British Furry Is Uncomfortable with Canabis' Legalization

Dear Papabear,

I want to write to you about is cannabis. You see, medicinal cannabis is going to be legalised in the UK tomorrow [November 1] for only those who need it the most. If I’m correct, it’s for epileptics whom have had no success with other treatments. I want to say that this is great news and all that, but I’ve had this strong prejudice against cannabis since the first days I learnt what drugs were. I think I can pin it down to 3 key factors:

1. The UK education system used a lot of very strong anti-drug propaganda back in my day. Good luck finding anything from talktofrank.com [a drug advice site] that’s pro-weed.
   
2. Most of the people I’ve known in the past who were open cannabis users were... well, not very nice people. For example, one got himself so intoxicated, we returned home to find the kitchen full of smoke as he left a frying pan in the oven on full blast. Plus, he played gangsta music full blast, which I wouldn’t have minded if it weren’t for the deafening volume he had it at.
   
3. I particularly don’t like the concept of it being smoked or vaped due to the passiveness of it. I mean, you can’t exactly get drunk from smelling someone else’s beer (At least, I’ve never heard of anyone getting drunk in that manor). Not to mention it must play havoc on the lungs.

Since joining the fandom, though, I’ve come to discover that many of the friends I’ve made are cannabis users, to varying degrees, and even those who aren’t tend to have no issue with it. Not to mention a lot of celebs I like, like Morgan Freeman and Whoopi Goldberg, have been outspoken about their use of weed. So, I’ve found myself in this predicament where I’m trying hard to work all the propaganda, bad apples and smoking-bias’s out of my head ever since.

I’ve done a ton of research about cannabis since then. So, I know the difference between CBD-based and THC-based varieties (essentially, it’s the THC kind that makes someone high). I know that the CBD-kind can work wonders to cure/suppress all kinds of medical and psychological issues. I know that even the THC kind is neither as addictive nor as dangerous as a lot other substances, legalised or not. And, I know that legalising it would both increase business and probably make it a lot easier to manage since it’d discourage people from using the black market to get their fix.

But, despite all these positives I know about... I’m still uncomfortable about the prospect of it being legalised. It’s not like I’m denying these facts about it at all, it’s just that they’re not working to change my mind for whatever reason. The friends I have are good people, and I don’t want to think bad of them just because they might use wacky-backy once in a while.

So I ask, how do I get rid of this prejudice against cannabis which I’ve had for so long? How do I make myself okay with it?

Hugs,
Charleston

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Hi, Charleston,

What follows is simply my personal opinion on the subject, so take it with a grain of salt. As with anything else, there are good and bad things about weed. Let’s begin by why weed was illegal and had a bad reputation in the first place.

Why was it considered bad? I can sum it up in a few words: weed has been seen as the drug of the poor and the foreign, and so a campaign of criminalizing and stigmatizing marijuana was initiated by the elite. There is an excellent article about this here. It has nothing to do with “drugs are bad,” since the wealthy and the corporate have been pushing drugs for centuries (from the Opium Wars to today’s opiate crisis in the medical community, rich people are drug pushers of a disgustingly immoral sort).

Naturally, this orchestrated stigmatization perpetrated by those in power includes the public education system, which is where you were indoctrinated into believing weed is evil. Word of advice to all those reading: public education is a scam to brainwash children into becoming good little cogs in the machinery owned and operated by those in power (educate yourself by searching for books in the library and book stores and read read read).

In the last few years, the government stigmatization of cannabis (in America and worldwide) has changed to be more favorable because of three things: the preponderance of evidence that cannabis has many medical benefits, that it is really no worse for you than alcohol, and because there is a lot of money the government can make through taxation if it is legalized.

Moving on to your personal observations with weed users. I know several people who use it (smoking it, eating it, or taking it in pill form), and they are all very nice people. You, apparently, have met a lot of unpleasant people who like to imbibe. The fallacy of reasoning here is that using marijuana makes you a bad person when, in fact, you are simply encountering bad people who happen to use marijuana. Marijuana doesn’t make you a bad person; being a bad person makes you a bad person.

I agree with you that the smell of weed is unpleasant and that those who don’t like it and don’t want to be subjected to it should be free of such a pungent environment. I feel the same about tobacco smokers (except pipes; I love pipes) and people who blast unwanted music in my ears. This is a matter not of weed but of manners, civility, being a polite person. These days, many people forget what it means to be considerate of others. Again, that’s not weed, that’s the decline of manners in society. So, when you come across friends blowing smoke in your face, politely ask them to take it elsewhere. If they don’t respect that, then they aren’t very nice friends. Tell them you don’t object to their using marijuana; you just don’t like the smell. Perhaps they can have some edibles instead?

You are completely within your rights to not like weed and to not use it, but you should also respect the fact that weed is here to stay, whether or not it is legal. Recognize that people have different likes that don’t necessarily reflect your own and accept that, as long as they aren’t doing any harm to anyone, they have the right to enjoy cannabis.

But friendship is a two-way street, and your friends should acknowledge just as much that you don’t like weed, and they should respect your boundaries, too.

Make sense?

​Hugs,
Papabear