F<\/span>or counterculture movements, there is no surer sign of assimilation and acceptance into the vast, inhuman machine has oppressed you than being granted the ability to volunteer to dedicate your life in service of that same machine.<\/p>\n Gay people have been discriminated against in American society, and trans people suffer even more. But, hey \u2014 now gay people can serve openly in the military,\u00a0and until President Donald Trump removed their access last August<\/a>, trans people could, too!\u00a0(Whether or not they\u00a0should<\/i>, and the merits and health of a society that requires its citizens to fight in its name in order for them to be able to afford schooling, are both grist for another day.)<\/p>\n Now, with the U.S. Army fighting what appears to be a permanent war in Afghanistan and desperately in need of 80,000 new soldiers \u2014 or, more accurately, with the world\u2019s costliest standing army<\/a>\u00a0enjoying new funding following years of declining military spending<\/a> under Obama \u2014 the same favor is being extended to marijuana users.<\/p>\n This month, USA Today brought us the news that the Army is so hard up for recruits\u00a0that it\u2019s relaxing its standards\u00a0to allow more recruits who admit to having smoked marijuana<\/a>. The Army is also allowing more \u201cmarginally qualified recruits,\u201d soldiers who required waivers for a criminal history or for poor educational standards into basic training. This is partly because the Army needs to attract teenagers playing\u00a0Call of Duty<\/i>\u00a0to pick up a real weapon rather than go enter the workforce \u2014 and partly because using cannabis is now legal in more than half the country.<\/p>\n Prospective soldiers who have smoked marijuana in the past will be given a waiver \u2014 on two conditions. First, they have to promise not to smoke weed again (or at least not until later, when they\u2019re suffering from the crippling PTSD<\/a> they picked up on while on active duty in a combat zone \u2014 because drug use is forbidden <\/a>when in the service of the United States).<\/p>\n And second, the recruits also have to be obedient.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big thing we\u2019re looking for is a pattern of misconduct where they\u2019re going to have a problem with authority,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Snow, the Army\u2019s top man in charge of recruits, according to USA Today.<\/p>\n \u201cSmoking marijuana in an isolated incident as a teenager is not a pattern of misconduct,\u201d Gen. Snow said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n This will put at least some soldiers in the position of having to literally destroy what they once enjoyed. Troops stationed overseas\u00a0are routinely deployed to destroy drug finds as part of their mission<\/a>, as are domestically based National Guard units.<\/p>\n The military\u00a0has always had a disingenuous relationship with drugs<\/a>. In Vietnam, troops were issued steroids, uppers and painkillers in order to allow them to fight better for longer.\u00a0And military personnel like pilots are still issued \u201cgo pills\u201d<\/a> \u2014 that is, speed \u2014 to keep them awake and on edge during long missions. And thanks to Congress, the Veterans Administration is still prohibiting its doctors<\/a> from prescribing medical marijuana to former soldiers.<\/p>\n Still. The fact that the Pentagon is copping to the new reality around it and \u201cwelcoming\u201d people who admit to smoking weed is indeed a sign that marijuana is becoming more mainstream.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/b>, do you think the military should prohibit cannabis use?<\/p>\n The post The U.S. Army Will Recruit More Cannabis Smokers<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
This October, the military announced that it will be issuing more waivers to recruits who admit to having smoked marijuana. For counterculture movements, there is no surer sign of assimilation and acceptance into the vast, inhuman machine has oppressed you than being granted the ability to volunteer to dedicate yourContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,80,81,2105],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20497,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20496\/revisions\/20497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: The U.S. Army Will Recruit More Cannabis Smokers<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"