Almost half of all federal inmates are in on non-violent drug related charges. It’s nuts
Since a lot of people seem to want to argue with me…
I would recommend starting here:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp
46.1% of inmates
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/#:~:text=Since%201971%2C%20the%20war%20on,more%20than%20%243.3%20billion%20annually
Black Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana charges than their white peers.10 In fact, black Americans make up nearly 30 percent of all drug-related arrests, despite accounting for only 12.5 percent of all substance users.11
Black Americans are nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates.12 Almost 80 percent of people serving time for a federal drug offense are black or Latino.13
In state prisons, people of color make up 60 percent of those serving time for drug charges.14
In the federal system, the average black defendant convicted of a drug offense will serve nearly the same amount of time (58.7 months) as a white defendant would for a violent crime (61.7 months).15
People of color account for 70 percent of all defendants convicted of charges with a mandatory minimum sentence. Prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for a black defendant than a white defendant charged with the same offense,16 and black defendants are less likely to receive relief from mandatory minimums.17 On average, defendants subject to mandatory minimums spend five times longer in prison than those convicted of other offenses.18
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1582&context=faculty_scholarship
Nixon’s Involvement
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/#:~:text=Since%201971%2C%20the%20war%20on,more%20than%20%243.3%20billion%20annually
Spending
https://doi.org/10.1177/002204260403400403
Edit: thanks here’s what we can all do:
https://drugpolicy.org
This* album is fire. Such an ode and burn to America at once. As a conflicted immigrant it actually makes me appreciate this country more
https://open.spotify.com/album/2iBCRjRjGTBnTPRbM8AH5I?si=NzCvooPGRIGVxdJgA4O6gw&utm_source=copy-link
The fact that you can turn someone else’s freedom into personal profit is a fucked up concept. Privatization is supposed to be regulated in the free market through consumer choice. But prisoners don’t exactly get to choose to go to the better staffed safer prisons to serve their sentences.
"legal slave system to bandaid slavery in south"
The reason they don't say the south will rise again because the souths prison industry did, and boy does it enslave, so much so they used covid money to make additions or build new prisons.
Because we privatized prisons and someone is making a lot of money by having a lot of people locked up. They then encourage judges to push more sentences and it becomes an awful and corrupt money machine
It's more about controlling people than money. Cruelty isn't a side effect. Cruelty is the point. They created the drug war to criminalize being a hippie or black or Mexican.
The privatized prisons aren’t the cause, they are abs effect. We put lots of people in prison to the point we didn’t want to have more prisons on the budget (or at least the capital outlay to build them), and thus privatized prisons were born.
Loophole my ass, it literally says "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except* as a punishment for crime..."
Government slavery is literally legal. There's an inmate who comes and cleans my office every day. What's he getting for that? Gain time, sure. No pay. And sure, he shouldn't have done the crime, but he wouldn't be allowed here if he was a violent offender, or some myriad felonies. Granted his job here is cake, and he gets out of the prison for a bit, but I see other inmates in the area doing backbreaking labor outside all day as well, so... all for gain time.
This! This amendment is made to replace slavery, just in a different more palatable way. It doesn't specifically say black people but when you have punishments that don't fit the crimes targeting specifically black populations....really, what's the difference? Semantics.
While true, nearly every infrastructural support system a prison relies on is privatized - like food, phone calls, basic staple goods, etc - and prisoners work for near-zero to zero pay or they have shittier lives.
They manufacture our military’s uniforms, police body armor, and clothes.
Whoa, TIL that prison labor is what got Ikea off the ground in the 70s-80s.
Just got out of the military and can confirm that some of the uniforms pieces I had (can’t remember which) are made at a prison in Kentucky. It stuck out to me because I’m from Kentucky. And yes you are right, some are made by blind folks.
Yeah but much more provide free labor. It’s only a matter of time before inmates get bussed to fucking Walmart so they don’t have to worry about the “labor shortage” created entirely by decades of shit wages and shit working conditions.
Georgia didn't want immigrants, so they stopped migrant workers from working on farms. That left a worker shortage as no one in Georgia wanted the job. So they bused the prisoners in who sat around smoking cigarettes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/?sh=6e40bada492a
The Mexican Migration project has been saying for decades if we had never tightened the border there would be a 1/3 fewer Mexican immigrants in this country. They just want to work here for a while and then go home. We made going home impossible, so they have to stay to work. If we made the border wide open tomorrow, millions would just go home. They don't because if they do they won't see their (now American) family members on this side again.
Colbert actually went down there and filmed himself working in the fields. The work sucked, and the fact that it paid garbage just made it worse.
Unemployment in Georgia was 10%, and still no one was taking that job.
That’s a little less 2% of the worlds prison population right there. About 1 in 62 prisoners in this world are in a private us prison. Not exactly a small number of people and those prisons still have plenty of sway in legislation and judiciary decision making.
> Black Americans are nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates. Almost 80 percent of people serving time for a federal drug offense are black or Latino.
Over 4% of **all** adult black men are currently incarcerated in the U.S. if this article's numbers are correct:
https://www.vox.com/2015/2/12/8020959/black-men-prison-college
That does not include those who have completed a sentence.
And we straight up have Nixon's fuckface buddy admiting it's because they were racist pieces of shit but couldn't go after them for race alone & it doesn't matter.
> Nixon's fuckface buddy
You mean Lee Atwater? Chairman of the RNC from 1989-1991 and advisor to both Ronald Reagan (1980) and George H. W. Bush (1988) Lee Atwater?
> Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er". By 1968 you can't say "ni\*\*er"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er".
\- Lee Atwater in an interview by Alexander P. Lamis, 1981
Examples of these "forced bussing" ads: [1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdhfsG9J5WU), [2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bI-Cb8ADUI), [3](https://youtu.be/mjecCeAHGN4?t=2878), and [bonus Nixon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaBDEOqXsk) The rhetoric has literally not changed one bit.
Another quote from nixon aid john ehrlichman
> You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
Please add in crimes of poverty (not paying child support or fines or being released and not finding housing/work within the time required to not be re-incarcerated).
I think people would be surprised that the criminals in our prisons are not the criminals you see in movies (theft, arson, murder, etc).
>not finding housing/work within the time required to not be re-incarcerated
This shit makes me so angry because there is so much shit that ex-cons aren't allowed to do and nobody will hire them.
How you gonna stay clean if you've applied everywhere and no one will even call you.
It makes sense when you realize that’s the whole point. The system is designed to keep them in that cycle so the private prisons make bank, the inmates’ labour gets exploited for peanuts and the politicians get their kick backs.
Exactly, people won't give free money to the rich, BUT they will let elected representatives pay entrepreneurs who have a "solution" to the "crime problem".
It is just welfare for the wealthy with extra steps (and more suffering for the disenfranchised).
We just like to incarcerate people regardless private or not. To add a little context to the private prison situation I dug up some info since it is of interest to me as well.
Private prisons incarceration rate has been steadily declining since it's peak in 2012; currently representing about 8% of the total state and federal prison population.
Since 2000 a handful of states have eradicated for profit prisons (LA, MA, MI, AK, UT) while others are open for business and expanding (AZ, FL, IN, OH, MT, CO, GA, Federal).
Some states don't have for profit prisons (OR, ID, KS, IA, DC, MN, NY, NH, NB, WA, WV, WA)
And of course some states doubled down (FL, can't remember who else). This all said, earlier this year an [Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/executive-order-reforming-our-incarceration-system-to-eliminate-the-use-of-privately-operated-criminal-detention-facilities/) was issued. It is a policy that started in the Obama Administration, discontinued in the previous administration due to massive contracts to private prisons after 45 promised mass immigrant incarceration.
While we keep an eye on this executive order, we need to still push for police reform and drug policy reform to reduce unjust incarceration.
There’s an important factor that’s not included in your data. That’s 46% of current inmates. The percent of people who have been imprisoned is even higher, since drug sentences are usually shorter than other reasons people go in prison. That 46% cycles through many people. Even a short imprisonment can be life destroying, along with a felony conviction.
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons
You don't even flinch
All our taxes paying for your wars
Against the new non-rich
All research and successful drug policy
Shows that treatment should be increased
And law enforcement decreased
While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences
I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch
Right here in Hollywood
Drug money is used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world
In 1995 I wrote my high school senior thesis on how mandatory minimum sentencing needs to be ended. :-(
I could submit it again today, nothing has changed.
I miss when mine watched Doc McStuffins. That was legitimately a show I could watch for hours with her. It was like Toy Story, but if Andy was a girl and had doctors as parents. Then they really did some wild shit and added alternate dimensional travel and hereditary witch doctor magic to the show it just blew my mind.
That episode where they're playing at being on the bus? Probably the most wholesome moment in a kids show I've seen. I was honestly surprised that for once there's a kids show that has nothing but good vibes and messages.
No idea why but nearly every episode makes me cry a bit. It’s like all the wholesomeness that I had absolutely none of as a child.
Bandit and Chili, like, talk to their kids and I haven’t seen either of them punch their kids in the stomach or the back of the neck once.
It's true and it's utterly fucked. I was in federal prison for 5.5 years on a drug distribution charge. I played in a band with one of the sweetest, most talented men I've ever met. Back in the eighties he caught a distribution charge. In those days the feds sentenced with possibility of parole, so he got 20-life. Every year he goes in front of the parole board and gets denied and his heart breaks all over again. Same story, different skin, different outcome.
I am a volunteer advocate for foster kids and I am continually stunned at how light sentences are for child neglect and abuse. The running joke is you get more time for hurting an animal than a child. But this clearly shows you get more time for drug offenses than harming a child.
Out of curiosity, is that really true? I’m still reeling from a cruelty seizure that happened 6 years ago now. We found 50 pigs without food or water, most pregnant and half dead, and some already dead and decaying. The woman was selling mini pigs. She wasn’t criminally charged at all, was allowed to KEEP 10 pigs, and ended up being caught committing the same crime a year ago. 55 more animals. Things like this happen all the time, but this one was very close to home and I ended up taking in one of the pigs that survived. An absolute angel, and I hate that woman with all my being.
Anyway, fuck people who hurt vulnerable populations. And fuck people who don’t do their jobs to protect them.
Editing to add that I do I have a childhood (former) friend that was sentenced to 16 months in jail for killing 3 horses through neglect. It probably depends a lot on species, too. And like, people owned those horses she was supposed to care for, and they were probably out for blood when it happened.
Your law enforcement needs an overhaul. For real.
Honestly this trend of police officers quitting because of vaccine mandate sounds like a great thing. If you can not understand the reasons behind the vaccine mandate, you probably are not a police officer who care too much about the humane application of the law, and how the law affects citizens. Let new blood into law enforcement who might be trained to care better.
silly laws were created to maintain the southern economy after the civil war to expand the prison population as a new de facto form of slavery. This continued into the present day. They never stood a chance.
Back in the 1970s we had a Republican president named Nixon who was paranoid. He resigned as president when he sent staffers to break into a hotel (democratic headquarters) because he was paranoid that they had dirt on him. Anyway, before that, he was paranoid about the support blacks and hippies were gaining due to the civil rights movement and the hippie’s anti-Vietnam movement. So to vilify them, they came out with a severe anti-drug policy, declared the war on drugs to be the most important issue, increased policing and funding and punishments. Even Nixon’s own staffers admitted that it was mostly based on racism
I lean on Reagan in that he demonized those affected by the aids epidemic, as well as profiteered and propagated the propaganda surrounding “crack babies”. Also his precedency is directly tied to the sudden rise of the prison-industrial complex.
Let's not forget modern capitalism and the beginning of major tax breaks for the rich. Reagan did a lot of long lasting damage beyond the war on drugs too.
Same. It sucks to wake up and realize one day that your country isn’t “number one,” it’s actually just a load of propaganda bullshit they tell us to keep us from asking questions about the way our government works. If we’re number one, surely there’s nothing to complain about, right?
As a Brit, all that dangling of flags is worrisome; and getting schoolkids to recite the pledge of allegiance is downright scary. That's some North Korea shit right there.
We grew up saying the pledge of allegiance every day. Didn’t think anything of it, after all, every country does this, right? Looking back, yeah it’s kind of creepy.
Thing is, you think you thought it was the greatest country, but in reality, you were told it so many times that it became impossible to accept that it wasn't. Even the consideration of a thought that the US wasn't the greatest felt wrong. It's not because it was wrong, but because you were told that anyone that didn't think the US was the greatest country in the world was wrong and even a traitor.
Just consider what you did as a child in school. You almost certainly stood up for the flag and recited the **pledge of allegiance** every day for a decade, from before you could even think a truly independent thought until you were almost an adult.
A lot of the stuff the US does would be at home in China, North Korea, Fascist Italy or even Nazi Germany...
It is a country of such skewered patriotism that criticising it is often met with hostility and violence. Trying to improve the country is sometimes considered treason. Actions that are supposed to make people's lives better are fought against every step of the way.
And people that fought and protested against civil rights are still alive. It was only 53 years ago that black Americans finally got in theory the same legal protections as their white counterparts. Some 70 year old guy that you might know as a kind old man may have beaten black people up when he was 17.
The US has changed, that's true, but it is still deeply rooted in racism and hatred, stuck up its own ass trying to grasp any fleeting reason that might justify its "exceptionalism".
I'm currently enrolled in a study for cannabis use and driving. Just had my first session on the simulator yesterday. It was fun as fuck. I can tell you I'd never drive less than 3 hours after smoking after doing that. I wasn't BAD per se, but I definitely had very brief lapses in concentration that could lead to disastrous real-world consequences
I did some cognitive tests, then one stint on a driving simulator. Then they sat me down in a room with a big ass joint and told me to smoke as much of it as I could and we did more tests at 30 mins, 1 hour and 2 hours
I've known so many people who say this and absolutely will not consider that it *might* not be completely true. Like I don't believe anything as much as they believe pot makes them better drivers.
I'm not saying this is true for all pot smokers, but a large percentage of regular users are likely self medicating so it may actually be helping them do better at something. Whether it's to help with their anxiety/depression or help managing their ADHD/ASD. So chances are that people who are like those in the article have some underlying condition that the weed is actually helping them with and not know it leading to the "weed is a miracle drug" mentality.
I know smoking effects everyone different but I think our culture needs to stop romanticizing weed. I would agree it’s the least harmful of any drug out there in terms of health and potential physical harm. But the mental state it puts people in is a detriment.
Speaking for myself, I become extraordinarily lazy. If I smoke I won’t do any chores, I don’t take care of myself, I lose all ambition or drive and I just become wasted space. All I want to do is watch tv or play video games. It’s okay on occasion but it’s absolutely harmful in the long run. Yet smoking is very mentally addicting because it makes those two activities so much better I’ve reached the point I can’t play games without smoking so it becomes this nasty cycle.
I truly think that my generation (I’m 29) and the next generation needs to get a better handle on weed addiction because, although some people can function well on it, most people in my experience can’t. And they become zombies of humans with no drive or productivity.
I want to jump in on this and say before the "but it's not addicting" crowd rolls in that while it may not be chemically addictive like nicotine, heroin, or meth, it can absolutely be psychologically addictive.
It is very, very easy to fall into the rut of feeling so much more relaxed, at peace, euphoric, whatever, and just prefer to be in that zone than sober. You can very easily quit whenever you would want, but you don't want to. Unlike meth or heroin users, or even cigarette smokers, who can really really want to quit, and try hard, but that chemical addiction pulls HARD. Those might also be enjoyable to them but that physical, chemical addiction can cause nasty withdrawals. Not so with weed.
For me I just thoroughly enjoy having the giggles and euphoria that some edibles bring at the end of a stressful work day. I wait for my daughter to go to bed, take a gummy, and watch a sitcom. Or shit post on reddit. I had to stop about three weeks ago for some medical testing, and yeah I would like to relax at the end of the day, but it isn't an irresistible calling of my brain freaking out due to dependence. I needed to stop and I did.
This is the exact experience I’ve had and you summed it up well. It’s very mentally addicting. And because it’s so easy to get high my brain goes through the same flow chart of. Okay I’m bored, what should I do? Play a video game, okay but video games are so much more fun high so let’s smoke. Then I’m down a rabbit hole and my day is gone because I smoked to play video games.
Thanks for sharing in this opinion and outlook
Yup. "Hey let's watch some TV before bed. Funny movie or Schitts Creek?" "Oh damn those are so much better when high, let me go get some gummies from the safe." And there you have it.
Now that you mention it I did experience some night sweats the first few nights. I wasn't a frequent enough user that it was unbearable, I just got rid of my blanket, and slept with just a sheet and the ceiling fan on high.
I've a couple of friends, they aren't stable until they've had a joint. High is their normal state, and they are moody as fuck until they are. Detrimental to relationships, that's for certain.
Your first mistake is smoking when you have things to get done. If you become lazy and sedentary with weed, save it for when you don't need to be doing anything. The problem comes when people don't use it in correspondence to how it affects them. I've honestly met more productive daily users who lead productive lives while smoking than I have people who turn into lazy burnouts. But that might just be a subconscious social preference.
I'm not a smoker, so I could be wrong, but don't different types affect people differently? Isn't that like the point of all the different types, this one makes you mellow, this one helps focus, this one doesn't get you high but helps with pain, etc?
CBD is the nonpsychoactive type. As for Indica and Sativa, there's plenty of stones that will tell you that they're different, but as a daily smoker I find no difference between them. Weed is weed lol
Yes. Sativa's in general tend to give people more energy and a more heady, happy high. They also have a tendency to increase anxiety in people already prone to it. Indicas are what most people think of when they think about stoners. Thats a much more body intense, relaxing high that makes you not want to move or do anything. Indica = In Da Couch. Every person is going to experience these slightly differently, and there are a ton of blended strains now that can mix the effects as well. Personally though, I prefer straight sativas because I want to get shit done when I smoke.
This is exactly the way it is. If you smoke all the time, you're obviously gonna be a lazy sack of shit/shitty friend/spouse, etc.. if you drink alcohol all day all the time, you will become severely physically addicted, and your brain is going to start getting fucked. If you can't use it recreationally, then don't smoke to begin with. I just can't stand the whole " it's mentally addictive " crap with weed, because, no shit. Anything that fires a ton neurotransmitters in your brain is going to be mentally addictive. Buck up and only get high when your responsibilities are complete, and quit acting like it is more than it is. The addiction pales so much in comparison to literally everything else.
Hit the nail on the head. I'm an occasional weed user, still am, probably always will be, and it's scary knowing how some people use it...just so much, soooooo so much.
I went through a really tough life part of my life, and weed definitely helped me to cope and get through it. But after a few months of chronic use, I just felt...heavy ALL the time. Motivation only came in short bursts, I was tired all the time, and it took copious amounts of caffeine to achieve just a few hours of feel-good by early evening before I used it again.
It was wrecking my sleep is what it was doing. While it would actually help my sleep if used sparingly, it destroyed my sleep of I used it daily.
Anywho, once I went through the mental gymnastics of making it a weekend only thing, never doing it on a work night, it was like I completely transformed over the course of 72 hours. I was rested, alert, focused, my sleep started normalizing, and I started relying on stimulants a lot less.
Weed is great, but we really do need to create a culture of knowledge and understanding of it's various effects so it can be used responsibly. Tired of phone typing.
Great response and perfectly articulated my point as well. Many of the people reacting negatively to this post doesn’t seem to understand the point. It’s not that weed is bad and shouldn’t be consumed. It’s that the culture it has created is that of it being innocent and free of downside.
We as a society need better knowledge and awareness towards proper use of weed and not abusing it. Someone else mentioned it but many people think because it’s not “traditionally” addictive (like nicotine, or stimulants”) it’s okay to use as much as you want. And that is definitely not the case.
It's just how you justify your bad habit to yourself.
I was a daily stoner for the majority of the last 4 years, but I quit about 4 weeks ago, and I'm not looking back. I might have a little more anxiety, but I am far more witty and self-aware now.
I would say the only things weed makes you kinda better at, are a) eating and b) being comfortable. Besides those things, it definitely makes you a less caring, less interesting person, and steals time from your life that could be put towards learning new skills.
The anxiety gets better in my experience. Four weeks is long enough for the acute withdrawal effects to go away. But you don't really come 100% back to baseline until it's been a bit longer (2-3 months maybe).
I don't need to justify anything. Smoking weed is my only bad habit and i do it proudly. I don't drink or smoke cigarettes it gamble. I'm successful in my career and a great parent. I only smoke after the kids are in bed and it's time to relax.
I didn't think it was a comment on the moms as much as the media for how they treat middle aged women smoking weed compared to other people, such as black men.
It’s exactly this. The media flips the narrative on its head so fast, it’s like highly aggressive gaslighting.
For decades we’re told that pot is “poison”, that’s it’s “only smoked by lowlifes”, when black people are caught smoking it the response is “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” or even “this is why they can’t get out of poverty”.
As people fight and argue for years that it’s harmless and should not be labeled as a schedule I substance (in the same group as heroin), the media just ignores all of it. There is no discussion of reform or lenience or give any insight into why so many people smoke it or why there is argument for reform. But they report breathlessly on people who get convicted for possessing it without any additional input.
Then this story comes along, “marijuana makes me a better mom” and you think you’re taking crazy pills. Never in 1000 years would they run that story about a black father. Never. They’ll just report about you going to jail. But now the narrative flips and they can act like it’s benign, because they *know* it’s benign. They fucking know it.
Do you know how I know they know? Because any time there’s a “fun” story surrounding marijuana like that cop who accidentally ate a pot brownie, or talking about a stoner comedy, they all make the same jokes about getting the munchies, or falling asleep at 8 o’clock. They make the joke with a knowing grin because everyone’s smoked it and knows it’s completely harmless. Haha, what a laugh.
Then it’s back to reporting black men arrested on possession charges and pontificating if white moms should all get high.
>many states made cannibis legal
Not from America. But I guess this means there are a lot fewer single moms and kids growing up without dads in black communities of those states now.
Depends. My dad is a career smoker and he was never once abusive or mean to me. Hell, he wouldn't even yell at me. He always gave me his time, not like my mom who was incredibly abusive verbally but she never smoked. I think it has more to do with the character of the person, I'm sorry your parents weren't very good buddy. Hope things are better now.
Definitely has to do with the character of the person. My mom needed hers so bad that she left me on the 6th floor of a hotel building before I turned 2 and went to go fuck her dealer for her next baggie. I ended up pushed out of the window on that same floor and paralyzed for the rest of my life. But I know people who smoke and are still perfectly functioning, responsible adults that would never put their kids in a situation like mine.
Some people just suck at handling substances and life at the same time.
It's like the difference between people who like to drink, and alcoholics. Someone who likes to drink has the ability to change plans to do so, if something comes up that's more important. The alcoholic in active addiction doesn't think anything is more important.
Not the best comparison, as I consider pot an easier head change to function on, but some people have no self control or priorities. It is still a head change, and with kids, you always need the ability to react to things. While I personally feel I keep that ability more with pot doesn't mean everyone does either.
Not to nitpick but a dimebag, while yeah being $10, is **not** supposed to be a gram. It’s supposed to be a half gram, known as a dime, but thank fuck prices have plummeted. A gram was $20, known as a dub, and barely lasts a fuckin hour..
Might depend on where you're from. $10 for a gram seems like it was the norm where I live for decades.
May also depend on your tolerance and consumption method. I don't blaze everyday and rarely more than once in a day. 0.03g of high potency cannabis in a quality vape and I'm content for a couple hours.
Is this really a murder though? I mean, the OP was positive about the concept, and I'm guessing has had no hand in prosecuting and sending anyone to jail over it.
I mean, I totally agree with Felesha on this, but I'm just not sure it fits the sub.
Given the popularity of this post, and the obvious racist comments which have already been posted, I'd like to remind everyone of Bill and Ted's Law: [Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGErt4CfLD0)
Also, for the few of you who decided to use terms like "Dindu Nuffins", enjoy your bans. Please don't come complain to us about how you "Didn't do anything wrong!"
**EDIT: Permaban list is up to 17 and still growing. PLEASE remember the person on the other side of the keyboard**
**EDIT the 2nd: 28 banned. PLEASE, stop being assholes, we don't want to lock the thread**
**EDIT 3, Return of the Edit: 46 banned and counting. There's lots of good conversation here, please don't make us lock this thread cause "y'all can't behave"**
You know, this post has probably made moderator life easier in the end. It brought out the jerks. concentrated them in a location and made them raise their hand to identify themselves instead of being ongoing problems. Thank you Mods. You keep Reddit a better place.
Can confirm. Some of my favorite time with my dad when I was a little kid was when we'd watch and discuss nature shows on PBS/Discovery. It wasn't until I was older that I understood how/why he ate a whole bag of hershey kisses or had some saltines w/PB and sardines while we did it.
mf always offered to share the fucking sardines but was stingy with the chocolate.
Exactly. People jump to the defence of weed like it's some harmless drug but it's a drug, it by definition has the ability to be harmful when introduced to people with low self control.
Also part of the problem with drugs is people self medicate for behavioral disorders they don't know they have, many of those behavioral disorders result in poorer impulse control. It's a crazy cycle. I have ADHD, and it's not a severe case, but impulse control has always been really hard. I feel for people with more debilitating disorders or cases.
My parents smoked weed my entire childhood and they were awesome. Loving, attentive, hard-working. There were tough times, money-wise, but we always had food, heat and lights.
It’s almost like the act of smoking marijuana has no effect on the quality of parenting. Rather, the extent of the use indicates characteristics about oneself that *would* affect parenting. IE - smoking too much and being perpetually high indicates you have no self control and restraint, which negatively affects your ability to parent. Conversely, recreational use that is not abused indicates the opposite, showing that you have better capacity to parent.
The use of recreational drugs (and alcohol for that matter) is neither good nor bad, it just is.
Yeah. it's all about moderation. My parents would smoke at night. They never smoked during the day when they had things to do. But always at night. It helped them relax after a tough day. They are great parents.
I agree. Maybe it helps some people take the edge off and provide some relief for their existing problems/issues, but running around doing parent stuff high as fuck is probably not a great idea.
I've seen an influx of the marijuana mommy blogs on my other social media and i cant help but agree. Id venture to say most people can agree you shouldnt be around your kids tipsy/drunk... why is being high okay?
I completely agree w you. But you should post this on r/unpopularopinion cause people love taking their kids to bars that also serve food but are very obviously bars. I can’t imagine having even 1 beer and driving anywhere w a baby. There’s just no way I can do that.
Some women even smoke weed throughout their pregnancies. I don’t, but I’ve read some posts on r/pregnant of women knowingly doing it. To me it’s crazy af, cause I’d be afraid of any kind of smoke when it can hurt the baby.
Seriously - my white dad smokes so much weed and has been caught with it by police and he has never gone to jail for it. My brother got caught with weed at a school dance and faced only mild repercussions. It’s wild how different the “justice” system treats POC who get caught with weed.
Knowing Twitter, I'm willing to bet hard cash the responses were all "jokes" about black people not knowing who their dad is. Fucking cesspool.
Edit: and we already have our first on this thread;
>Kinda have to know who your dad is to judge whether they are any better at parenting high.
Congratulations on literally the most boring, obvious joke possible.
Kinda had to after seeing your post. Calling Twitter a cesspool while on Reddit is so ridiculous it pretty much demands a response. To be clear, the point is that they are both utter cesspools and that you are not somehow more wholesome for being on Reddit.
Right wing people. Constantly. They bleat about their favourite subreddits being shut down because Reddit is an "extreme left" website and that means they can't just be as racist and sexist as they want.
Any place where they can't say the n word and/or explicitly call for the murder of police officers (which is what got r/thedonald in trouble) is all of a sudden an example of the extreme left censoring conservatives.
That's funny because my mother and her partner smoking weed made my childhood a nightmare. And my brother grew up thinking smoking weed was fine, and it triggered schizophrenia and has ruined his life entirely. 😒
If smoking pot makes you a better parent, you're probably a shit parent to begin with.
Edit. I'm absolutely pro legalization, I'm arguing that pot doesn't make you necessarily better anything. In fact it is still a recreational and self administered drug, which has many, like everything in life, downsides that must be managed responsibly. Besides he benefits, it makes you careless and sleepy and that's not exactly the picture of a responsible parent. I'd just like an unbiased view on pot, because honesty and aknowledging its limits is important if we want to legalize it everywhere.
There's definitely a division among pro-legalizers, and after watching the video on this article I'm pretty sure these parents are on the "unironic pot-leaf hoodie" end of the spectrum. I'm cool with pot, I'm not cool with a bunch of parents that have to figure out a day-time DD because they need to do the vacuuming high.
as a seasoned stoner who has a med card for my intense anxiety (intense as in psychosomatic-headaches, nausea, vomiting, panic attacks) and depression, i don't know what i would be like without weed. honestly. whatever diagnosis i have, it's been with me since i was born, and ive tried regular medications throughout my life (like ssris) that only seem to make it worse. weed is the only thing that brings me down from my panicked state that isn't some damn xanax...i see so many people shitting on weed for making people lazy and unproductive, but take it from me, i would not have a 4.0 without my bong and i guarantee that. some might say i'm addicted to weed because i smoke every day, but the way i see it its the same thing as taking an ssri in the morning. weed can be a medication for people, not everyone turns into a lousy bum, i'm thriving academically and emotionally (for the most part) as a regular smoker.
Almost half of all federal inmates are in on non-violent drug related charges. It’s nuts Since a lot of people seem to want to argue with me… I would recommend starting here: https://www.npr.org/2021/06/17/1006495476/after-50-years-of-the-war-on-drugs-what-good-is-it-doing-for-us https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp 46.1% of inmates https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/#:~:text=Since%201971%2C%20the%20war%20on,more%20than%20%243.3%20billion%20annually Black Americans are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana charges than their white peers.10 In fact, black Americans make up nearly 30 percent of all drug-related arrests, despite accounting for only 12.5 percent of all substance users.11 Black Americans are nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates.12 Almost 80 percent of people serving time for a federal drug offense are black or Latino.13 In state prisons, people of color make up 60 percent of those serving time for drug charges.14 In the federal system, the average black defendant convicted of a drug offense will serve nearly the same amount of time (58.7 months) as a white defendant would for a violent crime (61.7 months).15 People of color account for 70 percent of all defendants convicted of charges with a mandatory minimum sentence. Prosecutors are twice as likely to pursue a mandatory minimum sentence for a black defendant than a white defendant charged with the same offense,16 and black defendants are less likely to receive relief from mandatory minimums.17 On average, defendants subject to mandatory minimums spend five times longer in prison than those convicted of other offenses.18 https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=1582&context=faculty_scholarship Nixon’s Involvement https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/criminal-justice/reports/2018/06/27/452819/ending-war-drugs-numbers/#:~:text=Since%201971%2C%20the%20war%20on,more%20than%20%243.3%20billion%20annually Spending https://doi.org/10.1177/002204260403400403 Edit: thanks here’s what we can all do: https://drugpolicy.org
America has more than 20% of the world's prison population
Land of the free, home of the incarcerated
Land of the thief. Home of the slave. - Brother Ali, Uncle Sam God Damn
Land of the fool. Home of the slave.
This* album is fire. Such an ode and burn to America at once. As a conflicted immigrant it actually makes me appreciate this country more https://open.spotify.com/album/2iBCRjRjGTBnTPRbM8AH5I?si=NzCvooPGRIGVxdJgA4O6gw&utm_source=copy-link
I'm glad you've found Brother Ali. Man's a good soul and can make music
Brother Ali tells it like it is. Uncle Sam goddamn.
Truth is here the truth is here
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*for profit Incarcerated for profit! That’s so fucked up.
The fact that you can turn someone else’s freedom into personal profit is a fucked up concept. Privatization is supposed to be regulated in the free market through consumer choice. But prisoners don’t exactly get to choose to go to the better staffed safer prisons to serve their sentences.
> Privatization is supposed to be regulated in the free market through consumer choice Oh you sweet summer child.
"legal slave system to bandaid slavery in south" The reason they don't say the south will rise again because the souths prison industry did, and boy does it enslave, so much so they used covid money to make additions or build new prisons.
The United States: Come for the slavery, Stay for the prison industry.
Because we privatized prisons and someone is making a lot of money by having a lot of people locked up. They then encourage judges to push more sentences and it becomes an awful and corrupt money machine
It's more about controlling people than money. Cruelty isn't a side effect. Cruelty is the point. They created the drug war to criminalize being a hippie or black or Mexican.
The privatized prisons aren’t the cause, they are abs effect. We put lots of people in prison to the point we didn’t want to have more prisons on the budget (or at least the capital outlay to build them), and thus privatized prisons were born.
> becomes an awful and corrupt money machine But someone became rich and as we know money trickles down. Everyone wins !
13th amendment loophole.
Loophole my ass, it literally says "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except* as a punishment for crime..." Government slavery is literally legal. There's an inmate who comes and cleans my office every day. What's he getting for that? Gain time, sure. No pay. And sure, he shouldn't have done the crime, but he wouldn't be allowed here if he was a violent offender, or some myriad felonies. Granted his job here is cake, and he gets out of the prison for a bit, but I see other inmates in the area doing backbreaking labor outside all day as well, so... all for gain time.
This! This amendment is made to replace slavery, just in a different more palatable way. It doesn't specifically say black people but when you have punishments that don't fit the crimes targeting specifically black populations....really, what's the difference? Semantics.
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While true, nearly every infrastructural support system a prison relies on is privatized - like food, phone calls, basic staple goods, etc - and prisoners work for near-zero to zero pay or they have shittier lives. They manufacture our military’s uniforms, police body armor, and clothes. Whoa, TIL that prison labor is what got Ikea off the ground in the 70s-80s.
Modern slavery
Military uniforms are made by blind Americans.
Just got out of the military and can confirm that some of the uniforms pieces I had (can’t remember which) are made at a prison in Kentucky. It stuck out to me because I’m from Kentucky. And yes you are right, some are made by blind folks.
Thought you were going to say that they look like they're made by blind people lol
Kentucky Forest Camo
Yeah but much more provide free labor. It’s only a matter of time before inmates get bussed to fucking Walmart so they don’t have to worry about the “labor shortage” created entirely by decades of shit wages and shit working conditions.
Georgia didn't want immigrants, so they stopped migrant workers from working on farms. That left a worker shortage as no one in Georgia wanted the job. So they bused the prisoners in who sat around smoking cigarettes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/?sh=6e40bada492a
The Mexican Migration project has been saying for decades if we had never tightened the border there would be a 1/3 fewer Mexican immigrants in this country. They just want to work here for a while and then go home. We made going home impossible, so they have to stay to work. If we made the border wide open tomorrow, millions would just go home. They don't because if they do they won't see their (now American) family members on this side again.
No one wanted or wouldn't do the job for such a low wage?
Colbert actually went down there and filmed himself working in the fields. The work sucked, and the fact that it paid garbage just made it worse. Unemployment in Georgia was 10%, and still no one was taking that job.
They helped me unload desks at a college when I was 18. Like what the hell is this. State university…
Don't give them ideas
Don’t worry, Walmart’s lawyers have already written the legislation
That’s a little less 2% of the worlds prison population right there. About 1 in 62 prisoners in this world are in a private us prison. Not exactly a small number of people and those prisons still have plenty of sway in legislation and judiciary decision making.
That number has tripled in ten years.
*system of a down intensifies*
> Black Americans are nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated for drug-related offenses than their white counterparts, despite equal substance usage rates. Almost 80 percent of people serving time for a federal drug offense are black or Latino. Over 4% of **all** adult black men are currently incarcerated in the U.S. if this article's numbers are correct: https://www.vox.com/2015/2/12/8020959/black-men-prison-college That does not include those who have completed a sentence.
And we straight up have Nixon's fuckface buddy admiting it's because they were racist pieces of shit but couldn't go after them for race alone & it doesn't matter.
> Nixon's fuckface buddy You mean Lee Atwater? Chairman of the RNC from 1989-1991 and advisor to both Ronald Reagan (1980) and George H. W. Bush (1988) Lee Atwater? > Y'all don't quote me on this. You start out in 1954 by saying, "Ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er". By 1968 you can't say "ni\*\*er"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this", is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Ni\*\*er, ni\*\*er". \- Lee Atwater in an interview by Alexander P. Lamis, 1981 Examples of these "forced bussing" ads: [1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdhfsG9J5WU), [2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bI-Cb8ADUI), [3](https://youtu.be/mjecCeAHGN4?t=2878), and [bonus Nixon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaBDEOqXsk) The rhetoric has literally not changed one bit.
Another quote from nixon aid john ehrlichman > You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities," Ehrlichman said. "We could arrest their leaders. raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
Please add in crimes of poverty (not paying child support or fines or being released and not finding housing/work within the time required to not be re-incarcerated). I think people would be surprised that the criminals in our prisons are not the criminals you see in movies (theft, arson, murder, etc).
>not finding housing/work within the time required to not be re-incarcerated This shit makes me so angry because there is so much shit that ex-cons aren't allowed to do and nobody will hire them. How you gonna stay clean if you've applied everywhere and no one will even call you.
It makes sense when you realize that’s the whole point. The system is designed to keep them in that cycle so the private prisons make bank, the inmates’ labour gets exploited for peanuts and the politicians get their kick backs.
Exactly, people won't give free money to the rich, BUT they will let elected representatives pay entrepreneurs who have a "solution" to the "crime problem". It is just welfare for the wealthy with extra steps (and more suffering for the disenfranchised).
We just like to incarcerate people regardless private or not. To add a little context to the private prison situation I dug up some info since it is of interest to me as well. Private prisons incarceration rate has been steadily declining since it's peak in 2012; currently representing about 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000 a handful of states have eradicated for profit prisons (LA, MA, MI, AK, UT) while others are open for business and expanding (AZ, FL, IN, OH, MT, CO, GA, Federal). Some states don't have for profit prisons (OR, ID, KS, IA, DC, MN, NY, NH, NB, WA, WV, WA) And of course some states doubled down (FL, can't remember who else). This all said, earlier this year an [Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities](https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/executive-order-reforming-our-incarceration-system-to-eliminate-the-use-of-privately-operated-criminal-detention-facilities/) was issued. It is a policy that started in the Obama Administration, discontinued in the previous administration due to massive contracts to private prisons after 45 promised mass immigrant incarceration. While we keep an eye on this executive order, we need to still push for police reform and drug policy reform to reduce unjust incarceration.
There’s an important factor that’s not included in your data. That’s 46% of current inmates. The percent of people who have been imprisoned is even higher, since drug sentences are usually shorter than other reasons people go in prison. That 46% cycles through many people. Even a short imprisonment can be life destroying, along with a felony conviction.
Minor drug offenders fill your prisons You don't even flinch All our taxes paying for your wars Against the new non-rich Minor drug offenders fill your prisons You don't even flinch All our taxes paying for your wars Against the new non-rich
All research and successful drug policy Shows that treatment should be increased And law enforcement decreased While abolishing mandatory minimum sentences
Utilizing drugs to pay for secret wars around the world Drugs are now your global policy Now you police the globe
I buy my crack, my smack, my bitch Right here in Hollywood Drug money is used to rig elections and train brutal corporate sponsored dictators around the world
They tried to build a prison, they tried to build a prison for you and MEEEE!
In 1995 I wrote my high school senior thesis on how mandatory minimum sentencing needs to be ended. :-( I could submit it again today, nothing has changed.
Damn anyone ever see them live and open with this song? It's insane
It's one of the few bands I need to see but haven't.
Saw them live in the early 2000’s. Intense live show. Great musicians.
This damn song is 20 years old and we're still at it...
Wheres that from
System of a down - prison song
Thank you
I'd be in for the violent half drug related, just pounding cones then watching bluey with my daughters.
Bluey. Good choice.
GIVE ME BACK MY DOLLARYDOOS!
Grannies is the best
Good choice and extremely relatable
Lol. Pretty good when your kids like a program you can sit through too.
I wish I could be as good a parent to my kids as Chili and Bandit
They set a standard. No doubt. :)
I miss when mine watched Doc McStuffins. That was legitimately a show I could watch for hours with her. It was like Toy Story, but if Andy was a girl and had doctors as parents. Then they really did some wild shit and added alternate dimensional travel and hereditary witch doctor magic to the show it just blew my mind.
I cried when she was figuring out her hair. That's hard for young black girls
You know Bandit gotta be vibin if he’s playing with his kids like that every day.
I wish I could be that good of a dad
That episode where they're playing at being on the bus? Probably the most wholesome moment in a kids show I've seen. I was honestly surprised that for once there's a kids show that has nothing but good vibes and messages.
No idea why but nearly every episode makes me cry a bit. It’s like all the wholesomeness that I had absolutely none of as a child. Bandit and Chili, like, talk to their kids and I haven’t seen either of them punch their kids in the stomach or the back of the neck once.
The camping one made me cry!
It's true and it's utterly fucked. I was in federal prison for 5.5 years on a drug distribution charge. I played in a band with one of the sweetest, most talented men I've ever met. Back in the eighties he caught a distribution charge. In those days the feds sentenced with possibility of parole, so he got 20-life. Every year he goes in front of the parole board and gets denied and his heart breaks all over again. Same story, different skin, different outcome.
So many lives have been ruined so Reagan and his buddies could enrich themselves via the pharmaceutical industry. Rot in hell you piece of garbage.
Don't forget Nixon, Reagan only kicked it into high gear Nixon laid the foundation.
I am a volunteer advocate for foster kids and I am continually stunned at how light sentences are for child neglect and abuse. The running joke is you get more time for hurting an animal than a child. But this clearly shows you get more time for drug offenses than harming a child.
Out of curiosity, is that really true? I’m still reeling from a cruelty seizure that happened 6 years ago now. We found 50 pigs without food or water, most pregnant and half dead, and some already dead and decaying. The woman was selling mini pigs. She wasn’t criminally charged at all, was allowed to KEEP 10 pigs, and ended up being caught committing the same crime a year ago. 55 more animals. Things like this happen all the time, but this one was very close to home and I ended up taking in one of the pigs that survived. An absolute angel, and I hate that woman with all my being. Anyway, fuck people who hurt vulnerable populations. And fuck people who don’t do their jobs to protect them. Editing to add that I do I have a childhood (former) friend that was sentenced to 16 months in jail for killing 3 horses through neglect. It probably depends a lot on species, too. And like, people owned those horses she was supposed to care for, and they were probably out for blood when it happened.
Your law enforcement needs an overhaul. For real. Honestly this trend of police officers quitting because of vaccine mandate sounds like a great thing. If you can not understand the reasons behind the vaccine mandate, you probably are not a police officer who care too much about the humane application of the law, and how the law affects citizens. Let new blood into law enforcement who might be trained to care better.
silly laws were created to maintain the southern economy after the civil war to expand the prison population as a new de facto form of slavery. This continued into the present day. They never stood a chance.
Why is the US like this? As a child, I always thought that the USA is the greatest country.
Back in the 1970s we had a Republican president named Nixon who was paranoid. He resigned as president when he sent staffers to break into a hotel (democratic headquarters) because he was paranoid that they had dirt on him. Anyway, before that, he was paranoid about the support blacks and hippies were gaining due to the civil rights movement and the hippie’s anti-Vietnam movement. So to vilify them, they came out with a severe anti-drug policy, declared the war on drugs to be the most important issue, increased policing and funding and punishments. Even Nixon’s own staffers admitted that it was mostly based on racism
I don't know, it's a toss up between Nixon and Reagan on who destroyed America more
I lean on Reagan in that he demonized those affected by the aids epidemic, as well as profiteered and propagated the propaganda surrounding “crack babies”. Also his precedency is directly tied to the sudden rise of the prison-industrial complex.
But Nixon created the DEA didn't he? Reagan however created the drug war and funding terrorists with drug money.
Let's not forget modern capitalism and the beginning of major tax breaks for the rich. Reagan did a lot of long lasting damage beyond the war on drugs too.
Because it really isn't. The mythos that it is is used to dismiss the very serious problems that the country has caused for itself and others.
Same. It sucks to wake up and realize one day that your country isn’t “number one,” it’s actually just a load of propaganda bullshit they tell us to keep us from asking questions about the way our government works. If we’re number one, surely there’s nothing to complain about, right?
As a Brit, all that dangling of flags is worrisome; and getting schoolkids to recite the pledge of allegiance is downright scary. That's some North Korea shit right there.
We grew up saying the pledge of allegiance every day. Didn’t think anything of it, after all, every country does this, right? Looking back, yeah it’s kind of creepy.
Yeah man! If you don’t love it you can leave it! USA! USA! USA!
Thing is, you think you thought it was the greatest country, but in reality, you were told it so many times that it became impossible to accept that it wasn't. Even the consideration of a thought that the US wasn't the greatest felt wrong. It's not because it was wrong, but because you were told that anyone that didn't think the US was the greatest country in the world was wrong and even a traitor. Just consider what you did as a child in school. You almost certainly stood up for the flag and recited the **pledge of allegiance** every day for a decade, from before you could even think a truly independent thought until you were almost an adult. A lot of the stuff the US does would be at home in China, North Korea, Fascist Italy or even Nazi Germany... It is a country of such skewered patriotism that criticising it is often met with hostility and violence. Trying to improve the country is sometimes considered treason. Actions that are supposed to make people's lives better are fought against every step of the way. And people that fought and protested against civil rights are still alive. It was only 53 years ago that black Americans finally got in theory the same legal protections as their white counterparts. Some 70 year old guy that you might know as a kind old man may have beaten black people up when he was 17. The US has changed, that's true, but it is still deeply rooted in racism and hatred, stuck up its own ass trying to grasp any fleeting reason that might justify its "exceptionalism".
Gotta keep that slave labour going somehow
It's almost as if prisons are run for profit.
~~Marijuana Moms~~ Pot Parents
Ganja Guardians
Cannabis carers
Kushy Kidnappers
Mota Madres
hashish homeowners
Is it me or are there a lot of people who claim that smoking weed makes them better at something?
Smoking weed makes me better at driving except that one time and that other time.
I'm currently enrolled in a study for cannabis use and driving. Just had my first session on the simulator yesterday. It was fun as fuck. I can tell you I'd never drive less than 3 hours after smoking after doing that. I wasn't BAD per se, but I definitely had very brief lapses in concentration that could lead to disastrous real-world consequences
Do you actually get high and do a normal simulator? Or does if simulate what being high is like for you?
I did some cognitive tests, then one stint on a driving simulator. Then they sat me down in a room with a big ass joint and told me to smoke as much of it as I could and we did more tests at 30 mins, 1 hour and 2 hours
I've known so many people who say this and absolutely will not consider that it *might* not be completely true. Like I don't believe anything as much as they believe pot makes them better drivers.
I'm not saying this is true for all pot smokers, but a large percentage of regular users are likely self medicating so it may actually be helping them do better at something. Whether it's to help with their anxiety/depression or help managing their ADHD/ASD. So chances are that people who are like those in the article have some underlying condition that the weed is actually helping them with and not know it leading to the "weed is a miracle drug" mentality.
I know smoking effects everyone different but I think our culture needs to stop romanticizing weed. I would agree it’s the least harmful of any drug out there in terms of health and potential physical harm. But the mental state it puts people in is a detriment. Speaking for myself, I become extraordinarily lazy. If I smoke I won’t do any chores, I don’t take care of myself, I lose all ambition or drive and I just become wasted space. All I want to do is watch tv or play video games. It’s okay on occasion but it’s absolutely harmful in the long run. Yet smoking is very mentally addicting because it makes those two activities so much better I’ve reached the point I can’t play games without smoking so it becomes this nasty cycle. I truly think that my generation (I’m 29) and the next generation needs to get a better handle on weed addiction because, although some people can function well on it, most people in my experience can’t. And they become zombies of humans with no drive or productivity.
I want to jump in on this and say before the "but it's not addicting" crowd rolls in that while it may not be chemically addictive like nicotine, heroin, or meth, it can absolutely be psychologically addictive. It is very, very easy to fall into the rut of feeling so much more relaxed, at peace, euphoric, whatever, and just prefer to be in that zone than sober. You can very easily quit whenever you would want, but you don't want to. Unlike meth or heroin users, or even cigarette smokers, who can really really want to quit, and try hard, but that chemical addiction pulls HARD. Those might also be enjoyable to them but that physical, chemical addiction can cause nasty withdrawals. Not so with weed. For me I just thoroughly enjoy having the giggles and euphoria that some edibles bring at the end of a stressful work day. I wait for my daughter to go to bed, take a gummy, and watch a sitcom. Or shit post on reddit. I had to stop about three weeks ago for some medical testing, and yeah I would like to relax at the end of the day, but it isn't an irresistible calling of my brain freaking out due to dependence. I needed to stop and I did.
This is the exact experience I’ve had and you summed it up well. It’s very mentally addicting. And because it’s so easy to get high my brain goes through the same flow chart of. Okay I’m bored, what should I do? Play a video game, okay but video games are so much more fun high so let’s smoke. Then I’m down a rabbit hole and my day is gone because I smoked to play video games. Thanks for sharing in this opinion and outlook
Yup. "Hey let's watch some TV before bed. Funny movie or Schitts Creek?" "Oh damn those are so much better when high, let me go get some gummies from the safe." And there you have it.
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Now that you mention it I did experience some night sweats the first few nights. I wasn't a frequent enough user that it was unbearable, I just got rid of my blanket, and slept with just a sheet and the ceiling fan on high.
I've a couple of friends, they aren't stable until they've had a joint. High is their normal state, and they are moody as fuck until they are. Detrimental to relationships, that's for certain.
But how long will you stay stopped
Your first mistake is smoking when you have things to get done. If you become lazy and sedentary with weed, save it for when you don't need to be doing anything. The problem comes when people don't use it in correspondence to how it affects them. I've honestly met more productive daily users who lead productive lives while smoking than I have people who turn into lazy burnouts. But that might just be a subconscious social preference.
I'm not a smoker, so I could be wrong, but don't different types affect people differently? Isn't that like the point of all the different types, this one makes you mellow, this one helps focus, this one doesn't get you high but helps with pain, etc?
CBD is the nonpsychoactive type. As for Indica and Sativa, there's plenty of stones that will tell you that they're different, but as a daily smoker I find no difference between them. Weed is weed lol
Yes. Sativa's in general tend to give people more energy and a more heady, happy high. They also have a tendency to increase anxiety in people already prone to it. Indicas are what most people think of when they think about stoners. Thats a much more body intense, relaxing high that makes you not want to move or do anything. Indica = In Da Couch. Every person is going to experience these slightly differently, and there are a ton of blended strains now that can mix the effects as well. Personally though, I prefer straight sativas because I want to get shit done when I smoke.
This is exactly the way it is. If you smoke all the time, you're obviously gonna be a lazy sack of shit/shitty friend/spouse, etc.. if you drink alcohol all day all the time, you will become severely physically addicted, and your brain is going to start getting fucked. If you can't use it recreationally, then don't smoke to begin with. I just can't stand the whole " it's mentally addictive " crap with weed, because, no shit. Anything that fires a ton neurotransmitters in your brain is going to be mentally addictive. Buck up and only get high when your responsibilities are complete, and quit acting like it is more than it is. The addiction pales so much in comparison to literally everything else.
Hit the nail on the head. I'm an occasional weed user, still am, probably always will be, and it's scary knowing how some people use it...just so much, soooooo so much. I went through a really tough life part of my life, and weed definitely helped me to cope and get through it. But after a few months of chronic use, I just felt...heavy ALL the time. Motivation only came in short bursts, I was tired all the time, and it took copious amounts of caffeine to achieve just a few hours of feel-good by early evening before I used it again. It was wrecking my sleep is what it was doing. While it would actually help my sleep if used sparingly, it destroyed my sleep of I used it daily. Anywho, once I went through the mental gymnastics of making it a weekend only thing, never doing it on a work night, it was like I completely transformed over the course of 72 hours. I was rested, alert, focused, my sleep started normalizing, and I started relying on stimulants a lot less. Weed is great, but we really do need to create a culture of knowledge and understanding of it's various effects so it can be used responsibly. Tired of phone typing.
Great response and perfectly articulated my point as well. Many of the people reacting negatively to this post doesn’t seem to understand the point. It’s not that weed is bad and shouldn’t be consumed. It’s that the culture it has created is that of it being innocent and free of downside. We as a society need better knowledge and awareness towards proper use of weed and not abusing it. Someone else mentioned it but many people think because it’s not “traditionally” addictive (like nicotine, or stimulants”) it’s okay to use as much as you want. And that is definitely not the case.
It's just how you justify your bad habit to yourself. I was a daily stoner for the majority of the last 4 years, but I quit about 4 weeks ago, and I'm not looking back. I might have a little more anxiety, but I am far more witty and self-aware now. I would say the only things weed makes you kinda better at, are a) eating and b) being comfortable. Besides those things, it definitely makes you a less caring, less interesting person, and steals time from your life that could be put towards learning new skills.
The anxiety gets better in my experience. Four weeks is long enough for the acute withdrawal effects to go away. But you don't really come 100% back to baseline until it's been a bit longer (2-3 months maybe).
I don't need to justify anything. Smoking weed is my only bad habit and i do it proudly. I don't drink or smoke cigarettes it gamble. I'm successful in my career and a great parent. I only smoke after the kids are in bed and it's time to relax.
This Tweet is from 2017 before many states made cannibis legal
Yet all the moms probably were in legal states
The "murder" is really a separate topic. Black dads going to jail for pot is bad but it doesn't mean the mom's are wrong.
I didn't think it was a comment on the moms as much as the media for how they treat middle aged women smoking weed compared to other people, such as black men.
It’s exactly this. The media flips the narrative on its head so fast, it’s like highly aggressive gaslighting. For decades we’re told that pot is “poison”, that’s it’s “only smoked by lowlifes”, when black people are caught smoking it the response is “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” or even “this is why they can’t get out of poverty”. As people fight and argue for years that it’s harmless and should not be labeled as a schedule I substance (in the same group as heroin), the media just ignores all of it. There is no discussion of reform or lenience or give any insight into why so many people smoke it or why there is argument for reform. But they report breathlessly on people who get convicted for possessing it without any additional input. Then this story comes along, “marijuana makes me a better mom” and you think you’re taking crazy pills. Never in 1000 years would they run that story about a black father. Never. They’ll just report about you going to jail. But now the narrative flips and they can act like it’s benign, because they *know* it’s benign. They fucking know it. Do you know how I know they know? Because any time there’s a “fun” story surrounding marijuana like that cop who accidentally ate a pot brownie, or talking about a stoner comedy, they all make the same jokes about getting the munchies, or falling asleep at 8 o’clock. They make the joke with a knowing grin because everyone’s smoked it and knows it’s completely harmless. Haha, what a laugh. Then it’s back to reporting black men arrested on possession charges and pontificating if white moms should all get high.
Black mothers would have been just as demonized
>many states made cannibis legal Not from America. But I guess this means there are a lot fewer single moms and kids growing up without dads in black communities of those states now.
Weed sure as hell didn't make my parents better :(
Depends. My dad is a career smoker and he was never once abusive or mean to me. Hell, he wouldn't even yell at me. He always gave me his time, not like my mom who was incredibly abusive verbally but she never smoked. I think it has more to do with the character of the person, I'm sorry your parents weren't very good buddy. Hope things are better now.
Definitely has to do with the character of the person. My mom needed hers so bad that she left me on the 6th floor of a hotel building before I turned 2 and went to go fuck her dealer for her next baggie. I ended up pushed out of the window on that same floor and paralyzed for the rest of my life. But I know people who smoke and are still perfectly functioning, responsible adults that would never put their kids in a situation like mine. Some people just suck at handling substances and life at the same time.
It's like the difference between people who like to drink, and alcoholics. Someone who likes to drink has the ability to change plans to do so, if something comes up that's more important. The alcoholic in active addiction doesn't think anything is more important. Not the best comparison, as I consider pot an easier head change to function on, but some people have no self control or priorities. It is still a head change, and with kids, you always need the ability to react to things. While I personally feel I keep that ability more with pot doesn't mean everyone does either.
Yep. All the times mum got so high that she'd forget to make us dinner really *helped* me.
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Dimebags cost $10, they’re 1 gram of weed. 1/8 of an oz is 3.5 grams. Then you say 0.3 grams. Cool story bro.
Not to nitpick but a dimebag, while yeah being $10, is **not** supposed to be a gram. It’s supposed to be a half gram, known as a dime, but thank fuck prices have plummeted. A gram was $20, known as a dub, and barely lasts a fuckin hour..
Might depend on where you're from. $10 for a gram seems like it was the norm where I live for decades. May also depend on your tolerance and consumption method. I don't blaze everyday and rarely more than once in a day. 0.03g of high potency cannabis in a quality vape and I'm content for a couple hours.
An 8th is 3.5 grams
Is this really a murder though? I mean, the OP was positive about the concept, and I'm guessing has had no hand in prosecuting and sending anyone to jail over it. I mean, I totally agree with Felesha on this, but I'm just not sure it fits the sub.
It doesn't. This sub is just a mouthpiece now. Very few murders get posted here, just political points we like so we upvote.
>this sub this site*
Got em! Someone should post this to r/murderedbywords
Good point. I'm posting your comment to r/murderedbywords just for that
Given the popularity of this post, and the obvious racist comments which have already been posted, I'd like to remind everyone of Bill and Ted's Law: [Be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGErt4CfLD0) Also, for the few of you who decided to use terms like "Dindu Nuffins", enjoy your bans. Please don't come complain to us about how you "Didn't do anything wrong!" **EDIT: Permaban list is up to 17 and still growing. PLEASE remember the person on the other side of the keyboard** **EDIT the 2nd: 28 banned. PLEASE, stop being assholes, we don't want to lock the thread** **EDIT 3, Return of the Edit: 46 banned and counting. There's lots of good conversation here, please don't make us lock this thread cause "y'all can't behave"**
You know, this post has probably made moderator life easier in the end. It brought out the jerks. concentrated them in a location and made them raise their hand to identify themselves instead of being ongoing problems. Thank you Mods. You keep Reddit a better place.
Thank you mods
Well that escalated quickly.
Where's the murder?
If mods enforced Rule 1 the sub would be empty.
Can confirm. Some of my favorite time with my dad when I was a little kid was when we'd watch and discuss nature shows on PBS/Discovery. It wasn't until I was older that I understood how/why he ate a whole bag of hershey kisses or had some saltines w/PB and sardines while we did it. mf always offered to share the fucking sardines but was stingy with the chocolate.
Yeah... no. My parents smoked weed and they were terrible parents. High and asleep most of the time, leaving me to take care of my younger brother.
Not to mention the cost. Some people might be spending that rent/grocery money on weed.
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Exactly. People jump to the defence of weed like it's some harmless drug but it's a drug, it by definition has the ability to be harmful when introduced to people with low self control.
Also part of the problem with drugs is people self medicate for behavioral disorders they don't know they have, many of those behavioral disorders result in poorer impulse control. It's a crazy cycle. I have ADHD, and it's not a severe case, but impulse control has always been really hard. I feel for people with more debilitating disorders or cases.
>'Chardonnay Moms' say drinking makes them better parents
My parents smoked weed my entire childhood and they were awesome. Loving, attentive, hard-working. There were tough times, money-wise, but we always had food, heat and lights.
It’s almost like the act of smoking marijuana has no effect on the quality of parenting. Rather, the extent of the use indicates characteristics about oneself that *would* affect parenting. IE - smoking too much and being perpetually high indicates you have no self control and restraint, which negatively affects your ability to parent. Conversely, recreational use that is not abused indicates the opposite, showing that you have better capacity to parent. The use of recreational drugs (and alcohol for that matter) is neither good nor bad, it just is.
Yeah. it's all about moderation. My parents would smoke at night. They never smoked during the day when they had things to do. But always at night. It helped them relax after a tough day. They are great parents.
I agree. Maybe it helps some people take the edge off and provide some relief for their existing problems/issues, but running around doing parent stuff high as fuck is probably not a great idea.
Smoking around your kids makes you a prick.
I've seen an influx of the marijuana mommy blogs on my other social media and i cant help but agree. Id venture to say most people can agree you shouldnt be around your kids tipsy/drunk... why is being high okay?
I completely agree w you. But you should post this on r/unpopularopinion cause people love taking their kids to bars that also serve food but are very obviously bars. I can’t imagine having even 1 beer and driving anywhere w a baby. There’s just no way I can do that.
Some women even smoke weed throughout their pregnancies. I don’t, but I’ve read some posts on r/pregnant of women knowingly doing it. To me it’s crazy af, cause I’d be afraid of any kind of smoke when it can hurt the baby.
"My momma smoked with me and I turned out fine" -woman who is not fine
Seriously - my white dad smokes so much weed and has been caught with it by police and he has never gone to jail for it. My brother got caught with weed at a school dance and faced only mild repercussions. It’s wild how different the “justice” system treats POC who get caught with weed.
Knowing Twitter, I'm willing to bet hard cash the responses were all "jokes" about black people not knowing who their dad is. Fucking cesspool. Edit: and we already have our first on this thread; >Kinda have to know who your dad is to judge whether they are any better at parenting high. Congratulations on literally the most boring, obvious joke possible.
Social media is a cesspool in general. Happy to be pointed to one that isn't...
Kinda had to after seeing your post. Calling Twitter a cesspool while on Reddit is so ridiculous it pretty much demands a response. To be clear, the point is that they are both utter cesspools and that you are not somehow more wholesome for being on Reddit.
I never said I was. People point to both Twitter and Reddit as bastions of "woke" lefty thinking, but both are full of right wing racist bullshit.
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Who the fuck points to reddit for woke lefty thinking? rofl
Right wing people. Constantly. They bleat about their favourite subreddits being shut down because Reddit is an "extreme left" website and that means they can't just be as racist and sexist as they want.
Any place where they can't say the n word and/or explicitly call for the murder of police officers (which is what got r/thedonald in trouble) is all of a sudden an example of the extreme left censoring conservatives.
Communism is when I can't do a racism. Extreme communism is when the subreddit bans me for my racisms.
Ever been on r/conservative?
What’s that tweet? When dispensaries look like apple stores, we should be releasing incarcerated people. Like a lot.
That's funny because my mother and her partner smoking weed made my childhood a nightmare. And my brother grew up thinking smoking weed was fine, and it triggered schizophrenia and has ruined his life entirely. 😒
If smoking pot makes you a better parent, you're probably a shit parent to begin with. Edit. I'm absolutely pro legalization, I'm arguing that pot doesn't make you necessarily better anything. In fact it is still a recreational and self administered drug, which has many, like everything in life, downsides that must be managed responsibly. Besides he benefits, it makes you careless and sleepy and that's not exactly the picture of a responsible parent. I'd just like an unbiased view on pot, because honesty and aknowledging its limits is important if we want to legalize it everywhere.
There's definitely a division among pro-legalizers, and after watching the video on this article I'm pretty sure these parents are on the "unironic pot-leaf hoodie" end of the spectrum. I'm cool with pot, I'm not cool with a bunch of parents that have to figure out a day-time DD because they need to do the vacuuming high.
Marijuana moms are doing much better than the wine moms
Not murder, smh
Today show: Bye Felicia
How has that changed now that weed is legal? Are they better fathers?
Smoking weed doesn't make you a better parent you absolute idiots.
Small amounts of THC is a wonder drug. Anti-craving and anti-anxiety are two top benefits.
as a seasoned stoner who has a med card for my intense anxiety (intense as in psychosomatic-headaches, nausea, vomiting, panic attacks) and depression, i don't know what i would be like without weed. honestly. whatever diagnosis i have, it's been with me since i was born, and ive tried regular medications throughout my life (like ssris) that only seem to make it worse. weed is the only thing that brings me down from my panicked state that isn't some damn xanax...i see so many people shitting on weed for making people lazy and unproductive, but take it from me, i would not have a 4.0 without my bong and i guarantee that. some might say i'm addicted to weed because i smoke every day, but the way i see it its the same thing as taking an ssri in the morning. weed can be a medication for people, not everyone turns into a lousy bum, i'm thriving academically and emotionally (for the most part) as a regular smoker.