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Go somewhere where you know everyone, at least tangentially. Your house of worship. Your workplace. Grandma’s house. Doesn’t matter.
Now stand on a chair and ask the following question: “How many of you will, at least on occasion, enjoy an alcoholic beverage?”
While I won’t predict how many hands will shoot up, I will predict this: Nobody is going to wait. Either the hand goes up, or it doesn’t. There won’t be any hesitation, no one will look around to see what everyone else is doing. It’ll just happen.
Next, remain on the chair and ask the following question: “How many of you will, at least on occasion, enjoy some form of marijuana?”
While I also won’t predict how many hands will shoot up, I will predict this: Precious few hands will shoot up. The rest of the hands that should be shooting up will instead look around, a little nervously, to see what everyone else is doing.
In short: Despite it being legalized here in New Jersey and elsewhere, the stigma attached to weed is still strong, whereas there is no stigma attached to booze.
And the more I think about it, the more insane this is.
Because let’s just lay out the tale of the tape here, shall we? Alcohol — lovely, socially acceptable, always-invited-to-the-party alcohol — kills roughly 178,000 Americans a year, according to the CDC. It destroys livers, wrecks marriages, causes car accidents, and has a withdrawal process that can literally kill you.
Marijuana? The number of people who have died from a marijuana overdose remains, as it has for all of recorded human history, a nice round zero. You can look it up. I’ll wait. You will be waiting a long time, because the number does not exist.
And yet somehow weed is the one that makes people shift in their seats.
Exposed to alcohol, the human body responds by poisoning itself. Exposed to marijuana, the human body responds by eating too many Doritos.
One of these substances is responsible for bar fights, the other is responsible for 45-minute debates about whether a hot dog is a sandwich. I’m no doctor, but I feel reasonably confident in saying the hot dog debate is the healthier outcome.
And listen — I’m not here to tell you alcohol is evil. I enjoy a beer. I enjoy several beers. I sometimes enjoy several more beers. But the idea that I can crack open a cold one at a barbecue and everyone nods approvingly, while the guy with the vape pen has to sneak off to the far corner of the yard like he’s disposing of a body? That’s not rational.
That’s not rational. That’s just decades of “Reefer Madness” propaganda doing its thing, long after the movie stopped playing.
And if you want the single best example of this insanity, I’ve got two words for you: Bars exist.
Think about that for a second. We have entire establishments, with exposed brick, craft cocktails, $16 old fashioneds, that are dedicated to the singular purpose of getting people drunk. And then those people leave. In cars. On public roads. With your family on them.
That’s the deal. That’s the social contract. We just collectively decided, as a society, that we’re going to build buildings where humans go to impair their motor functions and judgment, and then we’re going to trust them to not wrap their Nissan Altima around a telephone pole on the way home. And we’re all fine with it. There’s one on every corner. We put them in bowling alleys.
Now imagine someone opened a weed bar. A nice little lounge where you could sit down, order an edible or take a few puffs, listen to some music, eat an enormous plate of nachos, and generally bother no one.
People would lose their ever-loving minds.
Town councils would convene emergency sessions. Neighborhood Facebook groups would erupt. Someone’s aunt would start a petition. There would be lawn signs. “NOT IN OUR COMMUNITY.” You’d think someone proposed opening a uranium enrichment facility next to the elementary school.
Meanwhile, nobody bats an eye at the TGI Friday’s with a full liquor license and a parking lot.
And the thing that really gets me, the part I can’t shake, is this: Driving while high, while absolutely not something I’m endorsing, not even a little, is demonstrably less dangerous than driving drunk. The research is pretty clear on this. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that while drunk drivers are significantly more likely to cause fatal crashes, marijuana-impaired drivers show a much smaller increase in risk. Stoned drivers tend to drive slower, leave more following distance, and are generally aware they’re impaired. Drunk drivers? They think they’re Mario Andretti. Every single one of them. You’ve never met a drunk person who thought they couldn’t drive. It’s the alcohol’s best trick.
So the place where people consume the substance that makes them believe they’re invincible behind the wheel? That gets a happy hour and a 4.2 on Yelp. The place where people consume the substance that makes them drive 22 miles per hour and stop at green lights? That gets a town hall meeting and a concerned letter from the PTA.
Make it make sense. I’ll be on my chair, waiting.
Again, I’m not saying weed is safe. I’m just saying that compared to booze, weed is … well, much safer.
The stigma isn’t based on science. It’s not based on safety. It’s based on the fact that one of these substances had better PR for the last century. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go crack open a perfectly socially acceptable beer, because I am nothing if not a hypocrite. I’ll probably eat a gummy later also, cards on the table.
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