we don't say "cocainism"

  • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    The normalization of casual alcoholism and stigmatization of even occasional cannabis use is truly one of society's greatest mysteries.

    People are out here worried about their red 40 intake and then they down a bottle of wine or a six pack every evening like it's not literal poison that's completely obliterating their insides.

    Get totally bombed at a family function and everyone has a good laugh, but if someone finds out you're a little loopy because you took an edible and it's time for an intervention.

    • Belly_Beanis [he/him]
      ·
      15 hours ago

      Alcohol production was one of the building blocks of human civilization. Some of the first cities built by humans were built around farms used to produce alcohol. And our knowledge of how it harms us goes back millennia. The ancient Romans knew about alcoholism and would even slander politicians in debates as being alcoholics addicted to wine.

      Marijuana, on the other hand, was demonized by cotton companies as they didn't want to compete with hemp. That hemp production also created a drug was icing on the cake they could further exploit. By the 1960s, marijuana had become associated with the antiwar movement and as a drug consumed by black Americans. Reactionaries used this as a pretense for cracking down on civil rights and Vietnam protestors, without violating the First Ammendment. White Americans quickly associated marijuana with liberalism and criminals and the stigma exists to this day.

      Remember, Reefer Madness was taken seriously at the time of the film's release. For decades, Reefer Madness and other anti-drug propaganda was the only nonsense people were exposed to about marijuana.

    • cosecantphi [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      I think the biggest difference is that alcohol is insanely easy to make in comparison to essentially all other drugs. You can literally make the stuff in US prisons with the very selective food items prisoners are allowed to have.

      Cannabis for most of history required available fertile land and a specific climate to grow, so it was much easier to stigmatize the substance by stigmatizing the people connected to that land.

      • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]
        ·
        14 hours ago

        Cannabis has also been selectively bred relatively recently to be much more potent. Before the 19th century, ditch weed basically had next to no THC and the quantity one would need to get high was quite a bit.

        Basically, it wasn’t really worth it to use it as a drug unless you processed it into oils or resin and concentrated it. This made it much more difficult to manufacture and distribute.

        Once the breakthrough was made to make it potent enough to smoke straight bud, it exploded in popularity

        • miz [any, any]
          hexagon
          ·
          14 hours ago

          straight bud

          miss me with the straight bud and hit me with that gay shit

    • xiaohongshu [none/use name]
      ·
      16 hours ago

      Alcohol companies want to sell alcohol.

      Tobacco companies don’t want to compete with cannabis.

        • BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee
          ·
          8 hours ago

          tobacco definitely makes you feel something. its just that that feeling goes away pretty quick and not long after never shows up again

        • Grandpa_garbagio [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          8 hours ago

          Sure does. Unfortunately for a good amount of people that thing they feel is pure panic.