F<\/span>or those of us old enough to remember the utility of carving makeshift bongs out of apples, the thrift of scraping months\u2019 worth of resin out of glass pipes to cobble together enough THC to enjoy an afternoon buzz, and the necessity of slinking behind bushes and hurling ourselves over fences to elude punishment, the era of legal commercial marijuana sales is a wonderful thing.<\/p>\n Celebrate we should, for this \u2014 the privilege of handing a store clerk $70 plus taxes for an eighth of cannabis \u2014 is a significant milestone<\/a> and a long time coming. It is also just the very beginning, a preamble, the end of the beginning.<\/p>\n For those who will listen, it\u2019s a lesson and reminder. The drug war is far from over \u2014 and marijuana legalization has a long way to go before it\u2019s \u201csettled\u201d in a way that brings about a lasting and just peace, rather than (like so many other \u201cwars\u201d that involve sieges and stalemates between nation-states) more conflict, on a different stage, with younger actors.<\/p>\n With all the baggage that decades of treating marijuana like a toxic substance brings, watching adults (21 and over) march into commercial storefronts and emerge with (small amounts) of cannabis is by itself an intoxicating sight.<\/p>\n Dumping the load of outright illegality at long last can lead to all kinds of heady and premature pronouncements, such as \u201cWe won!\u201d and \u201cThe war\u2019s over!\u201d But don\u2019t mistake the flush of a single victory for the final peace.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Real combat and conflict are present enough in our lives to render inappropriate war metaphors trite and offensive, but here is a rare exception. The drug war is a real war. This is not hyperbole. The drug war has soldiers, and they are armed with the same\u00a0equipment<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0attitudes<\/a>\u00a0that American soldiers carry into combat zones. And most significantly, the drug war has casualties, most of whom (as with a war between opposing armies) are nonviolent noncombatants<\/a>.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the drug war good for? Plenty: Disenfranchising voters<\/a>, impoverishing communities of people<\/a>. Denying jobs,\u00a0denying the welfare state\u2019s last vestiges<\/a>. The drug war denies people money. It strips people of their power, and concentrates it somewhere else.<\/p>\n War is politics by other means<\/a>, as the military theorist Carl von Clausewitz said, and the forces behind these directives are alive and thriving in our society. They are in the White House. They are president<\/a> and they are attorney general<\/a>.<\/p>\n None of this has changed with marijuana legalization\u2019s rapid, stunning success, and the head-spinning growth of the legal American cannabis industry. The laws creating a state of war are still on the books, and the warriors are still on the battlefield. And, yes, that applies to cannabis.<\/p>\n Perhaps this bores you. Perhaps this feels like a killjoy\u2019s hectoring, the unnecessary turd in an otherwise delightful punchbowl. But remember those who do not have the luxury of forgetting about the War on Drugs, because in reality, neither do you.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> what are you doing to end the War on Drugs?<\/p>\n The post New Year\u2019s Resolution: Fight Against the War on Drugs<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Marijuana legalization is a small victory, a small step towards undoing the War on Drug\u2019s legacy. If we stop here, it will be a failure. For those of us old enough to remember the utility of carving makeshift bongs out of apples, the thrift of scraping months\u2019 worth of resinContinue 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":[50,80,3100,119,319,97],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22919"}],"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=22919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22920,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22919\/revisions\/22920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
This year, resolve to carry this in your head and in your heart, and remind yourself and others:<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: New Year\u2019s Resolution: Fight Against the War on Drugs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"