Matt Walsh: “Native tribes were five thousand years behind the civilized world ... The fact that they were also high all the time perhaps should tell us something”
Walsh: “We know that a society where people smoke tobacco constantly and drink whiskey from morning to night can also be a highly functional, highly successful society”
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From the March 29, 2024, edition of the Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show
MATT WALSH (HOST): Alcohol and tobacco are part of American culture. OK? Going back to the beginning of this country -- that's one of the reasons why any effort to totally ban them has not been successful. Because it's just -- it's an ingrained part of American culture. Tobacco in particular has helped to build this country from the very beginning, and so did alcohol. Now, I'm not saying that this is a definitive reason to not ban them, but it is a reason to not ban them. And it's a pretty good one, actually. Tradition matters. History matters. Those are part of our culture. Marijuana, historically, is not. Now, somebody brought up that Native Americans -- you know, Native Americans smoked, and so it is part of American heritage. And, you know, I think it's true that Indian tribes had marijuana. Now, as far -- I could be wrong. I haven't done a lot of research on this because I don't care that much, but I think that it was introduced -- I don't think that they had it, you know, prior to contact with -- with the new world. As far as I'm aware, marijuana was introduced to the native tribes in the 15th and 16th centuries. But even if it wasn't marijuana, you know, the native tribes, they smoked peyote. They had other kinds of drugs with hallucinogenic properties. The shamans, the witch doctors, they were always tripping on something. Right? So it is probably true that the -- even if it wasn't exactly marijuana, it -- it's probably true that the drug habits of Native American tribes are closer to the drug habits of Americans today. Like, there's a similarity. But think about that for a second. Because native tribes were five thousand years behind the civilized world. These people were stuck in the stone age, literally. Literally in the stone age, many of them. They didn't have the wheel, they didn't have written language, many of them were nomad -- not all of them, but many of them were nomadic tribes, hunter-gatherers. They were extremely primitive even by 16th century standards. So the fact that they were also high all the time perhaps should tell us something. You know?
I mean, here's the fact, we know, we know that a society where people smoke tobacco constantly and drink whiskey from morning to night can also be a highly functional, highly successful society. We know that, and we know that because that was our society. OK? That was our society in the 20th century when we accomplished all of the things that we accomplished. We were landing on the moon and winning world wars and doing everything else, and going from, like, horse and buggy to the moon landing and beyond. Well, not beyond, unfortunately, but at least to the moon landing. So, we know that. The greatest civilizations on Earth, in the -- the history of the Earth have at least had booze, and lots of it. The greatest civilizations in the history of the world had -- had booze and people were drunk constantly. Our own civilization, when it was great, again, had tobacco and booze and lots of both.