Why conservatives don't like marijuana

[Farm Boy]

There was an opportunity to regulate, and excuse, and so the profit was hijacked for rent. But no, the argument of secondhand smoke absolutely falls flat when there is no smoke. If something is so low key that those who would punish you for it don't notice, I hardly chalk that up in the positive column of the ... evaded.

You'll never get it out of the hands of the corrupt in our supermajority prone state. But it's not like that's unpopular. It is very popular to feel entitled to somebody else's work. Men are absolutely off the charts stunning at it, and women are no slouches either.

 

[Hygro]

My squirmy wormy, Republicans are doing it worse by your metrics.

 

[Angst]

Can you give an example of something that causes moral outrage without moral digust?

disgust is not you just not liking something. the distinction is technical within certain academic fields. you can be averse to something without having that specific reaction of disgust to something, and you can actively work to have something go away without being disgusted by it. i'm talking about a specific kind of disgust that right wingers just feel more of. it's also demonstrated in brain chemistry, as some parts of your brain light up when disgusted, and some parts of your brain light up when angry. if you want to fundamentally engage with what i talk about here, you have to detach disgust from the vernacular you use daily and disgust as it's present in moral theory and psychology. even something as dumb as Inside Out can make a shorthand demonstration of the distinction.

like, outrage that isn't based on disgust. i don't even know where to start. i could name a number of examples, but you'd go "well i find that disgusting" and then you'd be missing the specific way we react to that. again, detach from the vernacular. you can feel unpleasant about something, but disgust is a very specific kind of unpleasantness.

so. idk. iran rebellion, for example. even if we say the current rebellion is about the unjust murder of one person (it isn't, it's about long term repression, brutality, question of rights and economic hardship), people aren't going on the streets because of the bodily situation of mahsa amini, they are going on the streets because she was unjustly killed. the government, on the other hand, is enforcing what it is because of disgust of certain things women can do, western influences (them gays) and so on.

like, the bodily situation. there's a difference between being angry over at her being killed and being angry over having to see her mangled body. that's kind of a connection a lot of left wingers don't get about extreme conservatism and it's practices. when they see gays kiss, they feel the same we do when we see body horror. they are grossed out on a primal level because it does not fit what they think bodies are supposed to do.

in marijuana, they feel it's gross. morally gross, racially gross, politically gross, but gross. because it's drugs and drugs change behavior. all while generally not feeling gross over wine, because it's part of the space as is.

 

[Farm Boy]

My squirmy wormy, Republicans are doing it worse by your metrics.

I think you're right. There was a reason I hoped they come around soon. Nothing we've discussed is upstream of that.

 

[Hygro]

I think you're right. There was a reason I hoped they come around soon. Nothing we've discussed is upstream of that.

Maybe they need your help.

 

[Sonereal]

Conservatives* don't like legalized marijuana because the War on Drugs is entirely predicated on the destruction of black and brown communities and political power and the student revolts of the late-1960s/early-1970s. Everything else is just, honestly, theater and set dressing.

*lower-case conservatives since the Democratic leadership, when push comes to shove, also stands in opposition for pretty much the same reason

 

[Farm Boy]

Maybe they need your help.

I talk with people. The younger ones don't seem to need a lot of convincing on this one. And they're worse than the old ones I talk to.

 

[Birdjaguar]

women with pants were weird. so they didn't like that. like, yes, they also didn't like it because it represented other forces they didn't like. but understand that when a conservative sees these things, aside from all other things, their reaction is disgust. it's primal, immediate, in the stomach. after women with pants has become commonplace, it loses its sense of weirdness. so now they don't care about it anymore. they've acclimated and focus on other things that disgust them.

When my wife started college at University of NC at Chapel Hill in 1967, women were not allowed to were pants/shorts to classes (studio art classes were the exception). She, being from CT, ignored the rule. It took two more years for that rule to be toppled. They also had to be their dorm by 8:00 each weekday evening. Of course men had no such restrictions.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

So you don't hate marijuana, you hate breathing in second-hand smoke

1. Your last point is correct. Your first point is not.

2. Don't tell me what I hate or don't hate. Only I get to make those statements (given that I'm the one living in my mind and body and the rest of you aren't, and while telepathy is fascinating, it's still in the realm of SF/F).

3. There's a reason why marijuana consumption triggered a change to the distracted driving laws here. Driving while high is illegal.

Can you give an example of something that causes moral outrage without moral digust?

The oil is great and you get way more bang for your buck (15min high vs 3-4hr high) plus you don't smell like a pothead and make Valka sad sick.

Fixed that for you.

Years ago, I could tell exactly which of my typing clients were smokers. Their papers reeked of smoke, and one time it was so bad that my grandmother clipped each individual page to the clothesline outside to air them out for a few hours. That paper went to the back of the list to be done, because otherwise I'd be constantly coughing and dealing with a brutal headache.

When my wife started college at University of NC at Chapel Hill in 1967, women were not allowed to were pants/shorts to classes (studio art classes were the exception). She, being from CT, ignored the rule. It took two more years for that rule to be toppled. They also had to be their dorm by 8:00 each weekday evening. Of course men had no such restrictions.

Did she suffer consequences for breaking the rules?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Did she suffer consequences for breaking the rules?

99% of the women always wore dresses so she was mostly ignored except by some of the women in her dorm who looked at her funny. Almost all the women at UNC at that time were from NC and well trained in being proper. Blue jeans were not accepted as proper attire for men on campus until 1968.

 

[El_Machinae]

Moral outrage and moral disgust will seem similar to people, but remember that people with different political leanings also have both different intuitions and weightings. So, you can insist that they're the same, but if you allow them to be different, you can see how they track differently.

Moral outrage will be different from disgust in that 'disgust' will track onto actual sensory inputs of noxious stimuli. There's a constellation of 'offenses' that conservatives will feel that will track back to disgust at some bodily sensation (or association).

 

[Farm Boy]

Sadists will hide behind both.

 

[Lexicus]

1. Your last point is correct. Your first point is not.

But you said you were fine with your housekeeper using marijuana in non-smoked form.

 

[Arwon]

I don't think it's really axiomatic that "conservatives hate marijuana", it's more just the case that in a lot of the west, there there are a lot of cultural and identity affiliations, and a lot of simple inertia, which cause much of the right to be opposed to sensible drug policy. Most of the support for the ongoing criminalisation of personal possession of drugs is pretty much mindless status quo bias and not liking the left and progressivism in general.

We've seen this very clearly locally here in the ACT. The Labor-Greens coalition government here legalised cannabis (possession and growing but not sale) in 2019, after the previous position of three decades of decriminalisation. Since the early 1990s the conservative Liberals had been satisfied with cannabis decriminalisation, ie possession and small growing only attracting token non criminal fines, even though in much of the country including the largest cities and states, cannabis remains criminalised under both Labor and the Liberals. At no point did the conservatives here ever suggest they wanted to properly roll this advancement back and re-criminalise cannabis. Status quo was fine for them.

So when cannabis was legalised, the Liberals initially opposed it of course. Then just a year later, at the election, they declared reversing it wasn't a priority. Once the new status quo of possession and small growing legality was established, suddenly they stopped opposing the thing they previously opposed, when it was a proposed reform and not the settled reality.

As well as often coming to quickly tolerate any advances in sensible drug policy once they become the status quo, when pressed, conservative/right wing defences of the ongoing criminalisation tend to be incoherent, inconsistent or focused on side issues which aren't actually about whether personal use of cannabis or other drugs risks a heavy fine or prison sentence.

After the cannabis reforms, we've just had possession decriminalisation laws passed here for most drugs as well. Further sensible progress that's way ahead of the rest of the country. One of the big complaints from the Liberals and cop union about this has been drug driving enforcement. Which makes no sense because it's already illegal to drive under the influence of drugs and alcohol, and still obviously will be. They can't argue the merits of continuing to apply large fines and criminal records and the threat of jail terms for the mere act of having a couple of MDMA pills, so they bring up unrelated stuff instead, as if the change in possession penalty has any impact on driving under the influence.

 

[Lexicus]

If something is so low key that those who would punish you for it don't notice,

On one level, yes. On another level it's not like you necessarily notice everything that's bad for you. When i eat nitrite-riddled bacon i don't "notice" it giving me ass cancer but it still is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

But you said you were fine with your housekeeper using marijuana in non-smoked form.

That doesn't mean I approve of it in general. She uses it for medicinal reasons, not recreational, and isn't under the influence when she's working. She and I have had arguments over some of her preferences (she's vegan and has at times decided to lecture me on the contents of my fridge, not caring that milk, eggs, and meat/fish are essential for me), but she's never thrown the "it's legal, it's my right, so STFU" attitude at me that I've received from others when asking them to be considerate of people with respiratory allergies.

Funny thing about getting high: different people have very different ways. I've seen my cats high on honeysuckle twigs (none were into catnip). I know a guy who gets high on cinnamon. I myself got quite pleasantly buzzed on a particular kind of hot chocolate one time. But none of those are/were illegal substances or affected anyone else.

 

[Farm Boy]

On one level, yes. On another level it's not like you necessarily notice everything that's bad for you. When i eat nitrite-riddled bacon i don't "notice" it giving me ass cancer but it still is.

Oh sure. Lots to say about lots of stuff. VD and the like!

 

[Lexicus]

That doesn't mean I approve of it in general. She uses it for medicinal reasons, not recreational, and isn't under the influence when she's working. She and I have had arguments over some of her preferences (she's vegan and has at times decided to lecture me on the contents of my fridge, not caring that milk, eggs, and meat/fish are essential for me), but she's never thrown the "it's legal, it's my right, so STFU" attitude at me that I've received from others when asking them to be considerate of people with respiratory allergies.

I'm a heavy weed smoker and consider it my right to smoke weed, and also consider it pretty heinous if you want the police to arrest me for smoking. But if you ask me nicely to keep it away from you because of your respiratory issues of course I'll say "that's fine", and do it.

Oh sure. Lots to say about lots of stuff. VD and the like!

Anyway, were you referring to vaping when you were saying there's no smoke? Sure, there's no smoke, but has it been definitively established that there is no second-hand exposure to bad chemicals from vapes?

 

[Farm Boy]

It was Skoal that was coming to mind.

 

[Lexicus]

It was Skoal that was coming to mind.