How To Save The Country From Potheads

Weed will likely be legal nationwide, but that doesn’t mean we allow the drug to take over

In a surprise move last week, Donald Trump came out in favor of marijuana legalization–with qualifications. “Whether people like it or not, this will happen through the approval of the Voters, so it should be done correctly,” he wrote in a TruthSocial post endorsing Florida’s ballot initiative to legalize recreational weed. “We need the State Legislature to responsibly create laws that prohibit the use of it in public spaces, so we do not smell marijuana everywhere we go, like we do in many of the Democrat run Cities.”

It’s wrong for Trump to back the initiative, known as Amendment 3. Republicans should always stand against legalizing weed, even if it’s unpopular. Marijuana is not a major voter concern. Opposing its legalization won’t hurt Republicans at the ballot box. It’s good to stand on principle against the reefer menace. 

While Trump is wrong to formally endorse Amendment 3, he is correct that national marijuana legalization is almost certain at this point. The people want legal weed, and they will get it soon. Seventy percent of Americans believe it should be legal. Twenty four states already allow recreational weed. While some states have rejected the proposal at the ballot box, most states are going in the direction of legalizing the drug. If Kamala Harris wins the presidency, it may become fully legal nationwide.

This is a bleak prospect. Weed is bad for the individual and bad for society. It negatively impacts cognitive ability and testosterone while increasing the chances of developing mental illness. It turns people into couch-bound slugs and smells terrible. A society that allows the stench of pot to rule public spaces is no great society. Weed is a public menace.

Unfortunately, many of our fellow citizens aren’t bothered by it. Blame that feeling on our cultural libertarianism. This sentiment refers to Americans’ innate desire to be left alone to pursue their own form of happiness. At times, it can lead to positive things, like support for strong gun rights and opposition to mask mandates and woke nonsense in schools. But it can also lead to a lot of terrible things, such as visible thigh tattoos, rampant sports betting, OnlyFans, pitbull ownership, and pot farms. “As long as they don’t hurt anyone, what’s the big problem?” says the average American.

This “live and let live” attitude (or as Tim Walz would say, “mind your own damn business”) explains why weed will eventually be legal in the land of the free. It’s hard to persuade Americans to reject it when they feel it’s harmless and should be left to the individual to decide whether to toke up. 

Americans don’t like giving up rights awarded to them. The freedom to smoke weed is increasingly seen as one of those rights. Once it’s legal, it will be very hard to change that. Americans are like toddlers with toys. They might not play with that toy, but they like the idea that they can play with it. If an adult tries to take away the toy, the child will throw a fit and demand it back–even if they aren’t playing with it at the moment. 

We already see this play out with abortion. The majority of women are not getting an abortion. However, they feel it is a right critical to them being an equal citizen. They might never get an abortion, but they want the right to exist just in case. Taking it away makes them very angry. Hence, Democrats have built their election strategy around the issue of abortion.

Americans cling to their rights and hate the government taking it away. If the government gives them the right to be stoned, it will require a moral revolution for that liberty to be handed back. Don’t bank on that possibility in the near future.

What is to be done about reefer madness? Should we just throw up our hands and wait for potheads to be delivered justice by divine intervention? Or is there something we can do to limit its evil now?

The situation isn’t hopeless. As Trump suggests, there are things we can do to limit its negative effects. Tobacco and alcohol are legal in our society, but we heavily restrict them. There needs to be strict rules in where and how weed can be used, and they need to be effectively enforced. Smoking in public should be severely punished and made a strong taboo. Police need to hand out heavy fines to those caught smoking in public. They should arrest those who are caught smoking near children. I’ve seen many potheads light up as they pass a busy park or playground. We all know they’re inconsiderate losers–it’s time they pay a price for that. Most states where recreational weed is legal already have age limits on the drug.

The real issue here is enforcement. There are already laws on the books prohibiting people under 21 from smoking weed and everyone smoking weed in public. But police often fail to enforce these laws out of America’s terrible approach to crime. For years, police have retreated from enforcing some laws so as to not appear “racist.” Potheads can smoke freely if they’re the right race. Officers don’t want to be the next Derek Chauvin over a joint. Police take a tougher line on open containers than on toking in public. It also seems society is less comfortable with confronting potheads who smoke in public than they are with smokers who light up a cigarette in a place they shouldn’t.

Public will to rigidly enforce these laws can make all the difference. We need more Karens to call the cops on potheads. Rather than demonizing those who make the call, we should celebrate these Americans as upstanding citizens trying to make their community better. The real villains are the stoners who ruin public spaces.

We also need strict regulations on marijuana businesses. While libertarians promised weed would lose its tawdry elements with legalization, those still remain. Residents in towns where marijuana businesses are “flourishing” report a marked decline in the quality of life, with more crime, more violence, and the further erosion of small town values. The federal government should pass clear laws on how the industry should operate. Those who violate these rules should face jail time and the loss of their business. If that makes it harder to operate a marijuana company, all the better.

To reiterate, weed is a plague. An ideal society would not tolerate its presence. But we don’t live in an ideal society. We live in one where obese women with hideous squiggly tattoos smoke weed while walking their pitbulls. 

The best solution to this problem is to mitigate the worst effects of legal marijuana. We need to make it a strong taboo to smoke anywhere outside of a person’s own home. We need to make it harder for people to purchase it, which can be done through strict regulations on the businesses that produce it, severe limits on where it can be sold, and age requirements. We should teach kids that weed makes them corpulent, mentally ill slobs who will never do anything with their lives besides eat Cap'n Crunch and play video games.

The most important thing is for American society to treat weed as low-status and not celebrate it. We can do this for the time being while we dream of a marijuana-free America.