2012-03-09

Socionomics Watch—Legalizing marijuana

Why does prohibition fall during negative social mood? At least in the Great Depression and current comparison, rising violence makes the public open to legalization. Rather than becoming truly permissive, the society instead may seek an end to the violence. Since falling social mood leads to rising tensions and greater levels of violence, one might think the public would accept more conflict. However, society is looking to fight over issues they care about, not have their personal safety threatened by random violence. During rising social mood, there's less overall violence and society is more willing to make "war" on socially undesirable activities, such as drug use.

Pat Robertson: Pot should be legal like alcohol
The 81-year-old first became a self-proclaimed "hero of the hippie culture" in 2010 when he called for ending mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession convictions.

"I just think it's shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of a controlled substance," Robertson said on his show March 1. "The whole thing is crazy. We've said, `Well, we're conservatives, we're tough on crime.' That's baloney."
An important statement because it comes from the political right, which generally supports tougher drug laws.

For a detailed look at prohibition, legalization and social mood, see The Coming Collapse of a Modern Prohibition.
Today’s wave position is similar to that of the early 1930s, during Congress’ experiment with the prohibition of alcohol, an attempt that we believe is a useful analog for the current criminalization of marijuana.

Prohibition began in 1920 and was maintained throughout the period that the stock market was rising. Then came the famous 1929-1932 collapse and the resulting economic depression, which bottomed in 1933. Three years of collapsing social mood prompted the repeal of Prohibition one year after the 1932 Cycle-degree low. Nine years after the top of 2000, the Drug War persists. This speaks to the larger (Grand Supercycle) degree of the decline and its longer duration. Governments typically respond to social-mood trends very late. So our ideal socionomic scenario is for the Drug War’s ultimate end to occur just after the Supercycle-degree low, as approximated in Figure 2.

When we zoom in on Cycle waves V, from 1921-1929 and 1974-2000, we see many similarities. See Figure 3.
The Coming Collapse of a Modern Prohibition

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