americans are judgemental assholes, surprise

A strong majority of Americans believe marijuana should be legal for medical purposes, but just over half say that pot use for recreation should be illegal, according to a new poll Friday.

Seventy-seven percent say doctors should be allowed to prescribe small amounts of marijuana for patients suffering from serious illnesses, the CBS New poll found. But with the concept of medical marijuana comes a dose of skepticism - just 31 percent believe the pot purchased under medical marijuana programs is actually being used to alleviate suffering.

Americans, by and large, apparently, feel qualified to make the distinction between "alleviating suffering" and "recreation". I don't think any such distinction exists, but if it does, I highly doubt that 69% of my fellow Americans are expert enough in the philosophy of living to accurately draw the line.

I strongly agree. Americans have always had a knack for extreme hypocrisy.

A new study finds that the use of antidepressants has almost doubled among people in the U.S. between the years 1996 and 2005 - increasing from 5.84 percent to 10.12 percent. That translates to a grand total of 27 million people.

27 million people in this country have "suffering" that apparently can only be relieved by someone selling them something. Nobody actually knows how many marijuana users there are in the states, but a totally not biased site like "drugabuse.gov" estimates 15 million users. Now I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me like there are a shitload of people in this country "suffering" from vaguely defined illnesses. Less than half of them reach out to illegal drugs, and more than half of them reach out to horribly dangerous commercial drugs.

and while some of the worst people in the world literally drug-abuse themselves unto deafness, we have 69% of Americans passing judgement on 15 million of their neighbors, vaguely and arbitrarily defining some sketchy line between "alleviation of suffering" and "recreation".

i'll tell you what: any recreation that I engage in, whether it's exercise, reading, watching a movie, eating a pizza, or biting my fingernails: all these recreational activities exist solely to relieve some kind of suffering, whether it's hunger, depression, boredom, fatness, or the unbearable lightness of being.

i've done enough suffering in my lifetime (and my suffering is pretty damned minor compared to most) to know that one person's suffering is another person's daily life.

i am angered and saddened that so many americans think their neighbors are too stupid and irresponsible to make adult choices about how to relieve the suffering that is inherent to the human experience, the suffering noted by philosophers and priests over all of human history.

marijuana will be fully legal in this country some day; whether it is by legislation or total collapse of society, that remains to be seen. young people these days are not as dumb as my generation was at their age. they have many more distractions, but they also have the internet, they have a whole world of lies and truths right at their fingertips. surveys show that young people are greatly in favor of ending prohibition, because the internet has enabled them to fact check government lies with far more ease than was possible in my youth.

"Meanwhile, among young Americans under the age of 30, 52 percent favor legalizing pot."

These kids grew up watching their parents Paxil and Prozac and Budweiser themselves into oblivion, all while raging against hippies and their pot. These kids are not stupid. They grew up on Ritalin and Adderall. Everyone in their life was constantly on drugs, and they're supposed to "just say no" to marijuana? Why? What's wrong with drugs?

In parallel development, OWS is forcing the police state to reveal itself, and even, perhaps, question itself. I think the police actions in the coming months will escalate to the point of wide-scale intolerability. When the police state falls, prohibition must also fall. By legislation, attrition, or total collapse, the end of prohibition is coming soon, and Americans will be forced to allow their neighbors the freedom to define their own, individual distinction between "relieving suffering" and "recreation".