Cannabis is very different. It promotes a dreaminess. It promotes an abiding in the imagination that is the stuff of romantic poetry rather than the stuff of the modern assembly line. And I’ve used it that way: as a tool for creativity. I mean, it’s incredible how just a few puffs of cannabis can carry you over a creative problem or a block in seeing a particular problem, so that suddenly the perspective shifts, and what was previously occluded becomes patently obvious.
The drug issue brings up the question of whether societies should organize themselves along the assumption that citizens are adults or children. And if you view citizens as children, well, then you have to keep various things out of their hands. If you believe citizens are adults, then you have to believe that certain checks and balances will keep any negative practice from simply sweeping through society and destroying it.
Part of the pursuit of human freedom, part of citizenship and responsible adulthood and responsible government, means: live and let live. This is a philosophy of which we hear far too little. Somebody is always trying to mess with somebody else’s life, their sex life, their drug habits, their political stances, so forth and so on.
