General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Pope Francis is on the wrong side of history (again) [View all]UTUSN
(70,672 posts)"The science is clear that marijuana has medical use. The science is clear that marijuana is less harmful than alcohol as a recreational drug."
When the Hippies were migrating through Mexico and Guatemala for weed and mushrooms, an indigenous Mexican told one of them at first that they didn't have *that* (weed) there. The Hippie persisted, demanded. The Mexican finally admitted its existence, but tried a different tack, "It is something that is to be used when a man breaks a limb or a woman is giving birth."
Iow, it's an herbal pain killer. But the Hippie got all Amurican-Demanding, with, "Well, that means you HAVE it, so SELL some to me!1"
Mexico has made the argument for decades that it's a plain old capitalist Supply and Demand situation, "If you Americans didn't ASK for it, we wouldn't SEND it."
For me, the Democratic agenda is a multi-faceted thing, from the nature of the Big Umbrella Democratic coalition of constituencies -- Civil Rights, civil liberties, social justice, "d"emocratic equality and reform and representation, unions, and on and on --- and some things are more important than others. Yes, the criminalization results in serious problems of prison and hits minorities harder. For me, also, it is more of a topic of how Rethugs prefer to flood Big Government money into a "War" while slashing funds for social programs like prevention and rehabilitation, not to mention how they might latch onto the Capitalist Supply and Demand root cause and how legalization would be tax income and cash crop.
The recreational part knocks it down a few notches in priority from some of the other agenda items.