The Real Reefer Madness: Marijuana Use in 2024

November 30, 2024 by Thaddeus G. McCotter

The public perception of marijuana has shifted from a Baby Boomer-era symbol of harmless rebellion to a more cautious view recognizing its potential harms.

Growing up in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, among my middle-class peers smoking marijuana was considered an act of recreational rebellion. The Baby Boomer’s view of the drug’s use was characteristically cavalier, emphasizing the “harmless” nature of this naturally occurring plant; the alleged “self-actualization” and “self-liberation” the THC high abetted; and the defiant nature of pursuing it in the face of “The Man’s” persecution of its users. This perception is replete throughout Boomer culture, most notably in Rock-n-Roll music, which celebrated smoking reefer as a litmus test of hipness and political awareness.

Yet, older generations persisted in their opposition to the legalization of marijuana. Recall candidate Bill Clinton who admitted to having sampled marijuana but claimed to have never inhaled. It was a snapshot in time of part of his Baby Boom generation’s on-again/really on-again romance with reefer. As Baby Boomers entered their peak earning years, the practical incentives to conform to society’s norms led this indulgent generation to swap greens: weed for wealth. Nonetheless, as the Greatest Generation passed and the now well-off Baby Boomers aged, their “jonesing” for a joint returned with a vengeance. Never ones for self-denial, they advanced the cause of medicinal marijuana use as a gateway to “decriminalization” and, ultimately, the full legalization of the drug.

As this process proceeded apace, the Baby Boomer’s view of marijuana heavily influenced my Generation X and, subsequently, the Millennials and Gen Z. While all three later generations employ the phrase “okay, Boomer” to censor that older generation’s loathsome superciliousness and hypocrisy, it is rarely, if ever, used in relation to their love affair with reefer. Indeed, as the legalization movement gathered steam and successes, younger Americans came to embrace both marijuana and the Baby Boomer’s cultural perception of it as a naturally produced plant that is harmless; therapeutic (the modern guise of “self-actualization;” and an act of defiance—well, at least the stodgy “normies” who still think getting high with a “gateway drug” is dangerous for the user; and debilitating for society.

And—buzz kill!—the ranks of the stodgy normies are rising, if only incrementally. As Catholic Vote’s (a stodgy normie publication if ever there was one) Hannah Hiester reported: a slight majority of Americans now believe marijuana has negative effects upon both the user and society:

Americans’ views on the effects of marijuana on society and users have become slightly more negative in recent years, a Gallup poll found.

Gallup data show that in 2022, 50% of Americans said that marijuana use negatively impacted society as a whole, while 53% said that marijuana had positive effects on users and 45% said it had negative effects.

The most recent data, collected from July 1 to 21, found that 54% of Americans said marijuana use negatively impacts society and 51% said it has negative impacts on users.

Of course, on the issue of marijuana harming partakers, there were partisan, religious, and generational divisions on the issue, with ‘Democrats, non-religious, young adults, or people who had tried marijuana’ stating the drug had a positive impact upon users; and ‘Republicans, religious people, adults over 55 years old, and those who never tried marijuana were significantly more likely to say that marijuana has negative effects on users.’

But it would be a mistake to assume this is just one more partisan battle in the culture war. In the past two years, there has been a distinct erosion of opinion that marijuana is harmless to the user and society:

[W]hen broken down into groups by religion, party, age, and those who have tried marijuana, each group saw support for marijuana use go down by at least five percentage points between 2022 and 2024.

Some groups, like adults aged 55 or older, Independents, and those who rarely or never attended religious services, dropped support for marijuana use by 12 or 13 percentage points in the same time frame.

Still, as a harmful personal vice and societal scourge, marijuana is still deemed less harmful than nicotine-based products—cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, pipes, nicotine patches, chewing tobacco—and alcohol; and, in fact, only “26% of respondents believe marijuana is ‘very harmful.’” But such a negative perception shows every indication of rising: “The public’s perceptions of the harmfulness of marijuana have worsened slightly since last year,” per Gallup, with 23% viewing it as very harmful and 35% viewing it as somewhat harmful. The proof is in the puffing: in 2022 and 2023, between 16 to 17% of Americans said they smoked marijuana; but in 2024 that number was 13%.

What explains the decline in the public’s use and its perception of marijuana as harmless to both the partaker and society? Well, as someone who in their youth smoked marijuana and did inhale—repeatedly—let me hazard a guess: this isn’t the Baby Boomers’ marijuana.

As legalization proceeded, so did the commercialization of cannabis to meet customer demand. Anyone sojourning through an urban area will see cannabis stores on seemingly every corner. One consequence of this competition for customers is to provide them with more THC for the buck. Consequently, though once heralded as a naturally occurring plant, the production of marijuana has increasingly become artificially manipulated and manufactured. For example, WebMD relates how “synthetic cannabinoids, also known as synthetic marijuana, Spice, or K2, are manufactured chemicals that mimic the high of THC. The psychoactive ingredients have different effects than THC and can cause serious reactions.”

Why is THC so prized by consumers of cannabis? Again, per WebMD:

THC is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant. It’s what makes you feel ‘high’ when you smoke marijuana or eat an edible… THC in marijuana stimulates the parts of your brain that respond to pleasure. It also releases your body’s ‘feel good’ hormone dopamine, giving you that relaxed, euphoric feeling.

Not surprisingly, then, while “less is more” has become the rallying cry for the “greening” of the globe to forestall Goddess Gaia’s looming climate apocalypse, THC consumers believe the “more the merrier.” The result of such consumer sentiment is that THC levels in marijuana are substantially stronger than the skunk weed someone’s grandpa smoked in the mud at Woodstock or someone’s mom at the first Lilith Fair. Once more, WebMD:

The amount of THC in marijuana varies. The higher the level, the higher its potency, and the more effects it has on your body and brain. Today’s marijuana plants are stronger than ever. The average strength of THC in marijuana is 15%, up from about 4% in the mid-1990s. [Italics mine.]

This increase in THC potency has led to a rise in consequences for marijuana users. “These higher levels could have some mental health effects on users, including: Hallucinations; Delusions; [and] Psychosis.”

On the whole, we Americans are practical people. As citizens engaged in a revolutionary experiment in self-government, we tend to eschew an ideological view in favor of personal experience and demonstrable effects; and, so doing, tend to err on the side of allowing individuals the liberty of choosing their paths to pursue their happiness –

Until it becomes apparent their path dead ends with their personal destruction and societal damage.

In my life, I have had many friends who bought into the belief that marijuana was a harmless recreational drug. Most of these friends have long since abandoned the vice. (Admittedly, some have merely exchanged weed for whiskey, which can prove equally, if not more, harmful.) Tragically, however, some of my friends walked through the marijuana gateway to harder drugs. Some I have buried; all have I mourned.

Heedless, many marijuana users will persist in chasing their high wherever it leads and whatever the consequences to themselves and others. But let them be under no illusions about the real reefer madness: the pain and anguish over friends and family lost to substance abuse in a nation where our enemies leverage our craving for all manner and means of escapism against us.

An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter (M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional District from 2003-2012 and served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee. Not a lobbyist, he is a frequent public speaker and moderator for public policy seminars; and a Monday co-host of the “John Batchelor Radio Show,” among sundry media appearances.