“Stockton University” in New Jersey–it used to be a community college, but now every academic halfway house is a “university”–is going to offer, this fall semester, a minor in “Cannabis Studies” (https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=11289).
For a mere $5,100 if you’re an in-state student, or $9,200 if you’re from out of state, you can sit around and talk pot to your heart’s content. How intellectually stimulating! The school makes a point of declaring that offering the course is “not an endorsement” to be stoned all the time. So we don’t have to worry about that, do we?
What are we to make of someone who has five or nine thousand bucks to throw away on “Cannabis Studies”? Not that it’s any more a waste of time than all the other “studies” cluttering up our colleges. Gender Superhero Cissexual Surfing Studies: stuff like that. At this point you can’t even get a degree in Cannabis Studies–but what do you want to bet a degree program will become available, once they figure out how much they can charge for it?
Too many colleges, too many people in ’em, too much money going down the rabbit-hole…
Defund the looniversities now.
“Thirty-one states, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico have legalized medical cannabis, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Nine states and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational marijuana.”
I spoke to a fellow recently with a security business in Colorado. He said that as soon as recreational marijuana was legalized, crime became much more of a problem, in fact he got out of the business after one too many hairy experiences. What’s the difference? Simply cost.
The medical marijuana laws are routinely abused and anyone with a stubbed toe can probably find a Doc Feelgood to write the prescription if they want to use marijuana to get high. (There are legitimate medical uses of marijuana-based drugs, but in many cases, these products are designed to not make the user high.) However, going to the doctor costs money and is out of the reach of many recreational users, so the legalization of recreational marijuana has s significant effect beyond the legalization of medical marijuana.
In Colorado, one of the first places to legalize recreational marijuana, the difference in palpable. Places I have rented motels rooms and felt perfectly safe not longer feel safe. The presence of a criminal element is palpable. Major highways leading into Colorado frequently have “dispensaries” at the first exit within the state’s borders. One gas station, where I have traded for years, used to be pristine and pleasant. When a dispensary opened nearby, that atmosphere changed almost instantly.
Proverbs 6:18 comes to mind: “feet that make haste to run to evil”. While pumping gas, I’ve seen cars drive up to that dispensary and young people trip over their feet rushing into that dispensary, conveniently located just a few miles into Colorado. That was actually the first time I even noticed the dispensary, because these young guys were so obviously rushing to get into this building.
It’s tempting to try to apply the lessons of Prohibition to the issue of marijuana. However, marijuana is characteristically different from alcohol. A driver that drives under the influence of alcohol will likely be overconfident and will overreact, causing them to be unpredictable and to weave from lane to lane. A driver using marijuana might drive more slowly and not pay attention to the fact that they are holding up traffic, but they are not behaving like drunk drivers. If you apply this to other activities, you can see that marijuana doesn’t have quite the same self-limiting effects as alcohol. Drink too much and you will get drunk and eventually pass out, smoke marijuana and chances are that the person will be docile, but slow reacting.
From what I’ve seen, the legalization of recreational marijuana has not solved the problem, but changed the nature of the problem. Also, it’s good to keep in mind that it is still illegal at the Federal level.
My brother-in-law has Parkinson’s and has been prescribed medical marijuana to help with his suffering – but his medication is the ingredient in the plant that does not cause the “high”. Recreational pot is another story, and a destructive one at that. People who use alcohol recreationally are socially oriented, whereas people who use marijuana recreationally are less social and self-absorbed.
Have you ever had to spend any time with pot-heads? It’s boring!
That’s an area of great confusion. Marijuana can be used in making some very beneficial medicines, but that doesn’t mean that those medications will have the same mood/psychological effects as smoking marijuana, but that is not necessarily the case.
There are a lot of people that use medical reasons as an excuse for smoking pot, but that’s their problem. If someone wants to impede their memory and slow down their mind, that’s their choice, but not a choice in the direction of goodness.
I fellow I knew years ago smoked marijuana for decades and now he has very little to show for his life. I ran into him a while back and was very surprised. Since seeing him last, in the late ’70s, I’ve had a full life, but he’s still the wasted dude he was over 40 years ago.
Weed studies…a major that is blowing in the wind, vanity of vanity…