With all the talk about marijuana legalization, one might
wonder how it became illegal in the first place. This blog is not really about marijuana, but
it’s a good place to start.
First off, marijuana is not even the correct name for
it. “Marijuana” is actually a form of
Mexican tobacco, the plant everyone refers to today is actually cannabis or
hemp.
In the 1930’s, one of the uses for hemp was paper. It provided a fast, efficient way to make
paper without having to wait for trees to grow and chop down.
John D Rockefeller, a big newspaper magnate saw it as a
threat to his paper industry so he had to think of a moral argument to get it
banned so it wouldn’t pose a threat to his business.
He decided to run a story which only appeared in his
newspaper (how convenient!) by Harry J. Anslinger of the Federal Bureau of
Narcotics (the original DEA). In it,
Anslinger, a known racist, stated that men of black and latino descent were
smoking it, getting extra amorous and going around raping white women. Which of course was just bullshit designed
to make people panic about it. This was
the 1930’s, after all.
That is how hemp was outlawed. Of course, when it became illegal bad shit
started to happen. It gave business to the drug cartels, which is
the biggest side effect to making it illegal.
There are many other economic, social and health issues that have
surfaced due to it being banned, too many to list in fact.
But it’s not just hemp.
It is many things that are either banned, or things that people push to
be banned simply because they have a certain sense of “morality” that they feel
needs to be shared with the rest of the nation.
But as the title says: When you
ban shit for morality reasons, bad things happen.
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There are two major examples of things that people want
outlawed, plus one that is the prime
example of what happens you ban shit for morality reasons. Let’s start with the two examples first.
1. Abortion.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I am very pro-choice,
but even I know that overturning Roe V. Wade would just leave it up to the states
to decide. You know as well as anyone
that states like Alabama would immediately outlaw it if Roe V. Wade was
overturned.
I will quote something that someone said to me recently: “I
am not a fan of laws that cannot be enforced.
If a woman wants an abortion, she will
get an abortion!”
That is the problem right there. If you outlaw abortion, then women will just
have “back alley” abortions and put themselves in significant harm. You will have women taking plane rides and
road trips to states that will keep it legal.
But it’s not just that.
For women that could not get an abortion and are desperate,
you will be seeing women throwing their unwanted babies in dumpsters / trash
cans. Orphanages will fill up to beyond
capacity. In addition, unwanted children
in these states will be abused and neglected by their mothers that decide to
keep them after its born, causing child abuse cases to skyrocket.
Or, you’ll have stories like this:
Yes, it is awful.
This is a different type of case, though. When states cannot ban something for morality
reasons, they put restrictions on it. I
just looked on Planned Parenthood’s website and Nebraska is one of the states
that require a parent to grant permission for an abortion. I am willing to bet my lunch money that the
girl knew her mother would refuse to allow her an abortion, so she got
desperate and when people are desperate they do some crazy fucked up shit.
2. Pornography.
Remember when Rick Santorum wanted to ban pornography? A little reminder:
If you were to ban porn, you would be causing a lot of
people to lose their jobs. I’m not just
talking about the performers, either.
I’m talking about the camera guys, the editors, the web designers, etc.
The rhetoric on porn that guys like Santorum like to spew is
that porn can lead to committing sexual assault. That alone is untrue to the point of being
slanderous, and all it takes is a quick research on countries where pornography
is outlawed to where it’s legal. Hint:
sexual assault is higher in countries
where it’s outlawed. The reason is
simple: If you are freely allowed to get your release to a two-dimensional tart
on your computer monitor, you are lot less likely to bottle it up until you
explode on a real-life unwilling female.
I’ll be the first to say it: If a city or state bans porn, they better
be prepared to hire more SVU detectives.
The other bullshit rhetoric that anti-porn people like to
spout is that guys who watch porn tend to, um, have issues getting aroused to a
real-life person. True, consuming any
porn might raise a guy’s standards to a level that causes him to overlook an
otherwise viable partner just because she doesn’t look like Dani Daniels or
Jelena Jenson. But even so, you will be
hard pressed to find any man who can’t get it up for a real-life woman in the
flesh. Besides, all media is guilty of desensitizing
people.
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And now, the poster child for what happens when you ban shit
for morality reasons:
Prohibition of
alcohol aka the eighteenth amendment.
The 18th amendment aka
“prohibition” is the best example of
why you should never ban shit just because you think it’s morally wrong. Prohibition was difficult to enforce and just
created a whole slew of criminal enterprises.
Thankfully, the 21st amendment repealed it.
In fact, if you look at the entry for the 21st
amendment here, you will see a quote that John D Rockefeller (Yes, him) said about it:
“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be
widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil
effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to
believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally
increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of
lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored
Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has
increased to a level never seen before.”
Notice the part where he said that drinking actually increased under prohibition. That is because when something is illegal,
there is a “rush” that you get when you do something that you know could get
you in trouble. When it’s legal to purchase
and consume, that rush is simply not there anymore and it’s less fun to
actually do it.
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Now for the rebuttals that people reading this may have:
1. But weed is a
gateway drug! That is why it was banned! Not because it was competition!
If you actually say this, congrats, you’re a moron that
deserves to have your rebuttal privileges revoked. It has been proven to NOT, I repeat NOT be a gateway drug.
98% of weed users never move on to harder drugs, and that remaining 2%
would have done so anyway even without weed being in the picture. But keep on having this extremely outdated
mindset!
2. If you make weed
legal it’s going to cause all sorts of problems. Look at Colorado.
Record levels of tax revenue collected, to the point that
Colorado had to give some of it back to its citizens. Drops in all sorts of crime (Especially
domestic violence, because after all if you’re mellowed out on weed you’re a
lot less likely to beat your wife/girlfriend).
Record job growth. A boom in the
food service industry. A police force
that can concentrate on real criminals instead of busting someone for having
weed. People have access to a medicine
that actually works with no side effects.
If these are “problems,” then bring them on!
3. If porn
“desensitizes” a guy to the point that he passes over a viable partner because
she doesn’t have the body of a pornstar, then yes that is a problem.
You might as well blame all media for it, as I wrote
previously. Ever heard of “two girls one
room?” No, it’s not a viral shock
video. Basically, it goes like this:
There are two women in a room, one looks like a beautiful celebrity while the
other is obese with pimples all over her face.
Now let’s say a guy is placed in that room and is asked to choose the
woman he would want to date. 100 times
out of 100, he will choose the woman that looks like the celebrity. But let’s say that the celebrity look-alike
has no interest in him, while the obese woman does. 100 times out of 100, I am betting that the
guy would rather pick no one and stay single then pick the obese woman. After all, it’s better to be alone and happy
then be taken and miserable. It’s what happens when attractive women are
the norm in the media. It’s not just
movies or TV shows either, look at the vast majority of the weather and traffic
girls on your local TV news station.
When it’s the norm, the brain assumes that is what it should go for.
4. If porn doesn’t
drive men to committing sexual assault, why did Elizabeth Smart say that her
captor would watch porn then rape her?
Make no mistake: What Elizabeth Smart went through I would
not wish on even my worst enemy.
But let’s be honest here.
Her captor did not need to watch porn to be a raging, sexually assaulting
dirtbag. He already was one that just
happened to watch porn. Correlation is definitely
NOT the same as causation. His material
of choice could have been a benign documentary of hummingbirds. It would not
have mattered. He still would have been a raging, sexually assaulting dirtbag
no matter what he watched. Unfortunately,
everyone likes to have a “fall guy,” and in this case porn was that fall guy.
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Conclusion.
The moral of the story here (pun not intended), is that yes
there are many things that people don’t like.
But when you ban those things just because you don’t like it, a whole slew of problems start popping up. Problems that you never saw coming that are actually
worse than the thing you managed to outlaw.
Is it worth it just because you think something is immoral? Remember guys: What is immoral to someone
else may be perfectly acceptable to another.
Does not mean it should be outlawed just because someone doesn’t like
it.
Have a good day!
