Prompted by “Congressman Laughs at Sheriff’s Ridiculous Opinion on Weed”: http://www.hightimes.com/read/congressman-laughs-sheriffs-ridiculous-opinion-weed
“‘You said that illegal drug use is the scourge of the black community and it is a problem and leads to a great deal of violent crime,’ Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) said, addressing Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. ‘Would you agree that marijuana possession is not the scourge of the black community and does not lead to violent crime the same way that meth, crack cocaine and heroin do?
‘No, I wouldn’t agree with that at all,’ Clark responded.”
Neither would I, but your potential gasping respectfully aside, my reason diverges from the apparent ‘drug prohibition is the solution’ message offered by Mr. Clarke.
Since society crushingly dominantly still ignores the following obvious point, I state it boldly…
The drugs are not the scourge.
In the “black community” (quoted due to my sanely racially color blindness), the unhealthy stress from lacking resources (i.e. poverty) is the scourge leading to drug abuse and even violence.
Certain Drug Prohibition applies even more unhealthy stress, because many parents are imprisoned for mere drug possession.
Cannabis (as with many psychedelics) is not an automatic feel-good drug, and that’s where it can become (perhaps even insanely) dangerous, because cannabis use is a skill (thankfully, a reasonably easy one to learn). Sufferers from unhealthy stress poorly selecting one or more (likely cheap, so poorly grown) strains followed by blasting off by a series of bong hits (or such) can become mentally unstable.
On the flip side, cannabis (as with many psychedelics) is the only drug offering a responsibly stable experience upon proper use (unlike alcohol, which is always disorienting basically beyond one drink, and works against inhibitions). Also, since cannabis (as with many psychedelics) has a generally mild dependency (and low dependency rate), addiction symptoms are not as difficult to remedy.
The bottom line is the excessive emotional roller-coaster created by drug intake (or any other activity as partly demonstrated by adrenaline junkies) causes the addiction problem. There is no free lunch in emotional bliss, so the emotional hell as compensation becomes the ignition towards again visiting emotional bliss in an attempt for the balance needed for stability (and survival) — importantly noting sometimes the emotional hell comes first (e.g. Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), so even an opposing painkiller such as heroin (which was invented by Bayer over a century ago) can be properly leveraged to maximally diffuse the situation to restore proper mental modulation (healthy emotional roller-coaster).
Meanwhile, the user’s brain did not evolve for ‘super euphoria’ that apparently even makes orgasms lame by comparison. Being a physical system, the brain physically changes with experience. Survival is largely about keeping the brain running smoothly, which is a mental balancing act. A ‘super euphoria’ needs to be avoided, or at least lead to a prompt diffusing (deal with the ‘super hell’, and find a healthy alternative to deal with whatever prompted the ‘super euphoria’, so no more ‘super euphoria’). A healthy brain is a systematic flow of energy amongst an estimated 100 billion brain cells. Mess with that too much (by any number and style of stressors), and game over for brain health (stirring insanity is in the mental house).
Cannabis provides an oceanic set of mental tuning tools that can be abused horribly to radically shift mental parameters unfavorably (add more unhealthy stress), or used responsibly for (perhaps a much more serious) benefit than dealing with harsh stressors mentally naked (i.e. sober). That benefit is logically why cannabis has such broad medical appeal (think Placebo effect), though not the only reason for such medicinal character.
One can (and publicly should) also sanely add that resource abuse (e.g. greed) is the scourge that leads to the scourge of poverty. The ‘war on resources’ (judicially coerced financial equality) is not the answer, because the greedy have the power to bypass laws (through legislative influence, or simply operating above the law), and the government power needed to enforce such equality (as history apparently always demonstrates) merely forms the new rich class (including resource abusers).
My Liberty Shield introduction to scientific constitutionalism offers a fully logical solution to managing abuse in any of its many forms, and my Respect Cannabis campaign introduction includes the basic lesson of ‘use against abuse’.
“Cohen was visibly surprised by Clark’s answer and thanked the sheriff for his time before commenting with a chuckle, ‘It was such an obvious answer—I just never thought I’d get that answer.'”
Since my honest focus rests between the dominating reason abuse between ‘cannabis is always safe’ and ‘cannabis is a scourge’, anyone reading this may be unfortunately surprised by my answer.
Focusing solely upon cannabis legality (what is sadly happening) is risky, because it fails to address the actual problem (poor stress management) that leads to all forms of abuse — the fundamental scourge within humanity’s scope that cannot be remedied by complex structures of law (such complexity instead facilitating the worst form of abuse due to its mainly broad scope of destruction — law abuse).
The basic answer is the necessary shift in human behavior towards understanding that abuse is always paid for (scientifically speaking), so working against abuse instead of recklessly letting it fly via ‘what are you going to do about it?’ dominance is wise, and thankfully also an opportunity to help society via tried-and-true tactics (e.g. not the war on some drugs) to help others manage their abuse — and then earn the true and honorable reward that a healthy human being achieves.
I am an honest freak (or reasonably responsibly balanced "misfit", if you prefer) of an artist working and resting to best carefully contribute towards helping society. Too many people abuse reasoning (e.g. 'partial truth = whole truth' scam), while I exercise reason to explore and express whole truth without any conflict-of-interest -- all within a sometimes offbeat style of psychedelic artistry.
Spirit Wave Journal 
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