{"id":80225,"date":"2019-04-11T17:31:33","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T21:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=80225"},"modified":"2019-04-11T18:14:04","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T22:14:04","slug":"1st-things-peter-hitchens-reefer-sadness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=80225","title":{"rendered":"(1st Things) Peter Hitchens–Reefer Sadness"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/span>he smoking of marijuana, with its careful preparation of the elements and the solemn passing around of the shared joint, was the unholy communion of the counterculture in the late 1960s, when our present elite formed its opinions. Many of them allowed their children to follow their bad examples, and resent that this exposes their young to a (tiny) risk of persecution and career damage. As a result, those who still disapprove of marijuana are much disliked. The book I wrote on the subject six years ago, The War We Never Fought<\/a><\/em>, received a chilly reception and remains so obscure that I don\u2019t think Alex \u00adBerenson, whose book has received much friendlier coverage, even knows it exists. As a writer who naturally covets readers and sales, I find this mildly infuriating.<\/p>\n

But let me say through clenched teeth that it is of course very good news that a fashionable young metropolitan person such as Mr. \u00adBerenson is at last prepared to say openly that marijuana is a dangerous drug whose use should be severely discouraged. For, as \u00adBerenson candidly admits, he was until recently one of the great complacent mass of bourgeois bohemians who are pretty relaxed about it. He confesses in the most important passage in the book that he once believed what most of such people believed. He encapsulates this near-universal fantasy thus:<\/p>\n

Marijuana is safe. Way safer than alcohol. Barack Obama smoked it. Bill Clinton smoked it too, even if he didn\u2019t inhale. Might as well say it causes presidencies. I\u2019ve smoked it myself, I liked it fine. Maybe I got a little paranoid, but it didn\u2019t last. Nobody ever died from smoking too much pot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These words are a more or less perfect summary of the lazy, ignorant, self-serving beliefs of highly educated, rather stupid middle-class metropolitans all over the Western world in such places as, let\u2019s just say for example, the editorial offices of the New York Times<\/em>. Thirty years from now (when it\u2019s too late), they will look as crass and irresponsible as those magazine advertisements from the 1950s in which pink-faced doctors wearing white coats recommended certain brands of cigarettes. But just now, we are in that foggy zone of consciousness where the truth is known to almost nobody except those with a certain kind of direct experience, and can be ignored by everyone else.<\/p>\n

One of the experienced ones, thank heaven, is Alex \u00adBerenson\u2019s wife Jacqueline. She is a psychiatrist who specializes in evaluating mentally ill criminals. One evening, the Berensons were discussing one of her cases, a patient who had committed a terrible, violent act. Casually, Jacqueline remarked, \u201cOf course he was high, been smoking pot his whole life.\u201d Alex doubtfully interjected, \u201cOf course?,\u201d and she replied, \u201cYeah, they all smoke.\u201d (She didn\u2019t mean tobacco.) And she is right. They all do. You don\u2019t need to be a psychiatrist to know this. You just have to be able to do simple Internet searches.<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

My review in ‘First Things’ of Alex Berenson’s book on Marijuana, ‘Tell Your Children’ https:\/\/t.co\/ktAgT9E1dP<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) April 11, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n