J. B. Pritzker, Pusherman

Things can sometimes feel pretty grim out here in Illinois, particularly in Chicago. As a troubled city in a politically accursed state frequently afflicted by polar vortexes, we recently elected the singularly incompetent Brandon Johnson as mayor only to watch the illegal-immigrant crisis explode. (As his 28 percent approval rating shows, the city has already given up on him.) It gets worse too, since the Bears will inevitably find a way to blow the No. 1 draft pick this offseason. Governor J. B. Pritzker has some good news for us, however, via Twitter — we can always get high to ease the pain:

For the third year in a row, Illinois had record-setting growth for adult-use cannabis sales.

We’re building the most prosperous and accessible cannabis industry in the nation – taking steps to repair the damage of the past and creating real opportunity for all Illinoisans.

You can practically feel the pride beaming off the dewlapped jowls of Illinois’s improbably corpulent Democratic governor as he becomes the friendly government face of state-licensed (and thus profitably taxed) marijuana: a jolly progressive Pusherman in a blue big-and-tall-sized suit. Sales are up yet again! Profits are high! The state is toking more, it’s a respectable business now! Blunts all around, gentlemen, and smoke ’em if you’ve got ’em — unless they’re cigarettes, that is, in which case please remain outdoors and 20 feet from any entrance at all times.

One’s opinions on the virtues or demerits of America’s ongoing — and, clearly, largely failed — War on Drugs have nothing to do with the rancidness of Pritzker’s statement. It is worth remembering that the founder of National Review was himself a skeptic of the value of the government’s ham-fisted interventions and pointlessly punitive federal sentencing guidelines. Whether you agree or not, surely only the most glib libertine would celebrate the increase of an obvious vice year over year, particularly in the context of how deeply the state is invested in the industry. Imagine Pritzker instead tweeting about how excited he is to see cigarette or liquor sales up for the third year running because the tax coffers runneth over. (“Everybody’s been drinking ever since we locked the city down!”) Pritzker himself signed the Illinois Sports Wagering Act into state law back in 2019, legalizing sports gambling for the first time — and yet you would never see him praising just how tidy a sum of money the state is now making off the weakness of its citizens.

Why is it permitted for marijuana? Two reasons, I suspect. First, notice that ridiculous fig-leaf line about “repairing the damage of the past” in Pritzker’s language. What he refers to there, of course, is the idea that legalizing marijuana in the state (or handing out licenses to a select few black-owned dispensaries) is a form of “restorative justice” making up for past punitive sentencing for crimes like drug possession. As morally dubious as this theory already is — and it is so full of holes it would require a separate article to fully carve that block of Swiss — it becomes twisted into a repulsive amorality to link that to increased sales. If you think someone — or an entire race of people — have been wrongfully over-sentenced for drug-related crimes, the solution is not to encourage them to take more drugs, only this time legally. Was anyone thinking carefully about the moral implications of saying increased drug sales were like restorative justice?

Second, understand that marijuana is simply more accepted and completely normalized within the activist quarters of the Left who influence these policies. Since it is a commonplace in their lives, and they all believe themselves to be well-adjusted and successful individuals (and because they are unfamiliar with the concept of survivorship bias), then it would be hypocrisy (as well as an inconvenience) not to both legalize and celebrate it. I’d accept the hypocrisy from them, actually. For if hypocrisy it must be, then at least hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Flatulently amoral self-congratulation like Pritzker’s is far sleazier: the tribute vice pays to itself.