| There are lots of individuals and groups that have benefited greatly from the status quo on drugs and who made a conscious effort so that message cannon was always aimed at your mom and firing. The Drug War has been massively expensive. It isn't expensive because they hand money to drug dealers, it's expensive because money is used to manufacture prisons and operate them, money is used to buy military equipment for police forces, money is used to supply dictatorships around the world (but esp. in South America) with helicopters, US-made weapons and cash, money is spent on wars that drugs are used as a partial pretense for. This money is all spent with the same individual interests who also happen to be some of our largest political donors. So politicians, the ones responsible for official drug messaging and for drug laws, have a spigot of cash that will be cut off if they have a nuanced opinion about drugs. It also often helps politicians to be seen as tough on minorities (especially presidents running for a second term) and "tough on drugs" has been a stand-in for "tough on blacks" along with welfare reform. The same demographic who is becoming more pro-drug is also a lot less racist than their parents, so that message doesn't play to them anymore. I think the Drug War is starting to be seen as preying on the weak, rather than preying on the undesirable. It's not really meaningful to put the blame on Puritanism, because there were hundreds of years between the Puritan landing and prohibition, during which time most people spent a lot of their time intoxicated on whatever they liked. Drug prohibition was initially a result of race-baiting. >If you poll your mom and her friends, I bet you see that viewpoint pretty well-represented. I'm nearly 40, and my mother has always been against drug prohibition as far as I can remember. Depends on your family. >pot causes young men to give up on life and not get jobs or girlfriends and just play video games all day I don't know it to be a cause, but I'd say that there's probably an association. Alcohol is associated with falling, being poisoned and liver failure, fighting and domestic abuse. Both have been associated with a pleasant afternoon with friends, too. Judging by the prescription drug market, the effects of either drug wouldn't keep us from trying to give it to children if a buck could be made. |