Reefer madness! Pot is legal on the west coast and we voted blue. I smoke high-quality Oregon pot daily and you best believe I take care of business. Correlating marijuana use with losing an election is beneath your usual powers of analysis. Your view of pot smoking is outdated.
I started up again after retirement. I find the legal weed rather tame to what I had in the 70s. Maybe it's my age, and it hits differently, but it makes me feel pleasantly calm, not really high. It has been good for my anxiety and helps me concentrate. I can pick up a book and read for hours in the evening.
When I moved to NC 50 years ago (Yikes!), much of the state was still dry. I thought it was due to the religious folk, but no. It was due to the bootleggers not wanting competition!
Now my little town has a craft brewery and an ABC store.
I don’t know if I agree with you Lucian, the pot we smoked in our youth was nothing like what is in the market today. I have been a non-smoker for 40 years so taking a draw on even a vape pen induces very painful coughing. The last time I took a couple hits of some buds at a party maybe 10 years ago, I became comatose, sure the music sounded great but I could barely function, it wasn’t any fun at all, I needed to be driven home in my car by a buddy. It was almost like an acid trip where you needed to block out the better part of a day for the experience, who has time for that while in random company. I have no problem with psychedelics, I think they are sacraments, Huxley wrote about Mescaline in “The Doors to Perception”, and he was spot on. Kamala lost by 1.5 million votes over all and by way less than that in the electoral college. Alex Wagner did several pieces that aired last Friday evening, she interviewed union workers at a union hall and Hispanic men. Out of the maybe 80 union workers who were predominantly young, only 1 knew what the word Dobbs meant, that was not a typo, only 1. The oldest among them believed the democrats had their back, the rest by far the majority, while fully employed on infrastructure projects that will keep them working for the next 10 years, were worried that illegal migrants were taking all of our jobs and were going to vote for the clown. In her interviews with Hispanic men, none of them would even consider voting for Kamala, no matter how much she would help their community, because she was a woman and a woman of color, she needed to be in the kitchen cooking and making babies. Those interviews happened in September while the election was in full swing. Both of those groups would have benefited greatly by electing Kamala, both chose not to. In that union hall only 1 hand went up when asked if they knew what Dobbs meant, we are fucked, and it’s not because we are all stoned, it’s because we are no longer smart enough to see the trees in the forest. If pot played any part it was minor compared to ignorance in the electorate. 🤷♂️
It's ignorance aided and abetted by racism and sexism. A lot of people in this country, and surprisingly many women, still believe that leadership positions require a strong white man in a dark suit, it's what we're used to and change comes slowly if at all.
If the Dems are smart they will not nominate another woman for president for 16 to 20 years, and maybe even longer than that . It appears that the average American is too misogynistic to vote for a woman. I wish it wasn't true but that's where we are.
See, Dick, that bullshit about migrants taking their jobs is an old trope from the Reagan and Bush years! Dems tried really hard to get Kamala out there to combat anything the Repubs narrative was saying. Her campaign was brilliant. We just needed the rest of the 265 days to get her points across.
Yes, Kamala kept talking about entrepreneurs and GDP. My best guess is that a large swath of voters had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. She offered a great deal on house downpayments but it meant nothing to all those who couldn't afford the monthly mortgage payment. We overeducated northeastern liberals were always going to vote for her. She forgot about messaging to the poor and undereducated. And I wouldn't be surprised that many of these people were stoned. They were struggling to pay for food and rent and dope eased the pain.
Amen! What did Harris in wasn't being a woman or her race, it was speaking a different language from most voters on economic and other issues crucially important to them. If she failed to connect with them sober …?
Should have reframed her proposals so they connected with enough voters to elect her. If winning required dumbing down the message to reach uneducated voters, yes. Republicans do a lot worse to get elected.
and which producer selected the interviewees? It's been terrible theater the stuff we used to think was news. It's designer information. Beautifully crafted to further break us apart. I started side-eyeing other white women and my Hispanic neighbors after the election Mexico has a woman president and a Jewish one at that. MEXICO. IMO You are buying a well crafted message.
Dick, you're right -"we are fucked, and it’s not because we are all stoned," A couple of my former hippie friends are planning to stay as stoned as possible to survive Trump 2.0. My drug of choice was always the opposite of downers of any kind, and pot made me lazy and ineffective back in the day. It might help my back pain now though...............;-)
Trumpanzees do not get mellow. They get stupid. I am sure more people who attended college smoke more pot than people who didn’t. I have been using on and off for my whole life and I am a solid, active Dem. In fact, it is the only medication available to me for chronic pain relief, as docs will no longer subscribe pain medication to anyone, even little old ladies with severe back problems. I think more college grads are Dems than MAGA. Pot is definitely a liberal favorite. It does not make people stupid unless they already are.
I think it varies greatly according to your individual make up. I could work like a maniac, stay up endlessly on pot but really dumb in my long term cognitive abilities.
I would totally concur with this except that in the same locations where IT was voted in, down ballot races went to Democrats. I can’t for the life of me figure this out. Although Kamala Harris was the far superior candidate, she is a woman. The paternal society that we endure sees us as lesser beings.
I haven't given up on women candidates, just certain kinds. Remember, unable to raise enough money to stay in, Harris's unpopularity had forced her out of the primary before Joey (as his dad used to call him) picked her, of all women, as a running mate. I don't ever expect to get an honest explanation why. I bear her no ill will. I think she did the best anyone could have expected of her. Of Hillary, the less said the better. Same applies to my state's governor, Kathy Hochul. I hope not all women officials are smeared by the human failings of a few who can't be forgotten fast enough.
Yes, VP Harris was quite unsuccessful in her own right running for President and perhaps that was an experience issue. Her last two years as VP were pretty solid. Her first two years were up and down because there were challenges in keeping a staff together. She did do the best she could do given the circumstances she was placed in by President Biden. Remember folks, mid-term elections are very important. Get ready to vote and just as important, look for quality candidates to promote.
To my mind, she disqualifies Harris on the charisma issue all by itself, which is what I was really talking about above. I don't think a dogcatcher who makes it to city council for a couple years is necessarily prepared to be mayor either.
In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” the readily-available drug that lulls the public into accepting the authoritarian state is the fictional Soma. You and Huxley may be on to something here.
I had the same thought. Probably wouldn’t matter if we called pot soma.
I’ve had the same thoughts about it maybe being the opiate of the masses. I quit some time ago due to it giving me incredible anxiety. My remaining vice is coffee.
I do think pot is preferable to drinking based on my own experiences. The best solution is to find healthier diversions, tho.
Exactamundo. Speaking of drugging the public (okay, not literally) I was one of the print guys Jim Bellows brought to Entertainment Tonight to give the show some, ahem, air quotes gravitas. Did our paths cross there? I remember Vin DiBona...
I've also read about another drug connection, between areas harder hit by the opioid epidemic and political shifts to the right. In that context, the paranoia about "the border" that helps fuel political red shifts is subtext for the way opioids have devastated communities. There's a good piece about it by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker.
My guess, re: marijuana, is that it has less to do with people being too stoned to care about the threat to democracy and more a reflection of the hopelessness and lack of opportunity in the American system. Marijuana is one thing for musicians, artists and upscale college boys (like I was) and quite a different thing for disadvantaged and immigrant communities. That's why I tend to see it as harmless fun, while my partner, a first-generation immigrant, looks at it with a kind of horror, and is desperate about the young men in her world who turn to it.
As more time passes since the election results, I'm less mystified, and less angry at Trump voters for seeming not to care about the threat to democracy. I think, we, on the left, deeply underestimated the level of rage against the status quo in this country, generated by growing economic inequality. And our tone-deaf emphasis on "wokeness", which I'll define as framing the country's problems in terms of racial and gender identities instead of economics and social class, left the ground open for MAGA.
The tragedy is that Trump will only makes things worse for the people who voted for him. The opportunity is we get another chance to battle MAGA's faux populism with real populism.
Many, many more people drink alcohol than use marijuana. I’m a regular marijuana user and I am fiercely attentive to politics. One does not cancel out the other. But sometimes by the end of the day, marijuana enables me to relax and reduce the physical and mental pain of the day. I seriously doubt any link between marijuana and lack of political will. Marijuana using and alcohol using Trump voters have political will.
Happy New Year! Let's try to be positive. You ask some good questions. Pot is a LOT different than it was fifty years ago.
Q. How many of those people were pot smokers?
A. Gallup has it at 15% nationally. How many voted? Impossible to tell. The problem is, it can create apathy. Ask a neurologist.
Q. What if part of being mellow isn’t so wonderful?
A. High on Cannabis does not always mean mellow. It can induce paranoia and munchies.
Q. What if being mellow has the side effect of just not caring very much about who’s running things in far away Washington D.C.?
A. Or anywhere else, for that matter? Not necessarily a bad thing, from a certain perspective anyway.
Good questions to ponder if you are a pot smoker. We live in a grow county, and a number of people, growers also, are as redneck libertarian and MAGA as they come. Some of these did vote. But the county went big for Harris. California!
I would like to see her continue her political career too, and governor would be great!
We live near Eureka, CA, and there are cannabis stores practically on every corner. Some are drive-through and some offer free home delivery. Our area voted overwhelmingly for Harris/Walz. Eureka voted 70% NO to a city ballot measure brought to the ballot by a wealthy business man who was investigated by the senate for providing lavish “ gifts” to certain members of the Supreme Court.
I’ve smoked almost daily for over 50 years—more for its stimulating effects than for mellowness. I could argue that it heightens awareness, at least for NON-couch potatoes. I think your thesis is stronger in relation to alcohol consumption that spiked during COVID and hasn’t seem to have abated much since, though admittedly I lack the data.
What a surprise! Everybody who still smokes weed testifies that it's harmless, improves their lives, and didn't affect the election. I don't care what anyone smokes if it doesn't hurt other people, but I wish with every fiber etc that exhaustive research on longterm effects had preceded closely regulated legalization.
After ~10 years on, I quit >50 years ago because the effects were too unpredictable. A very productive friend and I discovered, e g, it caused us both nearly disabling depersonalization episodes. All I remember about my first time is nausea, being draped around my john, a common first-experience effect. Why a second time?
I shared a flight PGH-EWR with a Sandoz scientist when a handful of my friends were pioneering still-legal acid. That 45-minute flight changed my life when he told me the trouble was that nobody knew who LSD would offer a magical tour and who it would send to a back ward for life—he'd already seen that.
So I never did acid (yes, Hunter's mescalin on the boat), but after one toke of a joint at an '80s party I felt acid couldn't be more potent. Cf Dick Montagne’s comment: "[T]he pot we smoked in our youth was nothing like what is in the market today." Wow, you guys. Some tolerance you have there. As for the election, too many variables for me to speculate. … Happy new year!
Am not a user of cannabis in any form. Not ceremonial, not recreational, not medical. Those are subject to change. Have no position on its recreational use. Have stopped in to a few Shoppes and am impressed by the employees knowledge of the various products. They sure as chit aren't at all like the sellers and dealers of decades ago nor are the products. Chuckled when readers claim yesteryears was more potent. Goes to demonstrate more nostalgia than reality.
WABAC users had no idea the source of the drug, the potency, whether it contained other "things". Legalization of 1, cannabis, did bring clarity on the unknowns. As a general statement today's product is far more potent and concentrated with a range that can be better understood by the typical alcohol chart of low alcohol content through the highest. Understood, not an actual comparison because the two effect the mind and body very differently.
Have no idea how any valid study can be conducted when there is no way to determine what and how much cannabis was consumed pre-legalization. Baggies or joints didn't come with a UPC label and actual plant details. Much like your correct statement on the 2024 election there are too many variables and will add too many unknowns.
Medical science has been using cannabis in various forms for a long time and for a broader array of uses. . Globally aboriginal and ~indigenous~ have been using cannabis (and more) in ceremonies for thousands of years.
As far as recreational usage here comes the general statement as well as the nexus back to alcohol. Aboriginal and ~indigenous~ have a major problem on how alcohol effects the body. Generally speaking a far lower tolerance of alcohol. The opposite is true with mind altering, natural products. Noticed am excluding chemical-based synthetics for a host of reasons including not knowing the actual composition.
Anything that alters the mind/brain is difficult to study including when ingested all the way through long term side effects because it falls into the emerging science of neuroscience. Hoomankind simply doesn't have a good handle on the brain of any living thing. It too falls under too many variables and too many unknowns. With time and as often happens in modern science an unrelated or overlooked factor will result in a leap forward.
'Til then each individual will continue to have their own valid or invalid take of past, present, and future usage. All anecdotal. Some of which is evidence most of which is not. Have no idea how. if at all consuming cannabis effects voting. We do know it slows drivers down so perhaps some arrived late but safe. Same can't be said about a drunk driver. They might have arrived on time while endangering others and self to and fro.
*Vomitting from cannabis. WABAC most cannabis was blended. While some was from sources outside the US often it was blended with homegrown to increase the volume. WABAC then who knows how the plants were fed and with what and more importantly how they were cared for. In source countries it was native so care was less likely to include chemicals based fertilizers and pesticides. Backyard or in-house plants in the US? Trial and error. Lots of both.
Keep in mind cannabis growers in the US didn't want to be caught so the larger dealers/growers sought out Public Land and yes, Rez land. Like moonshiners of lore they made their own rules on land they had no business being on. Doesn't make for a peaceful co-existence. And money makes for violence, paranoia and corruption. Both are worse and linger longer in society than individual negative side effects from usage. Tht is another reason states moved to legalize cannabis. One not openly spoken about, an actual greater good vs. a known set of societal downsides when/where cannabis was illegal.
No argument from me on any of the sharp points w/a caveat on point2.
Famine, droughts, floods, sea monsters, land monsters, and other natural occurring events are a reminder (albeit for a extremely short time) that civilization more fragile than advertised. They should be a teaching moment vis a vis Global Climate Change. Alas, the civilized learn slow and unlearn even slower.
So, whether it's a natural occurring event or man-authored (4eg war), local society and civilization itself can break down in as short as 2weeks. No matter how many times that's been repeated around the Blue Marble, the civilized insist it cannot happen again and dismiss the concept of cascading events.
The 3Abrahamics are an interesting insight into the times and the desire to cast aside what is real for that which is not. Where truth and knowing was replaced by belief and faith. ~Remarkable~ good man.
Agree. 2Many in "civilized nations, societies, and cultures" now prefer short-cuts and oversimplification over thinking right then doing right. Existing and living w/o a code or first principles contribute to that.
Yet insist embracing an ideology of any type is a valid substitute as we unfold in NOLA and LV this past week. Both swapped out their word (Oath) for a different one and rationalized doing so. Never once understanding what the word betrayal is all about.
Sorry, but you misread me, and probably Dick Montagne and others. But first, wherever the weed comes from, nausea is a common first-time reaction that doesn't recur.
Far from griping about comparatively weaker weed now, I was commenting that—unwanted by me—it's now as strong as I imagine heavyduty psychedelics to be. I've read that growers have turned themselves into little Luther Burbanks ever strengthening THC potency; my lone experience since i stopped supports that.
Dick wrote that he quit 40 years ago and "The last time I took a couple hits of some buds at a party maybe 10 years ago, I became comatose, sure the music sounded great but I could barely function, it wasn’t any fun at all, I needed to be driven home in my car by a buddy. It was almost like an acid trip where you needed to block out the better part of a day for the experience, who has time for that while in random company. […]" That doesn't read to me like a complaint that pot's not as strong as it used to be.
JSYK: The comment on potency and everything else was not directed to you or any person in particular. It was married to your comment on too many variables. That's very often the case when a person goes off on something while ignoring both what is known (common knowledge) and what is unknown. Ironically, one of the semi-polite pushbacks that have survived a few GENS is often, are you tripping?
Interesting, but I have smoked pot recreationally since the 1970s, and I have never missed an election or failed to support the Democratic Party. I usually am totally in sinc with your column, but I think your logic is faulty here. What about Colorado? The first state to legalize pot? Blue. Pot is not the problem. Ignorance and lack of education is the problem.
I'd like to comment, but I just smoked a joint and can't remember what you said!! Just kidding.
I really don't think it's the pot. I think it's just complacency and not staying informed about how America works. It's the people who did not vote that cost us the election.
Great points all, Lucian (Lucent). However, doors of perception created Apple Computer and many other inovative enterprises decades ago. Dope smokers all. It effects people very differently in many ways. There are regular smokers who are in high places of influence and responsibility within industry and government agencies. I will not name them, but they are long time friends and associates.
A toke with some of them at a get together once in a while is more than I can take, for the past 30 years.
Then there are the loadies who by their nature are not going to be productive anyway. Hitler roused the drunkards in the beer halls to be his fervent supporters.
I have always maintained and written and spoken about the dumbing down of the educational system in the US as the number one weapon that the rightwing has used openly since Reagan appointed Max Rafferty to Superintendent of Public instruction out here on the leftist coast back in the day.The Jarvis anti tax shit spread like wildfire accross the country and critical thinking, etc, were eliminated as "Frills" The oligarchy is working tirelessly to take the control they just missed with Hitler.
Pot just enabled me to not want to yell at some asshole on the way to vote, like my state, New Mexico, for an entirely blue slate up and down ballot, even as we are surrounded by a sea of MAGA red. We didnt vote or not because we were stoned, but we were certainly more friendly because of it.
When I met my DDR relatives in their small town in Thüringen, Germany, they were so lacking in drive, and just drinking like fish and everyone looked inbred and addled to me. Youth were to be seen sitting on benches drinking and just not giving a shit. However, I suspect there is a correlation between pot smoking and absorbing mind numbing amounts of stupid content on the internet.
I see social media as a drug with addictive algorithms and many people being reluctant to let go. My 19-year-old daughter's cell phone has been glued to her hand this entire holiday season, and has been the subject of much complaint from me. There is a series of pics that a friend shared. It is called Removed, and takes the cell phones away and shows people with them removed. https://www.removed.social/united-states
Reefer madness! Pot is legal on the west coast and we voted blue. I smoke high-quality Oregon pot daily and you best believe I take care of business. Correlating marijuana use with losing an election is beneath your usual powers of analysis. Your view of pot smoking is outdated.
Same here in blue state Illinois.
I started up again after retirement. I find the legal weed rather tame to what I had in the 70s. Maybe it's my age, and it hits differently, but it makes me feel pleasantly calm, not really high. It has been good for my anxiety and helps me concentrate. I can pick up a book and read for hours in the evening.
What I'm talkin about. Good pot doesn't space you out, it focuses you. I use it recreationally and for pain and insomnia.
Anxiety, depression & sleep. It is so wonderful to not be stressed & worried. I love cannabis.
I hear that. It is so calming.
I disagree I think lkt4 is on to something
You're welcome to your point of view. Now let's look at alcohol and other substance consumption in the counties mentioned.
When I moved to NC 50 years ago (Yikes!), much of the state was still dry. I thought it was due to the religious folk, but no. It was due to the bootleggers not wanting competition!
Now my little town has a craft brewery and an ABC store.
Seriously at first I thought this was going to be a critique of space nazi and his weed and now ketamine jones.
I was out of the Army for three weeks, back from Vietnam five months ago; an old Army buddy in Miami whose saint
Saintly parents had given me shelter took me to a free concert outdoors at the university of Miami.
I had never heard of Brewer and Shipley. They played Witchy Tai To for like half an hour. I was no longer in Kansas.
And oh yes, they also played One Toke Over the Line.
Love Brewer & Shipley!
I don’t know if I agree with you Lucian, the pot we smoked in our youth was nothing like what is in the market today. I have been a non-smoker for 40 years so taking a draw on even a vape pen induces very painful coughing. The last time I took a couple hits of some buds at a party maybe 10 years ago, I became comatose, sure the music sounded great but I could barely function, it wasn’t any fun at all, I needed to be driven home in my car by a buddy. It was almost like an acid trip where you needed to block out the better part of a day for the experience, who has time for that while in random company. I have no problem with psychedelics, I think they are sacraments, Huxley wrote about Mescaline in “The Doors to Perception”, and he was spot on. Kamala lost by 1.5 million votes over all and by way less than that in the electoral college. Alex Wagner did several pieces that aired last Friday evening, she interviewed union workers at a union hall and Hispanic men. Out of the maybe 80 union workers who were predominantly young, only 1 knew what the word Dobbs meant, that was not a typo, only 1. The oldest among them believed the democrats had their back, the rest by far the majority, while fully employed on infrastructure projects that will keep them working for the next 10 years, were worried that illegal migrants were taking all of our jobs and were going to vote for the clown. In her interviews with Hispanic men, none of them would even consider voting for Kamala, no matter how much she would help their community, because she was a woman and a woman of color, she needed to be in the kitchen cooking and making babies. Those interviews happened in September while the election was in full swing. Both of those groups would have benefited greatly by electing Kamala, both chose not to. In that union hall only 1 hand went up when asked if they knew what Dobbs meant, we are fucked, and it’s not because we are all stoned, it’s because we are no longer smart enough to see the trees in the forest. If pot played any part it was minor compared to ignorance in the electorate. 🤷♂️
It's ignorance aided and abetted by racism and sexism. A lot of people in this country, and surprisingly many women, still believe that leadership positions require a strong white man in a dark suit, it's what we're used to and change comes slowly if at all.
If the Dems are smart they will not nominate another woman for president for 16 to 20 years, and maybe even longer than that . It appears that the average American is too misogynistic to vote for a woman. I wish it wasn't true but that's where we are.
See, Dick, that bullshit about migrants taking their jobs is an old trope from the Reagan and Bush years! Dems tried really hard to get Kamala out there to combat anything the Repubs narrative was saying. Her campaign was brilliant. We just needed the rest of the 265 days to get her points across.
Yes, Kamala kept talking about entrepreneurs and GDP. My best guess is that a large swath of voters had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. She offered a great deal on house downpayments but it meant nothing to all those who couldn't afford the monthly mortgage payment. We overeducated northeastern liberals were always going to vote for her. She forgot about messaging to the poor and undereducated. And I wouldn't be surprised that many of these people were stoned. They were struggling to pay for food and rent and dope eased the pain.
Amen! What did Harris in wasn't being a woman or her race, it was speaking a different language from most voters on economic and other issues crucially important to them. If she failed to connect with them sober …?
Do you mean that she should have dumbed down her choice of words in order to better communicate with the “poorly educated?”
Should have reframed her proposals so they connected with enough voters to elect her. If winning required dumbing down the message to reach uneducated voters, yes. Republicans do a lot worse to get elected.
and which producer selected the interviewees? It's been terrible theater the stuff we used to think was news. It's designer information. Beautifully crafted to further break us apart. I started side-eyeing other white women and my Hispanic neighbors after the election Mexico has a woman president and a Jewish one at that. MEXICO. IMO You are buying a well crafted message.
Absolutely!! It's hard to understand what is going on in your country when more than half the population reads at a sixth grade level.
Nailed it.
Dick, you're right -"we are fucked, and it’s not because we are all stoned," A couple of my former hippie friends are planning to stay as stoned as possible to survive Trump 2.0. My drug of choice was always the opposite of downers of any kind, and pot made me lazy and ineffective back in the day. It might help my back pain now though...............;-)
Trumpanzees do not get mellow. They get stupid. I am sure more people who attended college smoke more pot than people who didn’t. I have been using on and off for my whole life and I am a solid, active Dem. In fact, it is the only medication available to me for chronic pain relief, as docs will no longer subscribe pain medication to anyone, even little old ladies with severe back problems. I think more college grads are Dems than MAGA. Pot is definitely a liberal favorite. It does not make people stupid unless they already are.
I think it varies greatly according to your individual make up. I could work like a maniac, stay up endlessly on pot but really dumb in my long term cognitive abilities.
I would totally concur with this except that in the same locations where IT was voted in, down ballot races went to Democrats. I can’t for the life of me figure this out. Although Kamala Harris was the far superior candidate, she is a woman. The paternal society that we endure sees us as lesser beings.
Not just a woman, but a mixed race woman! That makes two and a half strikes against her.
I haven't given up on women candidates, just certain kinds. Remember, unable to raise enough money to stay in, Harris's unpopularity had forced her out of the primary before Joey (as his dad used to call him) picked her, of all women, as a running mate. I don't ever expect to get an honest explanation why. I bear her no ill will. I think she did the best anyone could have expected of her. Of Hillary, the less said the better. Same applies to my state's governor, Kathy Hochul. I hope not all women officials are smeared by the human failings of a few who can't be forgotten fast enough.
Yes, VP Harris was quite unsuccessful in her own right running for President and perhaps that was an experience issue. Her last two years as VP were pretty solid. Her first two years were up and down because there were challenges in keeping a staff together. She did do the best she could do given the circumstances she was placed in by President Biden. Remember folks, mid-term elections are very important. Get ready to vote and just as important, look for quality candidates to promote.
Robert Reich just republished a terrific month-old piece on future elections by Turkish ex-journalist Asli Aydintasbas that Politico ran first.
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-will-overplay-his-hand-be-ready
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/01/anti-trumpists-guide-next-four-years-00191724
To my mind, she disqualifies Harris on the charisma issue all by itself, which is what I was really talking about above. I don't think a dogcatcher who makes it to city council for a couple years is necessarily prepared to be mayor either.
In Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World,” the readily-available drug that lulls the public into accepting the authoritarian state is the fictional Soma. You and Huxley may be on to something here.
And we are afloat in the Feelies
I had the same thought. Probably wouldn’t matter if we called pot soma.
I’ve had the same thoughts about it maybe being the opiate of the masses. I quit some time ago due to it giving me incredible anxiety. My remaining vice is coffee.
I do think pot is preferable to drinking based on my own experiences. The best solution is to find healthier diversions, tho.
Exactamundo. Speaking of drugging the public (okay, not literally) I was one of the print guys Jim Bellows brought to Entertainment Tonight to give the show some, ahem, air quotes gravitas. Did our paths cross there? I remember Vin DiBona...
That's interesting.
I've also read about another drug connection, between areas harder hit by the opioid epidemic and political shifts to the right. In that context, the paranoia about "the border" that helps fuel political red shifts is subtext for the way opioids have devastated communities. There's a good piece about it by Benjamin Wallace-Wells in the New Yorker.
My guess, re: marijuana, is that it has less to do with people being too stoned to care about the threat to democracy and more a reflection of the hopelessness and lack of opportunity in the American system. Marijuana is one thing for musicians, artists and upscale college boys (like I was) and quite a different thing for disadvantaged and immigrant communities. That's why I tend to see it as harmless fun, while my partner, a first-generation immigrant, looks at it with a kind of horror, and is desperate about the young men in her world who turn to it.
As more time passes since the election results, I'm less mystified, and less angry at Trump voters for seeming not to care about the threat to democracy. I think, we, on the left, deeply underestimated the level of rage against the status quo in this country, generated by growing economic inequality. And our tone-deaf emphasis on "wokeness", which I'll define as framing the country's problems in terms of racial and gender identities instead of economics and social class, left the ground open for MAGA.
The tragedy is that Trump will only makes things worse for the people who voted for him. The opportunity is we get another chance to battle MAGA's faux populism with real populism.
Yes to the class issues and economic inequality - that's it!
Many, many more people drink alcohol than use marijuana. I’m a regular marijuana user and I am fiercely attentive to politics. One does not cancel out the other. But sometimes by the end of the day, marijuana enables me to relax and reduce the physical and mental pain of the day. I seriously doubt any link between marijuana and lack of political will. Marijuana using and alcohol using Trump voters have political will.
Happy New Year! Let's try to be positive. You ask some good questions. Pot is a LOT different than it was fifty years ago.
Q. How many of those people were pot smokers?
A. Gallup has it at 15% nationally. How many voted? Impossible to tell. The problem is, it can create apathy. Ask a neurologist.
Q. What if part of being mellow isn’t so wonderful?
A. High on Cannabis does not always mean mellow. It can induce paranoia and munchies.
Q. What if being mellow has the side effect of just not caring very much about who’s running things in far away Washington D.C.?
A. Or anywhere else, for that matter? Not necessarily a bad thing, from a certain perspective anyway.
Good questions to ponder if you are a pot smoker. We live in a grow county, and a number of people, growers also, are as redneck libertarian and MAGA as they come. Some of these did vote. But the county went big for Harris. California!
I hope Kamala Harris runs for governor of our state! Let’s see how Trump and his Fourth Reich regime handle that!
I would like to see her continue her political career too, and governor would be great!
We live near Eureka, CA, and there are cannabis stores practically on every corner. Some are drive-through and some offer free home delivery. Our area voted overwhelmingly for Harris/Walz. Eureka voted 70% NO to a city ballot measure brought to the ballot by a wealthy business man who was investigated by the senate for providing lavish “ gifts” to certain members of the Supreme Court.
I love that!! I am in the Bay Area where there are plenty of areas for cannabis sales.
Great idea!
Correlation is not causation.
I’ve smoked almost daily for over 50 years—more for its stimulating effects than for mellowness. I could argue that it heightens awareness, at least for NON-couch potatoes. I think your thesis is stronger in relation to alcohol consumption that spiked during COVID and hasn’t seem to have abated much since, though admittedly I lack the data.
What a surprise! Everybody who still smokes weed testifies that it's harmless, improves their lives, and didn't affect the election. I don't care what anyone smokes if it doesn't hurt other people, but I wish with every fiber etc that exhaustive research on longterm effects had preceded closely regulated legalization.
After ~10 years on, I quit >50 years ago because the effects were too unpredictable. A very productive friend and I discovered, e g, it caused us both nearly disabling depersonalization episodes. All I remember about my first time is nausea, being draped around my john, a common first-experience effect. Why a second time?
I shared a flight PGH-EWR with a Sandoz scientist when a handful of my friends were pioneering still-legal acid. That 45-minute flight changed my life when he told me the trouble was that nobody knew who LSD would offer a magical tour and who it would send to a back ward for life—he'd already seen that.
So I never did acid (yes, Hunter's mescalin on the boat), but after one toke of a joint at an '80s party I felt acid couldn't be more potent. Cf Dick Montagne’s comment: "[T]he pot we smoked in our youth was nothing like what is in the market today." Wow, you guys. Some tolerance you have there. As for the election, too many variables for me to speculate. … Happy new year!
"too many variables" W/o a doubt.
Am not a user of cannabis in any form. Not ceremonial, not recreational, not medical. Those are subject to change. Have no position on its recreational use. Have stopped in to a few Shoppes and am impressed by the employees knowledge of the various products. They sure as chit aren't at all like the sellers and dealers of decades ago nor are the products. Chuckled when readers claim yesteryears was more potent. Goes to demonstrate more nostalgia than reality.
WABAC users had no idea the source of the drug, the potency, whether it contained other "things". Legalization of 1, cannabis, did bring clarity on the unknowns. As a general statement today's product is far more potent and concentrated with a range that can be better understood by the typical alcohol chart of low alcohol content through the highest. Understood, not an actual comparison because the two effect the mind and body very differently.
Have no idea how any valid study can be conducted when there is no way to determine what and how much cannabis was consumed pre-legalization. Baggies or joints didn't come with a UPC label and actual plant details. Much like your correct statement on the 2024 election there are too many variables and will add too many unknowns.
Medical science has been using cannabis in various forms for a long time and for a broader array of uses. . Globally aboriginal and ~indigenous~ have been using cannabis (and more) in ceremonies for thousands of years.
As far as recreational usage here comes the general statement as well as the nexus back to alcohol. Aboriginal and ~indigenous~ have a major problem on how alcohol effects the body. Generally speaking a far lower tolerance of alcohol. The opposite is true with mind altering, natural products. Noticed am excluding chemical-based synthetics for a host of reasons including not knowing the actual composition.
Anything that alters the mind/brain is difficult to study including when ingested all the way through long term side effects because it falls into the emerging science of neuroscience. Hoomankind simply doesn't have a good handle on the brain of any living thing. It too falls under too many variables and too many unknowns. With time and as often happens in modern science an unrelated or overlooked factor will result in a leap forward.
'Til then each individual will continue to have their own valid or invalid take of past, present, and future usage. All anecdotal. Some of which is evidence most of which is not. Have no idea how. if at all consuming cannabis effects voting. We do know it slows drivers down so perhaps some arrived late but safe. Same can't be said about a drunk driver. They might have arrived on time while endangering others and self to and fro.
*Vomitting from cannabis. WABAC most cannabis was blended. While some was from sources outside the US often it was blended with homegrown to increase the volume. WABAC then who knows how the plants were fed and with what and more importantly how they were cared for. In source countries it was native so care was less likely to include chemicals based fertilizers and pesticides. Backyard or in-house plants in the US? Trial and error. Lots of both.
Keep in mind cannabis growers in the US didn't want to be caught so the larger dealers/growers sought out Public Land and yes, Rez land. Like moonshiners of lore they made their own rules on land they had no business being on. Doesn't make for a peaceful co-existence. And money makes for violence, paranoia and corruption. Both are worse and linger longer in society than individual negative side effects from usage. Tht is another reason states moved to legalize cannabis. One not openly spoken about, an actual greater good vs. a known set of societal downsides when/where cannabis was illegal.
We set our feet down a thorny path when behavior became regulated by forced compliance rather than community (tribal) self regulation.
It’s inevitable of course that earth-based values could not survive city life (civilization?).
There are a couple places in the Old Testament where that may be implied or inferred.
No argument from me on any of the sharp points w/a caveat on point2.
Famine, droughts, floods, sea monsters, land monsters, and other natural occurring events are a reminder (albeit for a extremely short time) that civilization more fragile than advertised. They should be a teaching moment vis a vis Global Climate Change. Alas, the civilized learn slow and unlearn even slower.
So, whether it's a natural occurring event or man-authored (4eg war), local society and civilization itself can break down in as short as 2weeks. No matter how many times that's been repeated around the Blue Marble, the civilized insist it cannot happen again and dismiss the concept of cascading events.
The 3Abrahamics are an interesting insight into the times and the desire to cast aside what is real for that which is not. Where truth and knowing was replaced by belief and faith. ~Remarkable~ good man.
Funny how it always seems to end up with a mob screaming “Give us a king!”
Agree. 2Many in "civilized nations, societies, and cultures" now prefer short-cuts and oversimplification over thinking right then doing right. Existing and living w/o a code or first principles contribute to that.
Yet insist embracing an ideology of any type is a valid substitute as we unfold in NOLA and LV this past week. Both swapped out their word (Oath) for a different one and rationalized doing so. Never once understanding what the word betrayal is all about.
Be Well, good man. Am grateful
Sorry, but you misread me, and probably Dick Montagne and others. But first, wherever the weed comes from, nausea is a common first-time reaction that doesn't recur.
Far from griping about comparatively weaker weed now, I was commenting that—unwanted by me—it's now as strong as I imagine heavyduty psychedelics to be. I've read that growers have turned themselves into little Luther Burbanks ever strengthening THC potency; my lone experience since i stopped supports that.
Dick wrote that he quit 40 years ago and "The last time I took a couple hits of some buds at a party maybe 10 years ago, I became comatose, sure the music sounded great but I could barely function, it wasn’t any fun at all, I needed to be driven home in my car by a buddy. It was almost like an acid trip where you needed to block out the better part of a day for the experience, who has time for that while in random company. […]" That doesn't read to me like a complaint that pot's not as strong as it used to be.
JSYK: The comment on potency and everything else was not directed to you or any person in particular. It was married to your comment on too many variables. That's very often the case when a person goes off on something while ignoring both what is known (common knowledge) and what is unknown. Ironically, one of the semi-polite pushbacks that have survived a few GENS is often, are you tripping?
Interesting, but I have smoked pot recreationally since the 1970s, and I have never missed an election or failed to support the Democratic Party. I usually am totally in sinc with your column, but I think your logic is faulty here. What about Colorado? The first state to legalize pot? Blue. Pot is not the problem. Ignorance and lack of education is the problem.
I'd like to comment, but I just smoked a joint and can't remember what you said!! Just kidding.
I really don't think it's the pot. I think it's just complacency and not staying informed about how America works. It's the people who did not vote that cost us the election.
And those who voted against their own interests, thinking that Dumbass will magically lower inflation.
I can see some of reality hitting them now...
"holy sh_t! I thought he was going to LOWER the prices of groceries!"
Great points all, Lucian (Lucent). However, doors of perception created Apple Computer and many other inovative enterprises decades ago. Dope smokers all. It effects people very differently in many ways. There are regular smokers who are in high places of influence and responsibility within industry and government agencies. I will not name them, but they are long time friends and associates.
A toke with some of them at a get together once in a while is more than I can take, for the past 30 years.
Then there are the loadies who by their nature are not going to be productive anyway. Hitler roused the drunkards in the beer halls to be his fervent supporters.
I have always maintained and written and spoken about the dumbing down of the educational system in the US as the number one weapon that the rightwing has used openly since Reagan appointed Max Rafferty to Superintendent of Public instruction out here on the leftist coast back in the day.The Jarvis anti tax shit spread like wildfire accross the country and critical thinking, etc, were eliminated as "Frills" The oligarchy is working tirelessly to take the control they just missed with Hitler.
Pot just enabled me to not want to yell at some asshole on the way to vote, like my state, New Mexico, for an entirely blue slate up and down ballot, even as we are surrounded by a sea of MAGA red. We didnt vote or not because we were stoned, but we were certainly more friendly because of it.
Give the new stuff a try, Lucien!
When I met my DDR relatives in their small town in Thüringen, Germany, they were so lacking in drive, and just drinking like fish and everyone looked inbred and addled to me. Youth were to be seen sitting on benches drinking and just not giving a shit. However, I suspect there is a correlation between pot smoking and absorbing mind numbing amounts of stupid content on the internet.
I see social media as a drug with addictive algorithms and many people being reluctant to let go. My 19-year-old daughter's cell phone has been glued to her hand this entire holiday season, and has been the subject of much complaint from me. There is a series of pics that a friend shared. It is called Removed, and takes the cell phones away and shows people with them removed. https://www.removed.social/united-states
Re addictive social media: I’m addicted to Substack.