Comradeship // Freechat

Prohibition doesn't work. Enforcement is costly and never ending. Those who want to get their hands on drugs will do so whether it's legal or not. The major difference when cannabis was legalized here in Canada is that you no longer have to maintain some sketchy contact and be forced to hang out with them on occasion in order to get your hands on it. It certainly hasn't broken down society.

Most of us live in places where alcohol can be purchased legally. Well, alcohol is a drug too. Why should it be treated any differently?

What are we going to do when the state withers away? Will all sections of society continue prohibition? We should instead focus on education and providing support to those who become addicts. The idea that we can solve all drug problems by banishing drugs from society is utopian thinking.

Imo all drugs should be legal but none should be normalized.

Drugs, in general, should be regulated according to public health and safety.

And there's no compelling public health or safety case for cannabis prohibition.

Weed is one of the safest drugs, if alcohol and nicotine are legal, weed should be too. Plus prohibition really isn't working, the product you buy can be laced with harmful stuff and it's often low quality, bringing it under control of the state would help significantly reducing risk, and could finance the health sector and addiction recovery.

Cannabis was made illegal by racism and cause the paper industry didn't wanna lose out profits to hemp.

It's quite literally medicine for me, it should be legalized completely.

Edit: I have autism and ADHD, the former of which there are no drugs to treat. It certainly doesn't make you "lazy" if anything it makes any kind of work bearable. I feel like these anti-cannabis stances are just regurgitated propaganda to keep it illegal, because it would do a lot more good than prescription drugs.

I personally think habitual heavy weed use is bad. I was an incredibly heavy user for a few years.

I used to think it should be illegalized.

I think now it should be "material conditions"ed out of harmful existence, if that makes sense. If we can create a socialist society with good mental health resources, good childcare resources for developing minds, and easily available stigma-free resources for people who struggle with dependency, that would check most of the boxes for me.

I don't think we talk enough about the negative effects heavy weed use has on developing brains, or on the brains of chronic heavy users. I think more research on that side, by a socialist government, would be good.

I think all drugs should be decriminalized at the very least. I also think we should normalize talking about them and understanding what they do and how they affect you. Education is key. I think this should however also be done in a society that seeks to eliminate poverty. Stress, poverty, and desperation is why most people turn to drugs as a form of escape.

Banning hemp is so stupid. It’s such a useful plant, from nutritional supplements to bio plastics.

weed being illegal and demonized was always an excuse to disproportionately arrest black people for cheap labor in prisons. theres really no argument for it to be criminalized from a proletarian standpoint.

i'm a regular user and have also struggled with dependency of it, i believe it should be completely legal and available to the same degree alcohol is. additionally, all people with criminal charges relating to it should be released from prison and have those charges removed. it can absolutely be used responsibly such as alcohol can be, and it is significantly less harmful than alcohol and other vices commonly found in society. if someone is allowed to have a drink at the end of the day or at a gathering with others, i don't see a reason why they shouldn't be allowed to also smoke at the end of the day or with others. obviously it can also be used irresponsibly, and i know what that's like personally. but i also know that irresponsible use is almost always a symptom of a greater issue in someones life (unmitigated health issues, anxiety, depression, etc) that can be solved. i honestly have yet to hear a reason why cannabis should be criminalized that isn't about overuse or about children using it way too early in their lives (which is harmful but can be avoided with ACTUAL education that isn't just drug war propaganda from the DEA). also, it should be properly regulated in terms of production to maintain certain standards of quality (e.g keeping dangerous additives out of vape cartridges).

Drugs are the number one thing that I struggle to approach from a balanced Marxist perspective by far. The way that drugs are pervasive in western society, especially for those of us who grew up in very working class urban areas in North America, makes them a difficult topic for me. I have been exposed to drugs my entire life, bought, sold, consumed them, ect. I have been thinking for a while now that we need a good struggle session on the grad about drugs, usage, access, legalization and what not. I very much want to hear the perspective of comrades that come from places or backgrounds where they are not so ubiquitous.

Specifically in terms of weed, I struggle with it a lot. On one hand, I have been addicted to smoking weed for the best part of the past decade on a near daily basis, and it has definitely impacted my life in negative ways. On the other hand, it also saved me from alcohol and amphetamine abuse basically. I often think about the Frank Ocean album Blonde, where there is an interlude that talks about how marijuana makes you "lazy stupid and unconcerned" or something along those lines. That is absolutely the truth I think. I could have accomplished a lot more in my 20s were it not for the comfort of going home to smoke weed, I think anyway. I'm very sympathetic to arguments both for and against its place in society.

Putting people in prison or ruining their lives over it is obviously terrible, especially in regards to the way it has been used in the US to target the black population. That being said, I don't think that it being a thing that most every young person gets into is good either. There must be some balance to be found, but right now I am not sure what it is. And this is just weed, that's not even talking about harder drugs which I think are a similar but different topic.

Very interested to hear other comrade's thoughts on this anyway, thank you for the post.

I'm for a de-illegalization of drugs persoanlly. Y'know cuz for blackmarkets to make sense, the product has to be illegal. Regulation is key. And in addition to that I'd advocate for a humane school system that amongst other things educates people on drugs in general. I think that's what it comes down to, personally. Although I am not sure how other marxists in general view this topic. I think for most people, taking drugs is a way to escape the harsh reality of capitalism. Would that system be overthrown, there wouldn't be a reason for us to get drunk really. At least that's how I see it.

Seeing the word dab knocked three teeth out of my mouth.

Personally, I can't really talk about it because I have very limited knowledge.

Marijuana should be treated like many other drugs. Legal but with education and addiction treatment extremely available. I don’t want a revolution without dancing. I’m not the ideal proletariat and you won’t make me into a better one by banning my vices. If I want a glass of whiskey, or to smoke a bowl with some friends or after a day of work and exercise, or to spend a day tripping, banning it won’t make me spend that time reading theory or engaging in mutual aid. It will however make me resent the person or group that banned it as I either do it anyway or use that time in a different non productive pursuit of enjoyment with a similar aim.

Want to know how to make me a better proletariat? Make it so I’m not too tired after work to exercise and I have easy access to resources and community to do it (an anarchist bike coop did more for my physical health than any drug law). Want me to become more educated in my free time? Make classes easy for me to access in person and make it a fun thing to go out and do with my free time. Also encourage use of the skills I learn there, languages are great for this. Want to get me engaging in culture more? Make culture easy and welcoming to access.

And after all that, some nights, I’m still just going to want to enjoy a vice and turn off my brain or chat about anything and nothing with friends. But that’s ok. And freedom is the right to make the worse decision. And strong communities can and historically have coexisted with cannabis use. Hell a pot circle is a great place to discuss philosophy. Why shouldn’t the likes of Marx and kropotkin and Lenin and Trotsky and Davis be discussed there too?

I don’t want to live under Puritanism painted red and replacing god with the proletariat.

I have fibromyalgia and a wack ass unnamed joint disorder - I can dislocate my shoulders and most of the joints in my body.... or they can be dislocated for me, if I hit something wrong, move in the wrong way... and it fucking hurts.

No medicine has helped me like weed has. I admit to using it every night, whenever I can afford it. I can actually recover from work and be ready to do it all again in the morning. I can work out without it destroying me, which creates a positive feedback loop wherein I wind up hurting less chronically.

I am grateful for it. I'm grateful I'm no longer worried about pigs breaking down my door just for lighting up, too.

I think weed should be legalized in countries where its usage is a significant problem, but not in places where it did not have much presence to begin with. The problem with addictive substances is that once they take root they are extremely difficult to remove, especially if they have managed to become part of the culture, like in USSR, which put a lot of effort into decreasing alcohol consumption among the people, but only achieved meager results.

Isnt growing hemp legal almost everywhere?

For marijuana, I'm in favor of decriminalizing, and making some avenue for legal access (even if far more restricted than with liquor right now). Though tbh (from a Polish perspective) we should restrict liquor a bit more as well.

legalize, but also build growers’ and dispensary collectives so that “big marijuana” doesn’t become a thing.

the fact that the state violently criminalized black americans and counterculture elements in the war on drugs and is now legalizing/giving control of the legal drug market to bourgeois white liberals is a classic case of enclosure imo.