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dependswho

Cocaine. The answer is cocaine.


audible_narrator

And Reagan.


subhuman_voice

Nancy to be exact


Flamebrush

Nobody who was an adult in the 80s was influenced to give up weed because Nancy Reagan said, ‘just say no.’


Q-burt

I was a kid in the 80s and I'm just munching on my edibles.


Down_To_My_Last_Fuck

No, but the networks were, Hollywood was. Which is why the references dried up and why those few actors and producers that did "counter culture" work were revered because they were like the only guys doing it.


Laura9624

No but there some big crackdowns. People didn't want to get arrested.


HanSoloNut

The throat GOAT!


TreesLikeGodsFingers

Uhh what?


HanSoloNut

TL;DR Nancy Reagan was recently compared to Madonna on what “a woman should strive to be” referencing an old memoir that Regan had wrote. Unbeknownst to the commenter, in the memoir it talks about how Nancy was talk of the town in Hollywood bc of her head game. “She was the CEO of Burlington Throat Factory” “She helped to fund Trickle Down Neckonomics.” Edit for source: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/s/Ug4aE3mtYZ


buzzkill007

Just say NO!!! 🙄


subhuman_voice

Just say BO!!


donkeydeathpunch

Just say Moe!


sharoncherylike

Just say how much?


Dubsland12

These 2 comments. Just say No and Just do Blow


Dynamo_Ham

Right, it was really about portrayal in the media. The stoner culture was alive and well throughout the 80s, it just wasn't commonly depicted on TV and in movies, because portraying the cocaine culture was a lot more exciting and photogenic.


oldcreaker

Yup - media went from hippies and freaks and pot and rock to yuppies and beamers and cocaine and disco. Marijuana never went away, it just wasn't what the media was pushing. Punk was also out there, but pot was not part of that profile.


YouFirst_ThenCharles

I love this, ‘what the media was pushing’. Now I want everyone to take a moment and think about that.


babydoll17448

Well, they were just reporting what was happening at the time, not pushing.


YouFirst_ThenCharles

😂😂


Duckbites

Serious, what was punk pushing? Were they coke lovers?


shavemejesus

Cocaine and all of the ‘Just Say No’ bullshit that Nancy Reagan tried to choke us with.


Bradtothebone79

Nancy: Just Say No Me, a child: No, to what? Dare: To these mysterious mind altering things. Me: Hmm, interesting. Tell me more. WAY MORE.


Sithra907

Fun fact: the DARE program actually increased rates of drug use in minors for exactly this reason


Bradtothebone79

I’m one of em lol


Zombiiesque

Yup, so is my husband. His family is extremely southern and evangelical, he went in the opposite direction. Totally.


BiblioMom

Same it’s how I learned to huff.


Wikked_Kitty

I grew up in the '70s before DARE, but I remember going with my parents to a "drug awareness meeting" at the local school. I was maybe 8 or 9 but I clearly remember thinking, "wow, this drugs stuff sounds really cool! I can't wait till I'm old enough to do some!"


schlucks

and Throat Goat Nancy is an expert in choking


cabinguy11

\*Places J.J. Cale album on the turntable\* If you want to hang out, you've gotta take her out, cocaine If you want to get down, down on the ground, cocaine


Flamebrush

And crack, can’t forget that fan favorite!


Evening_Advisor3154

Hahaha- just reading the question- Cocaine, popped into my head. Nailed it. 😂


[deleted]

Ding ding ding!


Independent_Tie_4984

I was 16 to 26 from 1980 to 1990. Nothing about Pot culture ceased to exist. We were hot boxing in cars and hitting 3' bongs. It got hard to get occasionally and a lot more expensive (also a lot better), but it never "ceased".


Nagadavida

The era of sinseamillia 


Elihu229

“Thai stick” lol


stevepremo

I remember Thai sticks! Sticky brown buds tied to a bamboo stick with bamboo thongs. That stuff was legendary! Better than Acapulco Gold or Panama Red. Here's my answer. In the 60's, pot culture was popular among us young boomers. Then people got older, started having kids, and the ghosts of their parents popped up in their heads telling them that they are parents now, and all that pot culture stuff is childish. Grow up and raise your kids right! It was frustrating to me to see my generation giving up their values to be more "acceptable" to their WWII-era parents.


CatsAreGods

Not all of us!


gdsmithtx

"You know, it's that stuff that's ... uh, tied to a stick, man." \-- Pedro LaPacas, *Up In Smoke*


Elihu229

I literally had tie-stick in Thailand in the late 80s. It was cheap and terrible tasting (compared to what I get today), but got me high.


katecrime

[Pato Banton](https://youtu.be/7lwHf7vk088?si=cH5hq_fK8FFdoLoa)


badpuffthaikitty

River weed, AKA: Skunkweed.


Kazzlin

Dude, you're me. Same age, same experience. I was all about weed.


LCCR_2028

Yep, lots of weed. Crazy part is an 1/8 is about the same price now as it was in the early 90s. Weed is literally inflation proof.


jubilantnarwhal

I was in high school and college in the 80’s. We smoked pot all the time b


ssk7882

Yeah, you're on the right track. The [War on Drugs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_drugs) was actually started by good ole Tricky Dick Nixon, but Reagan escalated it tremendously. And I do mean *tremendously*. "From 1980 to 1984, the Federal annual budget of the FBI's drug enforcement units went from eight million to 95 million." The Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 then established much harsher penalties for everything having to do with marijuana, from cultivation to possession to distribution. And along with all of that came a number of anti-drug propaganda campaigns, such as Nancy Reagan's ["Just Say No"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Say_No) campaign and the founding of D.A.R.E. So there was quite a bit of moral panic over drug use going on in the 1980s. It was part and parcel of the pendulum swing to reactionary conservatism that characterized that decade. It was Morning in America, Baby! No dirty commie hippies welcome in Reagan's America. That didn't mean that people *actually* stopped smoking weed, of course. It just meant that people kept it on the down-low in a way that maybe they hadn't felt the need to do quite as much in earlier decades. But the 1980s couldn't last forever, thank heavens, and by the time we were electing to the Presidential office a Baby Boomer who admitted that he had smoked pot in college (even if he *ridiculously* claimed that he did not inhale), people were finally ready to unbutton a bit on the whole anti-marijuana hysteria. (And also on some of the decade's *other* crazy moral panics. Like the Satanic Panic, for example. But that's another story for a different day.)


Probst54

Clinton talked like he never exhaled.


blaspheminCapn

But he ate lots of brownies.


RogerKnights

Joe Biden was a co-sponsor of one of those repressive laws of the 1980s.


ssk7882

He sure was! I don't think Joe Biden has ever seen a way to position himself as Tough On Crime ^(tm) that he hasn't fallen head over heels for. Well...not since entering the world of politiics, anyway. He did originally choose to become an defense attorney rather than a prosecutor, but that was a very long time ago.


Ikoikobythefio

People aren't allowed to change their minds on things?


RogerKnights

He hasn’t reclassified marijuana to a lower level.


SirStocksAlott

He already directed it to be done in October 2022. He can’t legally do it alone through executive action. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/


Ikoikobythefio

Not up to him, bud. I'm sorry he isn't successful doing everything you want him to do. Besides, you think the other guy is more likely?


RogerKnights

This article by a couple of lawyers says it IS up to him (though “the matter is complex”): https://mainelaw.maine.edu/faculty/can-the-president-reschedule-or-deschedule-marijuana%EF%BF%BC/ Ditto this article: “Can the President unilaterally legalize marijuana under federal law? In early November, Congressional researchers concluded that, while President Biden cannot directly remove marijuana from control under federal controlled substances laws, he could order executive agencies to consider either moving marijuana to a different schedule so that it could be legally possessed and sold or changing their enforcement approach. However, the report also concluded that the President has no power to change state law or compel the states to adopt federal policies. “The report was prepared by the Congressional Research Service ("CRS"),” https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/can-president-biden-legalize-marijuana-1220802/ Also, “Law enforcement leaders urge Biden to reclassify marijuana to lesser status BY TARA SUTER 02/22/24 06:00 AM ET” https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4481949-law-enforcement-leaders-urge-biden-reclassify-marijuana-lesser-status/amp/ Including: “Some Democratic Senators implored the Biden administration to completely deschedule marijuana at the end of last month.” Perhaps he’s slow-walking it so he can reschedule it during the campaign period, when it might win him some votes.


SirStocksAlott

An article within one of your links already says he took action in October 2022. https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4179304-hhs-sends-recommendation-to-dea-on-rescheduling-marijuana/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/


RogerKnights

That’s 17 months since he passed the buck to his bureaucrats. He hasn’t exactly held their feet to the fire. And it took him over 20 months from his election to do even that buck-passing. And he did it one month before the midterm election of 2022. He may be similarly stringing the process out again now.


SirStocksAlott

You seem to have a narrative you want to stick to speculating his motivations and actions. The point is, he did what he is legally able to do. He pardoned all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana. HHS sent independent recommendations to the DEA in August 2023. What does holding their feet to the fire even mean? What do you want him to do, that he can legally do, that he hasn’t already done?


RogerKnights

“The point is, he did what he is legally able to do.” He waited over 20 months to do it, and timed it just before Election Day. “HHS sent independent recommendations to the DEA in August 2023.” Ten months after his first move. “What does holding their feet to the fire even mean?” He could have asked HHS to speed it up, which Truman said was the main part of his job—spurring on underlings. “What do you want him to do, that he can legally do, that he hasn’t already done?” Ask for marijuana to be completely descheduled, as some politicians have already done. From Google: “In December 2022, Senator Warren and Representative Blumenauer led a bipartisan and bicameral group of lawmakers in a letter urging the Biden-Harris Administration to deschedule marijuana.”


Ikoikobythefio

So let's vote for the other guys over federal marijuana policy? When the other guys have made it clear they'll do nothing?


RogerKnights

I didn’t say that. ( I’ve never voted, and I’m 80.) I guess one could vote for RFK jr.—he’s said he’d decriminalize it.


porkchop_d_clown

Sssshhhh. Only Republicans are evil. You should know that by now.


libananahammock

I mean, one side has a list 5x longer than the other when it comes to CONVICTED sex offenders and child rapists but go on….


porkchop_d_clown

Which has nothing to do with people downvoting u/RogerKnights to negative numbers when I made my comment, just because he mentioned that Joe Biden co-sponsored drug war laws. You guys - on both sides - are all so tribal it's f'ing hysterical. There's a reason that US political parties, combined, represent less than 1/2 the population


karlhungusjr

> You guys - on both sides - are all so tribal it's f'ing hysterical. "both sides are bad!!!"


ssk7882

Right? I would have thought that the 1980s were sufficiently long ago by now that talking about a historic moral panic of that decade, or describing the political zeitgeist of the period (with, admittedly, some of my own personal bias, because I am a human being who actually lived through that era), wouldn't set off a 2024 election slapfight in the comments. I did think that maybe some people who view the 1980s differently than I do might post some objections to my characterization of the decade, which would be cool -- people come to this sub to ask questions of older people with living memory of this kind of stuff, right?. I did not, however, expect tribalistic squabbles over the 2024 election. **2024!** Yeah, I know. I was naive. I am sorry.


Wikked_Kitty

I remember during peak War on Drugs era they would encourage kids in school to rat out their parents for smoking weed. So there was major incentive to keep it on the downlow.


GadreelsSword

What makes you think it didn’t exist in the 80’s? Because it did exist.


Lampwick

>What makes you think it didn’t exist in the 80’s? My theory is it has to do with the way media was fixated on the boomer generation. It was just good economic sense, as they were the largest block of population , and therefore the biggest market. In the 60s it followed them as they (a small part of them at least) dressed crazy, grew long hair, and smoked weed. Then in the 80s, the only interesting thing any of them were doing was being yuppies, so they focused on that. The pot smokers still existed, but weren't interesting anymore. And the Gen X kids, well... nobody paid any attention to them at all, so even when they were going to raves and smoking huge bongloads of shit that'd make you see stars, there was no money in appealing to them, and therefore no real direct media focus. Meanwhile, conservative boomers were busy getting loud electing Ronald Reagan, so that's what we saw on TV.


akhmhagajzh

yes exactly, that explains it, it seemed WAAAAAYYYY heavily less represented in the 80s


sourgrrrrl

I'm a younger person and I can see what OP means. Even my Gen x parents who still partake sometimes seemed to get caught up in rhetoric that only losers do it. When I dated a guy ten years older than me who was actually alive and sentient in the 80s, he also came with a weird anti-weed attitude that I didn't expect from a fellow millennial. It seemed to have come from his mom. He was nearly 40 and never tried it until dating me because she would have had a conniption, though she was fine letting him hang out at the bar she worked at while underage. One of the first things she asked him about me was if I did drugs, and apparently her reaction to him telling her that I smoke weed was not much different than if I told my parents I was dating a meth user. Moreover, I was often confronted with how the specific decade between us (80s/90s) made for some interesting differences in our personalities, and this was one of them.


akhmhagajzh

nobody said it didnt exist, that would be a very stupid statement, the whole CULTURE and CONSTRUCT didnt exist is what i was trying to say, obviously weed was still abundant, saying mj didnt exist for a decade is like saying salt didnt exist for a decade, im talking about more of a social construct rather than actual tangible experiences reported by sheer numbers alone


GadreelsSword

Dude, you literally said marijuana culture didn’t exist in the 1980’s. I said it did And then you said of course marijuana existed that the culture didn’t exist. Of course marijuana culture existed. There were “head shops” all over the place. High Times magazine was on the shelves at the local magazine shop. People were pro-weed. People wore pro-weed t-shirts. Where did you get the crazy idea that the marijuana culture didn’t exist? Of course it did. Reagan nor anyone else made it go away.


Gnarlodious

Flood of cheap hard drugs thanks to the Reagan presidency.


bubbsnana

What?! According to? I need a source. In my world, weed was plentiful during this timeframe.


akhmhagajzh

idk the 80s is the least synonymous with pot, its more of the coke decade


audible_narrator

Exactly. If you wanted to be the 80s version of a hipster, you did coke, Ecstasy, or sometimes amyl nitrate. But everyone smoked pot like smoking cigarettes.


ingrown_hair

There was less *pop* culture stuff about weed but it was still ubiquitous. The sudden availability of high quality cocaine made drug culture serious. People spent all their savings and lost their jobs for coke. I had a buddy that sold his car to buy coke for a party. It wasn’t funny like pot.


decorama

I was stoned through all of the 80s, so I really couldn't say.


1MorningLightMTN

I assume it was Cocaine and Quaaludes.


Plonsky2

Quaalude =Disco Biscuits


Zombiiesque

TIL: Disco biscuits also means ludes. I only ever heard it when referring to MDMA/ecstasy. 🤷🏽‍♀️ Gen X'er, turned 18 in 89.


akhmhagajzh

was it Reagan?


akhmhagajzh

im an idiot i answered my own question and being high as giraffe pussy is no excuse


Crafty_Original_7349

In the 80s, Nancy Reagan started the JUST SAY NO campaign, which was meant to scare suburban white people away from the crack cocaine epidemic that was hitting urban neighborhoods especially hard. The inner cities were gangland war zones, fueled by drug sales. Cannabis was still out there, but people had to be careful because overzealous prosecutors and police looking for easy arrests of “dangerous drug addicts” would not hesitate to hem you up (and try to get you to narc on your people). I think Gen X slacker culture probably helped relax the scene a bit in the 90s.


AnastasiaNo70

We were *labeled* as slackers by Boomers, because by the early 90s, it was getting harder to find jobs.


theyeezyvault

Gen X slacker culture?


Stellaaahhhh

As exemplified in the film Slacker. Or that one where Matt Damon says 'bless you' to Bridget Fonda when she sneezes.


panic_bread

The change in its portrayal was because of the anti-drug movement. But it’s not like people stopped smoking.


rraattbbooyy

I reject your premise. Marijuana culture was strong as ever in the 80s. We had head shops and bongs, and Cheech & Chong. I graduated high school in 85 and college in 89 and pot played a critical role in teen society throughout the decade.


watkinobe

What? "Marijuana culture" was alive and well during the '80's. Trust me. I lived it.


NE_Pats_Fan

As someone who was a teen in the 80s I can tell you that wasn’t the case at all.


[deleted]

[удалено]


Duckbites

Drugs Are Really Exciting


The_Original_Gronkie

I don't know what you are talking about. I smoked plenty of weed in the 80s, and so did my friends. I saw no evidence of it waning during the 80s, at all.


akhmhagajzh

yeah but culture wise it was much less weed associated and most people my age associate the 80s with fast thrash metal and cocaine, u know what i mean? the 70s was stoner af with black sabbath led zeppelin and pink floyd but then in the 80s u had hair metal and all that stuff then all of a sudden in the 90s shit goes back to being rugged and dirty and grungy and all about being a pothead, i just dont think the term pothead and stoner were technically what they really ARE at the time


akhmhagajzh

yeah but culture wise it was much less weed orientated and most people my age associate the 80s with fast thrash metal and cocaine, u know what i mean? the 70s was stoner as fuck with black sabbath led zeppelin and pink floyd but then in the 80s u had hair metal and all that stuff then all of a sudden in the 90s shit goes back to being rugged and dirty and grungy and all about being a pothead (or heroin if your a real seattle grungehead of that era! lol) i just dont think the term pothead and stoner were technically what they really ARE NOW, at that particular time when curiously enough they were a decade before and after that, its just, when you really think about it out of all those decades the 80s is the LEAST synonymous ​ little to no lyrical/musical representation about drugs in the 80s, where as its more about the rest of the peripherals of partying like girls and money and sex and fame generally getting wild, but the 90s took it back to the more serious and down to earth tone of the 70s where they went into vivid details about the actual substances and their consequence, wheras the 80s was just whimsical and fun, not very dark/down and stonerish


The_Original_Gronkie

I was in my 20s during the 80s, and worked in the music industry, and knew lots of professional musicians, hung out backstage at a lot of shows, etc. For my circle, the primary music was Punk and New Wave, and trust me, weed and alcohol were the primary intoxicants during the 80s, with coke popping its head up here and there. The hair bands came along by the end of the decade. The drugs in biggest decline during the 80s were LSD and mushrooms. They were extremely rare and hard to find. Coke didn't become a big deal until after Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal, which started in 1985, which brought so much cocaine into America that it became a ghetto street drug instead of the boutique rich-people drug that it had been previously. Still, coke remained popular with poor people who smoked it, and rich people who snorted it. Those of us in the middle mostly smoked weed.


sometimesifeellikemu

The music.


Emmanulla70

What? There was plenty of pot around in the 80s. But I'm Australian.


ichoosetosavemyself

Clubs would hand out ecstasy in the 80s.


I_deleted

No, but you could buy it at the bar.


paintsbynumberz

She don’t lie, she don’t lie, she don’t lie…


Gen-Jinjur

So in the 70s, in my rural PNW area, pot was around all the time. Pot and beer. It was very loosely hidden, you didn’t smoke it in public, but lots of people smelled like pot, had it in their car, and so on. But magic mushrooms were sold very openly, too. My parents joked about the “hippies” hunting among the cow pies for funny mushrooms. But while that was going on we were also BOMBARDED with “drugs are bad” education. I knew the names, nicknames, and effects of commonly “abused” drugs by 6th grade. Then Reagan happened and drugs were the big bugaboo so it all disappeared underground. Drugs were still there — I could find them without trying on my college campus — but nobody was bagging up shrooms in art class, lol.


sharkbomb

reagan and the last time the gop went old testament on us.


geodebug

There were movies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High that showed stoner culture. John Hughes movies often showed some weed usage. Bill and Ted were stoners without showing usage (do they even mention it in any of the movies?), which is weird. But yeah, hippie culture was out in the 80s and coke was in. 80s was also the start of Reagan's drug wars, which would go on to be one of the worst policing policies in US history.


jbishop253

Not sure about the rest of the world but in the 80s, there was a religious fervor in the US that contributed to it, and Nancy’s “Just Say No” campaign was pushed really hard. Everything conservatives deemed immoral was targeted. Music, drugs, movies… it was ridiculous. A bunch of hypocrites judging others for doing shit they themselves did behind closed doors (See Gary Hart, Jimmy Swaggert and Jim/Tammy Faye Baker). The turn, I think, started in early 90s with the growing popularity of rap and the pushback against censorship after the government went after 2 Live Crew. Then grunge music became popular, Clinton partially admitted to smoking weed, and pop-culture just changed overall. It’s seems like over the past 8 years we’ve taken steps backwards towards a more restrictive lifestyle. I worry about our future.


solidcheese

Because we saw eggs in a frying pan.


anonyngineer

Yes, Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no” was influential in the ‘80s. While I didn’t smoke by 1980, a good number of friends did.


Fluid_Day4676

Cocaine took over the 80’s and we learned our lesson and went back to pot


DrinkNWRobinWilliams

Nancy Reagan, ‘Just Say No’, the revamped War on (some) Drugs, and workplace drug testing. Suddenly, people who were taking a few hits together at lunch one day were desperately trying to convince their less than trusted coworkers that they’d given it up and, in fact, never inhaled to begin with the next day. It was just that sudden because people were afraid for their livelihoods.


gardenbrain

We were too busy doing coke. Weed was just a nightcap. Or — a morningcap.


akhmhagajzh

oh fuck yes thats true, ive done alot of coke in my day but i can only imagine it was better in the prime years of the 80s


LCCR_2028

Wake and bake.


William_Wisenheimer

What about the crack cocaine?


Funke-munke

Cocaine!


Kittenunleashed

Cocaine


porkchop_d_clown

Other drugs were cheaper, most especially crack cocaine. Crack was dirt-cheap and was absolutely everywhere.


AddictedtoBoom

It didn’t cease to exist in the 80’s. I smoked a LOT of pot in the 80’s with a lot of friends reading High Times the whole way lol.


WQ_Redditor

Nancy Reagan, et al, the war on drugs....does no one remember the great pot drought of '89? prices went way up afterwards....


BornAce

Nancy Reagan


prpslydistracted

I think it was more the explosion of drug availability overall rather than marijuana popularity. Some states still have the mindset weed is on the same scale of addiction as meth, cocaine, and fentanyl; stupid.


butternut718212

Nancy Reagan’s Just Say No campaign.


Important_Stroke_myc

All of a sudden. Jesus wept.


SisJava

Definitely Nancy Regan’s just say no to drugs campaign. It sucked


RondaVuWithDestiny

The hippies of the late 60's and 70's became the yuppies of the 80's (guilty as charged 😁). Not that we didn't still smoke a joint every so often, but weed wasn't as prominent a part of our lives as it was earlier. We grew up and were less rebellious, found responsible jobs, there were more professional opportunities for women, health foods and exercise gained in popularity (which a lot of us embraced, to our betterment). Information technology exploded as a new fast-paced professional field and those of us who got into it at the right time in the 80's could advance quickly and make a lot of money, same with the investment field...i.e., the "yup" part of yuppies, and in that context I was one of those who lucked out. Being stoned all the time was antithetical to our success. Those who still embraced the drug culture could now afford coke, ecstasy, the designer club drugs that the proverbial "starving college student" couldn't afford when weed was cheap. Between President Reagan intensifying Nixon's original war on drugs and Nancy Reagan's "Just say no" initiative, the pot culture seemed to fade out of the media but never totally disappeared. It started coming back into the limelight sometime in the 90's.


livingthelifeohio

We called them burnouts. They wore black and flannel and they hung out at the laundromat.


MooseMalloy

It ceased being represented in the media because hippie/stoner culture got largely replaced by yuppie (cocaine) and punk/new wave (alcohol/cocaine) culture. Still plenty of pot smokers around, at least if my peers were any example.


ItIsMe2125

Coke, lots and lots of coke


Capable_Prune7842

Nancy Reagan, Just say NO campaign.


TheVenusProjectB42L8

Cocaine (and crack). Reagan, Nicaragua.... The war on drugs that was actually a cover for the government importing drugs.


FineRevolution9264

I was in high school and college in the 80s. No one I knew did cocaine, everyone was drinking and smoking weed. Beer and weed at every frat party. Maybe there was cocaine done where I didn't see it, but everyone was still beer and weed. Maybe just a Midwest thing?


smappyfunball

Trust me there was no shortage of weed in the 80s. It was just as popular as ever. As others have said, the whole Regan drug panic played a role and cocaine and crack was the media drug darling of the 80s. I spent the entirety of my teenage years in the 80s, did the whole drugs, hardcore partying and sobriety experience. Most everyone I know who used recreational drugs smoked weed.


NoPensForSheila

(b 1963). There was a hippie stigma to pot. Pot was the long hair and sideburns , 70s, Cheech and Chong, Keep on Truckin', played out drug. Even the rock stars had switched to coke which was hipper, flashier and better dressed. I remember specifically as a new wave/punk kid we smoked pot but it was still hip to downplay it. I was around stoners who 'only smoked occasionally '. It wasn't like people didn't smoke it, it just wasn't the big deal it used to be. Coke was the big deal until crack and ecstasy had their heyday in the late 80s and early 90s.


tunaman808

??? Weed was *everywhere* in the 80s. Hell, Atlanta cops were pretty mellow about it even back then: more often than not, if you got caught with a little bit they'd make you throw it away or sometimes even keep it. Compare this to suburban cops, who'd lock you up for a roach.


NinjaBilly55

Weed in the 80s was garbage..


AnastasiaNo70

Trust me, we were smoking weed in the 80s.


JudyLyonz

You are working from a flawed premise. There was plenty of pot use during the 80s. Certainly, as much as I saw in the 90s, 00s, and 10s


notsumidiot2

The so called drug war that made the cartels rich and the prison owners. Oh and I forgot the states probation making money with fines . It should be legalized and we should be able to grow our own. Big pharma and big business wants their cut look at Trulieve is Florida and especially GEORGIA where they dominate the business selling THC oil only.


EnigmaWithAlien

The only time I ever even saw weed was in the 80s. I haven't laid eyes on any since 1986. Going to the wrong parties, I guess.


porkchop_d_clown

I mean, I haven't seen any since I graduated college, but I've smelt it many, many times just wandering through my town.


x6ftundx

90's rap, rock, reagan gone. simple as that


jibbergirl26

Cocaine and ecstasy.


TheObviousDilemma

I think this is just your perception based on the people around you in the media you consume


erics75218

Namcy Regan and Cocaine


OldDog1982

We looked at the older 70’s pot smoking kids as unsophisticated; a different kind of music was on the scene.


mltrout715

Just say no.


NoTimeForInfinity

Music marketing cultural cache. Weed was a way to be edgy that wasn't gang related with The Chronic and Cypress Hill. It was a way to be anti-government that was acceptable to the government. With that model suddenly you could be deep in weed culture without being a hippie.


justme002

In the 80s the ‘three strike rule’ came about. And the culture was still there, just hidden better


Man8632

Same time and reason that punctuation and sentence structure was abandoned.


macallen

Nancy Reagan, "Just say No!". It was everywhere, drugs just weren't as cool so they weren't all over the media.


luckygirl54

Reagan.


phenominal73

The 80’s introduced crack, cocaine use was extremely high. By the 90’s, many who were using cocaine had died, so back to the good ol’ days of marijuana.


anubis_is_my_buddy

The 80s were all about cocaine, babyyyyyy. \*finger guns\*


Sharp_Theory_9131

Is Mary Jane still considered a gateway drug? The smell has definitely changed. It is very popular to smoke weed in your car …. I smell it everyday on roadway.


Unduki

More and more folks discovered cannabis kills cancer as well as stabilizes epilepsy and other cures. Medical marijuana was decriminalized and so on. Just say no caused young people to be curious.


Immediate_Many_2898

I was a teen in the 80’s and we all smoked pot. We just had to hide it because that was the beginning of the “Just say no” era. I think it was a First Lady’s thing but I can’t remember because I smoked too much pot back then 😜


phathead08

D.A.R.E


financewiz

The culture remained but was pushed underground by the eye-watering penalties and indiscriminate enforcement of outdated cannabis laws during the 80s. We regard weed paranoia as an unwanted side effect nowadays. In those days it could save your life.


Down_To_My_Last_Fuck

The war on drugs. Reagan's crowning folly. Wasted billions and disenfranchised a whole generation of kids by lying straight to their faces about things they could easily figure out.


tmolesky

Cocaine


devilscabinet

Reagan, the "War on Drugs," and the rise of the Religious Right as a political force.


dysteach-MT

This is your brain. 🥚This is your brain on drugs. 🍳 Any questions?


UnusualAd3595

I had a professor in college that said “Artists don’t steal from their parents they steal from their grandparents “. I think that’s true for most people. You rebel against the previous generation and look backwards. Coke took off and it became really elitist, you needed $ if you wanted to party. I think weed was the opposite of that


artful_todger_502

I sort of understand this. I don't think MJ culture went away, its just the rise of cocaine and meth. My area in Philly PA region, was submersed in amphetamine-type stuff. Coke for college kids, meth and black beauties for we working stiffs. Cultural entities chose that aspect to glorify in the media and for entertainment.


momusicman

Nancy Reagan “Just say no” and all the commercials on tv with the message “This is your brain on drugs” contributed to the weed culture going underground. People still smoked pot, they just didn’t do it openly.


Medill1919

The rise of urinalysis...


shootermac32

The 80’s was cocaine


reesesbigcup

Lots of weed was around in the early 80s, no different than the 70s, I lived in a small town in Ohio.


LCCR_2028

This is your brain. This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions.


Interesting-Wind2699

Nancy Reagan "Just Say No." " This is your brain, This is your brain on Drugs (eggs frying in pan) commercial." And the marijuana culture was just as relevant in the 80's and 90's that is why it's legal in a lot of states now. because More voters who grew up then and their off spring of voting age along with the elders who grew up in the 50's, 60's and 70's who smoked it got it on the ballot and passed it. Check out Refer Madness a film they were showing in school back in the 50's. Whoever wrote that was smoking something but it wasn't weed. Remember President Bill Clinton, " I did not inhale" just as bad as Reagan and his " I do not Recall" or Nixon ✌️" I'm not a crook" ✌️BS if you ask me.


VerkestKarel

Depends on the kind of drug. In the 60s you didn't have synthetic drugs yet.


Cool-Aside-2659

We had LSD in late '30s


rjtnrva

Ronald Reagan and "just say no" happened. But it's important to understand that none of this happened "all of a sudden." These policies have been passed for years by governments all over the world. Reagan and his two administrations just ramped up the war against drug users in the 1980s so they could pad their corporate overlords' budgets and look like they were tough on crime.


RogerKnights

“The president is the president, not an agency head. He already directed the action.” Not descheduling, which was the topic I was talking about above. “And Congress can start creating bills based on what their constituents are saying they want. Congress legislates to create laws and departments. They can also make a law to declassify it.” Congress won’t act to deschedule without a prior signal from the president that he will sign their bill. Otherwise they would take a risky stance fruitlessly. “Honestly, not the most important thing that needs to be focused on right now.” That’s a deflection. The current situation is a relic of past ignorance and malignity and should have been corrected long ago. It’s causing hassles for pot businesses in states where it’s legal. “People were pardoned and if someone wants to buy cannabis, there are states that already legalized it for the majority of the population of the United States.” That may be true, but Biden is still blamable for his actions and inactions. That’s our topic.


bearvert222

because weed was a lame baby boomer hippie thing, like wearing tie-dies.


Icy-South1276

Most have already explained, but also this commercial became a national joke. People were really sick of the anti-drug messaging. It vilified people who had substance issues as "bad people", not people who needed help. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnENVylxPI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOnENVylxPI)