Lately I have had a lot of free time on my hands, and to pass the days, I have been volunteering at the homeless shelter. I spend most of the day there, this week I will be there all week. Today, toward the end of the day, as I was with one of the assistance recipients, one of them said something to me which I found rather interesting, and in a way a little, comical (is that mean to say?). He started on a tear about Social Security, about how some of the people coming in to the Shelter (which opens for night residents at 4pm) were Social Security recipients (in this case SSI) and could afford to be somewhere else; but were just gaming the system by being at the shelter, indulging in the resources, while of course still receiving Social Security. There was a whole math involved, how if they stay the night at the shelter throughout the week, "they can afford to stay anywhere for 2 days over the weekend." Mind you, this guy himself is on welfare, food stamps, and vouchers, so it was interesting to hear him repeat the stale "Social Security is so bad!!!" talking points. Well, at first I did my normal "Yeah, hmm, ok, I'm a dumb bimbo, whee" act but then as he started to get a little out there, I was all "facts!! Social Security has taken more in than it has paid out for nearly 90% of the years its been around. Do not make up lies about Social Security, Social Security is ok" etc. Anyway, we have this whole back and forth, and eventually he blames it all on Social Security disability or other, specifically people who never worked and did drugs and got messed up, are now getting payments. Then he said "You have these people who got messed up because they smoked some marijuana and now can't --" At that point, the group of us who were there now (about 4 people in total) all stopped the conversation and called it a day. I think just the mention of "marijuana as the drug that is cause for social security waste" was so ludicrous to everyone that the conversation was spontaneously shut down. On a personal note, I think it also provided for me an interesting metaphor at just how outlandish some of the claims about "how horrible Social Security is" have gotten. That its opponents would in this instance blame marijuana as the problem causing object was for me quite an allegory. It's probably not likely, but it will be interesting to see if anything is said about this tomorrow morning.
If most of the people I've seen on SS disability only smoked pot, they'd be better off. The ones I've seen seem to have far worse problems. I saw in the news this week that prescription drugs have statistically surpassed pot as the "gateway drugs".
Likely because the only gateway aspect of pot is being forced into a criminal subculture to attain it. Oxycontins, as I understand them, may as well be prescribed crack.
