked out? Yep. Sleeping with random strangers I met in bars? Sure. Sleeping with women I’d soberly sworn I wouldn’t touch? Indeed. Waking up with cracked ribs and having exactly no idea how that happened? Check and mate. It’s sort of amazing I’m still alive when you take how recklessly I drank in my youth into consideration, but I’m lucky. I once knew a guy who was paraplegic because his friends drunkenly dared him to jump off a roof one night and he did (take that LSD).

And that’s the thing, we all know alcohol is way more dangerous than pot. Everyone in law enforcement knows it. So what would be the problem per se if more people started to prefer getting high? That seems like the opposite of a problem and sort of like a solution. More specifically, why have alcohol companies been spending a ton of money to prevent that from happening for years? It’s not a fair fight. The legalization we’re talking about in regards to marijuana in Washington isn’t even close to putting it on a level playing field as booze or even pharmaceuticals. It’s a baby step in the right direction. There aren’t going to be pot clubs any time soon. I won’t be able to order a joint while waiting for dinner at a fancy restaurant or watching a band at a club. Ridiculous. We need to get to that point, the sooner the better, and freaks like me aren’t going to rest until we do.

You know what happened back in the 90’s? They started allowing pharmaceutical companies to put ads on television. Unsurprisingly, we now pop more pills than ever as a culture. See what I mean? They don’t just spend all this money on marketing because it’s fun to throw money away. Essentially, because of our batshit laws (which are increasingly bought and paid for), you can now invent medical conditions like Low T, come up with the antidote, advertise, sit back, and watch the money roll in. Hey, I’ve already got a condition that requires marijuana use, it’s called our-entire-society-is-a-bunch-of- boring-work-a-day-funnel-wealth to-the-top-horseshit-itis. My doctor told me I was lame as all get out, and so he prescribed me marijuana. Maybe now someday I’ll actually say something funny or interesting. Maybe.

Joking aside, here’s some actual behavior I’ve observed in the pot smokers I’ve known over the years. First there was my good friend in high school. Guy loved working out and built a gym in his basement. We used to get high and lift constantly. So, he then meets a nice conservative girl who doesn’t approve of him being a stoner. The solution? Instantly quit smoking pot to impress her and never turn back. He quit working out as well I might point out, but needless to say, our friendship didn’t survive too long after that. Nice enough guy.

There’s also at least five people I’ve known who have quit for incredibly non-specific reasons of conscience. When asked, they basically say, I’m getting older and I need to leave that part of my life behind. What they’re editing out is that this attitude comes entirely from the fact that it’s a crime and nowhere else. It doesn’t make any fucking sense otherwise and even they wouldn’t acknowledge this aspect of their decision i.e. you’re quitting getting high because of conformity. Did any of these people stop drinking? Nope. In fact, they almost all started drinking even more to make up for the lack of excitement they were losing by quitting weed. Again, I’ve known at least 5 people like this over the years. It’s always the exact same story. They feel compelled to clean up their pot smoking because society has deeply implanted the idea into their heads that it’s somehow a bad thing that they should be growing out of.

You know who else I’ve known a lot of over the years? People who occasionally smoke but basically have the attitude, I don’t like it much, makes me kind of paranoid, I do it a couple times a year on special occasions. What a bunch of pussies. Again, all of these people drink regularly. All of them. Most of them are total drunks when you get right down to it. Oh, so weed makes you a bit paranoid? Yep, that’s kind of what it does, took me years to get used to that and function properly. Alcohol makes you sick as shit, gain weight, and do the stupidest crap imaginable and yet you still drink like a champ. You brag about your drinking. Oh, conformity. If you went to bars, restaurants, and parties where everyone was smoking, where pot was being sold, you’d smoke way more often, just like you drink.

Then there’s the kids people, and I must say, I’ve never known any parent who doesn’t fall into this camp. We smoke, but we hide it from our kids. Why ever would you do that exactly? Answer: solely because it’s illegal. At every holiday gathering I’ve ever gone to, no one thinks twice about drinking in front of their kids. We do it in restaurants, at sporting events, even at freaking church gatherings. So why would we give a crap if kids see us doing a far less harmless drug? Because it’s illegal. That’s why. And that’s my point.

I previously wrote about how I can’t wait for pot marketing campaigns because I can’t think of anything that’s easier to sell. If pot is allowed to exist in the same parameters as say, alcohol, or even most pharmaceuticals, way more people are going to start blazing up and it’s going to be awesome. Don’t fool yourself with this pot rates are going to actually go down nonsense. The greatest value in psychedelic drugs is that they expand the imagination and I’ll be honest, a lack of imagination is EXACTLY what our culture suffers from at this point spiritually. We’re still talking about philosophers we basically know nothing about from 2,000 years ago, when we wouldn’t play a video game that’s over 3 years old. We’ve got some serious issues we’re going to have to resolve collectively, and maybe pot can help us come up with increasingly creative solutions to these problems that we’d never find on a 3 martini lunch or in an SSRI trance. Maybe we’ll start wondering why we buy non-stop useless consumer shit and finance endless wars when we could just get increasingly high, fuck more, and focus on raising our kids. I think that’s exactly what rich conservative assholes are afraid of and it’s up to people like me to tell them: be afraid, be very afraid.

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