Pot Girl, Marijuana Nation, Weed Takers: Get Over It

This is a screed, essay, or tirade meant to convince you that recreational marijuana usage is wrong. Hear me out.

Don't do it. It's not worth it. Allow me to explain.

 

First of all, I believe that medicinal marijuana, CBD oils, and certain hemp products have their good purposes to accomplish for human or animal use in medical ways, methods, and treatments, as so many other herbs, chemicals, narcotics, and drugs have done to help humanity and others. Hemp in and of itself has many virtues to contribute to the world in non ingestion ways. The legalization of medical "weed" and its derivatives makes all the sense in the world for the right reasons. There are cases where it is used as a palliative, to help small children or older folks with genetic or chronic physiological problems and conditions. As long as medical science confirms the real benefits of the usage of marijuana for medical reasons, I am good with it. Smoking anything into your lungs is not a good idea, you cannot convince me of that. Unless you are literally dying within minutes or hours, getting high on a lit doobie does not make any sense for the benefit of a person. It's a false sense of euphoria, and the negative consequences of it are so much worse.

Recreational ingestion of pot is not a good idea; in fact it is a dangerous way to deal with or experience life. I am of the opinion (which is being proven by scientists and researchers all the time) that about 15 percent of people who try something, say alcohol, or other things, probably to include gambling or other adrenaline related or emotionally invested pastimes, get some members of the community hooked, addicted, craving that thing uncontrollably, or at least to the point of serious detriment to the person exposed to it.

Is 15 out of 100 good enough chances to try something that you might get addicted to? 85 percent chances that no one gets physiologically or emotionally dependent on a weed, typically ingested into the lungs, that alters your mind and your mood, to be "high" on chemicals that alter your conscience?  

Addiction is one thing; we have controlled or tried to control this toxic, some say innocuous weed for long enough. Smoking any thing is wrong, it is not for the lungs, recreational or no. But the affects on the human brain? Atrocious, outrageous, stupid. Like alcohol in some ways, which leads to addiction, and alcohol becomes a driver of other caused death much more often than cannabis, granted, but this is not about alcoholic libations. This is about weed.

What other weeds do we ingest?

Weeds.

Really?

We resort to this herb and its chemicals to allay our fears or raise our hopes, or simply veg out and chill? To escape our sorrows or pains or challenges? Again, the medical variety can be justified, but it is illegal for a reason. It is dangerous, mind and mood altering, and like it or not, there are laws against it in much of the world that we live in. Just because in some places the law has permitted recreational use it, it is still a bad thing like tobacco and alcohol.

 

Anecdote

I taught a Spanish class, or rather classes, in the fall of 2013 after being away from the country for a while, not teaching very much. I finished out the quarter mid stream for a teacher who had quit inauspiciously in the fall of 2013. I was newly back from a year overseas with my family, community, trying to find the next big gig, which was surprisingly hard to do. I met the six or seven classes for a period of five consecutive weeks; I got to know many of the students decently; some of them knew me better, since there were many more of them than me.

A year or so later I met one of the students from that high school setting in a different part of the county altogether, while I was still job searching and substitute teaching: I came across this young lady who it was nice to re-connect with; she did not consider herself very successful, smart, or productive, at the Monroe School Alternative school were minors who were being given a second chance but were struggling to stay up with the law or grades, or motivation or mental health. Monroe was where some youth of the county are sent to reform and work back to get up in their grades and progress towards graduation and being a regular part of a good trajectory.

She confessed that she was caught in that past year, maybe the winter or spring after I had left, maybe she was a sophomore, with the possession of marijuana. We talked about it a little and I remember getting the feeling that she knew was involved in something dumb or destructive, but that she was in a bad place then and she was learning from her mistakes.

How many millions of Americans can say the same about marijuana, or tobacco, alcohol, or even over-eating?

We all have our weaknesses and frailties, our temptations and escapes, or cries for help.

She, I hope, learned from the mistake and will not return to it.

But, we never know.

Marijuana may seem like a good excuse for relaxation or escape, recreation and fun, perhaps, but it is not for that type of use.

Don't do it. Unless the doctor orders.

Find a hundred other things to engage in instead of weed.

There is a lot of good things to cultivate and involve the mind in, that will not impair your brain and thinking.

Not weed. Weed is dangerous, and for too many it is a way to destruction.

Stop smoking, dropping, ingesting cannabis.

Breaking the law, Competition, and Death

Okay, this is the last thing that I wanted to share about the "pot industry", as some might call it. It is business: there is a lot of money involved in buying and selling, mostly illicitly. By purchasing it illegally, we kill people, mostly poor people with little other opportunity, in the most brutal ways. If it is legalized as medicine, or even for recreation, it does not kill as much. But such a prohibited and profitable commodity ends up incarcerating, stunting the lives of, and killing a lot of people. Is it worth some people getting "high"?

How does the marijuana trade make everything so deadly? How does this happen?

Let me share a jello example. Let's pretend that Jello gelatin was made illegal for whatever reason, and that local, state, and federal authorities were cracking down on those who produced it, sold it, bought it, consumed it, or possessed it. We all know that jello is relatively harmless to humans, but maybe there is a chance for too much sugar, or fat. Fine. We can argue the correctness or justification of whether jello, cannabis, alcohol, or any product under the sun is harmful and should be legal or not. But when enough people, legislators, judges, and law enforcement back a policy and enforce it, we must play by these rules. Like the speed limit. Or car registrations. Or driver's licenses. Or taxes. When we cheat and go beyond or break the laws, we get caught and pay small or large consequences.

However, the marijuana and other illegal drug trade can be so profitable and so far off the regulations of fair trade and transparent profits, that many who get involved are willing to be violent and coercive when dealing in these off the book matters. Too many gangs and dealers, drug producers and runners, get so greedy and competitive that they wind up threatening each other, killing each other, and worse.

Mexico is a war zone now, not just because of marijuana but it is a part of it. There is a deadly math out there, I believe, that posits that for every "x" amount of grams of an illegal drug, a person is injured, threatened and harmed, and too often killed. Illicit drug math, maybe we call it.

So, if you smoke one gram of marijuana that was obtained illegally, you are contributing to death and ruin of others. No harm, no foul? Think again. This would be the same of jello if it were the product that were banned and not permitted. Those who attempt to profit outside the law become by definition dangerous and eventually deadly.

Breaking these rules and laws is like driving 160 miles per hour. It cannot sustain itself without killing.

And therefore, weed kills in the sheer greed of it. Like other drugs.

Here in the United States we have thousands of homicides every year. Chicago alone in 2020 had well over 700, I have heard lately. How many were due to illegal drug competition? The majority. Gang violence is mostly due to illegal drug markets.

Smoke reefer much? Maybe you only smoked one joint this past year. Maybe that means that instead of being the cause for one human being being out right killed grossly due to the illegal pot trade and its awful commerce, perhaps you were only a part of a Mexican in Puebla getting a finger cut off. No, your amount of participation in the illegal consumption of marijuana was minor. It took a hundred other consumers and smokers, sellers and dealers to get that 20 year-old Roberto Perez Polar butchered after six hours of torture. They didn't find his head until six months later, and they never found his arms or hands, or the part of the finger that you contributed to. No one will miss Roberto anyway, he had no kids and only a couple of really young sobrinos, or nephews and nieces. They should forget all about that tio soon enough.

Thanks, pot smoker! No blood, no problem. You never contributed directly, so why do you care?

Thousands of Mexicans every year, thousands of African-Americans every year, thousands of other nationalities jailed, imprisoned, beat up, killed. What does it matter to you where you got the weed?

Smoke on, bro. Doesn't hurt anyone.

Wake up.

Stop breaking the law and purchase legally. Stop the death cycle now. Do not consume illegal weed.

Oh, yeah, maybe my last thing: the "legal cannabis growers" in places like the Tri-County area of northern California? They break the law and cheat the tax system, too.

I know this through first hand witnesses.

Pot is rot. Deadly and dumb. There are 100 other escapes or past times that you could indulge in other than smoke or ingest weed.

1. Play a sport.

2. Play music.

3. Read.

4. Run.

5. Watch TV or film.

6. Serve the needy or anyone.

7. Work.

8. Learn.

9. Go to school.

10. Design programs.

11. Travel.

12. Write.

13. Dance.

14. Garden.

15. Work out.

16. Sing.

17. Anything but ingest the cannabis! Please.

 

My friend and student from Spanish class so many years ago, kicked out of your regular high school for smoking weed and having some in your locker? I truly hope you are beyond that scene now.

 

It is not worth it.

 

Don't do drugs.

 

Choose life.