Until just recently… It wasn’t a very good time to be a gay pot smoker. Luckily, marriage equality is now the law of the land, no matter whose opinions are what they are. In addition, four states (and more to come) have legalized recreational marijuana use. Both issues are very similar because they both concern the rights that citizens and human beings possess. Whether it’s love or consumption, nobody can tell you what to do. Both the average pot smoker and LGBT know what it is like to have to hide who they are.
Of course, there are certain differences. Those who use marijuana typically do not have to face hatred and potential violence from those who oppose pot. From the other side, homosexual’s typically do not have to face jail for who they are. Furthermore, pot smokers choose to smoke, while gays are born the way they are. Finally, marijuana users can be found through certain tests, but gay people can’t be deciphered from a urine or hair test. One oppression isn’t trying to be made of more importance than another, but we are comparing similar oppressions to learn lessons from.
One place in which we’re still restricted is in public accommodation. Oregon’s legalization doesn’t allow the use of weed in a “public place,” aka “a place to which the general public has access and includes, but is not limited to, hallways, lobbies, and other parts of apartment houses and hotels not constituting rooms or apartments designed for actual residence, and highways, streets, schools, places of amusement, parks, playgrounds and premises used in connection with public passenger transportation, or any establishment with a state liquor license… including patios or decks set aside for smokers.” Colorado pressed down on any sort of weed bar, despite the fact that activists in Denver are doing their best to legalize them. In Alaska, cannabis board is already trying to put down the few cannabis clubs that have started up that allow no liquor and are now run by volunteers.
This is as if the Supreme Court had declared it legal for two men or two women to marry, however, forbid them from displaying their affection for one another in public. The analogy is not the most accurate; you cannot be harmed or made high from two men or women kissing in public. However, the point is, “weed is legal now, but make sure you are secretive about it.” In other words, weed is legal now, but keep it in your closet.
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