Whose Culture?

12/22/2019

Prohibitionists love to talk about the culture of a town. “What will happen to the culture of Bloomington if cannabis is legalized?” It is the culture that makes a community desirable or not, so says the prohibitionist. “How will [cannabis] legalization effect the character of the community?” Ward 3 Alderperson Mwilambwe queried before advocating an opting out of cannabis sales Monday night. Earlier during public comment, Renae Martin, also worried about the culture of the town; Bloomington “is a family town. That’s what people enjoy about it.” To the prohibitionist, legalized cannabis will irreparably alter the family culture of any community.

Prohibitionists love to bring up these vague and abstract concepts like culture or character. How could cannabis be a threat to Bloomington’s culture when it has been here for decades? Isn’t the violence associated with illegal, alternative economies bad for the culture?

What are the metrics that determine what culture is good or bad? The prohibitionists like Alderperson Mwilambwe always revert to the family. Family values are the determining factor in whether a culture is desirable or not. But, whose family? Do these family values include the families deferred and destroyed by draconian policing of harmless (& victimless) crimes? Do these family values include the families with immigrant members who live in fear of America’s inhumane immigration system? What about the poor families that desperately need better services and better jobs (both which could me ameliorated with cannabis tax revenue & cannabis jobs)? Do these family values include nontraditional families like queer & trans families?

Prohibition has only ever brought violence & decay to our culture. Whether the vices of the 1920s or the excesses of the failed War on Drugs since the 1960s, prohibition cannot be the solution to obtain a true culture that values all residents in the community. Culture does not make the community; communities make culture. And the majority of the community in Bloomington and America at-large are exhausted with the culture of prohibition.