I can't seem to find a day where I both do not have to work AND am motivated to continue my research on the marijuana debate. Therefore, I am posting this prior to and as an attachment to the full-article.
In this small essay I will outline what I have dubbed "The Walmart Effect" and how it pertains to the drug trade and our perception of those who deal in it. By reading this I hope to convey how not all those who sell drugs are bad people, how to more appropriately handle the debate on marijuana and its future, and to potentially bring a new perspective to readers to bring about an attitude of understanding as opposed to a "good or bad" dichotomy.
Also, marijuana is just one aspect of this but it pertains to the entire illegal drug trade. I also started to switch from "marijuana trade" to "drug trade" as the essay progressed and am too lazy to correct it. Meh.
Oh, and I didn't proofread this. YOLO!
The Walmart Effect
Walmart is one of those corporations that pretty much everyone agrees is, for lack of a better term, evil. Common connotations include cutthroat, unfair, dominating, cheap, poor, under-maintained, etc. Employees are not compensated very well, are forced to work overtime, requests for improvements are ignored, theft in the parking lots is common, small business' tend to disappear in the surrounding area, traffic exponentially increases in the area... basically a lot of bad things tend to happen when a Walmart comes around. (This has not stopped a large majority of people from shopping there, but hey, where else can you get a 40" LCD TV for $200 AND diapers for your dog?)
Even with all of these negative aspects associated with Walmart, it is likely that anyone who knows a cashier or a stocker or a dock worker does not believe that person to be bad. In fact, they may pity their friend for having to work at such an evil corporation. I am quite certain that this is true even within the corporate framework, wherein friends of people who work at the corporate level do not believe their friend to be bad even if they believe the corporation in general to be quite bad. We maintain the innocence of the individual, yet condemn the company. This is not to say that there are not more than a few truly cruel people at the very top of the chain. Even if their tactics are frowned upon, they are legal. Which brings us to my next point...
I find this same disassociation to be prevalent when it comes to those dealing marijuana. More often than not, when asked to publicly give an opinion on marijuana people will almost every time condemn it. "Marijuana is evil! It is a gateway drug. Everyone who uses, deals, or thinks about marijuana is going to hell forever and ever." However, when confronted by a friend who uses, deals, or thinks about marijuana, the reaction is likely sympathy, pity, or a more neutral stance within the more intimate relationship. We do not see our friend as a bad person even though we may think marijuana is bad. It may be that our friend does not have the education to get a good job, or that there is no one hiring in the area, or that they were pressured into dealing/ using. Regardless of the reason, we humanize the person in spite of how we feel about the drug.
Understanding The Real Problem
What differentiates those who work at the top level within Walmart from those who are at the top of the drug trade are 1) the legality and tactics used and 2) the motivations behind their involvement.
With Walmart, virtually everything they do is legal in one way or another. While public opinion tends to be against what they do, at the end of the day the executives are trying to create as much profit as possible. Their motivation is money, pure and simple. They want to buy a nice house, have a nice car, support their family/ "escorts", etc.
Those in the drug trade are far more sinister. Given drugs are illegal, those who deal with them in mass very likely already have a less than perfect past with the law. Additionally, people will pay far more for something that is illegal than they would for something that is legal, which greatly increases the profits of those who decide to risk being caught by the officials. Generally speaking, your local drug dealer is probably not a very bad person. They are just doing it for the money.
This is what we need to understand and what differentiates your local drug dealer from those at the top; while the small dealer is doing it to fund their life, those at the top are doing it to fund their already highly-illegal, violent, and fear-inducing organizations. It is because drugs are illegal that these dealers wield such power and influence; if they do not supply it, it does not come. Large organizations such as the cartels will clash over territorial disputes, which brings all kinds of terrors with it. While it rarely comes to that point within the States, we do see shades of it when two or more large street gangs battle over territory.
Conclusion
My final point is this; it is impossible to have an honest, unbiased discussion about the social effects of a drug so long as a drug is illegal. Purely by nature of being illegal, any facts about how a drug affects a community of any size will not and can not be accurate. If ibuprofen were to become illegal tomorrow, there would likely be an underground trade just like there is for marijuana, cocaine, etc., and while the drug itself is known not to be bad for you, it too would quickly become as infamous as its current illegal counterparts.
Additionally, in regards to the Walmart effect, we must understand that not all people in the drug trade are bad people, and that not all bad people are involved in illegal activities. Some just need a way to feed their families, knowing the risks that they take every day to do so.
