Nice job, stoners: Legal pot making a whole generation poorer and more irresponsible
Image Credit: Danny Kresnyak via FlickrStart typing up the poorly spelled personal insults, fry brains.
Why do stoners hate the poor? Of course, it's kind of a silly question, because attaching a logical basis to anything stoners think is an exercise in absurdity. Stoners don't consider the ramifications of their actions. They care about one thing and one thing only - getting high, preferably with no legal consequences.
Maybe that's why pot legalization is gaining mainstream acceptance in today's generation, which is all about self-gratification and not at all about self-awareness or concern for how one's actions affect other people. Smoking pot is like any other bad habit: People of less means who come from poverty are more likely to let it get out of control because it's characteristic of them to be trapped in bad personal habits. So when you make it legal to get high, who do you think is going to do it more - and not only that, but spend a much larger percentage of their income on the pursuit of it?
And now there's some science to back that up:
The middle and upper classes have been the ones out there pushing for decriminalization and legalization measures, and they have also tried to demolish the cultural taboo against smoking pot. But they themselves have chosen not to partake very much. Which is not surprising. Middle-class men and women who have jobs and families know that this is not a habit they want to take up with any regularity because it will interfere with their ability to do their jobs and take care of their families.
But the poor, who already have a hard time holding down jobs and taking care of their families, are more frequently using a drug that makes it harder for them to focus, to remember things and to behave responsibly.
The new study, which looked at use rates between 1992 and 2013, also found that the intensity of use had increased in this time. The proportion of users who smoke daily or near daily has increased from 1 in 9 to 1 in 3. As Davenport tells me, “This dispels the idea that the typical user is someone on weekends who has a casual habit.”
Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and lecturer at Yale, says that “it is ironic that the people lobbying for liberalized marijuana access do not appear to be the group that is consuming the bulk of it.” Instead, it’s “daily and near-daily users, who are less educated, less affluent and less in control of their use.”
In fact, the typical user is much more likely to be someone at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, whose daily life is driven, at least in part, by the question of how and where to get more marijuana. Just consider the cost. Almost a third of users are spending a tenth of their income on marijuana. And 15 percent of users spend nearly a quarter of their income to purchase the drug. The poor have not only become the heaviest users, but their use is making them poorer.
The information has been available for a long time that, contrary to the story you're sold, marijuana is addictive - at least psychologically if not physically, and I'd argue it's both. All of us who've delved into this have known people, especially younger people, who quickly find themselves unable to function at any point in the day unless they're high.
And one behavior trait of addicts is that they spend more and more of their income on the pursuit of the drug. If you're earning below the poverty line but still spending a quarter of the money you do have on pot, you're screwing yourself in two ways. Not only are you pissing away your money, but you're turning yourself into a dumber and less responsible person, such that you're making it much less likely you'll ever achieve the things that would get you out of poverty.
And I know we'll get this many times over in the comments because it's programmed into them like robots, but for those of you actually reading beyond the headline, let's dispense with the moronic argument about it being "safer than alcohol." The argument is moronic because the thing that's safer than alcohol is sobriety. The thing that's safer than pot is not doing any drug at all.
This stupid argument presumes that everyone must use some sort of mind-altering substance, and it's just a matter of which one. Maybe that's true in their world, but it's not true in the world where responsible, clear-minded people operate. And that's the biggest problem with pot legalization: You're setting an even bigger flame to a fire of psychotic irresponsibility in the portion of society that needs anything but if it's going to turn the corner and change its fortunes.
I don't care what the government does for you. Your life is not going to improve if you're getting stoned instead of becoming clear-headed, forming better habits and making better decisions. And if the same people who are subsidizing your poverty are now going to make it easier for you to fry your brain, they are not your friends. They're happy to accelerate your demise as long as you keep voting for them so long as you can find your way to the voting booth, which won't be long if you keep this up.
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