Prohibition

We've been through all this before. A substance being spurned by those in high office responding to political and financial pressures of their supposed moral high ground. It's been tried. It failed.

It's been linked directly to a massive uptick in organized crime, the deaths of thousands, the criminalizing of people who just want to have some harmless fun, and the rise in popularity of thumbing your nose at the man and putting on your fine clothes to drink bathroom gin and dance to some pretty rocking tunes.

They said it was harmful. They said it was a scourge upon the land and a wounder of her people. They said the stuff was the driver of crime and indolence. It kept people in poverty and it only benefited criminals. That it was only the right thing to do to make it illegal.

They weren't entirely wrong,  the stuff does have real effects which can cause some people to react in ways counter to their own self interest. It can be addictive, and those disposed to the cycles of addiction would do best not to engage in its use. It is that addiction which can cause harm. It is that addiction which should be treated.

But, you know, they don't see it that way.  They want to criminalize things. They want to lock people away because they are afraid. They are afraid the people with addiction will destroy the country because they... use pot.

They want to re-fight the same war that tore families apart and decimated lives. That tore up entire communities in a thirst to provide for a taste people are going to puruse. That destroyed entire communities in a thirst to make money by locking them up.

Yes, we've been here before. With alchohol, in the 80s and 90s with the war on drugs he mentioned, in the 2000s, and it could be argued that we were only beginning to dig back from policies that, frankly, we're targeted towards the poor and the hardest hit were people of color.

But remember: when it comes to the poor, no lives matter to them and it is now clear the overwhelming voice of the people wanting a thing don't matter either.

By the people indeed.