THE FRUITS OF PROGRESS

Get ready for an NYC reeking of weed and crawling with unstable potheads

 

By Seth Barron

 

New York Post

April 15, 2021

 

 

It’s reefer madness all across Gotham, following the state Legislature’s legalization of marijuana.

Potheads light up with abandon. The NYPD has instructed officers to ignore the possession, “burning” and even the open sale of up to three ounces of weed.

Technically, minors aren’t permitted to have access to the herb, and you’re not allowed to smoke up anywhere cigarettes are banned. Yet judging by the dank smell on every block, park bench and subway car, any restrictions on pot have gone up in smoke. 

Some New Yorkers may recall a time not too long ago when even the sale of “bongs” and other pot paraphernalia was essentially banned in the Big Apple. Now “smoke shops” are everywhere. The fruits of progress, don’t you know? 

It’s common for sophisticated people to observe that prohibition never works — just look at, well, Prohibition. Banning booze was a huge failure, right? Actually, no. Whether it was ultimately a good idea or not, the passage of the Volstead Act did, in fact, drive down consumption of alcohol to about 70 percent of pre-Prohibition levels. 

People sneered at former Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s “nanny-state” impulses, as when he tried to ban the sale of large sugary drinks. They predicted doom for the nightlife industry when he pushed through a ban on smoking in all indoor accommodations in 2003. But hundreds of thousands of bartenders, waiters and nonsmoking patrons have been happy to breathe clean air while they work, eat and drink — and not to have to wash their hair and clothes of cigarette stink after a night out.

Plus, Bloomberg’s bluenose approach has saved lives. The adult smoking rate in New York City fell to 12 percent in 2019, from 22 percent in 2002 — faster than the national decline. The incidence of lung cancer has fallen substantially, too.  

It isn’t widely noted, but in 2011, New York City also banned smoking in all parks and beaches. That goes for pot, too, though you wouldn’t know it strolling around Manhattan parks lately: Last week, I saw teenage skateboarders in Washington Square pulling on a huge bong. Police ignored the obvious violation, and it’s foolish to expect much in the way of enforcement going forward in our climate of the decriminalization of crime. 

But the new liberalization will certainly present big challenges. Marijuana is known to be detrimental for brain development in younger people and can hasten and worsen the onset of serious mental illness.  

Despite its reputation as a drug for gentle, zonked-out hippies, marijuana use is strongly associated with the likelihood to commit weapons offenses, according to the National Institutes for Heath. A major study by Oxford researchers found that marijuana use boosts the odds of violent behavior among people with psychotic disorders.

The city is already beset with thousands of untreated mentally ill individuals — is it so wise to be cultivating more? 

Proponents of pot have long insisted that weed is wondrous medicine and can treat or cure everything from nausea to epilepsy to lupus to insomnia, with zero side effects or risk of overdose. But does it make sense that a powerful medicine could also be harmless? Sounds like a snake-oil pitch.  

Advocates laugh at the idea that marijuana is a “gateway drug.” But find one serious drug addict who didn’t start out on pot. I’ll wait. 

And the social-justice implications of legalizing pot are seriously overstated. It is a fond myth that the “drug war” has locked up thousands of people for smoking a joint; in fact, the city jail system has typically held an average of one person a day on pot possession charges. 

Judging by the experience of other states that have legalized it, the expected revenues from pot may not be as rich as anticipated. In California, licensed cultivators and retailers have found themselves competing with dealers who saw no reason to go legit — and whose untaxed product is cheaper than the legal stuff. As a result, the legitimate weed sellers have demanded that the police crack down against the black marketers in a new, unexpected twist on the drug war. 

Progressive leaders have finally gotten their wish for legal pot in New York. Now it’s left to New Yorkers to deal with the mess.