This comment is funny on a lot of levels, especially because it contradicts the standard stereotypes about drug use. People have said many things about the I'll

This comment is funny on a lot of levels, especially because it contradicts the standard stereotypes about drug use. People have said many things about the I'll impact of using drugs but making people ruthlessly competing for resources so they can have more fun while high is not one of them. On the other hand a drug like cocaine has been associated with this type of stereotype and could be seen as a factor fueling the conspicuous consumption of resources by the ultra-rich. Marijuana and psychedelics in general tend to have been associated with influencing people to be less obsessed with materialistic ambitions. But really drugs in and of themselves are heavily influenced by the culture surrounding them and the experiences through which people engage in them. The marijuana capitalists could certainly attempt to market weed in such a way that people feel like they haven't really lived unless theyve done X while high but that is just an echo of the booze laden bikini beer commercials etc that the alcohol industry pushes. At some point I could see certain environments having social norms that push people to try drugs that would otherwise not just like it can be difficult to hang out in a bar without drinking if you otherwise don't have a personal prohibition against drinking alcohol. But weighing the damage caused by prohibition which is ultimately could been seen as being abused as an easy way to control minority communities through repression by the hands of the police and also facilitating the lucrative and oftentimes violent drug trade. If you look at Nixon's rational for creating the war on drugs it was very much about social control and repression and very little about health concerns. I think that even Timothy Leary advocated at one time for something akin to a pilots license to get legal access to powerful psychedelics. They are not toys and the way it is now the stigma and black market make it far more likely for them to be misused than in a world where they were treated with an appropriate level of respect in terms of their potential uses. Very few cultures that utilize altered states of consciousness do so without a certain level of ritual and cultural respect for their power.