Cannabis / Marijuana has been around for 1000s of years. It is now being promoted and legalized like never before in America.
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The following are my personal observations over the course of a year or two as cannabis has been gradually legalized, from small usage to quasi-legal pot shops to the first legal weed shop last December. There are many, many articles, studies and continual followup on what's happening both in New York City and nationwide, but these are my observations.
I used to be in favor of legalization because I thought it would lead to better substance abuse treatments and slow the drug use to prison pipeline. But that seems to have become an afterthought as especially high taxes on this new industry provide a desperate state and city with new revenues, and jobs for an under-privileged but frankly, non-conforming semi-legal subculture supposedly keeps them from committing crimes. But...it doesn't. Crime is up, weed shops are both targets and sources of new crime, with states where cannabis has been legalized having higher homelessness, higher drug use including at younger ages and of still illegal drugs too, higher OD rates (today's cannabis has levels of T HC 10-20X higher than decades ago), and generally making the city more tense, and smelly. Try going into any park nowadays; people are opening smoking weed even when they know it's a no-smoking environment. They don't care. They may even wait for you to challenge them, to get a knife in your gut.
Cannabis temporarily relieves anxiety, stress, but then it comes back even worse, from paranoia to psychosis - not always temporary either. Young people are being permanently harmed and no one seems to care except those who directly interact with them through a system more under-staffed than ever. It wasn't supposed to work this way; the profits from cannabis sales were supposed to go towards better treatments, but the revenue incentive is stronger, both on the private and public level.
I was wrong.
The city and state are wrong too.
