Followers

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Conspiracy Theories Against the Legalization of Marijuana

By The WebPreneur, Sarah Scrafford
Source
Mary Jane, pot, cannabis, ganja—the substance has so many names. Those who spend a lot of time on the web are used to coming across opinions ranging from the insightful to the outright insane. But when it comes to theories against efforts to legalize pot in the US, some theories are really off the wall.
While there are advocacy groups on both sides of the issue, this isn’t intended as a serious policy article (so no hate mail please!). Rather, its intended to be a chance for everyone to take a step back and laugh at some of the truly nuttiest conspiracy theories put forth from both sides of the aisle. Here are the Top 10:
  1. The legalization of Mary Jane will turn America’s youth into useless consumer hippies: Like a scene straight out of Reefer Madness, parent groups are up in arms against their little darlings having easy access to cannabis. The drug causes a decrease in problem solving capability, decreased motor skills and muscle strength, and is officially said to make children slack off in school. Forget for a moment that the 2006 Monitoring the Future survey found that about two out of five seniors in high school have tried marijuana and still managed to get into Harvard and Rice. These suburbia dwellers want their three children protected from the other two.
  2. It is a calculated plot to corrode the morals of impressionable youth, making them susceptible to the devil, infomercials: Believers in this conspiracy theory believe that the drug abuser community at large has organized to brainwash minors into an unhealthy lifestyle. Indeed, studies show that America’s high schoolers are less likely to disapprove of marijuana use, which correlates to findings that regular church attendance is down in the same age group.
  3. Legalization is just another way to quail the masses: Like the LSD and AIDS conspiracies of yesteryear, card carrying members of this covert plot think that legalizing Mary Jane would solely benefit the government. With everyone listening to reggae, there would be no time to exercise the first amendment.
  4. Legalization will help the terrorists win: If cannabis were made legal, the terror alert in America would rise to code ‘impending doom green’ according to these theorists. Islamic extremists have been pushing Mary Jane on otherwise responsible citizens in an effort to fund terrorist plots to take over free society. Keep in mind that these extremists have a diverse portfolio, and are also using oil, the media, and Google to supplement their incomes.
  5. The legalization movement is an elaborate plot by pharmaceutical companies to get people addicted to drugs: One of the biggest pillars of the legalization platform has been that marijuana can be used for medicinal purposes by terminally ill patients and others suffering from pain. It is either given in the medically accepted form of marinol, or smoked. However, the overall substance is classified by the government as a gateway drug, and may encourage people to use drugs to cure what ails them. Big companies like Pfizer and Merck & Co could benefit greatly from a society trained to use drugs to feel better.
  6. Marijuana causes schizophrenia, and if legalized will render the masses mentally unstable.: Hefty pdf documents coming from researchers in England and Australia have initially found that there might be a slight correlation between the use of marijuana and hearing voices. Experts cite that childhood use can be traced to as much as 14 per cent of psychotic episodes later in life, and suggests the legalization of marijuana would severely affect the health of generations to come. In the same articles though, stress is equally seen as a cause of schizophrenia. Commentators have largely written off these findings as anything from shoddy research to funding holes for lobbyist organizations.
  7. The movement is just a way to employ former Woodstock attendees, and does not actually serve any legal point: It’s a sad fact: protesters and activists need something to get behind now that the civil rights movement has ebbed. Most of these flower children went on to do things like vote and get law degrees, and now they are around the world to get their recreational drugs out in the mainstream economy. After all, it’s just awkward to go through your babysitter for a dime bag when it could be readily available on your way home from work at the 7-11.
  8. Society as we know it will collapse, and anarchistic potheads will rule the world: The logic here is that once marijuana is legalized, it is only a matter of time before everything else becomes legal. Soon people will be knee deep in a plethora of mind-altering substances, and society will suffer. With everyone on an assumed perpetual high, things like traffic flow and social moirés will cease to have meaning. This classic slippery slope argument can be applied to anything, all with the eventual downfall of human society. Picture the ending scene from Planet of the Apes.
  9. Legalizing ganja in the form of hemp will mean the end of the honest American farmer: The facts say it all: one acre of hemp can produce the same amount of paper as 4.1 acres of trees; 80 percent of all textiles, fabrics, clothes and linens were made from hemp until the 1820s. With these figures back in place, hemp growers could easily undercut prices of raw materials to create a new market. Paper mills would go under unless they converted to hemp processing, crops like cotton would become obsolete and the way of life for the breadbasket of America would be threatened.
  10. Cannabis is the next nicotine:Like movies of old depicting pregnant women, operating doctors, scientists and teenagers smoking cigarettes, theorists predict that cannabis will be our children’s children’s reason to ask ‘what were my grandparents thinking?’ Although nicotine comes in a close fourth to addictive substances behind heroin, cocaine and alcohol, Cannabis is bested on that front by…caffeine. The University of California at San Francisco’s study of these six substances also found that intoxication levels in cannabis were higher than nicotine, the addiction potential and withdraw troubles were about two fold in nicotine.
In this long debate that continues to get minimal press coverage, it is useful on occasion to take a step back and recognize the ridiculousness of some ideas that are put forth. It is my hope that this regaining of perspective will allow people on both sides of the debate to recognize the extremes often taken and find a middle ground that in the end will serve all parties better.

3 comments: