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January 04, 2014
Cannabis Prohibition as Human Folly
History is the written record of our human interactions with each other and with our planetary environment. Although we are thought to have evolved as a species about a quarter of a million years ago, we first had to master language and writing before we could make full use of the cognitive potential our prolonged evolutionary heritage had provided us with. Nor, for that matter, do we have any reason to believe Human Evolution is over, or that its consequences will necessarily be to our advantage as a species.In fact the fossil record reveals that extinction has been the fate of the majority of species that have evolved since life first appeared on the planet; also that several mass extinctions have occurred in the past.
Before getting too far into the subject of Evolution, it may be helpful to realize that not only is the concept itself still rejected by a significant fraction of educated humans, there is a growing dichotomy right here in the United States: a recent Pew Research survey showed that a declining percentage of Republicans believe in Human evolution, while the percentage of Democrats who do so has increased.
Unfortunately, that news was turned up while I was distracted by two other hot items: first, the announcement that "legal" marijuana went on sale in Colorado on January 1st; also that Coloradans hoping to take advantage of their new freedom may find themselves literally out in the cold.
All of which tends to confirm a suspicion that had been sneaking up on me for several years and recently become downright intrusive: any "cognitive" species dumb enough to follow Richard Nixon over a cliff by outlawing cannabis may not have a long future.
While many have taken comfort from our many escapes from disaster; it would be well to remember that the huge increase in our population has made us far more vulnerable to the natural disasters we have long been ignoring in our pursuit of wealth and power. In fact, we may finally have become clever enough to add to them all by ourselves.
As usual, not all agree, as the comments on Hayes' article demonstrate. More on this later.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at January 4, 2014 10:58 AM