Our Backwards Society

So, as you can probably tell, I haven’t been blogging very much.  Blogs come at a snails pace for me, and while I haven’t been blogging, I have been doing the next best thing, which is thinking about blogging.  In my quest to think about the most perfect things to blog about, I came up with a new idea that I am going to try out.  Today is going to be my first installment in what will hopefully become a regular occurrence of blogs called our backwards society.  There are so many things about our society that I just don’t understand, and instead of driving myself crazy trying to come to terms with some of those things, I have decided to blog about them instead.  And so, without further ado, I give to you our sdrawkcab society.

My first installment of Our Backwards Society takes a look at one of the biggest news stories of the week.  No, I am not talking about President Obama and his early efforts to get our country back on track, or about Wells Fargo and their moral dilemma of whether or not to use part of the $25 billion given to them in the bailout towards a 12 night corporate retreat to Las Vegas. (Who the hell spends 12 nights in Vegas anyway, but that is another issue).  The issue that seems to be most important this week deals with the American Olympic hero and role model for all Michael Phelps and the leaked picture of him smoking out of a bong, excuse me, smoking out of a water pipe.  I apologize, but I don’t want to offend anybody by using one of the most evil four letter words in our society, bong.

When are we, as a society, going to wake up and smell the coffee, or should I say wake up and smell the BlackBerry Kush, and realize that the real problem we have with drugs is not that people are smoking marijuana, but that on a daily basis people use, misuse, and abuse alcohol, and we, as a society, accept it.  If you stop for two seconds and compare the mental, physical and medical benefits of both alcohol and marijuana, you would see that the one and only true benefit of alcohol is its sterilization ability.  Alcohol can help to sterilize instruments used in doctor’s offices and hospitals, or it can sterilize your skin before a shot or blood test.  Marijuana on the other hand, can help relieve pain, discomfort, nausea and can also produce mental clarity and or relief.

Even more important in this debate is not only the effect that alcohol has on us as individuals but the acceptance that our society gives to the abuse of alcohol.  We, as a society, say that it is acceptable to go out after work and indulge in a substance that knowingly affects not only our judgment, but also affects all of our senses.  We say that it is ok to indulge in alcohol, but then we turn around and belittle those who make bad judgmental decisions while impaired from alcohol.  Really?  So it is ok to use something that will blur my judgement, but you expect me to be held accountable for the actions that I make while my judgement is blurred.  Interesting.

And furthermore, I find it laughable that our society pretends to be appalled when people get arrested for drunk driving, yet we do little to nothing to stop people from getting in a car in the first place.  Back in the days when I used to drink, it would be easy to get anywhere from 3 to 5 to 10 drinks at any given bar.  And the only thing that stopped me from getting in my car and driving somewhere was me.  Me and my impaired mind and body was the only thing keeping me from getting in my car and making it home safely, or getting in my car and killing somebody.  If we were really concerned about the well being of each other, we would demand that better tools were implemented to keep people from driving drunk, and keep people from abusing alcohol.

The truth remains that alcohol is responsible for causing far more damage than marijuana ever will and the gap between the two continues to grow.  Death, disease, spousal abuse, mental instability and pregancy problems can all be linked to alcohol and the use and abuse of alcohol.  The only things that can truly be linked to marijuana use are laziness and over eating, and maybe uncontrollable laughter.

So, instead of jumping to conclusions about the things that we don’t agree with or don’t understand, we should open our eyes and realize that there are far more pressing issues our society needs to focus on and deal with than Michael Phelps smoking marijuana.  Maybe if we, as a society, took our heads out of our asses, we would realize that maybe the substance that we should be condemning is the substance that is one of the leading causes of death each year in our country.  Maybe then, our society wouldn’t be as backwards as it is.