What two issues contributed to cannabis legalization so quickly in so many states?

A Brown University researcher used machine learning to analyze more than three million Reddit comments from 2009 to 2019—a key timeframe in the state-level cannabis legalization movement—to better understand online conversations that have driven people to back cannabis reform. from science

The history of cannabis relegalization is documented online, and now a researcher has used machine learning to find out what types of posts actually influenced legalization. As someone who has written a fair share of cannabis posts over the years, I was interested to see which of my posts actually had some impact on the overall concept.

The research comes from Babak Hemmation, a Brown University researcher who completed his Ph.D. Dissertation and analyzed over 3 million Reddit comments from 2009 to 2019 to analyze how conversations on social media platforms have developed alongside legalization efforts.

The article, entitled “Taking the High Road: A Big Data Investigation of Natural Discourse in the Emerging US Consensus about Marijuana Legalization,” provided some interesting insight into what types of posts had the greatest impact on legalization and how those posts were changing when the facility was legalized.

“Marijuana legalization is a very unusual topic, as bipartisan consensus has been reached within a few years while American society has otherwise become more polarized,” Hemmatian told Marijuana Moment. “I wanted to know if the way the public discusses marijuana has facilitated this unusual change, and how this shift in attitudes has in turn affected the way we talk about cannabis.”

It turns out that “character judgments” were important precursors to legalization. In essence, posts that portrayed prohibitionists in a negative light have done more to shape people’s views on cannabis legalization than personal anecdotes. Personal anecdotes shared how cannabis helped them cope with whatever tortures them.

Hence, it seems that the “shaming the opposition” actually had a bigger impact. Nonetheless, anecdotes have been used to reinforce character judgments. For example: “Prohibitionists are cold-hearted bastards (character judgment) because they want to forbid people from access to medicines. I use cannabis for my migraines and it really works better than any medication (personal anecdote).

Interestingly, current reform issues don’t seem essential to legalization, despite the belief that the way we would regulate cannabis is a top influencer. It turned out, however, that most people weren’t so interested in “how to regulate” as they were just “legalize!” In addition, the health effects increased slightly after legalization – but only incidentally.

“Both topics are highly relevant to whether and how the substance should be deregulated, but were ignored in the decision-making process and only taken into account when the social decision had already been made,” says the study author.

In addition, the author continued;

“While this wasn’t the most convincing approach based on previous research, character judgments may still have pushed people who were averse to legalization but not diametrically opposed to legalization into the camp for legalization … This is because they are the ones making the decision greatly simplify: a no! needs to be more familiar with the complex health, economic and social effects of cannabis in order to decide; they just need to think through their personal moral principles. This may have been comforting during a transition period when uncertainty about the status of marijuana would have frightened many people. “

According to the data, character judgments were the main motivator behind people’s rethinking. It reminds me of how Darwinism took hold in mainstream science. Before Darwin’s theories became popular, there was a point at which people predominantly believed in the “creation story” of our origins. When Darwin proposed his theory, science and “free thinkers” described those who believed in the creation story as “backward”, undeveloped, and stupid.

As a result, people who did not want to be viewed as such accepted the theory rather than truth and has since become a cornerstone of the life sciences – despite several potholes in the theory.

A new dawn of research

This trend of social media study is something that many other institutions like NIDA and the FDA want to implement to get a feel for what the public thinks of their policies. Social media gives anyone with a smartphone access to express their opinion, and as such, it’s a gold mine for research. Of course, it’s hard to quantify because most opinions on social media are just that – opinions.

However, it is definitely a good tool for finding out how people “feel” about any given topic and, when used properly, it can provide a lot of insight into policy makers. Often times, very important information is also hidden in the comments, and while it may not be ideal for convincing people, it does help researchers and writers like me find interesting topics to share with the masses.

A detailed representation of the attitudes of the users can help the legislature to make more informed decisions in the creation of guidelines. It also bridges the apparent separation we have with these people. People like Nancy Pelosi – who goes beyond the average person’s wildest dreams – have no idea how average people live. The political class only flatters its followers – who are rather large corporations these days. Hence, data that accurately reflects people’s mood can help them make more informed decisions.

Of course, ideally, we’d like to get rid of these millionaire politicians asap – but that’s an issue for another day.

The bottom line of this study is that when it comes to convincing people of anything, it is much better to focus on making character judgments about your opponent. In 2021, of course, this has gotten out of hand. With a clear gap between “left” and “right” politics – everyone tries to murder the character of the opposition and thereby creates echo chambers.

While character assessments may have helped legalize weed, it shouldn’t be our standard for convincing people. We should adopt reason and logic as our main means of convincing others. This study has shown us not only what has worked, but also what is wrong with modern discourse.

Can you convince people without murdering the character of the opposition?

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