How Have Attitudes To Smoking Changed In The Last 50 Years

What triggered the change in attitude in the last 5-6 years towards marijuana in the U.S.?

I think it's just becoming unenforceable - and further, it's becoming more stupid to enforce.   What was totally reasonable for, say, Virginia to put someone in jail for a pot offense is looking stupid and silly.Virginia Laws & PenaltiesBasically anything over 1/2 oz. in Virginia is a felony.  Yes - a felony. Mandatory jail.... Even if you have cancer, you go to jail.  Stoopid.Plus, when  the THC homologues coming out like JWH-018, 072 etc, it was getting to a point that it might be best to legalize it.... At least with pot,  the DOJ can monitor (and enforce) usage of the product.   The "spices" type drugs just disappear from your system after a couple days.Keep in mind, these spice type drugs (which were pretty damn good and were at least at the time legal - not so much now) came out about the time frame you reference.  Plus, they (spice drugs) were and are considered an unknown health hazard.   I think it was a "shot across the bow" towards the government looking seriously at pot legalization.    If they didn't sanely and seriously address the issue of usage in America, the marketplace was going to make a decision for them.

How have your interests and attitude towards work changed with age?

I'm not sure my interests have changed but my attitude has.When I first started working it was because that's what you did when you left school or college. I followed social conventions. I ‘worked my way up’, motivated by my desire to keep up with my peers in terms of pay and career progression. Work in my twenties was a significant part of my life.Now that I am older, time has a greater value.I am in the fortunate position of not needing to earn a wage (I am a mother, my partner earns enough to support his family). Work is secondary to my family responsibilities. Money and keeping up with my peers is no longer significant. There are so many ways I wish to spend my time that when I work it has to be something I enjoy doing and is flexible. I have found voluntary work fits better with the lifestyle I have chosen. Work is less significant.My current attitude towards work is that there is more to life.

Why did Britain's attitude towards joining the EEC change between the early 50s and late 70s?

Are you saying, in the late 70’s, we were anti EEC? Not, in my recall, particularly, although the cutting of ties with the commonwealth angered some. The EEC was not, then, a major player, particularly, in the lives of most. We still all had frontiers, and trade barriers, as before. In the 1950’s, we were not, by any means, opposed, either, Charles de Gaulle blocked our intention to join. A good deed seldom forgiven. Churchill, that stalwart hero, not, it must be said, everybody’s, policy toward India being an atrocious failure of morality, on his part, was in support of membership.

Compared to 50 years ago, how has racism changed in the United States?

Racism compared to 50 years ago has gone from overt (segregation, kkk, lynching, freely spouting the N word) to institutional (prison industrial complex, poverty, food deserts and related illnesses,) and on a more person to person to level what is called “racist micro-aggression” which would encompass things like - cultural appropriation (taking things from the culture of less powerful races and capitalizing off them, considering certain hairstyles “ghetto” on a person of color but “fashionable’’ on a white person, being followed around in stores, stereotyping, centering whiteness, normalizing whiteness, etc.)Oftentimes when people think of racism they think of the overt kind, but the two other kinds I mentioned are much more of a reality to people of color (esp black skinned people) today because it affects the ability to thrive and quality of life. Also the latter two are more dangerous because white people participate in them without realizing they are participating in racist behavior.Racism is so deeply ingrained in the fabric of our society that it takes very deep level of unlearning to not be an agent of white supremacy.