I hardly know how to begin describing how–what? Sad? Dumb? Irresponsible? Satisfying because all my predictions about how legalizing marijuana will screw up society in all sorts of ways is coming true?–this story is.
Denver nonprofit Cannabis Can gave away a thousand free, pre-rolled marijuana joints to the homeless and anyone else who wanted one on Christmas Eve. This was all for a “good cause,” of course —raising awareness about homelessness and getting people to donate money to buy several RV’s and provide restrooms and showers for destitute. And getting the homeless high, because making everyone in the U.S. high or wanting to get high is the most important thing in the world to the marijuana obsessed.
“‘Cannabis can make a difference,’ is kind of what we’re standing for,” said Nick Dicenzo, proud founder of Cannibis Can, nicely illustrating the verbal dexterity one is capable of once you’ve had a couple of joints before breakfast for a decade or so. “A lot of the people we spoke with really were just like, ‘if I had regular access to a shower, and a haircut my life would be so much better – I’d have so much more opportunity’,” Dicenzo continued.. I wonder how many of those homeless were on the streets in the aftermath of drug abuse and addiction. I wonder how many would have enough money to buy a suit, or rent a room, if they hadn’t blown so much money on drugs, or gotten themselves fired for showing up stoned for work.
It is illegal to smoke pot in public in Denver, so Nick’s brilliant Samaritans are setting up mentally ill street people for getting arrested—or do the Cannibis Can Angels think the homeless can get high in the privacy of their homes? I guess this depends on how much of the stuff they have been smoking daily and how many of their brain cells spend all day listening to Grace Slick and watching Cheech and Chong movies. It’s also illegal to sell pot on the streets. But why would starving homeless people sell joints, when they can just chill out, forget their troubles, and get mellow?
What’s more infuriating, I am now pondering—the fact that our government is slowly making sure that more and more of our children will grow up with Nick’s keen analytical ability, the fact that his group chose to give pot to the homeless rather than something that they really needed, like, say, just to pick something out of the air at random, food, or that these fools are so darn proud of themselves for, as Nick says, “giving back”?
Ho-Ho-Ho…Yechhhh.
Ethics Alarms 
A great example of idiot compassion as the Buddhists put it. The slogan for this group should be “Are you stoned or are you stupid”. That’s it, kill initiative for the homeless even more. What a great Christmas present!
This one really does bug me. How does someone come up with an idea like this and not immediately think, “Wait, what am I thinking? This is nuts.” I have watched, read and listened to the pot obsessed for most of my life. They and their propaganda do immeasurable harm to children, the economy, productivity, health, initiative, not to mention the converts their advocacy helps to kill, including many of our greatest artists…and are so smug and superior about it. When I was younger and my friends drifted into the camp, I was sure they would grow out of it, and almost every one of them did. Others took their places, however, including the deluded Pauls among us, and the damage was already done.
Whenever my friends and relations extol the pleasures of pot, I picture the descriptions of the oriental opium dens. Thousands of people drugged into a stupor so intense that they frequently died without anyone noticing. Why anyone would willingly take one step towards a future like that is beyond me.
Because its been rationalized, glamorized, and mythologized to the point that the majority view is that there is something wrong with you if you have not embraced pot.
Thanks the smug, well-off, well-educated, wealthy white liberal hedonists of the Sixties and Seventies for that.
Time was that people blamed nineteenth century French novels for that sort of thing. They didn’t have to be that decadent, either; The Count of Monte Cristo praises a blend of opium and hashish, in pill form and in passing.
I think people should avoid putting stumbling blocks before the lame. Denver has clear and strict laws about no public use of marijuana an no use by anyone under 21. Also, many homeless people, as well as many people with homes, do have substance abuse problems. Indiscriminately giving out marijuana ignores the potential harm to those who are “lame.”
The excessive condemnation of marijuana often makes it more alluring to the young, who are most likely to be harmed by its use. Some have opined that Nancy Reagen’s Just Say No Program was the greatest Pro-Marijuana ad campaign. I do not know of any studies which test this theory one way or the other. We do know that exaggeration of the ill effects does undermine the credibility of anti-drug crusaders. Most judicial systems have a jury instruction along the lines that if some one has been shown to be untruthful in one instance, the jury may disregard the witness’s testimony in all areas.
Aristotle’s Golden Mean is a reasonable default position. The giving away of marijuana may be foolish, but utter condemnation may also lack virtue.
At this point we really don’t know much about who are at serious risk for marihuana dependency. The CDC estimates about 9% of users are at risk for addiction. The “homeless” show a high percentage of mental illness including schizophrenia, mania, depression, and anxiety existing in their population which dramatically increases their risk. In addition, they frequently are using other street drugs and are alcoholics. Why legalize a drug for recreational use that can destroy people’s initiative and productivity?
In addition to the fact that marijuana can cause serious incidents of paranoia, psychosis or other problems if the individual in mentally ill. I had a scary first hand experience with that in college, when one of my room mates tried pot for the first time and was briefly out of control. The episode led to his eventual diagnosis of Schizophrenia.
I “get” those who say that the ill effects of marijuana are exaggerated by anti-dtug Crusaders. I’m sure they probably are, though I’ll never touch the stuff myself. I question whether there is a medicinal value to it, and I don’t at all understand those who tout it as a cure for everything from the common cold to cancer. That is the most obvious example of “junk science” out there now.
” Why legalize a drug for recreational use that can destroy people’s initiative and productivity?” Because so many prople want to use it there by making inforcement of its prohibition nye onto impossible just like with alcohol during its prohibition era. Giving away free samples should be aganist the law just like alcohol.
This seems like The Golden Rationalization which is “everybody does it”, ergo it should be legal. Well you’re right prohibition didn’t work. Still, the number of people that die each year from alcoholism is staggering. Do we really need another drug legalized that has proved to kill so many people and to have such adverse social effects?
Bingo.
How many times have I writen or said essentially the same thing?
Moreover, this is not like prohibition, where liquor was embedded in all aspect of the culture and economy for centuries, and a ban represented a shift of unprecedented magnitude and difficulty. When pot was legal, it wasn’t very widely used, and it has never been an accepted part of the culture like alcohol.
There are different ways to combat drug abuse, whether it is alcohol or marijuana. The two extremes of Prohibition and of Ignorant License are both unwise.
Insurance company parity for Alcoholism was an interesting step except the “cures” for alcoholism are very few. The treatment programs excel that salesmanship, but not at treatment. Thus, Promises and about 100 other Malibu rehab places make more money than sober people. The same is true for drug addiction.
Alpha-Theta Brain Wave Training developed by the Menninger Clinic in conjunction with Dr. Eugene Peniston at the VA is Texas has a very high success rate with alcoholism, drug addiction and PTSD; yet, the VA stopped using it. I’ve never seen any data why they stopped. People did not even have to bottom-out to lose their craving for alcohol and drugs.
I would like to know what happened with the Peniston Protocol. I know it did not have the financial benefit of repeat users like Promises etc because people lost their craving and that was the end of the problem. If I find out, I’l post a comment.
Variation on the theme: I had a colleague in Psychology a few (well, more than a few) years ago who researched anti-drug campaigns. His study found that the “this is your brain on drugs” campaign actually attracted more people to drugs than it dissuaded.
I’d be interested in seeing a poll that got accurate answers from teenagers about their motivations for drug use. A teenager would find “to be rebellious to media indoctrination” much more attractive choice than “because it was an easy way to make friends.”
I’m feeling a bit cynical. if they give them pot, the stoned homeless are visibly happier. Then the affluent giver can feel less guilty for their prosperity: “look, they’re happy now, they don’t mind being homeless! We are such good people.”
Especially if I had drug problems, I’d want something useful.
But then, if you were clear enough to think that, you might not be homeless in the first place.
more and more of our children will grow up with Nick’s keen analytical ability,
A shaft of brightness in the murk:
Researchers in Denmark found that sperm concentrations were 28 percent lower in men (1,215 men aged 18 to 28) who smoked weed . . . . Similar results came from Florida: Men who smoke marijuana frequently have significantly less seminal fluid and a lower total sperm count.
Taken all in all, on enhanced sexual desire, study results haven’t changed: it’s about 50/50 … but the up is not very up (more relaxed), and the down (turning inward) is decidedly down.
This article reads so much like an Onion piece it makes me lean toward wondering whether it’s a hoax.
Step 1: Give a bunch of weed to homeless people.
Step 2: Tell people about how homeless people need trailers and stuff.
Step 3: Someone will buy the homeless people trailers and stuff.
Step 4: Feel good about yourself.
Your assignment: find and eliminate the unnecessary step.
Unless you’re a pothead, in which case, do ONLY the unnessesary step and nothing else.
I find this story infuriating. Who thought this was a good idea? Are we going to hand out Mickies to bums on highways next? This isn’t about whether you are for or against marijuana, this is whether or not you have two neurons to rub together in your head.