Here's how we'd all benefit from legal pot - even if you never touch the stuff

It's no secret that Jeff Sessions has a big problem with weed. Remember, this is the guy who once quipped that he thought some Klan members who murdered a black man were okay until he learned they smoked pot (it was a joke. 'Cause if you can't laugh about a brutal lynching, what can you laugh about?)
In his role as Attorney General, he plans to go after pot with both guns blazing - including medical marijuana. He says pot's a gateway drug, despite the fact that it most definitely isn't - most people who try pot don't even try pot again, let alone harder drugs.

So you know how I'm always insisting there's no Big Pharma plot to keep people sick so they can make money treating them? There's an exception to every rule. The drug companies dump millions into anti-weed campaigns and lobbying efforts. Insys Therapeutics spent half a million on scare-mongering ads opposing medical pot in Arizona last year. Insys, it should be noted, manufactures a drug synthesized from fentanyl, an obscenely potent opiod that is as deadly as it is addictive. Perdue, which makes Oxy-Contin, sponsors anti-pot events all over the country. These organizations claim they're trying to protect people from the evils of pot all the while the drug that butters their bread is killing people from sea to shining sea. 

Drug companies lobby their asses off to keep weed illegal, and it's not hard to see why. Marijuana is a very effective painkiller, and unlike prescription opiods, it's not physically addictive (i.e., you won't get sick and go through withdrawal if you go off pot). In fact, pot might help treat opiod addiction (we don't have enough evidence to say so for sure, but we know that pot effectively treats symptoms like pain and nausea, which are part of opioid withdrawal).  Robust scientific studies show that pot can help with muscle spasms from MS, nausea from chemotherapy, seizure disorders, and more. It's also way, way safer than a lot of the pharmaceutical drugs used to treat these things. 
Pot isn't without side effects - it can suppress immune function, cause memory loss, even trigger psychosis in people predisposed to it. But if you compare those side effects to the ones caused by the pharmaceutical alternatives, the weed wins it.
So what's it to you? Well, imagine your community with less opioid addiction. Studies show that wherever medical marijuana becomes legal, opioid use and opioid addiction drop. That means fewer deaths, fewer opioid-related traffic accidents. It means if you have a heart attack, EMTs might get to you sooner because they're not busy administering Narcan to someone on the other side of town. It means government needing to use fewer resources for addiction treatment.
Medical pot means if you get cancer, or shingles, or fibromyalgia, you'll have another tool in your treatment arsenal - one that's relatively safe and affordable. Medical pot means your loved ones might suffer less when they get sick. Medical pot's a source of tax revenue. Medical marijuana means the justice system will be able to worry about bigger crimes. According to the New York Times

“Each year, enforcing laws on possession costs more than $3.6 billion, according to the American Civil Liberties Union,” the Times explains. “It can take a police officer many hours to arrest and book a suspect. That person will often spend a night or more in the local jail, and be in court multiple times to resolve the case.”

Now I should point out that pot's bad for developing brains. Teens should not smoke pot. You might think legal pot will increase the likelihood of teens using it, but the science doesn't support that. Little kids can get really sick if they get into mom and dad's edibles, but lock up the edibles. Problem solved. 

Legalized pot is good for sick people, good for cities, good for you.

 

Things I learned from my mother

My mom always said to always go dutch on dates. She said if you pay your own way, there will be no misunderstandings about who is indebted to whom.
I like this advice. This is good advice. The whole idea of the guy always paying creates an imbalance, with the guy always feeling like he's owed something, and the women always feeling like she owes.

We should do away with this custom, which dates back to a time when women didn't work, or didn't get paid well enough to be able to take care of themselves. 
Folks tend to think that when feminists complain about the patriarchy, we're accusing all men of oppressing all women. But this is one of many cases where following the rules of the patriarchy is equally unfair to women and men.