Kathleen Parker writes of Reefer Sanity in the Washington Post, and notes a shift that we’ve talked about here…
But the shift toward a more sensible national policy is no longer confined to the left. Nor is the long-haired stoner the face of the pro-pot lobby. Today’s activist, more likely, doesn’t have facial hair, but she does have kids.
Lately to the smallish conservative crowd, notably once led by anti-prohibitionist William F. Buckley, is Jessica Corry of Colorado, a married, pro-life Republican mom, soon to be “freedom fighter of the month” in High Times magazine.
Recent partakers undoubtedly will have to rub their eyes for a double take when they spot Corry, who spoke last month at a NORML conference (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) in San Francisco, wearing an American flag lapel pin, a triple strand of pearls and a gold marijuana leaf pin.
Another day, another stereotype in the dust bin.
We noted that the recent Gallup Poll showed a 12 percentage point increase in support for marijuana legalization among women from 2005 to 2009. Recent articles in Marie Claire and Elle have talked about the successful female pot smoker.
And yes, mothers have power.
There’s nothing like imagining one’s own children as “criminals” to put irrational laws in perspective.
Kathleen Parker finishes by going back to the first prohibition…
In 1929, the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform led the movement to end alcohol prohibition. Might women lead the next revolution in personal autonomy?
Fine with me.
It was the women whose children’s lives were being endangered by alcohol Prohibition who spearheaded early efforts at repealing it. Once again, it’s history repeating itself.
And, yes, we have good ol’ Professor Whitebread to thank for also putting this into perspective:
“We could have used any of these prohibitions. We could have used the alcohol prohibition. The reason we didn’t is because so much good stuff has been written about it. And are you aware of this? That every single — you know how fashionable it is to think that scholars can never agree? — Don’t you believe that — Every single person who has ever written seriously about the national alcohol prohibition agrees on why it collapsed. Why?
Because it violated that iron law of Prohibitions. What is the iron law of Prohibitions? Prohibitions are always enacted by US, to govern the conduct of THEM.”
And when the THEM become your own kids? The reaction is obvious. And we’re seeing that looooong overdue reaction now.
Yes, when THEM becomes US, changes in view are inevitable.
I argued with one of my sisters over the WOD several times and could never get her to change her position even though she conceded on point after point in these talks.
Then a few years after our last WOD talk, out the blue she tells me she had come over to my way of thinking.
What changed her mind?
Some months after our last WOD talk a new min. security prison opened in the school district where she taught. Most of the inmates there are incarcerated for drug violations. This brought in a large number of people to the area wanting to live close to the prison in order to be close to their incarcerated loved ones.
Some moved into her school’s district and she now had students in her classes with fathers in prison just a couple miles down the road. She got to know them and their mothers. For the first time she saw the human face of WOD victims. It wasn’t what she expected to see. Instead of low life crooks, she saw ordinary folks whose lives were being ruined, not by drugs, but by the laws. She’s been against the WOD ever since.
“For the first time she saw the human face of WOD victims. It wasn’t what she expected to see. Instead of low life crooks, she saw ordinary folks whose lives were being ruined, not by drugs, but by the laws. She’s been against the WOD ever since.”
And there it is. As Prof. Whitfield makes very clear, the progenitors of the DrugWar had, from its’ outset, intended it to be a weapon against “those people” . Those Black people, those Hispanic people, those Asian people. Then later on it became a weapon against those Beatnik people, those Hippies, those ‘free-thinkers’ who question society’s conventions. By Tricky Dick Nixon’s day, it was any human male whose hair was longer than Army regulation two inches and any woman who demanded equal rights.
The purpose of the DrugWar is to punish ‘The Other’ for daring to be different. But when ‘The Other’ becomes your own family? Then (and seemingly, only then) does the realization come home to roost, and it lays the same awful egg in your own nest that you thought only happened in ‘those people’s’ coops. And that’s when it becomes okay for ‘decent people’ to do the once verboten. Same old story, round and round, generation after generation…and all in the history books which nobody but crusty old farts like moi bother to read and learn from.
Come MoMs, you have a great amount of power. Use it to stop this madness.
you dont see a group out there called MAHD do you? Mothers Against High Driving…..
prohibs always bring up the driving part of it yet fail to see that there isnt a huge high driving problem… even though hundreds of thousands of people drive high everyday…. thats just a guess but im sure its pretty close to that….if not more
I think its some lesbian women, Hoover transvestites and J Pee Walters transexuals that are the most zealous drug worriers… Atheists also have a problem with the spiritual side of Ganja. Religionists have a problem with tokers finding God without the church getting a cut. Drug worrier politicians are all harlots…
Calvina
Barthswell
Tandy
Emily Murphy
Hillary
JPWalters
JE Hoover
most southern republicans…
“Persons using this narcotic [marijuana] smoke the dried leaves of the plant, which has the effect of driving them completely insane. The addict loses all sense of moral responsibility. Addicts to this drug, while under its influence, are immune to pain, and could be injured without having any realization of their condition.”
Emily Murphy – Canadian Prohibitionist (1923)
Cannabis and Driving
Ganja is a lot safer driving than the inebriating booze. But it reduces stress, and its usually expensive. So why waste it on traffic stress or idiot driver downers? Best bang for the buck is after you get to a place without potential side effects. Like cops. MADD was advocating for drunk drivers to stay in prison. Many times like the Steve Kubby case, drunks are released if they snitch.
What the hell are you on about Ddc?! That makes no sense to me. As for the subject at hand, I am happy to see women on the forefront of decriminalization of weed. Its about time
The irony here is that many of these women in support of mj may actually be in favor of repealing prohibition of cannabis because they have determined that unlike alcohol, it does NOT turn men into huge violent jerks with the compulsion to rape them.