Why is there a stigma attached to marijuana, and the people who use it?

Probably because marijuana is still considered illegal and alcohol isn’t. You can be fired if you fail a drug test and marijuana is usually one of the drugs tested for, but most companies don’t test for alcohol.

Governmental drug propaganda.

Also, stereotypes of the dumb lazy stoners. I never liked cheech and chong movies because of this.

I agree with @Blackberry , people that smoke weed have generally been made to look like stupid, irresponsible people in film and TV.

Personally, I don’t use it, but it’s interesting to note that more and more people are using it these days. I’m not sure what to attribute that to, but it’s high (no pun intended) time they just legalized the shit and got it over with!

I have always hated the Cheech and Chong/ Waynes World stoner stereotyping. Bah.
I am about as far from the stereotype as you can get.
Female, quite bright, over age 50, live a very ” normal” and functional lifestyle. I just happen to bake some really special brownies on occasion and in-joy my property and creative side.
Betty Crocker with a twist. :-)

It sounds like I should be blaming the potheads for this stigma, lol. I also think that marijuana being illegal and being a product of the black market also helps to give the people who use it a lowbrow stereotype, and actually helps to intertwine it with other negative elements. As far as work related accidents go, most that I’ve seen result from companies pushing their employees to go faster, all while being understaffed because they either can’t keep no one, or they fire many peope. I’ve also seen more accidents resulting from people who came into work with a hangover rather than being stoned. I guess that when it comes to some of the causes for these accidents, it is ok to sweep some of them under the rug, but when the cause is drug related we overemphasize the dangers of pot use. My ‘enter’ button isn’t working right now, so bare with me.

I see you’ve come around to my opinion—that pot is illegal and alcohol isn’t. There’s a stigma against doing things that will land you in jail.

Other than that, I think the stigma is equal against both forms of artificially altering your consciousness. Both drugs make you stupid, while you think you are smart. They impair your abilities and judgment, but often you are unaware of that. You think you’re fine, but you’re running your car all over the road.

I think that there is a stigma out on stupidity, too. It’s a form of mental impairment, and we like to make fun of the mentally impaired. Hell. Look at clown costumes. Big red nose. Clothes that look pretty disheveled. Big feet you trip over all the time. Remind you of a drunk at all? I’m sure there’s a stoner generation of clowns, too, but I’m not sure how they dress so as to remind people of stoners.

It’s the impaired while working deal. Or any other time where impairment is a bad idea. I become irritated with them when I have to work with one or one of them is assisting me at a business. Its so freekin obvious whats up. It is a total lack of respect for everyone including themselves, if a person has to sneak off and hit the pipe to “get into it”. If they could just leave it at the house and stay sober they wouldn’t come off as complete dickheads.

I think you’re right. Personally I think weed should be legal. I also think there needs to be much heavier restrictions on alcohol. I think our government has this backwards. What do I know. It’s a quarter till 12 and I have the munchies.

How much more can alcohol be regulated?

Alcohol being used by minors should be more severely punished. No more games. This is a serious problem and keeping our kids safe for as long as we can should be our top priority.

@woodcutter I don’t like working around stoned people either, but even if you drink a few beers the night before the alcohol is still affecting you. This situation occured where my brother got hurt at work because he had to duck out of the way of a forklift that was operated by a perpetual drinker who likely was hung over (again). His injury wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to warrant a drug test. Of course the forktruck operator passed the drug test, and the breathalizer since he wasn’t intoxicated, but likely feeling the after affects of his booze (I knew the guy). My brother didn’t fare as well, and I worked at the same place he did at the time so I know he didn’t go to work high, but he did smoke weed at home and yes his test came back positive. Ironically, only a year later my brother got ran over by an out of control and speeding pickup truck. The driver was not legally drunk, but was drinking prior to the incident. No charges were filed against the driver despite our best efforts. Do you get what I’m asking; why the hypocrisy concerning demonizing weed while defending alcohol? @DWW25921 This question isn’t about whether weed should be legalized, but about the hypocrisy. Sorry, my ‘enter’ button isn’t currently working.

@Paradox25 Weed smokers still have their hangovers too and chronic smokers never really seem to come down, it’s 420 time all the time. There’s a reason it’s drug test time after every accident because even if they haven’t been smoking, if they are a chronic smoker they are still a little dopey even if they can’t feel it at the time.It affects the brain regardless. They tend to be more accident prone. The thing with dopers is they can more easily be pretty high and cover it up well enough to hide it at work.They learn to be sneaky, cover for each other, while still severely impaired. It is more of a challenge for a drunk to be buzzing and not get busted. I can’t stand a drunk. All they are to me is a reason to stay away from because that type can get nasty. They both are bad, so I think the drunks have a pretty bad stigma of their own going. It’s the heads who assume they are being discriminated against.

There are five times as many toxins in a joint than in a cigarette. ‘Nuff said.

Well, obviously nobody should be working or driving when they are imbibing in anything.
Part of my enjoyment is planning a day or weekend around the house with no obligations. Zen time.
As always, discretion.

I don’t think you could say that there’s no stigma attached to alcoholic overindulgence: drunks are not particularly respectable. The ‘human ashtray’ variety of smoker is a similar case.

I take exception to your viewpoint about “demonizing weed while defending alcohol”

Exactly who does that? Normal people whom I’ve encountered are certainly not going around defending alcohol. Why would they need to?

The people who are busy defending alcohol are in all likelihood, alcoholics in denial. Other people who simply use it in moderation while living productive lives have far better things to do than busying themselves in mounting a vigorous defense of booze. That’s ridiculous.

If you are referring to law enforcement, then the answer is simple. It’s an easy arrest since stoners aren’t generally violent.

But using either substance in the workplace is stupid and dangerous and neither should be excused.

Historically Marijuana is outlawed in the U.S. for three main reasons:

- Racists anti-immigrationists noticed that Mexican farm workers liked to smoke it and grew their own. If you ignore they could hardly afford it, it seemed they weren’t buying beer or liquor as much as those industries would have liked, so there was a business reason to It was a convenient excuse to kick some brown people out of the country.

- Hemp is a great material for a lot of things including making paper. The Hearst corp (big newspaper publishers) owned huge tracts of forests and wished to encourage the use of trees for paper pulp and stamp out the use of hemp for paper pulp. Hearst was a big force behind “Reefer Madness” and rabid editorials in the papers about the ‘dangers’ of marijuana smoking and the ‘dangers’ of smokers to others. e.g. Business as Usual, corporations get what they want when they spend enough to promote it.

- In more recent decades the “War on Drugs”, along with stupid policies about who runs prisons, has produced a huge privatized prison-industrial complex that wants as many people in prison as possible, because that is good for their profits. They vigorously back legislation and legislators that are “Tough on Crime” (e.g. three-strikes laws), anti-immigration, and anti-drug because those all put more people in jail.
When around 50% of the prison population in the U.S. are incarcerated for non-violent drug crimes like possession, you can see where the ‘free speech’ of prison corporations is expressed.

@dabbler Very interesting! I was not aware of Hearsts influence nor the Mexican farm worker side of the situation. Ya learn something new every day.
“Reefer madness” a classic.
OMG! Quick, arrest me, I am caring for farm animals under the influence, which means they all get overfed. lol

@Buttonstc I’ve asked this question based upon my own personal experiences with people who drink regularly, these are ‘normal’ people by any standards (at least where I live), not people who most would consider to be alcoholics. I’m almost certain that many other people can relate to what I’m saying here.

Well…IMO, and I told my daughter this when she was a teen, I’d prefer she abstain from alcohol much more so than marijuana. I did not advocate substance use period, however, we all know how unrealistic that is with most teens. I would much rather have preferred she got high at a friends house and ate a bag of Oreos and played video games than got on the back of a crotch rocket with a drunk boyfriend.
My “story” is that I enjoyed using marijuana as a younger person, then, went decades where I could count the number of times I smoked on one hand.

NOW..I am almost 53, single, my parenting responsibilities are over, and I have returned to occasional usage the last few years. Quite frankly I don’t give a damn about it being illegal, I don’t have pounds of it lying around the house. I buy a few ozs. a year for my personal use and enjoyment, courtesy of my “gardener” and massage therapist, delivered to my door and I never leave home while under the influence. So shoot me! lol

It is the teens and 20 somethings who do irresponsible things that give it the stigma. It’s also that age group that generally piss off most people anyway. I don’t associate the 50’s group being loud ,stupid and annoying when they imbibe. Age does generally mean more wisdom. So to all you younguns who do dumb things that annoy people…just think, if you live long enough you are bound to really cool like us someday,or not.