America Is Too Stoned Already: We Don't Need More Marijuana Availability

That's where marijuana should remain. Smoky dorm rooms and basements where stupid kids and their even stupider older siblings hang out and solve the ills of the world. But it doesn't belong on our streets or offices, and relaxing federal restrictions will do exactly that. Hell, it's already everywhere in some cities...it's impossible to walk down a NYC street and not smell it.

Rescheduling Marijuana Is the Wrong Call

When it comes to drugs, it’s hard to imagine a Republican president deciding to pick up where his Democratic predecessor left off. Yet that is what President Donald Trump did yesterday, directing the Department of Justice to finalize a process, started under former President Joe Biden, that would recategorize how the federal government views marijuana. In so doing, Trump hands a huge financial benefit to the businesses seeking to profit from making pot more mainstream.

There’s no way of understanding the decision without seeing it as a triumph of commerce over long-standing cultural concerns, and of the libertarian, podcast bro faction of the Right over its traditional socially conservative wing. It’s also the wrong move. Improving the commercial viability of marijuana won’t make America’s citizens healthier or her cities more livable. If the goal of federal policy is to make America great, rather than just delivering benefits to a well-connected industry, yesterday’s executive order should be contested—and rescinded if possible.

[Yes, there is a song behind the graphic!]

posted by CBD at 02:15 PM

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