TokeTillYouDrop

I was recently talking with my father in the car about cannabis. A very small part of the argument really made me believe that a negative view of cannabis is really some sort of societal or government propaganda.

One point my father brought up is that very few people who smoke cannabis at a fairly young age (16-21) are very unsuccessful. Unfortunately for both sides, there is no statistic or experience that could prove this theory. Any persons' experiences are not enough to make a statement about the effects of a drug that over twenty million Americans use on a regular basis. But that is besides the point. The diolague is as follows:

Dad: Very few people who smoke at a young age every amount to anything.
Me: Well think of Bill Maher, Barack Obama, Michael Phelps,...me
Dad: Barack Obama smoked a little bit in college.
Me: Obama "inhaled frequently" and admitted to smoking at a young age on national TV.

Here is the defining moment...

Dad: Well, you named a few out of millions that are successful...

This is what puts me at awe. He is willing to argue that Obama smoked the occasional joint without any concrete detail, then accept what he has been told and change his argument. He didnt care to research Obama (why would he?), but he decided to make a statement backed by nothing but what he had assumed. He didnt know about Obama's cannabis use, but acted as though he did. Why?

Thats why I am so confused. This is the kind of thing that would actually confirm an idea for me. This is a man who has admitted to smoking pot before, experimenting with acid, and drinking quite regularly. He also agrees that there are appropriate times to smoke pot as well. So why is pot engraved in his mind as generally, in most circumstances, negative?

This is my idea:
I now think that there is a simple answer. The government needs to keep pot legal to gain revenue from alcohol and tobacco taxes so it demonizes pot in many ways.
1. Its illegal!
2. Reefer Madness, D.A.R.E? Classic brainwashing. Educate from a young age that weed causes your lungs to die and your brain to become oatmeal. Next, have the government make it a part of the curriculum. Now the youth and parents think that smoking pot is equivalent to smoking ten packs of cigarettes a day.
3. Wrongly classify it. Call it a class-1 drug. Yeah, it's extremely dangerous and has no medical value. Call it a drug, not a plant. It's food, you can eat it!
4. Ad council, Above the influence. That government funded advertisement only demonizes pot. How about heroin, cocaine, ALCOHOL? No! Pot makes you a deflated person without a soul who can't look into the mirror. If you smoke pot, it will burn a hole into your brother's hand!

From a young age, people are taught this. Even my father, who used to regularly smoke pot, shot it down and demonized it. This proves society has a profound effect on people and simple personal experimentation isn't enough to change a mind.

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emuhhleee

i agree. i think it's pretty pointless for them to spend millions of dollars for funding against marijuana. when in reality, people need funding against cocaine addicts, meth heads, crack heads & alcoholism. it's pretty ridiculous.

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troublemaker_42

To me, its a matter of intelligence. Any rational person should be able to look at the data availble, and quickly and easily determine that cannabis is a fairly benign substance that carries with it few risks, basically NO risk for occasional use, and certainly far safer than alcohol and/or tobacco no matter how you choose to intepret the data. If you took all the bullshit out of the equation, only those profoundly stupid or simply fundamentally against intoxication of any kind would choose to demonize it. However, if you tell the same lies often enough, people will generally accept them as truths. Your dad is a prime example. I don't believe he's dumb, but he's been brainwashed. Its people like him that irritate me the most. He knows better, but instead choosees to believe what he's been told, rather than what he's lived through. He KNOWS weed is relatiovely harmless, but yet can't wrap his head around the fact millions of successful people inbibe on cannabis daily. He's been TOLD...REPEATEDLY...that pot is somehow bad, and he's heard it often enough to believe it, which is just flat out sad.

However, I don't believe its an attempt to steer people towards alcohopl and/or tobacco. If weed was legalized today, I doubt very much that tax revenue on tobacco and alcohol would be affected in any major fashion. Why? Simply put, people don't necessarily base their drug of choice on legal status. If they did, I'd be a drinker and a smoker, not a toker, because, from a legal standpoint, they are "safer". If weed was legalized tomorrow, very few drinkers would likely quit drinking and few smokers would suddenly find themselves without a nicotine addiction. Alcohol and tobacco sales really don't face much of a danger from weed, becasue people don't automatically switch their intoxicant of choice or their addictions to what is legal at the moment. Amsterdam, which tolerates weed and alows it to be sold openly in coffeeshops, actually has a lower per capita useage of mj than the US.

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Ted Nugent: "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic."


If total government control equals safety, why are prisons so dangerous?

TokeTillYouDrop

I agree with you too trouble but when things are illegal, people tend to demonize them.

cj117

I've been thinking about something I read the other day. It's really interesting to know that the government is well aware that their ABOVE THE INFLUENCE and anti-marijuana ads actually seemed to correlate with an increase in marijuana use during the years they were most abundant.

Simply put, people started smoking weed MORE as a result of this advertising. Apparently they did a study on the effectiveness of these advertisements and found that result. Now what they did was reveal to the public that their advertisements were EFFECTIVE in reducing the amount of smoking among teens or adults or something. When actually the opposite was true.

They went on to produce even more advertisements.

Now this tells me one of two things:

Either the government is truly idiotic, which I find hard to believe, I think more that they are an entity that is quite intelligent... in thinking this war is successful. I don't believe this is the case.

The other is that what the government is doing is preparing the nation for legalization by preparing a large consumer base. Why would they be doing this? PROFIT.
Or perhaps it's something more sinister we are yet to discover?

The more they glamorize cannabis by spending money to get rid of it, the more youth want to try it. More people are understanding that cannabis is not entirely bad for you, and is in fact a pretty safe way to enjoy a natural drug. Even most people who are staunchly against marijuana acknowledge that it has medicinal value, and it's only a matter of time before it is finally legalized. We on this board understand this.

The real question though, is, why is the government behaving this way?
Genuine propaganda? Or consumer base preparation?

Thoughts? Ideas?

Doc Zee

The Union: The Business Behind Getting High

This documentary basically lays it all out step by step for you - definitely worth a watch. I've been pro-MJ for a long time, but didn't actually realize exactly how ridiculous prohibition is till I saw this.

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"We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
- Decca Recording Company, rejecting the Beatles, in 1962

yoman3

Ya, but until the pro-pot movement gets national attention (I mean, more than just a few scattered "debates" across various news channels), this isn't really going to change. Everyone who is either pro-pot, agnostic about it, or doesn't care either way KNOWS all of this propaganda stuff is a lie, and than the pro-legalization movement actually makes some sense.

The people who are just ignorant about the subject as well as the people who are willingly ignorant (those that KNOW all the facts, but choose just to dismiss them) take in all this propaganda as fact, and they spout it out to others as fact, and others follow their words as fact. It's a vicious cycle.

It's those that are on the fence about legalization, or just ignorant about all of the pro- arguments (and not willingly ignorant, they just didn't know) that need to be informed correctly. Those that don't know can't be blamed for spouting propaganda as truth - once they find out the facts, or once someone shows them the facts, they might (hopefully probably) turn to the pro- legalization side.


It's the willingly ignorant ones that I hate so much. They either 1) know all the facts about legalization and the good it will do and just choose to completely ignore it like they aren't even there. These are usually the people that get something out of having pot illegal (big tobacco, alcohol, etc) or 2) have been so brainwashed by the propaganda that they can't even see the proper arguments for legalization. No matter how much correct info someone shows them, no matter how many times they tell them, the ignorant person will just not change his/her mind. It's ridiculous.

atthedrivein

I don't know how old you are, but if you are underage, he could just not like the idea of his son getting high. Even if he knows that it is safe, the idea of his kid getting high could make him uncomfortable. So he could just be lying to try and get you to stop.

TokeTillYouDrop

I am 20 years old, good job, in college.

Desperado

That is interesting, it makes sense doesn't it? (well, how ever much sense the government can make..)

If your idea is true, then why are they behaving this way indeed?

Hum if we assume the government is not evil, and is not some organization out to get the population at large then your idea of them using the ad's as a consumer mark up is a good idea, and the most plausible (well the "Logical" (in The "logic" (in quotes) of the Western society of Materialism) one)

But if we take a more Sinister view of the government, then what can we come up with? Are they Toying with us? Keeping this Illegal, Just to experiment (For an unknown reason) on the population at large? Are they using us as pawns, just for fun, to watch us skwerm under their microscope? Are they doing this because they truly, prejudicially think Drugs are bad, for if we take the 1984 scenario, Everyone in the society (EVERYONE, even the people at the top) are brainwashed into believing what the party says is the truth by Double speak and so fourth. So maybe our government has brainwashed themselves into thinking drugs are bad, and since they think they should be our "parents", in a sense, they should look out for what they think is bad, and make anything illegal that they think will harm us?

Just some thoughts. But Are we all saying here that Marijuana is Good? rather than bad? Because there I can't agree with you all.... I am Pro Marijuana being legalized, and I do smoke it, But I do not think it is god's gift from heaven and is ALWAYS a good thing. If you think is it a bad thing, it will BE a bad thing, and the opposite is true too.

So for us to say that weed is holier than water, and that the ganja should be held on pedestals for all to worship is the Only thing and the right thing? I can't agree.. Keep it illegal if that would happen. I say that Weed should be considered like anything that is different to yourself; understand what it can do, and use what you know and have learn to use it in the best way possibly, which hopefully would be in moderation and consideration.

We should be informed of the TRUTH rather than lies. Be informed that you can have Good times, as well as bad times, with inhaling the lofty smoke. We should not be shown crap..But not shown info about it being godly either.