Why conservatives don't like marijuana

Instead of everyone by themself, what if everyone worked to improve society for everyone?
Easier said than done but yes the only alternative is mass suicide.
Keep in mind even the rich in USA have worse life expectency than the rich in other developed countries and probably less free time as well so the inequality if not nessicarly that good for even them, probably because resources don't really go towards developing the country.
Economy is based on short term gain for stockholders and the financial elites which I agree doesn't serve even them let alone the masses.

To believe "the market" (& to believe the market is free takes as much faith as believing Genesis is deliberately true) will lead to the best outcomes for all is kind of like evolution will lead to the best for all species (99.9999% of whom would beg to differ).

It's simply mental laziness usually done by those who are benefiting from the current order (but as you say not even as much as they potentially could)
 
Wondering if anyone here has ever asked a conservative instead of automatically assuming racism :rolleyes:
 
Non-racist conservatives are so willing to make common cause with racist conservatives that it makes it a really fine hair to split.

I mean, also, insofar as the thesis is that conservatives are largely engaging in motivated reasoning to support their kneejerk emotional reactions, all without any self-awareness or introspection, conservatives would be the last source of reliable information about what's happening inside their own minds.
 
From conservatives that I know, their opinion on drugs is mixed. They have an understanding that even the mildest of illegal drugs is harmful, but also that legal drugs like alcohol can be just as bad if not worse. They don't like that illegal drugs exist, but as they do, the best way is to treat it like tobacco or alcohol to make sure it's as safe as possible to consume.
 
Non-racist conservatives are so willing to make common cause with racist conservatives that it makes it a really fine hair to split.
I'm sure the distinction is hard to make when you're so far down the ideological rabbit hole that everything seems racist
 
Thats great. I look forward to you sharing an opinion sometime.
You mean like the one I gave you? Suggesting that people are racist for not liking something that you view as something for black people is bonkers. You made this about race, no one else did.
 
You mean like the one I gave you? Suggesting that people are racist for not liking something that you view as something for black people is bonkers. You made this about race, no one else did.
I don't mean to argue for him, but he didn't. He said non-racist (specifically, let me re-emphasise: non-racist) conservatives are so willing to make cause with racist conservatives. You jumped to "Senethro thinks everything is racist". Which is silly, because he explicitly clarified the demographic of conservatives that are non-racist.

Allow me to put it a different way. If someone runs on a platform of equality, and repeatedly panders to racists and their ilk, are they actually running on a platform of equality? Or is the end result decidedly unequal?
 
You mean like the one I gave you? Suggesting that people are racist for not liking something that you view as something for black people is bonkers. You made this about race, no one else did.
Haha what? I feel like you're trying to continue a conversation you started with someone else?
 
Seems like the traditional conservative philosophy is that unearned pleasure will rot society. The value is in the human doing not the human being.

But marijuana gives pleasure for free, it helps you appreciate what you already have as opposed to fueling the covetous race for more.

In the overwhelmed, overworked and uninspired I can understand why it might instill a sense of apathy (towards the goals of business, in other words the ideals of feeding the economic machine that citizens have been fed as what creates their value) but I don't think the medicine itself is inherently anti-productivity (any more than a sane steady state economy centered around human flourishing is inherently anti-productive.

The idea that if you give someone a break they will become lazy and selfish is mostly wrong imo. Outside of a percentage of parasites (who ironically are heavily represented in the top tiers of society and perpetuate the culture of hard work as the highest ideal) I feel most people want to be useful to others, they just see their employment as neutral or even against true productivity).

I had this better organized in my head yesterday but anyway I think left leaning politicians should lean more heavily into this issue as the majority of people (@ least in usa) support its legalization including many who otherwise self identify as right wing.
I am a conservative, and I am against marijuana, and let me tell you why. I smoke pot for about six years. I quit when I was 22. But it opened the door. I was no longer shy about trying drugs That made me feel good. Before pot I wanted nothing to do with any drug.

A few years later, someone approached me with Percocet. Of course I was curious about how they would make me feel. You can use your imagination and take it from there. I ended up on a methadone rehabilitation program. Some people might say that it’s my fault. That is BS! Marijuana was not addictive. So it taught me that I could feel good and not become physically addicted. When a “friend“ brought me Percocet, what the heck did I know? There was no Internet. It was all word of mouth. If I had never tried marijuana, my life would be completely different. At the methadone program, I spoke to many, many people who had the same experience as I did. Marijuana is no damn good!

Even if only 25% (a conservative estimate) of marijuana users started to take other types of drugs, that is quite a large amount of people.
 
Wondering if anyone here has ever asked a conservative instead of automatically assuming racism :rolleyes:
No, they have not. Their information comes from their circle of cancel culture and CNN watching friends. They don’t live in real life. They don’t have real life experience with conservatives. I know that to be true, because I am a conservative and have never been approached by one of these self righteous, race baiting ideologues.
 
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.
I still stand by this, with the added note that the right wing national media has started calling these sensible reforms insane and campaigning against the right of the ACT to govern itself according to what the voters vote for.

But even then, a mere handful of years after cannabis legalisation, they're not even bothering to call for the recriminalisation or even re-civil penalties-ification of cannabis. That status quo is entrenched.

The whole argument is centring around other drugs, and even then they're bowing to changed perceptions by still falsely portraying the new laws as a more radical legalisation of all drugs, rather than mere decrimininalisation which will change very little about current enforcement (nobody is currently even in jail for possession and consumption under the criminal laws).
 
I'm not a conservative, but Joe Bigg's lived experience is, from a theoretical standpoint in my case, basically why I am pretty heavily skeptical of marijuana legalization. The "gateway drug" effect. In Ohio, the gateway is indeed usually to oxycodone, although fentanyl is probably close to or surpassing it nowadays. Meanwhile, I'm reading about the effects of Oregon's decriminalization of all drugs, and even centrist-leaning-liberal outlets such as the New York Times are telling horrifying tales of the results, supported not just by anecdotes but by statistics as well:

In Portland, a record-breaking number of daily emergencies has strained every part of the system: 911 hold times have quintupled since 2019, the average police response has slowed to nearly an hour, firefighters work overtime to handle more overdoses than actual fires, and each week there are no ambulances left to respond to hundreds of medical emergencies.

Oregon is a worst-case, but I agree with Joe that marijuana legalization can have that gateway drug effect in other states as well. And I was surprised just how many dispensaries there were on a recent trip to Colorado.

In the mid-2010s I voted against Ohio's marijuana decriminalization law because it would have granted an oligopoly to a small number of companies, but likely would have voted for it had that provision not been present; it failed by a wide margin. Nowadays, having seen other states go first, I'd probably vote against it regardless.

Not that it can't be used responsibly, I know people who use it in moderation. But given the significant drug problems in many parts of the country, including southeastern Ohio and Appalachia (a heavily white area, for those not familiar with the area, and who are likely to claim racism as the reason for not wanting to legalize), legalizing a gateway drug doesn't seem like a good idea to me currently.
 
IDK. If "gateway" drugs are a problem, and if drugs pushed from within the system are the problem, then why weed opposition and not action to deal with alcohol, nicotine or legally acquired opioids?

Problems should actually be addressed directly instead of just flailing around looking for a group of "bad people" to inconvenience.
 
The thing I don't get about conservative arguments for marijuana is that how does sending people who use marijuana to prison for six months solve anything?

I mean I get it from the government standpoint - a lot of people in government want to send people to prison for marijuana use not because they think it helps anyone but because it makes private prisons a lot of money. But from the theoretical conservative standpoint of someone who is really concerned about marijuana consumption - how does prison help at all?
 
I am a conservative, and I am against marijuana, and let me tell you why. I smoke pot for about six years. I quit when I was 22. But it opened the door. I was no longer shy about trying drugs That made me feel good. Before pot I wanted nothing to do with any drug.

A few years later, someone approached me with Percocet. Of course I was curious about how they would make me feel. You can use your imagination and take it from there. I ended up on a methadone rehabilitation program. Some people might say that it’s my fault. That is BS! Marijuana was not addictive. So it taught me that I could feel good and not become physically addicted. When a “friend“ brought me Percocet, what the heck did I know? There was no Internet. It was all word of mouth. If I had never tried marijuana, my life would be completely different. At the methadone program, I spoke to many, many people who had the same experience as I did. Marijuana is no damn good!

Even if only 25% (a conservative estimate) of marijuana users started to take other types of drugs, that is quite a large amount of people.
Couple of things. First and foremost, you're extrapolating from anecdotal evidence. I can put my own anecdotal evidence opposed to that saying that I, or anyone I know who smokes pot doesn't use hard drugs besides from alcohol and coffee.

Second, it really is your fault, since it was your decision. And you took the wrong lesson:
So it taught me that I could feel good and not become physically addicted

Third, I am amazed that you didn't know harddrugs were addictive because there wasn't any internet. It's pretty common knowledge. I have been smoking pot for 35 years and yes, before the internet I was well aware of the dangers of harder drugs. Before the internet it was possible to inform yourself.

Lastly, your "conservative estimate" is based on nothing at all.
 
What make you think right wing is for individual freedom, you can probably find so many examples of that not being true.

I've just re-read the thread, and a year later (almost), I have this to say about the right-wing and individual freedom:

They want individual freedom for themselves and people who think like they do. They don't think anyone else should have it. Right now, they especially don't think that LGBT people should have it.

And from what I've observed in the comment sections of the Canadian news sites and provincial political pages on FB, most of them who screech about "freedom" and that "evil" Justin Trudeau in Ottawa (our Prime Minister), don't even understand that the "freedom" they claim they want is something they already have, or if they don't have it, it's because of the hate laws.

Some of the truckers who were part of the Freedumb Convoy are musing about doing it again - getting into their trucks, driving to Ottawa, and demanding the arrest of Trudeau. They claim he wants to make everyone into slaves. Some of these people are those who have told the Alberta Premier that if she doesn't put in legislation they like, they will remove her from office as they removed the previous premier. Not that she needs much convincing anyway, since she's every bit as hateful and ignorant as they are.
 
Also the legalization of marijuana has cut back opiate abuse in states with high opiate abuse that were late to the legalization of marijuana.

So while you (@Joe Biggs) might construct a story about how smoking illegal pot at 16 led you into opiate addiction, and therefore it should stay illegal so that that would have never happened to you(??) the data is that legal pot at 21 has the opposite effect on society.
 
If there was an actual link between the frequency and ease of cannabis use and increased opiate abuse, we would see that pattern occur literally anywhere outside the United States but for whatever reason it seems to be a US specific phenomenon.

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The crisis there is severe enough it visibly suppresses average life expectancy, there are specific dynamics going on there which can't have anything to do with cannabis consumption.
 
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