{"id":2256710,"date":"2024-05-31T13:02:01","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T17:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-changed-my-mind-about-marijuana-this-is-why\/"},"modified":"2024-05-31T13:10:35","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T17:10:35","slug":"i-changed-my-mind-about-marijuana-this-is-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/i-changed-my-mind-about-marijuana-this-is-why\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Reversed My Opinion on Marijuana. Here&#8217;s Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fi-changed-my-mind-about-marijuana-this-is-why%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2256710&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/crisis-declared-in-california-as-state-farm-announces-72000-policies-to-be-cut\/\" title=\"California in Crisis as State Farm Plans to Terminate 72,000 Policies\">text discusses<\/a> the author&#8217;s shift in\u200c stance on marijuana legalization.\u2062 Initially supportive, they observed real-world outcomes contradicting advocates&#8217; promises. Clich\u00e9d arguments \u2062in favor of legalization, including comparisons to alcohol and tobacco, were debunked. Historical\u200d perspective on American culture and Native American drug usage is also explored, leading to \u200ba \u200bfirm opposition to marijuana legalization.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When it comes to marijuana, I always go back to the question: Has the legalization of weed in any city made that city better?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You might ask: What do you mean by better?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, is that city now a better place to live \u2014 for anybody? Has it solved any problem? Has it helped anything? Give me something that has been helped. Show me a city where they\u2019ve legalized weed and something about that city, something tangible, has improved. Show me. You can\u2019t, because it hasn\u2019t. It has not made anywhere a better place to live. There is no example, because it always works the opposite way and we all know it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Having people walk around stoned all the time has made everything worse. It has improved nothing, absolutely nothing. It has created problems and solved none. So it\u2019s a bad idea. If you\u2019re going to do something that is guaranteed to make nothing better, while making a lot of things worse, then you shouldn\u2019t do it. It\u2019s really that simple.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this, by the way, is why I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9frDNHLvqHY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">changed my mind<\/a> on it personally.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was recently debating this on X\/Twitter \u2014 where all the very fruitful debates happen. Somebody pulled one of my favorite moves where they say, \u201cThis is what you\u2019re saying on this topic now, but let me see if you\u2019ve always said this exact thing.\u201d And someone \u201cscandalously\u201d discovered that back in 2018 I sent out a tweet where I was advocating for legalizing marijuana.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They didn\u2019t have to go search through my tweet history; they could have just asked me and I would tell them, \u201cYes, that used to be my position.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to be in favor of legalizing marijuana. I was. And I was wrong. I changed my mind; you\u2019re allowed to do that. Just because you say something now, you don\u2019t have to say exactly the same thing forever until you die. Not only are you allowed to process new information and change your opinion, but you also should. You should be open to new information and your opinion should be open to change depending on that new information.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That\u2019s what happened with legalizing marijuana. I was never militant about it. It\u2019s not something I personally want to engage in but I was generally persuaded by the arguments people made in favor of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What changed my mind? Well, it really wasn\u2019t an argument anybody made on the other side. I simply saw in practice what happens. I heard all the arguments from the weed advocates saying, \u201cOh, yeah, we can legalize it, and here\u2019s what the results will be.\u201d Foolishly, I believed that argument. Then, when we did legalize it, I saw that none of that happened. In fact, everything the prohibitionists said would happen <em>did happen<\/em> and <em>none<\/em> of the positive results that the advocates promised panned out. So, of course I changed my position.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s not even a valid position anymore to be in favor of weed legalization because we\u2019ve all seen the results in front of our faces. There\u2019s really nothing else to say about it, which is why you then get a bunch of clich\u00e9d slogans shouted at you by the potheads.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As an example, I was having this debate recently when someone tweeted this \u2014 and I\u2019m using this because it is like a rundown of the most clich\u00e9d arguments. They tweeted:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Badcall, alcohol and cigarettes are far worse. God created it. [Weed] It hasn\u2019t killed anybody. Veterans need it for PTSD, etc. A Democrat made it illegal decades ago. Joe Biden is against it and thinks it\u2019s a gateway. Drug prohibition is unconstitutional.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Bad call. Alcohol and cigarettes are far worse. God created it. It hasn\u2019t killed anybody. Veterans need it for ptsd etc. a democrat made it illegal decades ago. Joe<br \/>Biden is against it and thinks it\u2019s a gateway drug. Prohibition is unconstitutional.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bobby (@Bobby1493401) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Bobby1493401\/status\/1773527644362998048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 29, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019m using this as an example because this is the classic rundown of pro-weed arguments we hear all the time. Every tweet that anyone puts out in favor of weed legalization, it\u2019s always like that or some variation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are a few problems with these arguments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, there are many substances that exist in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/prager-affluence-secularism-boredom-leftism\/\" title=\"PRAGER: Affluence + Secularism = Boredom = Leftism\">natural world<\/a> that you\u2019re not supposed to put in your body. So, saying, \u201cGod created this stuff\u201d is dumb. Even back when I found the pro-weed argument, legalization argument persuasive, I was never persuaded by that because it\u2019s so stupid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What? God created it, so therefore it\u2019s automatically a good idea to light it on fire and inhale it? There are a whole lot of things God has created that you should not light on fire and inhale. There are a lot of things God has created that you should not consume in any form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you\u2019re lost in the woods, for example, and you\u2019re starving, and you stumble across some kind of a bush with berries and without any prior knowledge say, \u201cWell, God created these berries, so they must be okay to eat. God created them.\u201d If you make that assumption enough times, you will definitely die because God has created a lot of poisoned berries. There are a lot of poisonous things in the world that you\u2019re not supposed to consume. So the \u201cGod created it\u201d line is true, but that doesn\u2019t mean that it\u2019s okay to consume.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As for alcohol and cigarettes, even if alcohol and cigarettes are worse, that still doesn\u2019t mean that weed should be legal. By that logic, all you\u2019ve done is add to the problem. And saying that it hasn\u2019t killed anyone is just false. For one thing, it ignores the deaths caused by people under the influence and ignores all the volumes of research about all the negative health side effects. Even if I agree that alcohol and tobacco products are just as bad or worse, that\u2019s not an argument for legalizing yet another bad thing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It\u2019s sort of like, if I was morbidly obese, but I didn\u2019t drink alcohol, and then you said, \u201dWell, you\u2019re already obese. You might as well be a binge drinker too.\u201d That logic doesn\u2019t make any sense. That only makes sense in a kind of defeatist suicidal way. That\u2019s quite literally a suicidal argument when you\u2019re saying, \u201cWell, these other bad things are happening.\u201d So let\u2019s just add another bad thing? Let\u2019s give up, basically? That doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also, alcohol and tobacco have been a part of American culture since the beginning of this country. That\u2019s one of the reasons why any effort to totally ban them has not been successful \u2014 because it\u2019s just an ingrained part of American culture. Tobacco in particular helped build this country from the very beginning. So did alcohol. Now, I\u2019m not saying that this is a definitive reason to not ban them, but it is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">a<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">  reason not to ban them. And it\u2019s a pretty good one, actually. Tradition matters. History matters. Tobacco and alcohol have been a part of our culture. Historically, marijuana has not.<\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/show\/the-matt-walsh-show\">WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Somebody brought up that Native Americans smoked it and so it is part of American heritage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it\u2019s true that Indian tribes had marijuana \u2014 I haven\u2019t done a lot of research on this \u2014 but I don\u2019t think that they had it prior to contact with the New World. As far as I\u2019m aware, marijuana was introduced to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-has-signed-40-executive-orders-and-actions-since-taking-office\/\" title=\"Biden has signed 40 executive orders and actions since taking office\">native tribes<\/a> in the 15th or the 16th centuries. But even if they didn\u2019t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-did-lego-announce-plans-to-switch-to-hemp-plastics-by-2030\/\" title=\"FACT CHECK: Did Lego Announce Plans To Switch To Hemp Plastics By 2030?\">smoke marijuana<\/a>, the native tribes did smoke peyote. They had other kinds of drugs with hallucinogenic properties. So it is probably true that even if it wasn\u2019t exactly marijuana, it\u2019s probably true that the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/jussie-smollett-says-he-didnt-hand-over-phone-because-don-lemon-texted-that-police-didnt-believe-him-2\/\" title=\"Jussie Smollett Says He Didn\u2019t Hand Over Phone Because Don Lemon Texted That Police Didn\u2019t Believe Him\">drug habits<\/a> of Native American tribes were closer to the drug habits of Americans today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Think about that for a second. Native tribes were 5,000 years behind the civilized world. They were stuck in the Stone Age. Many of them didn\u2019t have the wheel. They didn\u2019t have written language. Many of them \u2014 not all \u2014 were nomadic tribes, hunter-gatherers. They were extremely primitive, even by 16th century standards. So the fact that they were also high all the time perhaps should tell us something. We know that a society with people smoke tobacco constantly and drink whiskey from morning to night can also be a highly functional, highly successful society.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We know that because that was our society. That was our society in the 20th century when we accomplished all of the things we accomplished \u2014 we were winning world wars and landing on the moon. We went from horse and buggy to the moon landing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we know that the greatest civilizations in the history of the Earth have at least had booze, and people were constantly drunk. Our own civilization had tobacco and booze. Now, I\u2019m not saying that tobacco and booze made us great, exactly, but it did not prevent our greatness. There is no evidence on a societal scale that having easy access to legal tobacco and booze will precipitate a societal collapse. There\u2019s no evidence of that because we\u2019ve seen a society that is drowning in nicotine, caffeine, and booze \u2014 America has run on those things. So we\u2019ve seen that. We know that.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What about a society full of stoners and druggies? Can that kind of society thrive? There\u2019s no evidence of that. There has never been a society of people who are drugged out of their mind, stoned, that has thrived. There are plenty of societies that have engaged in those sorts of activities and they live in mud huts.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">They struggled to invent the wheel. That\u2019s what that kind of society looks like.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if we want to end up back there, if we want to just decline all the way and take this thing full circle, then that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When considering marijuana, I ponder: Has its legalization improved any city? What defines &#8220;better&#8221;? Is the city now a more livable place for all? Has legalization addressed issues or made positive impacts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":305,"featured_media":2256711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-1366397567.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2256710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/05\/GettyImages-1366397567.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2256710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2256710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2256711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2256710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2256710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2256710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}