I can definitely understand peoples’ issues with it being consumed, especially in a political context, but how do yall feel about “weed”? I won’t hide my feelings, I am very much pro-weed, it’s not great that I started in my mid-teens but in my area it’s FAR from uncommon. I don’t smoke daily or anything, I’m not addicted to it (people say it’s non-habit forming but any drug can be addictive with enough frequent usage) but I do smoke and dab w/ friends often. That’s not why I believe in legalization tho, my main thing is you shouldn’t make a naturally occurring plant an illegal substance. I’d point to the DEA’s destructive (legal) burning of thousands of naturally occurring marijuana plants found in nature; This seems eco-fascist to me and to deny the uses of hemp as a production material seems dogmatic to me. The USSR used hemp for industrial purposes during the war and it helped in a major way. I’m sure most of us are familiar with the badge given for Hemp growers. If you have any criticisms, I’m more than open to it, but I feel that marijuana won’t be easy to get rid of in future society and would probably be put to use in different more productive ways.
Marijuana should be treated like many other drugs. Legal but with education and addiction treatment extremely available. I don’t want a revolution without dancing. I’m not the ideal proletariat and you won’t make me into a better one by banning my vices. If I want a glass of whiskey, or to smoke a bowl with some friends or after a day of work and exercise, or to spend a day tripping, banning it won’t make me spend that time reading theory or engaging in mutual aid. It will however make me resent the person or group that banned it as I either do it anyway or use that time in a different non productive pursuit of enjoyment with a similar aim.
Want to know how to make me a better proletariat? Make it so I’m not too tired after work to exercise and I have easy access to resources and community to do it (an anarchist bike coop did more for my physical health than any drug law). Want me to become more educated in my free time? Make classes easy for me to access in person and make it a fun thing to go out and do with my free time. Also encourage use of the skills I learn there, languages are great for this. Want to get me engaging in culture more? Make culture easy and welcoming to access.
And after all that, some nights, I’m still just going to want to enjoy a vice and turn off my brain or chat about anything and nothing with friends. But that’s ok. And freedom is the right to make the worse decision. And strong communities can and historically have coexisted with cannabis use. Hell a pot circle is a great place to discuss philosophy. Why shouldn’t the likes of Marx and kropotkin and Lenin and Trotsky and Davis be discussed there too?
I don’t want to live under Puritanism painted red and replacing god with the proletariat.