The subject of marijuana came up in yet another forum. At another burning event, a number of people had pulled out their weed, and started rolling, stuffing, and otherwise smoking their stash. "Ah!", thought their friends, it seemed. "What a perfect burning moment. I must capture this on film." Yes, I kid you not, they started photographing their friends rolling doobies, and lighting up their waterpipes. "Gosh", I asked, "do you really think that this is a good idea?" Blank stares. "OK, let me rephrase this. My brother used to work in the district attorney's office. If your car gets stopped, and your pot and those photos are found, you've just made the prosecutor's job a lot easier". The stares didn't become any less blank. Rolling, stuffing and photography continued.








I had to talk about this online. I just had to. Sigh.

I soon heard "reassurances" to the contrary. No, I was told, a prosecutor couldn't convict somebody with that evidence, being told this by somebody who didn't even know how to spell the word "prosecutor". Oddly enough, I put more stock in what a licensed attorney and former prosecutor had to say on this subject, especially after other lawyers spoke up in support. I pointed this out, to people whose response was "so it's all about degrees and credentials, huh?".

Foolishly, I held onto the hope that better things lay ahead in this forum. How wrong I was. The question of why it was that marijuana was illegal came up. The local dogma was that this was due to a conspiracy on the part of the tobacco and cotton industries. "Yeah, man, hemp clothing would be so cheap". In case you haven't heard of it, "hemp" is a cannabis product that was once used to make rope. Just how thrilled would you be to be wearing clothes made out of rope? I bet the hemp underwear and lingerie would be the best part. "Be sure to stock up on the lotion, moon blossom". Yes, indeed.

I ventured the opinion that this was more about popular politics and the fear of the unknown, than it was about corporate conspiracies. If, as I pointed out, you look at people in an academic setting, you will tend to see widespread support for legalization. In the larger world outside of academia, though, one sees a much different picture.

Why? Because on campus, one can see a large number of social users. These are people whose consumption is moderate, using cannabis maybe a few times per year, and not moving on to harder drugs. On campus, in graduate school especially, these days, people tend to be relatively open about this, with their neighbors. Why? Because it is most unlikely that anybody, even their enemies, will turn them in. Anybody who did would be "finished on campus". He would be a social outcast and spend the rest of his time there in isolation.

End result: a lot of people, in that setting, have the chance to get to know a good many casual users, who seem to suffer no visible harm from their usage, and remain pleasant and productive members of their community. These moderate users will tend to be far easier to deal with than many of the alcohol users. Yet, beer is legal, and the cannabis user may end up losing a large part of his life to a prison sentence if he gets caught in possession of his drug of choice. This, to the graduate student or faculty member, will likely seem quite unjust. The fact that people he despises (frat boys) prefer the legal drug, while many of his friends prefer the illegal one, won't help.

Now, by way of contrast, let's consider the situation in the real world, outside of academia and campus life. Casual users have a lot to worry about, if their neighbors witness them, far more than they would in a campus setting. The problem is that in the real world, people don't generally know their neighbors. Our would-be informant has very little to lose, socially, by tattling, and is most unlikely to lose it, anyway. The neighborhood he lives in, is unlikely to be cohesive enough, for there to be much of a grapevine.

The casual user, in real life, will keep hidden, if he's smart. If he is open about his usage, given the social realities, there will eventually be a few unpleasant or intolerant people who will turn him in. A few calls to the police can bring a search, and a search might end up costing the casual user eight or more years of his life, spent in prison. This has happened more than once.

As a result, one sees a strange selection effect working in the larger world. It is the heavy user, who can't hide the effects of his use, and, due to the damage done by heavy usage, hasn't the presence of mind to worry about the consequences any more, anyway, who is likeliest to be open about his usage. The responsible moderate user is thought of as a non-user by most, because of his silence on the matter. Experience ends up being filtered in such a way, as to leave the casual observer in the real world thinking that almost all users are as damaged and as irresponsible as the abusers they know about.

One other thought will present itself. If almost every user that one knows about is in such bad shape, then it might seem likely the handful of healthy, responsible, moderate users that one knows about were on their way to becoming the basket cases that would seem to be in the majority among users. This might lead to the perception that one might even be doing the casual user a favor by informing on him "before things get out of hand". The stigma against the informer will be greatly reduced, even as the stigma against usage increases. People will feel less of a connection to the user informed on, and thus, even less concern about the damage a conviction might do to his life.

In this way, even were marijuana relatively innocuous, as drugs went (alcohol included), the lack of social cohesion in the outside world and the illegality of use, could lead to a distorted public view of the realities of its usage, away from academia. Whether the stuff actually is that innocuous or not, I don't know. Campus experience doesn't tell me about the long term effects, and the legal situation guarantees that any statistical study will produce biased results. (One is likelier to see the people who have shown up at drug rehab clinics, than the ones who haven't). However, so went my argument, and I do have my doubts about the justification for those laws, and have been very open about them, especially in that forum. At least, I was while I was still willing to post there.

Some of the same people who felt that it was "offensive" that I disagreed with their belief that it was all a conspiracy, managed to be offended by this. "You sure seem to think your graduate schooledness is important", started one redneck online, who seemed to have an issue with the fact that I had a grad degree. He then started ranting and raving about the fact that I dared to speak about the people I knew (the young professional and grad student set) in his presence. "Regular people aren't waiting to rat out their friends, the way you think they are". When did I say they were, I wanted to ask. But, in short order, I was tired of these people, and left.

The results were gratifying. They were driven absolutely insane. They seemed to think that I owed it to them to stick around and argue with them, but I just wasn't going to sit around and be abused. Like I told them, I was not about to be apologetic about the fact that I was better educated (and more articulate) than they were. I wasn't handed those diplomas for free, I had to work damn hard for them. And I'm going to accept a second class citizen status, and start "minding my place" because of it? I don't think so.

I offered a hearty, and thoroughly justified "screw you" and left. They want us, the engineers and scientists in their midst, to build the machiniery for their installations and communications systems, and then spit on us for knowing more than they do? Forget it.

I've been pursued from Burning Man forum to Burning Man forum by these people ever since. This is one of many reasons I don't post in them any more. There were other incidents, but they were a lot like these, and I'm almost as tired of talking about these people, as I am with talking to them. Like I keep saying, the trolls I run into may have nothing better to do with their time, but I do.

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