Each year, a new state puts on the ballot whether they’re going to pass the vibe check or not, and so far, 24 states and the District of Columbia do, but there are a few states that still aren’t: Georgia and Florida, I’m looking at you. Even though it is decriminalized in Atlanta and some surrounding municipalities, it is still not decriminalized by the state, and since the highway is owned by the state, well, don’t get owned by the state while on the highway—if you get my drift.
In Florida, it fell just short of the 60% needed to win. DeSantis did not win 60% of the vote, but that does not seem to matter. Some states, like Florida, do have medical legalization. However, it is often expensive and a farce, because what other pharmaceutical requires a license that needs to be renewed multiple times a year for a hefty fee—but there is no actual prescription—and offers BOGOS?!
Like, let’s be serious for a minute.
While some states have reported dozens of accidental cannabis poisonings, with no deaths, thousands of children die yearly from alcohol related incidents. Some states use this as a reason to scale back the liberalization of cannabis access or continue its prohibition. However, alcohol is legal in all those states. In fact, alcohol is so legal that you can buy as much as you want, without a liquor license. In places like Michigan, where cannabis is legal, you are still limited to the daily amount you can purchase.
If this sounds crazy, it is not as crazy as the reason cannabis is illegal—which is just plain ole racism.
Yes, racism is the reason weed is illegal, but fortunately, you can go buy cigarettes in any state. In fact, in states that allow for medical marijuana, you cannot get any from an actual pharmacist, like Walgreens, for instance, but you can buy cigarettes there. Again, we live in a sensical country, clearly.
Reefer Madness is an old movie that is so hyperbolic that it looks like satire, but it was D.A.R.E. before D.A.R.E. became a thing.
It warned young white kids of the dangerous of the wacky tobacky, the devil’s lettuce, that kale yeah, that sparky melarky, that loud, that dank, that chronic, that stank, because their lives could end horribly or even worse, young white women would would f*ck Black men. The movie came out in the 1930s, before the War on Black people Drugs, so people were uninformed about the consequences of smoking weed, but according to this movie, it could lead to attempted rape, a little bit of murder, a hit-and-run car accident, a suicide and just general f*ck sh*t, which is crazy because if any of those things ever happened to me, the first thing I’m doing is grabbing my bong.
Anywho, speaking of the 1930s—wow, that was a time, right? Harry Anslinger was alive, doing his thing, and let me tell you, he was a hater of epic proportions.
He was Billie Holliday’s biggest hater, too, and the biggest hater of cannabis, known back then as “Indian Hemp,” or “marihuana.” The reason it was known as marihuana was specific, because it sounded, well, Spanish. What better way to demonize the use of something than to associate it with the colorful coloreds. He convinced enough people that Mexicans who were entering the country in the 1910s and jazz musicians were gonna get all hopped on weed, commit a bunch of crime and then f*ck all the white ladies on the way down. In fact, that’s exactly why cannabis is still federally illegal to this day, even though a majority of the country favors its legalization.
Well, to be more specific, the reason cannabis was even made illegal was because they thought white women would get high and want to have sex with Black men, and honestly, as f*cked as that is, I can’t say I haven’t gotten high and f*cked a Black man, so they may have a point, but I digress.
Lawmakers successfully convinced people that nobody should have weed because interracial relationships would happen, and clearly they were successful in both arenas, or to quote Anslinger, it “makes darkies think they’re as good as the white man.”
Not weed promoting equal opportunity... Yassss, we love a righteous queen!
While many of us have lived in a time where cannabis consumption was so illegal that it was taboo, it should be noted that 29 out of 30 of the pharmacists whom Anslinger surveyed stated that cannabis consumption was harmless. Still, the federal government not only made it an illegal substance, but it is a SCHEDULE I substance, meaning it is considered to be as lethal as HEROIN and ecstacy and is considered more dangerous COCAINE, METH, Oxycodone, Xanax, Adderall, FENTANYL and some other things with long names. This fact should clue you in to how ridiculous drug laws are, and how they’ve also disproportionately had a negative effect on Black communities.
In fact, Anslinger’s propaganda was so potent that in 2018, it led to Kansas lawmaker, Steve Alford, remarking, “Marijuana is an entry drug into the higher drugs. What you really need to do is go back to the ’30s, when they outlawed all types of drugs in Kansas and across the United States. What was the reason why they did that? One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, was that the African Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst to those drugs just because of their character makeup, their genetics and that.”
Republican Rep. Steve Afford just gave the most racist, f*cked up defense of weed criminalization pic.twitter.com/3FtillKMeG
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) January 10, 2018
While the wheels of justice could move faster when it comes to legalization, it has decreased the number of Black men in jail for drug-related offenses, but it also goes to show how racism is literally a buzzkill!
