Party Vibe

Some states with harsh attitudes towards cannabis are seeing a real rise in opiate problems recently. Hard to want to start sticking a spike in your arm if you can smoke green with little to no consequences.

West Virginia comes to mind, their economy is based off coal mining and they’ve lost 40% of their jobs and now have a rampant heroin problem where before they’d had plenty of issues with Oxycontin as has everyone in Appalachia but not much with heroin and they’re quick to blame Obama for killing coal which may or may not be valid. However the state doesn’t have the most forgiving laws or attitude towards marijuana especially among the older folks who tend to be Evangelical so the situation isn’t great for the plant. When you look at the laws things become a problem: while you can get no criminal record for 15 grams or less for marijuana, a second marijuana possession charge or an unforgiving judge on a first charge or >15 grams carries the same penalties as a heroin possession charge… while the penalties are less strict for selling or trafficking of marijuana in comparison to heroin they aren’t so disparate that there is a huge disincentive for heroin to be your drug of choice. So for people who are poor and distraught its easy to see why dope isn’t logically any worse of a choice than marijuana. Obviously Obama didn’t intend to create a heroin epidemic when he made WV coal less attractive nor did anyone intentionally set up the drug laws in the state so that heroin and marijuana aren’t too different of a choice for a user or a deal as far as penalties are concerned but when you see the situation for what it is then you can connect the dots on why so many people are addicted to dope at this point who previously didn’t use.