Because Barak Hussain Obama has to capitulate to the conservatives, to the point of allowing some redneck, draft dodging fake “rock star” to threaten his life and get away with it (I’d be in Gitmo if I said that shit about Bush or Cheney), poor Barry, despite being a former stoner, hasn’t had the balls to back off the war on weed (AKA, the war on brown people and hippies). This helps fuel the prison and law enforcement industries, wherein far right wing conservatives get cushy goverment socialist jobs to bust and incarcerate liberals and browns for smoking and selling weed. And, lest we forget, it’s weed that really drives the prison industrial complex. It ain’t about more seriously addictive drugs, and weed is NOTHING compared to alcohol in terms of its addictive influences and damaging effects. If it were legal and cheaper, people could eat it and make slushies with it and it would be virtually harmless.
On the eve of this 420 holiday, celebrating, well, we’re not sure what, but weed, I guess, it is heartening to note that support for legalization almost reached a majority in 2010 in the GSS (our only scientific study which tracks such things). AND, better yet, we can expect cohort replacement (the dying off of tight-assed old farts) to push support for legalization over the top by the time the 2012 data are collected this year. Indeed, the trend in support for weed legalization has been upward, so even without old people dying, we’re seeing more and more Americans come to the realization that Nancy Raygun’s War on Drugs was a horrific mistake, and that we need to take a different strategy to examine how we regulate the product market for marijuana, alcohol, and other drugs.
So, Happy 420!!!!!