I don’t drink or smoke, and certainly don’t condone it, but I am a sucker for needles. Seeing them effortlessly glide across the surface of my dad’s old 60s records is enough to completely fascinate me. Music has been an integral part of me for as long as I can remember, and my record player, alongside the vinyls I’ve collected over the years, wins the number one spot on my list of most prized possessions.
Growing up, my taste in music was far different from that of the other kids my age, no doubt. (Elvis, Frank Sinatra, The Temptations, The Beatles, and Etta James, to name a few.) My dad wasted no time in exposing me to the artists of the 60s and 70s that we now both love. In older music, the mention of marijuana in song lyrics was undeniably less “in your face.” The artists merely hinted at the use of pot, leaving the listener to infer that that was what they were alluding to.
“Cloud 9,” a late 60s song by the Temptations, has a few lines that are cleverly written so that we can pretty much assume they were talking about weed.
“Needed something to ease my troubled mind. Depressed and down-hearted, I took to Cloud 9… I’m gonna sail higher up and away to Cloud 9.”
I think that the legalization of marijuana would benefit our society more than harm it. I believe every individual is free to make his or her own decisions. If someone wants to smoke pot, then they’re going to do so, whether it is legal or not.
In addition to the medicinal qualities marijuana provides to certain illnesses, legalizing it would not only help our economy, but also cause drug trafficking to slow. Although I understand that those who are opposed to the legalization of pot argue that it is harmful and could easily be abused, I do not think keeping marijuana illegal helps with either of these reasons. Alcohol and cigarettes are just as harmful, if not more, and are abused around the world every day, so why are those legal meanwhile marijuana is not?
We need to open our eyes and realize that our society now is more affected by media than anything else, and with the constant reference to marijuana in most songs, movies, and TV shows, people are not going to quit using this drug despite it being against the law.
To end with some groovy reggae lyrics by Peter Tosh: “Nurses smoke it, judges smoke it, even the lawyers too… Legalize it- don’t criticize it.”