Cry Havoc. How the marijuana story ends.

Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Last week I ran this item:

Lex Anteinternet: The Eastern Shoshone consider cannabis: In one of the many posts that I start and never finish, I had in my draft posts a item that was from the Irish Times on Irish physicians lam...

In it, I noted the following.

I know that this isn't convincing to weed's fans.  Indeed, the post above is one of the rare ones here that not only drew a fair amount of attention at the time I put it up, it drew some really negative attention from Colorado marijuana fans.  But that's the way such things work.  I still recall hearing from smokers as late as the 1990s how smoking wasn't really bad for a person.  And there are plenty of heavy drinkers who deny that they're being hurt in any fashion.

That's going to be the history of marijuana.  We'll find out that it was hugely destructive, and at some point in the future we'll look back at this and be horrified and amused by how dense we were in this era on this topic, and a host of others that seem to be floating about in the confused era we've really slipped into.  But for the time being, we're charging ahead into marijuana like there's no tomorrow.

Which brings me to how this story will develop.

Marijuana is already known to have strongly negative health implications.  When the Federal government ends its prohibition and most of the states follow suit, use will dramatically expand and the full extent of those negative implications will be known.

Within a decade, you'll be seeing advertisements by lawyers on television seeking to have marijuana consumers contact them for lawsuits against the marijuana industry, which by that time will be much more concentrated than it is now.  They'll pitch that the users were duped by those who knew that there will be health risks.  Millions will be made.

Marijuana will still be around, but some of the big outfits that are yet to emerge will be wiped out and bankrupt.

And quite a few people will be suffering from all sorts of conditions both predictable and unknown.

Only lawyers will really benefit.