Social change in the U.S.

 

The above is a photo of The Landing, a marijuana dispensary that opened a few days ago in Berea, Ohio. It's a few minutes drive from my house. 

Robert Anton Wilson didn't live to see cannabis legalization approved in much of the U.S., as he died in 2007 and the first states to legalize weed, Colorado and Washington, did so in 2012. Legalization in Ohio was approved in a statewide vote in 2023, the first dispensaries opened in 2024, and new ones are still opening in underserved areas. Medical marijuana had been approved in California in 1996, though, so the trend is clear.

I have always been interested in history, and social change fascinates me.  Weed legalization is still resisted in many states, but same-sex marriage is now legal everywhere. I have the cell phone number of Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff in the 2015 Supreme Court. I sometimes call him up for newspaper articles. I know a man married to another man, and I suspect many Americans know someone  who has taken advantage of the right to same sex marriage.

I've long been interested in history,  and the pace of social change fascinates me. When I was a student in college, cheating was of course a thing then, too, but in those days, a person who was cheating would get a human being to write a term paper.