In a historic shift, the U.S. moves to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, AP sources say.
      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        7·
        1 year ago

        The down voter should read Nixon quotes

        “I want a goddam strong statement… one that just tears the ass out of” cannabis supporters.

    • Seraph@kbin.social
      38·
      1 year ago

      Marijuana was considered a black person drug. If you didn’t know, the US kinda hates black people, statistically speaking. It’s pretty fucked up!

      According to the available information, there is no direct mention of the percentage of black people who used marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s. However, we can infer some information from the provided snippets.
      In the 1970s, marijuana use became more widespread among the general population. According to Gallup’s trend by age, widespread experimentation with marijuana first occurred among adults aged 18 to 29 between 1969 and 1973, rising from 8% to 35%. It then continued to mount, reaching 56% by 1977, and remained at that level in 1985.
      It is important to note that the available information does not provide specific data on the percentage of black people who used marijuana during this time period. However, we can infer that marijuana use was more prevalent among younger adults, particularly those in the 18-29 age range, during the 1970s.
      In terms of the potency of marijuana during this time period, reports suggest that pot in the 1970s had THC levels of around 1%. In contrast, today, the herb you’re smoking has a lot more THC, with levels averaging more than 6-8%. Some specially grown plants can contain THC levels as high as 51%.
      It is also worth noting that a 2022 analysis of marijuana possession arrests in Texas for the years 2017 to 2019 reported that African Americans comprised 30.2 percent of all possession arrests, yet Black people comprised only 12.9 percent of the state’s population. This suggests that there may be racial disparities in marijuana use and arrest rates, but the available information does not provide specific data on the percentage of black people who used marijuana in the 1960s and 1970s.

      Edit: The above is kind of incorrect, the herb I smoke brags ~25%, though sources say those #s vary greatly.

      • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
        40·
        1 year ago

        Marijuana was considered a black person drug. If you didn’t know, the US kinda hates black people, statistically speaking. It’s pretty fucked up!

        John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon said the following:

        “You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

        “We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.”

        "Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

        source

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        11·
        1 year ago

        Before that, it was a Mexican person drug, which is why it’s called marijuana to many people. It was a scare tactic. “These Mexicans smoke MARIJUANA!” And why I will only call it things like ‘cannabis’ and ‘weed.’

        • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          And you can generally tell how scary the speaker wants it to be by how gutturally they pronounce the “j.”

    • paultimate14@lemmy.world
      12·
      1 year ago

      They tried banning alcohol. There was enough popular pushback they had no choice but to un-ban it.

      There was less popular demand for marijuana. It seems like it’s moving in the same direction, just more slowly.

      • AmbiguousProps@lemmy.todayEnglish
        15·
        1 year ago

        Marijuana has been used by humans for just as long, if not longer:

        Cannabis was attested to around 12 000 years ago near the Altai Mountains in Central Asia, and since then, cannabis seeds have accompanied the migration of nomadic peoples. Records of the medicinal use of cannabis appear before the Common Era in China, Egypt, and Greece (Herodotus), and later in the Roman empire (Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides, Galen). In the 19th century, orientalists like Silvestre de Sacy, and Western physicians coming into contact with Muslim and Indian cultures, like O’Shaughnessy and Moreau de Tours, introduced the medicinal use of cannabis into Europe.

        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605027/

            • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.caEnglish
              5·
              1 year ago

              Sigh. Age is not the same as extensive use. We’ve been brewing copious amounts of alcohol for an extremely long time. With dare I say near 100% of the population drinking. Ciao.

              • Agrivar@lemmy.world
                6·
                1 year ago

                Evidence to support your claim? Kinda bold to be so arrogant and dismissive of the other person’s point when you failed to provide a countering study.

                Arrivederci.

                • Alto@kbin.social
                  6·
                  1 year ago

                  The shit that happens when you have an exclusively eurocentric history education.

                  Edit: which isn’t even that good of an excuse. Even Herodotus’ Histories mentions pot use