Welcome to my weekly digest for May 26, 2023. For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by
To this day, I don't care what the apologists say. I have two close friends/family that it ruined their life or ultimately declined their quality of life. I also know a friend who use to volunteer with a christian group that handled quitting from harder drugs and he said they would all admit case after case every time that it was started with more recreational use of weed.
The dangers of marijuana highlights (again) the need to disconnect from the norms of broader American society. Legal cannot be treated as a proxy for "OK." Any subculture that goes along with American norms is going to be decimated.
Appreciate the piece on pot, we really need more conservative leaders to come out against this issue to keep it from spreading, and it seems winnable. I have a schizophrenic relative whose mental breakdown may have been triggered at least in part by heavy marijuana use in his late teens and early 20s.
Marijuana legalization is one of those issues where the social left was 100% wrong, and I'm honestly a little surprised how wrong they were. All of the good benefits failed to materialize -- it didn't chase out the black market and its ills, and as a result the tax benefits have come in below expectations. All of the negative consequences were worse than expected. Besides the increased teen use that you highlight, NYC just smells bad, man. I was surprised during a visit around a year ago that even a relatively pricey restaurant stank of weed. Not sure if it was the staff or the clientele (or both), but there must have been multiple people that had just been lighting up all day and reeked of the stuff.
I was also surprised that The Atlantic even wrote a piece last month complaining about NYC's stench (while of course not backing off from the idea that legalization was the right move):
To this day, I don't care what the apologists say. I have two close friends/family that it ruined their life or ultimately declined their quality of life. I also know a friend who use to volunteer with a christian group that handled quitting from harder drugs and he said they would all admit case after case every time that it was started with more recreational use of weed.
The dangers of marijuana highlights (again) the need to disconnect from the norms of broader American society. Legal cannot be treated as a proxy for "OK." Any subculture that goes along with American norms is going to be decimated.
Appreciate the piece on pot, we really need more conservative leaders to come out against this issue to keep it from spreading, and it seems winnable. I have a schizophrenic relative whose mental breakdown may have been triggered at least in part by heavy marijuana use in his late teens and early 20s.
Marijuana legalization is one of those issues where the social left was 100% wrong, and I'm honestly a little surprised how wrong they were. All of the good benefits failed to materialize -- it didn't chase out the black market and its ills, and as a result the tax benefits have come in below expectations. All of the negative consequences were worse than expected. Besides the increased teen use that you highlight, NYC just smells bad, man. I was surprised during a visit around a year ago that even a relatively pricey restaurant stank of weed. Not sure if it was the staff or the clientele (or both), but there must have been multiple people that had just been lighting up all day and reeked of the stuff.
I was also surprised that The Atlantic even wrote a piece last month complaining about NYC's stench (while of course not backing off from the idea that legalization was the right move):
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/04/weed-smell-taking-over-new-york/673869/