I don’t much listen to Dr. Gupta as a rule. Why should I: I have my own damn doctor.
And yet: if Dr Oz and Dr Hibbert and ‘The Doctors’ and Dr Spock from beyond the grave all pronounced ‘I Concur: Dope Is Not As Dopey As We Were Led To Believe’ I would hazard that would be a net good for humanity as a whole. (Except for the dead people speaking…that might be bad)
So thanks for keeping an open mind Sanjay…spread the word.
Sweet, let’s start calling all drugs “Buddha”! (just to make things more confusing). I guess I just don’t find it threatening or offensive, but of course that makes me the “bad guy”.
It’s not that I don’t think that it may have started out as a racist or ethnic slur, it’s just that language changes and evolves with time. There are a lot of common phrases that have lost their original meaning or intent and now have a completely different common usage. A good example of this would be “good bye”. Obviously it started out as “God be With ye” or something similar, but no longer has any sort of religious meaning in common usage. Should I change my use of “good bye” to respect the original intent of the phrase when I am addressing people I know to be atheists? Nah, kind of ridiculous.
My experience may be different than others, but growing up in So. Cal, which is a fairly hispanic part of the country, I’ve heard the phrase “Marijuana” used pretty frequently amongst spanish speaking folks (most of whom are of Mexican descent). Nobody has ever corrected me when I’ve said it. No “hey man, that’s our word. You can’t say that”. I just don’t think that the average person on the street is aware or cares about the etymology of the phrase. It may have started out as an ethnic slur, I just don’t think it carries that weight any longer.
A good example of this is the word “oriental”. I’ve never been offended by it, and pretty much every single person of Asian descent that I’ve met doesn’t give a rat’s ass about it. I did meet one person in high school who was all bent out of shape about it… One person. I’m sure there are others, I just haven’t met them. Nobody in my extended family is offended by it, none of my friends or acquaintances from other asian races seem to care either. Is is racist? Probably. (or at least eurocentric and tasting of the colonial era). Should I demand that everyone change their language when no offense is meant (or even really understood by the average person to exist), simply to right a wrong that has diminished to the point of insignificance? Hmm…
Now if we can get united to get that damned candy to change it’s name! (sarcasm)
realize it’s easy to maintain puritanical holier-than-thou attitudes as an anonymous poster on a forum on the internet,
It’s also apparently really easy on the Internet to color someone you disagree with by using inane, over-the-top adjectives, isn’t it?
he certainly didn’t cause the criminalization of pot,
Yeah, I’m going to need you to quote where I said that he did.
It’s also easy on the Internet to misrepresent what other people say.
I mean shit man, if (some) Rwandans can forgive people who were committing acts of mass tribal genocide and violence, can’t we, like, forgive Sanjay and embrace him
It has nothing to do with forgiveness, I just don’t trust his judgment for very valid reasons.
fuck, maybe like, elect him spokesperson for the issue of medical marijuana?
What happens when he flip flops and decides it’s demon weed again?
Like I said, hopefully his very belated positive influence can save some of the lives that have been trashed by the inane war on pot he and others helped to enable all these years.
Damage control after finally seeing which way the smoke is blowing is certainly better than continuing to stubbornly be a part of the problem. I’ll give him that.
You want to celebrate a celebrity that’s finally come around on pot, that’s fine. But can you even name one person who has struggled all these years and even risked incarceration to help get us to this point where the tide is finally changing on destructive, college loan killing, humiliating, dehabilitating anti-medical marijuana laws?
There’s plenty of other doctors and people out there that risked thier asses (and still do today) to get medical marijuana to patients who would be great spokespeople for medical marijuana.
Related:
Bethlehem woman testifies in favor of medical marijuana on 17-year-old son’s behalf:
Interesting. Do you think this change of heart is not a genuine “mea culpa” but rather a flip flop by a fairly public figure that depends on the general public for his meal ticket?
Not trying to be sarcastic or critical at all, just wondering. That point of view is honestly not one I had considered.
Interesting. Do you think this change of heart is not a genuine “mea culpa” but rather a flip flop by a fairly public figure that depends on the general public for his meal ticket?
Actually, I think you’d almost have to insult his intelligence not to suspect it. I think Sanjay is a very intelligent person to get where he is in life and he had ready access to all the marijuana studies. His specialty was the brain, fer Christ’s sake.
Promoting medical marijuana was a dangerous choice for any doctor (much less a national celebrity doctor) back in the day. Some courageous doctors did and said what was right despite the risks, some didn’t. Sanjay didn’t.
It’s a shrewd move for a celebrity that depends on public favor for a living to bravely change his stance once public opinion on an issue changes to a safe enough level.
But, like I said, for whatever reason he’s doing it, I am happy to see an influential public figure get on board.
He used to be a talking head for the pharmaceutical companies, figuratively speaking. I’m not sure if his turnaround has to do with a prevailing wind change direction in the country, and he wanted to be on that side with history, or if he genuinely opened his mind. Clearly, I’m not a huge fan, but at least he is capable of switching gears.
Sorry Cowicide, I hadn’t read your post first, and made a similar comment below. Respect.
Aye, it appears he has some degree of cred. I’m not very good with identifying entertainment types. I’d just never really heard of him. I don’t even watch our TV…
Ha, I think your post is more interesting anyway. I had no idea of his ties to pharmaceutical companies until now.
He didn’t have ties per se, he was old school in supporting the deeply ingrained system, if you know what I mean.
That’s literally happening right now, and you’re really resisting it. So, even if you had encountered someone in meatspace with the same Latinx background and objection to the common usage of the word “marijuana”, I have to wonder if you would actually accept it or if you would do what you’re doing now and say, “nu uh; you don’t know what’s racist against you.”
Your comparison with the word “oriental” betrays your perspective on the larger issues at hand. While I’m in no position (as someone who isn’t East Asian) to say whether or not you are right in considering the word “a wrong that has diminished to the point of insignificance,” I can tell you that you are wrong in considering the widespread English usage of the phrase marijuana as such.
“Marijuana” was a word used to associate cannabis with us (Mexicans) so that white people wouldn’t like it. Read that three times. Now, we have a War on Drugs (largely fueled by cannabis prohibition) that keeps cartels in charge of ruining Mexico and the US justice system in charge of locking up huge numbers of Latinx people here. The demonization of cannabis as a “Mexican thing” has not in any way “diminished to the point of insignificance.”
So it’s the association of marijuana with anything hispanic/mexican at all that is bothersome to you, not so much that it’s necessarily a word commonly understood to be an ethnic/religious slur equating mexicans with a greater drive for getting high than the pursuit of supposedly more moral pursuits like revering the virgin mary?
This is a completely different thing than saying that the word Marijuana is an ethnic slur.
And while I do appreciate your efforts to demonize me by guessing at what my responses would be if confronted with someone offended in “meatspace”, that’s a ridiculous avenue to pursue. Unless you can secretly read my mind, you have absolutely no idea what my response would be. But, for the sake of argument, let me enlighten you: My response would be a simple “I’m sorry. I did not realize that you felt like “Marijuana” was a racially charged term/ethnic slur. I would be more than happy to use the word “cannabis””. To use my example of the word “oriental”, when confronted by rabid high schooler about the word, my response was “really? I’m really not offended by it, but if you’d rather I use the word “asian” with you, then fine”. I made an active effort to say “asian” in front of her, but it did get comical at times when names of companies and restaurants etc… came up. (Oriental Trading Company, Oriental Seafood Palace etc…)
I get that there are definitely racist origins to the word, and a racist history to the war on “Cannabis”, and definitely racist application of the “war on drugs”, and unfortunate side effects in Mexico to the prohibition here, but I just don’t get think that self censoring to use a “non-hispanic” word is going to effectively alter any of this. It certainly isn’t going to change history, and whitewashing a phrase isn’t going to alter the economic realities that directly cause the misapplication of the “war on drugs” or the flow of cash across the border to fuel organized crime.
Again, there is a difference between the arguments that “Marijuana” is currently understood to be an ethnic slur (which I still do not believe it is currently understood to be, regardless of etymology/origins), and the argument that due to numerous unfortunate side effects of the “war on drugs” that it would be best not to associate “cannabis” with any particular ethnic group. The first I don’t believe to be true in common usage, the second I definitely agree with.
But in this case, since you have made your origins clear “us (Mexicans)”, I would be more than happy to use the word “Cannabis” rather than “Marijuana” in this conversation out of respect for your sensitivities. Honestly can’t say that this will apply in “meatspace” when others are using the latter rather than former phrase, but it’ll at least be an interesting subject to broach with Hispanic friends and acquaintances.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of that version of the origin. I’d heard that it was a popular Mexican cigarette brand at the time and that Mexican workers would regularly have packs on them.
It’s not that it’s associated with us, it’s that it’s associated with us with the intent to demonize it by association. If it was just “Mexicans do this,” I guess that would be ok, but historically (and it’s rather recent history), it’s “Mexicans do this, which is why we should ban it and lock them up and keep them out.” Big difference.
“It’s not that it’s associated with us, it’s that it’s associated with us with the intent to demonize it by association. If it was just “Mexicans do this,” I guess that would be ok, but historically (and it’s rather recent history), it’s “Mexicans do this, which is why we should ban it and lock them up and keep them out.” Big difference.”
Nah, I get that point. I just think that the association with intent to demonize has already been lost in (admittedly recent) history. I’d argue that nobody believes that Cannabis is going to make Hispanic and African American men go into some sort of uncontrollable musth and rape the white wimmens (or any of the similar racially induced tripe that was used to scare people into supporting prohibition back in the day). I think it’s pretty obvious that, at least in an increasing number of states, that attempts to demonize cannabis itself isn’t working anymore, much less an attempt to demonize Hispanics by association.
Sorry, that’s just me. I live in a pretty liberal part of the country, in a largely hispanic area, so maybe it just doesn’t have that association/attempted demonization here. Maybe that sort of garbage still flies in parts of the midwest or other largely caucasian parts of the country. Here it’s all “think of the children” and “you’ll shoot your friends” or “You’ll run over children at the drive through” while high sorts of BS (those are actual scenes from PSA’s that were run on TV with our tax $ a while back). I think anyone who even implied that cannabis was bad because of, you know, Mexicans (eek!) would be driven out of town on a rail ASAP. Even politicians know better than to pander to that lowest common denominator down here as there is an ENORMOUS “latino” voting bloc.
wait, people actually give a shit what Gupta says? I don’t care if he WAS a practicing brain surgeon at one time, he is NOW exactly on the same path as Dr. Phil. it gets TIRING that I have to ASK permission from you guys if I can use marijuana.
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