[mcdramamean]

If you look at it from a cultural perspective, many African American boys/men in extremely dangerous and poor areas use marijuana as a way to NOT develop mental issues. Considering how little mental help or even how little routine healthcare these men/boys receive, it makes sense to find SOMETHING to cope. Dependence on alcohol has clear bad-examples of the "wino", or street drunk. Same with the use of crack cocaine (the "crack" head/ the "fiend"). So many black men smoke lots of marijuana, but don't drink and don't do any other drugs.

Also, the environments they need to navigate requires understanding tattoos, colors, signs and tons of other subtle social cues in order to not become a target or deemed to be weak. There may be an under-reporting of instances of schizophrenia, but on a whole these brothers aren't showing signs of schizophrenia due to over use of marijuana.

And really, our current laws are just used to arrest someone, who might be an overall good person, besides the social stigma of "weed smoker". I really do beg anyone who is conservative on this issue due to the POSSIBILITY of someone developing schizophrenia, to maybe consider this as magnitudes less harmful than the use of marijuana policy to target black men; specifically black boys; and putting them in jail and ruining their future. You have to understand the environments they are coming from; so just saying "stay off the dope" is very callous and uninformed. Your life experience isn't the template for everyone.

I know this is a touchy topic on HN, but I really do hope we are able to open our circle of trust to people we wouldn't normally think about.