Should marijuana be legalized? It is my knowledge that this isn't an additive drug. Many kids in Straight were villified and demonized for smoking pot, an non-addictive substance. Some never did any drugs harder than than marijuana, but were often considered "just as bad" as heroin or cocaine users in the program. I don't know if legalization is right or wrong, but I find it shameful that kids who had smoked marijuana even once were misdiagnosed as "druggies" and sentenced to months and years or emotional abuse in Straight. An executive staff member once corrected us when a phaser said that we had to be "addicts" to be in Straight. "Not so", said the executive staff member, but must only have a "drug problem". Which ultimately translated into a policy of "one strike and you're out". (If you look at a tobacco waterpipe that even contains unlit marijuana and you are curious about what it might feel like if you smoked it, you might need years or reprogramming in one of our centers of mind control-you have been affected, it's too late!).
I have rarely, if ever, experienced any considerable negative effects from smoking it (before or after Straight) and at times it seemed to even be "therapeutic" so long as I didn't do it all the time. When it kept me from indulging in the addictive drug alcohol, it seemed to be "a rescue remedy". People who haven't stuggled with a real addiction (like alcohol) probably don't want to tolerate the notion that anything that is illegal could be healthy in any way, but my experience proves that bias as an irrelevant one.
I don't smoke pot anymore, mostly because it's illegal, but the whole marijuana debate is interesting on many levels as it ties into the "war on drugs"/"the war on young minds".
If this is too political, then just ignore me. Just felt that this topic ties in alot with so much of the unnecessary incarcerations and misdiagnosing that Straight was notorious for. If this is inappropriate for the website, I humbly apologize.
There's a hilarious movie titled Half Baked where Thorogood (Dave Chapelle) gets booed out of rehab for claiming to be "addicted...to marijuana". Brilliant movie. A breath of fresh air. Silly.
