That’s purely from observing others in my family who smoke the stuff. Which is possibly why I never smoked the stuff to begin with, that and I never saw the “appeal” of it so to speak.
For me, pot makes my thoughts race. I can only hold onto a though for like 10 secs before I’m onto the next one. So as long as I’m not super depressed, the pot is great, cause I have a good mix of positive and negative thoughs. But if I’m super depressed, all my thoughts are negative, so it’s like having every negative thought you’ve ever had in the space of 10 minutes over and over again.
So if your depressed…pot ain’t gonna be fun, if your just down, then pot is great!
‘los dos’ being cigarettes and pot ? cigarettes i hate more than almost anything on earth; i’m looking for a drug which will allow me not to be aware of my psychological limitations which prevent me from being a fulfilled, and dare i say happy, individual
the french philosopher michel foucault once quipped, ‘happiness doesn’t exist; much less the happiness of human beings’ of course, as french theoreticians are wont to do, much of what they say is for shock value
@echelon you must be among the coolest, most self-reflective ex-military that exists maybe i should try a stint — although i’m sure i’m way too old
People will tell you that smoking robs you of 10-20 years of your life. That’s ok by me. The years between age 70-90 don’t seem all that great.
Its funny how people are excited by how we’re all living longer now. Really? What’s so great about living to 120? If there was a way to make your 20’s last for thirty years that would be great. Unfortunately the extra years you get are when you’re old and decrepit.
Time for another cigarette.
You’ve seen the Ol’ El Paso ad, Senõr? “Why noy both?” as in experiencing both help and depression from MAARRY JAAAAAAANE (sorry, couldn’t help it).
In regards to the military…mate…we had a 34 year old in my platoon and he did the job pretty well, plus we had a Padre pushing sixty years old who’d run circles ’round us and smash out push ups with ease, he wouldn’t let me in on his stash of Jesus Juice however… My point being you’re not too old, long as you can do what’s expected of you and to a very high standard, I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be enlisted.
(Of course there’s the medical side of stuff etc and criteria may differ in your country)
Ha, I always cringe when my friends make that argument. Yes it will knock 10-20 years off your life. But its also probably going to make your last 10 years miserable. Dependent on oxygen, gasping for breath with the slightest exertion, etc. Saw it in my grandma. Died at 62. First heart attack and lung cancer at 49 and 51 respectively.
@c4 not to be combative, but my late brother (who was my closest relative, by far), may he rest i peace, died in his mid fifties from lung cancer, and he didn’t even smoke that much — although he lived with a smoker
believe me, you don’t want to see the pain and suffering of cancer patients, let alone those who are very close to you
aside form the health issues, i simply can’t physiologically stand cigarette smoke — my body viscerally reacts as though it’s ingesting (via breathing second-hand smoke) poison — which modern cigarettes with all their additives, quite literally are
@re i love your suggestion of both actually a friend of mine who suffers from depression, has been telling me to delve into mary jane; as luck would have it, i think last night i finally made a good reliable connection, since in general terms, i’m way out of the loop on these matters
your bow is graciously honored, as your contribution to this site, as duly noted by many, is extremely appreciated
@Duderino; No offense meant, that’s just my opinion.
I’ve never thought of death as sad – to me it’s inevitable and natural. My dad died a few years ago, so did a friend I’d known since we were eight. I never cried or felt sorry for either of them. It was their time to go, so they left. It happens. It happens to everyone. Grief, or any emotion won’t change what’s happened or what will happen to all of us eventually.
Don’t mean to sound glum.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
i enjoy your comments and perspectives very much: you seem to be a very grounded person, who’s managed to accept with equanimity life’s rough edges — a rare gift
Its a depressant. You do the math.
No I’m not anti-pot, smoked it long ago myself. ALOT. When I was depressed and suicidal, Dr said. Hey, why don’t you knock that off. It doesn’t help.
I can see some of you need to do a little more research… or rather, do any, since it seems like you’re all just spouting parroted party-lines about cannabis being “bad.”
Not smoking weed makes me more depressed, definitely.
The ONLY problem with cannabis, is the laws. Too many people believe the BS fear-mongering and stigmas. The only part that hurts you in any way, is the particulate matter in the smoke; if you vape it, it won’t hurt you at all (at least, relatively speaking… even sunlight and dairy products will cause harm in the long run… but we all gotta die someday, and cannabis’ benefits far outweigh any detriment it may facilitate).
The drug that will help in the long run (considering that evey other drug will make you pay the initial benefit with way too much suffering) are anti depressants. There are many types, the most accreditated are IMAO, that are inhibitors of MAO. MAO are cellular enzymes that destroy Serotonin.
I recommend you this because i tried drugs (marijuana, hashish, alcool and cigarettes) and i can’t say that any of those substance would have helped me finding a stable happiness. They express their positive effect the first time you use them, but after that, you become resistant to the dosage (so you don’t feel anything) and dependent (so, as Clevername said, you feel void when you don’t take them).
It’s really a subject i have on heart. The balance i drawn is: that no leisure substance will help, but will fuck your life instead. What you need is a precise substance that specifically acts on your brain, and not random endorfine-like shit (like endocannabinoids).
no… we need to be allowed to access enjoyable experiences. Other people’s imposed rules, disallowing us from enjoying those experiences, is at the root of depression.
and it’s not that i feel “void,” it’s that i feel PAIN, and it does not go away! Do you understand? Cannabis makes me Feel better.
The real problem is that there’s this huge global cultural clusterfuck designed to demonize anything that makes people feel Good!
“They” want us to suffer! That’s both infuriating and depressing!
I don’t want this world to be the way it is, but i can’t change it!
And no, responsible cannabis use does not lead to “resistance.” You’re not supposed to smoke as much as possible all the time. THAT is “abuse.” You’re supposed to use it responsibly and in moderation, not like a teenager who just felt his first high.
STIGMA! See? THIS is what i’m talking about. Stop trying to demonize cannabis. It doesn’t belong in the same sentence as “alcohol” and “tobacco” and “heroin.”
@duderino: (in re: “What drug makes you feel well”): mixed amphetamine salts @ 20mg, 2x a day. Probably the D-isomer in isolation would work more efficiently, but that’s harder to get than mixed L/D isomers. Isn’t perfect, but it works OK for me, most of the time.
I see.. i agree on the social aspect, of course. 1) People have not the right to choose what you and me could or could not smoke, so i should be able to do the fuck i want.
2) Marijuana is not comparable to heavy drugs like heroin.
But this is beyond the issue. I talk for my personal experience, and for me marijuana has been a failure. I felt really good, don’t misunderstand me – i had maybe the most amazing experiences thanks to it. But you can’t judge a drug (and in general, a substance) only on the positive sides, if you want to suggest it or to discourage it.
And the negative sides for me were too heavy to be balanced by the positive ones.
We are talking about suggesting a depressed people to use pot, and this amplifies furthermore the collateral effects, that are: dependency, addiction. I have been a user myself, i still have friends that use it, and i think it’s undeniable that these are the collateral effects. They are not secluded to abusers, they are present with increasing intensity in every user with reference to the dosage.
It works this way:
you’re not only depressed for your own problems, but you feel the downward spiral of dependency; so you have to smoke it.
But you’re accustomed, so you don’t get the initial effect.
So you smoke more. But what does this lead you to? To be more accustomed.
I hope you don’t confine me as the classic churchy dull opposer of marijuana, as many people are. I made my opinion on facts, not on prejudice.
Of course, i don’t think that my view is the right one, but it’s what i firmly believe in.
Huh? I smoked multiple ounces of pot a day and never experienced any dependency or addiction. One day I realized I didn’t like smoking pot, so I stopped and experienced no ill effects from that choice. If you want to talk addiction and dependence, try smoking tobacco. Now that shit will mess with you if you stop cold-turkey.
I’ve had discussions with a friend of mine about the “problem of psychological dependence,” especially when it comes to psychiatric meds. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, per se, with dependence, so long as it’s responsibly approached. We’re dependent on food, water, air, free from pathogenic contaminates, and the intake of vitamins to support proper cellular function and overall life. If taking some substance makes living more tolerable and less difficult, I have no qualms about depending on that substance, granted it continues to provide the same return over time. Because, let’s face it, any substance you ingest (vitamins, water, food, air, etc..) is modifying or interacting with the function of specific cells in specific parts of the body. When discussing drug use, those cells are neurons in the brain.
The dependency i’m referring to is especially psychological. This means that you feel a sense of void, a sense of demotivation, a sense of something lacking from your life. I have experienced it too clear to negate it, and this is not all: all my friends are currently smoking and to them it’s happening the same.
Not only: this is also written is quite every study done on cannabis.
I’m happy for you if you manage to stop without consequences 🙂
What is often confused with psychological dependency is the physical one: and cannabis cause a physichal dependency that is unimportant. But here’s a reminder: the dependency that fucks you deeper, it’s always the pshycological.
Cigarettes that you mentioned, cause a far more intense pshychological and physical dependency; but trust a man that managed to stopped smoking cigarettes: the dependency that fucks you is always the psychological, never the pshysical (that consist in a feeling of hunger, nausea, headache, that goes away in term of days)
I completely understand what you’re saying. I thought it too, at the time.
Here’s the breakage point:
“I have no qualms about depending on that substance, granted it continues to provide the same return over time.”
Cannabis (in general, drugs) does not.
Cannabis does not provide the same return at all: this is the explained and worlwide demonstrated process of addiction. (that is different from dependency. Addiction means that you need a higher dosage to feel the same effect)
the ‘war against drugs’ (a stupid euphemism if there ever was one) is at its heart, an econo-religious-political war: the economics goes against the legally established drugs — alcohol, tobacco, psychotropics (benna’s post notwithstanding, the science behind the psychotropics is extremely scant at best, which is why all the major pharmaceutical companies are curtailing their psychotropic research),the religious component goes against the fear of anything that is not part of the official sacrament, and the political component is quite simply to disenfranchise poor black people
luckily, times-they-are-a-changin, or so it seems
there are actually some excellent books on this topic, but i’m too tired, and it’s too late, for me to look up the references some other time
And to be honest, this that i just mentioned is not the reason why dependency is bad.
The reason is that dependency makes you feel void if you don’t assume the drug.
This is different from the dependency that we have on food and vital substances, because the dependency that we have on vital substances is necessary; the dependency on drugs are not.
This means that to feel normal, a normal man has to get food. A drug addict, has to get food plus the drug to feel NORMAL. (because of the fenomenon of addiction). And this is evidently bad.
Trust me, i’ve been there, especially for cigarettes, but it works either way for cannabis.
@benna: I’ve read the studies, and I’ve also read the studies which contradict them. The question of psychological dependence with marijuana use is a question mired in political implication and scientific controversy, because the idea of dependence itself has negative psychological connotations. I think it’s silly to say dependence is always a bad thing, because clearly we depend on a great many things without questioning their merits. Some things improve quality of life, while some may be seen as detrimental, but if pot increases that quality for an individual, I can’t understand disparaging it. Now heroin, for example, is normally done using an IV or free-base route (smoking), both of which carry a different set of high-risk consequences, granted you’re smoking or injecting a refined tar made by amateurs using makeshift equipment. Heroin itself also has a psychical dependency profile, unlike marijuana (although some studies seem to suggest pot is physically addictive, I’ve never seen that manifest in practice).
But the withdrawal you describe from smoking cigarettes sounds light compared to what I get from it. Which is not surprising: I don’t think I’ve met anyone who goes through what I do when I try to give the stupid things up. It’s almost like I fall into a state of complete stupor and can’t even understand simple sentences. That’s why I get irritable when trying to quit. The world becomes incomprehensible and frustrating. That, far more than the psychological aspects of smoking, is what fucks me over when trying to quit.
@benna: The tolerance to marijuana use continues on an ever expanding upward trajectory – it doesn’t seem to increase exponentially, you simply get familiar with the effects from it and even out at a certain plateau, where you remain for a significant amount of time without any fluctuation either up or down. It’s also been suggested that one of the chemicals in cannabis (aside from THC) causes a “reverse physical tolerance” over prolonged use, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true. I do know that it always took roughly the same amount of pot to get me stoned over the course of the several years I smoked it, and the only reason I increased my intake was to become “more,” stoned than I really needed to be. I was a young idiot, though, and really liked excess.
@benna: Semantics. You feel lethargic and like crap if you don’t eat right. Likewise, you might feel lethargic and like crap even despite eating well, but feel better when taking some psychoactive substance. That’s all there is to it.
If you are normal, don’t smoking does not lead a change in your mood: you stay happy.
If you are an addict and if you don’t smoke, you’re unhappy. (and this is absolutely undeniable)
Therefore, dependency does cause you depression. (and try to imagine how could fuck up an already depressed guy!)
If you smoke instead, and fuel the tolerance, what happens? You are not unhappy that day, but the dependency continues to hang over your head like a guillotine. What’s more, you don’t even get the full effects due to tolerance.
In the same category as drugs, though, most people in the developed world are absolutely dependent on cars, technology, fossil fuels, convenience provided at deferred cost by corporate entities, and government subsidies. There are stupidly arbitrary categories of dependence that serve to compartmentalize the subjects and make people into hypocrites when examined non-judgmentally.
This is way we should start getting rid of some of them, starting with marijuana. Then, i’m not demonizing it. I’m demonizing the abitual use, but for recreational purposes it’s amazing and i suggest everybody to try it at least once. You get stoned, you’re happy, but you don’t let it enter into your life, because otherwise you just have another fuel you have to buy to be able to go.
AAAnyway. Cannabis aside. Do you wanna talk about cigarettes? those bitches really are the devil. Tell me about your nicotine story, i’ll tell you mine 🙂
The only real way to get rid of them (in re: things we’re dependent on) is to get rid of civilization and the foundation of our economy. I mean, do you use toothpaste to clean your teeth every day? What do you suppose would happen if you stopped using products intended to improve dental hygiene? Well, tooth-decay and inevitable tooth-loss is one probable outcome. But why? Naturally, primates do not clean their teeth with fluoride-containing products. Well, it’s a dependency useful at offsetting the fact that our food supply is saturated with refined sugars (which do not occur in anywhere near such abundance in nature). In a state of nature, therefore, fluoride-containing toothpastes and hygiene products would be superfluous. Likewise, so would drugs that alter one’s neurochemical processes. Society is like a powerful opiate that every one of its members is equally addicted to; how each member copes with it will vary from person to person.
I understood now what you’re saying. Your thought is reasonable and true. I agree with it; now, i ask you to order these things we are dependent on, considering their efficiency to do what they are supposed to do.
For the knowledge that i have of toothpaste, this will be in the top ten; but marijuana will be one of the last, because of
1) tolerance
2) you’re not happy if you don’t do it (that does not happen in a toothpaste, i think 🙂 ) This process i call : psychological dependency.
I can’t even respond because of how absurd your reasoning seems.
Anyone who thinks cannabis needs to be eradicated or prohibited, with laws authorizing use of force and imprisonment for “offenders,” needs to just go die already. Seriously.
I don’t think pot causes an unmanageable issue with tolerance. That’s the only problem I see with what you’re saying. I mean, you might say amphetamine use for ADHD has an obvious problem with the same issue, but that’s easily mitigated by not taking it for a few weeks to flatten one’s tolerance following several months or more of regular use. And that’s exactly how I use my ADHD meds. Why would it not work the same way with pot? Sure, there’s a little discomfort involved, but the drug maintains it’s efficacy for a much further extended period of time, if not indefinitely. Why must it be black and white?
Also, @benna: I think you would be very unhappy if you stopped offsetting the problems caused by the massive intake in refined sugars that comprise most people’s diets. That’s assuming you’re not diabetic, of course, but even then, eating habits are much different for civilized people as they are for our primate relatives, which also contributes to the problem. Having your teeth falling out would most likely dampen your self-worth and your emotional state, if not only a little.
No came on, clevername. Don’t wish me death 🙂 I know you’re a supporter and i said in a post before that i think it’s wrong to impose to others what to do. So if you want, do it.
I think my opinion about marijuana can be riassumed as:
in the long run, an abitual use it’s not worth it.
Well, @lorax i think that -and this is not a little achievement- we managed to establish specifically in what we don’t agree. I think tolerance plays a bigger role than you think. And i think that psychological dependency of marijuana is not balanced by a beneficial effect (as, the toothpaste one), but you think so.
Also, you’re super right when you say that nothing it’s black or white. I’m semplifying by considering the limit situations, but infinite mid-situations exist (for which maybe my thought do not apply, or are less true -if true at all)
The only “problem” with weed is the laws, and the laws only became law due to fraud and perjury (which technically makes them invalid, which means millions of people have had their lives literally ruined due to unjust and invalid laws, which the courts have refused to allow to be changed, for a very long time). If i didn’t have to be threatened by an authoritarian government, I’d be high /right now/, and would not be nearly as miserable, even in otherwise identical circumstances.
That’s the point: it helps in ways nothing else can, when nothing else can.
@benna: If you personally found that pot doesn’t help much in your specific situation, I’d ague that not everyone has the same neurochemical makeup, and therefore, pot does not effect everyone the same way. I smoked pot for a number of years and it made me intensely anxious/paranoid, most of the time, but I continued doing it because on some level I was oblivious to those effects, or that they might stop if I stopped smoking pot. Once I realized that fact, I stopped smoking it, and was perfectly content not to smoke it again (with a few exceptions: if I have body aches or have some sort of pain, I might still smoke a little bit of pot, but not enough to get me stoned, and it’s most definitely not often that this happens – more like once every four to eight months). Some people are just frankly more happy and function better when high, and I don’t grudge them one bit for it.
Like I said, I think it works differently for everyone. When I was getting stoned every day, I was happy to go out in social situations, provided I was with a group and I could defer pretty much all social activity to the other people in the group (I.E. I didn’t have to really do much other than laugh or make jokes occasionally – but doing things of my own volition put me straight into panic-mode, so I was usually more keen on never leaving the house). I know it’s not like that for lots of people who smoke it, though – I’ve met people it has the opposite effect on, who feel extremely anxious going out in public while sober, but can manage it like a boss while stoned. I was reading about the different compounds in marijuana, and I had a realization: only one time did I have an exceptional experience with pot, where it left me clear-headed and not anxious at all in public, and that was after smoking this stuff we were told was, generically, blueberry hydro.
Well, it seems that some strains have a higher ration of CBD to THC than others, and strains high in CBD actually relieve anxiety, while those lower in CBD increase anxiety. If I could get my hands on some high-CBD strain, I’d be very curious about growing it and seeing how i feel while smoking the stuff. I suppose that will be one huge benefit of legalization, if it ever comes about; people can more precisely know what they’re smoking than they due under criminalization.
I hope you are honest and i’m therefore happy for all of you that this substance is giving you, or has given to you, such good and free positive effects. I don’t only base my thought on my experience and on my little knowledge of biology, though, but on other people’s experience.
Now, what i see, and i see everyday, is really different from what you’re telling me.
Almost every close friend of mine is a user, i’m talking about like 10 guys.
Not a single one of them that has attempted to quit, has managed. And they were willing to do it. On the other hand, my experience was the same.
So i don’t know @lorax how you could peacefully quit like you never smoked, but i’m happy for you.
Not only: they smoke regularly, 2 joints per day, while they were smoking much less in the first stage: BUT they sort the same effects. (typical of tolerance).
Not only: when they don’t smoke, they are nervous and annoying as shit. Coincidence?
Here is my opinion: for a normal man, this drug is not worth it.
It makes you numb all day long while it does allow you to go completely high, only with higher dosage. You can’t find peace without it, like in all psychological dependency.
You get to the point where you smoke because you need it, not because you want it. You are unmotivated, tired, you lose your energy! One friend told me he was trying to quit because he wanted to hit again on girls!
For a depressed man, this drug is ridicolous. You might as well take painkillers, analgesics, endorfines, and a little knowledge is required to see that the administration of these substance does not help balance the problem, but go hit a whole different target, which is the pain relieving, that has NOTHING to do with depression! Then, you have to face the collateral effects (that every drug has, anti-depressants included) of a drug that hasn’t helped you in the first place.
I smoked well over 2 ounces of pot a day (which is a helluvalot more than 2 joints, by a wide margin), and I’m being completely honest about quitting as I did. I have two close friends who quit at around the same time, for the same reason, with similar results. Of my friends who I’m still in contact with, though, I’m the only one who is personally OK with using pot very infrequently as a last-ditch pain-reliever, in low doses. Each of those people are equally gung-ho about marijuana legalization (complete decriminalization, not just medical use). At the same time, I’ve met people who had a really hard time quitting because they personally identified with the so-called, “marijuana subculture” (I.E. they had pot-leaf posters on their wall, defined themselves as a pothead, followed all the pot-promoting media icons fervently, and generally held a very close personal connection with the idea of smoking pot). I think that’s a whole spectrum of problems which would likely evaporate if the drug were made legal, because it would no longer be a rebellious, or counter-cultural thing to do.
@clevername: I don’t think it’s black/white – there’s a wide margin for variation between people, when it comes to how they respond to the stuff. I think the laws and demonization that come from drug-tests in places of employment should vanish like smoke so we could all see what that smoke was actually concealing. Because it’s very true that it’s currently clouding everyone to the reality under discussion by limiting people’s access to reliable information about the contents of what they’re smoking, and criminalizing behavior that doesn’t harm anyone based on a spurious argument that it’s harming the people smoking it, while those very people scoff at the idea that it’s harming them. It’s a huge clusterfuck of mythology and stupidity. Very little of it is based on science or free-inquiry. In fact, it’s mostly based on just the opposite.
Not everything that humans enjoy enough to continue doing regularly, should be generalized under the stigmatic label of “addiction.”
I like to do what i like to do, as much as i can, because someday i will not be alive to enjoy any of those things.
Smoking two joints a day is not that much. Two OUNCES (lorax!) is WAYYY too much. You don’t need /nearly/ that much. I was a regular self-medicator for almost 20 years. I would have had a hard time smoking just a quarter in a day. I would have to try hard to burn through an eighth of kind-bud in a day.
Like i keep repeating (which keeps being ignored)… it’s all about responsible moderation. My tolerance never increased past needing more than 3 “hits” to be “high.” 3 hits is really all it takes… maybe 4-5 on a particularly stressful day; anything beyond that is just superfluous, but still not “harmful.”
I had a friend who was in the import/export business, if you know what I mean, so I helped him with his importing of uh, products, and so I had a fairly massive amount of, uh, products in which to revel. And like I mentioned elsewhere, I really liked reveling back then and tended to overdo everything just because I could. I’m a little older, a little wiser, and a lot more in favor of moderation these days.
Also, @clevername: I totally get what you’re saying, and I totally agree with it. I just don’t respond to it the same way as other people do, and that’s natural variation at work, I think. Some people like alcohol, other people think it’s annoying to feel buzzed, while other people are just social drinkers. Same is true for most every drug, imo. Just some are more difficult to work with than others (I.E. the “hard,” drugs).
If you’re subject to random urinalysis you’ll quit smoking, especially if “pissing dirty” means you’ll lose your source of income.
It’s strange, your “personal time” isn’t yours to use as you please. I know quite a few people who were excellent employees that lost their job because of what they chose to do off the clock.
well… i think i “know what you mean,” and i’ve certainly had my fair share of “smoke outs,” but… there’s “self-medicating,” and then there’s “partying.”
I honestly think a lot of people overuse and abuse it, just because that’s what they’re taught… and also partially due to the stigma about “drugs,” and the fact that people who “get into drugs,” tend to be predominantly “self-destructive” or “reckless” or “rebellious,” and so are rather prone to taking anything further than it needs to go… just to “stick it to the man,” or the parents, or whatever.
But still, i’m not really saying anyone shouldn’t get super-blazed once in a while, or even thrice in a while… but the worst that can happen (aside from getting raided or failing a piss test) is that people will sit on a couch and laugh at stupid jokes, and eat doritos until they pass out (and sleep wonderfully, i might add), and then wake up feeling great.
To contrast: just think of all the potentially fatal circumstances that can arise from humans engaging in sexual intercourse. Should we make that illegal too? And would that really stop anyone? And does making unjust laws mean the system facilitating such a thing should be respected? I’m pretty sure the answer to those questions is “no.”
“If you’re subject to random urinalysis you’ll quit smoking, especially if “pissing dirty†means you’ll lose your source of income.”
But would you define that as “wanting” or “being compelled by unavoidable circumstance?” I’m going with the latter, which isn’t the same, and isn’t “wanting to quit.” It’s being terrorized into quitting (fear of loss of income counts as terrorism, because without income, most of us will either starve to death or freeze to death).
@clevername: Making anything illegal has the consequence of making it attractive to young people who think authority figures are stupid and should be ignored. I say legalize everything and let the chips fall where they may. If people have a hard time regulating their behavior on their own, let them get treatment once they come to terms with the fact that it’s causing them problems. If it were up to me, there would be no such thing as employment screening for drug use, because I think that’s stupid, pointless, and completely arbitrary. If they’re stoned at work, the only time that should be a problem is when it turns into a problem (I.E. they act stupidly, or do something reckless or dangerous). Much like it would be for non-stoned people. I don’t think it’s a given that people who are stoned will naturally create problems at places of employment. I’ve met some extremely competent stoned people in my life. If they’re stoned at home, who the hell cares, unless they’re stoned at work and causing problems because of it? Our whole cultural approach to drug-use is absurd and draconian.
@clevername: I didn’t want to quit but I had to comply or risk losing my livelihood. I was high the entire time I was awake for about 3 years. hehe Those were good times. I got good grades during my high years, too.
Now I’m a responsible alcoholic adult. They won, I admit defeat, and I’m ok with it.
Are we meeting up for karaoke or what, clevername? You gonna rock the mic? I’ll buy the first round, c’mon.
Maybe if there were only reasonable and respectable laws, more people would respect the laws and their enforcers, and consider them valid and worth honoring, rather than simply submitting and complying due to fear of consequences.
Maybe if all laws made sense, and were explained sufficiently to “the youth,” then they would think “this is good, this is a good law, and i understand why it needs to be law, and agree that everyone should follow it.”
But instead, our system makes stupid laws for the wrong reasons, and then only offers threats and insistence, rather than any satisfactory explanation based on sound and “just” reasoning (irony: “justice” bears an uncanny amount of similarity to “just-is,” which sort of means “i can’t/won’t explain, and that will have to be good enough for you to comply anyway…”).
That reminds me of an answer my mom gave me as a kid. I would ask “how do you know that God really exists”? She would answer “because I SAID SO. I KNOW”.
That didn’t sound like a good enough reason to me. “Because I said so” sounds a bit tyrannical.
“Because I said so! Now shut up and eat your soylent green.”
“But what IS soylent green?”
“What did I just say? Ask one more stupid question and you’ll go to bed without dinner!”
“Yes, ma…”
Yeah… good ‘ole “because i said so.” Never worked for me either.
“…well, why did you say so?”
“because i said so!”
“oh… so, you said so, because you said so; you don’t even know WHY you said so; you simply made a choice to declare whatever it is that you want me to believe, and expect that i will simply believe it without evidence or explanation… you must think i’m stupid…”
Yes. “Who do you think you are questioning me”?! “The egg doesn’t question the chicken”!
Oh, sorry. Maybe I never asked to be born to stupid parents. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, *****.
I wasn’t the ideal child. – Never question your elders. They know best.
Not.
I think the roots of my existential crisis began when a teacher of mine said, “There are no such thing as stupid questions.” I then asked how we can know that unicorns don’t exist. It was all downhill from there.
I recently saw graffiti which read “question everything”. Underneath that somebody spray painted “Why”?
I liked that.
Lorax, you’re undergoing an existential crisis? I don’t believe that for a second. You just need a motorcycle. It’ll change your life, man. Second best thing you can put between your legs you know.
My uncle’s supposed to be giving me his motorcycle, since he’s an old fart now with a wife and two kids, but I haven’t heard anything about that in a while. It’s some generic Honda that’s been sitting in his garage for ages, but I think it’d be pretty cool to have one. It’d confuse a friend of mine, too, who’s always railing on about how he doesn’t understand why people ride motorcycles, and how dumb and dangerous it is. I figure the more dumb and dangerous it is, the more fun it might be, but one can only tell for sure by trying it at least once.
Shit. Smoking is allegedly dumb & dangerous but that’s never stopped me from seeking pleasure.
Don’t listen to the paranoid people who want to live forever – they’re fucking boring.
Fix up the Honda and form a gang. You guys can be renegade landscapers er something.
You’ve ridden a bicycle before, right? Imagine riding a motorized bike that does triple digits uphill and corners like a Banshee. Flick your wrist, twist that throttle and go. It’s best without a helmet, too. (Helmets are like condoms – totally kills the sensation).
I’m smoking right now. And fuck those stupid store-bought, pre-manufactured cigarettes. If I want to smoke plastic, I’ll put some in when I roll the things myself. I like tobacco too much – it’s such a magnificent plant with pretty dainty flowers and huge, interesting leaves that I thoroughly enjoy smoking.
@c4 I would never ride without a helmet. It was bad enough to see someone go down and nearly lose their entire leg right in front of me. That said, I’m in for the SP ride meetup. While I don’t smoke weed, there are few people who hate the state as much as I do. But it’s hard to get harassed by them when it’s 3 a.m. on a summer night and you’re cruising at the top of 6th 🙂
@Fro-not-so-zen; I find you intriguing. What will you sing on karaoke night? You’re on stage, you’re holding the mic, you pick the song……how will you entertain the assembled throng? The entire SP audience is caught in your spell…..
Yeh, I need reasons to humiliate myself like I need holes in the head. For the sake of pretending though, and if unintelligible humming counts, then the circus theme music. Hands down.
Dude, the audience is drunk. They’re jerking off and falling asleep.
Circus theme music? What are the words to that? You’re going to hum into the microphone?
Yawn.
I’m getting sleepy.
G’nite.
(I’ll be dreaming of Japanese cartoon characters as I nod off).
I can’t stop laughing. If somebody gets up to the microphone on karaoke night and starts humming circus theme music, you might want to swiftly dismiss yourself. Cause all I can see in my head is some psycho path that is about to start slaughtering people while he waltzes around continuing to hum as calmly as he would be walking through a candy store or something.
It’s only fitting in the absurd land of the confidently degenerate and morally deprived. I don’t really know what to tell you if you construe it as anything outside of a joke, maybe a lame one at that. You need to do what’s right and raise your kid instead of trying to start shit with me.
Wasn’t trying to “start shit” with anyone. It was just an image that popped into my head while reading it. And there is nothing I’d rather do then be with me son and raise him as I want. Thanks for commenting on things you obviously don’t know or understand. Maybe your not much of an eagle and should flock back out to the people you describe in your first post. Cause for a “self aware” person how how did you miss the fact your an asshole? And your perception to understand obviously lacks if you decided to read my posts and throw my son in my face in that manner. So fuck you good sir. Sorry for simply commenting on an imaginary situation to begin with. Have a great fucking night.
If that’s the case then I apologize. You don’t need to tell me who I am. If I was unaware I wouldn’t be here. Sorry for going low, I hope everything works out for you and your family.
81 comments
I don’t know about pot but smoking cigarettes makes me twice as much depressed. That’s why I quit them.
cigarettes also cause all kind of severe health problems, as i’m sure you’re aware
i’m looking to relieve my anxiety and pain, not to get lung cancer or heart disease
Don’t make me depressed, makes me anxious as hell, though. That’s why I quit smoking the stuff.
what drug makes you feel well — in the most expansive sense possible ? i’m sick of chasing rainbows
¿Por que no los dos?
That’s purely from observing others in my family who smoke the stuff. Which is possibly why I never smoked the stuff to begin with, that and I never saw the “appeal” of it so to speak.
For me, pot makes my thoughts race. I can only hold onto a though for like 10 secs before I’m onto the next one. So as long as I’m not super depressed, the pot is great, cause I have a good mix of positive and negative thoughs. But if I’m super depressed, all my thoughts are negative, so it’s like having every negative thought you’ve ever had in the space of 10 minutes over and over again.
So if your depressed…pot ain’t gonna be fun, if your just down, then pot is great!
‘los dos’ being cigarettes and pot ? cigarettes i hate more than almost anything on earth; i’m looking for a drug which will allow me not to be aware of my psychological limitations which prevent me from being a fulfilled, and dare i say happy, individual
the french philosopher michel foucault once quipped, ‘happiness doesn’t exist; much less the happiness of human beings’ of course, as french theoreticians are wont to do, much of what they say is for shock value
@echelon you must be among the coolest, most self-reflective ex-military that exists maybe i should try a stint — although i’m sure i’m way too old
People will tell you that smoking robs you of 10-20 years of your life. That’s ok by me. The years between age 70-90 don’t seem all that great.
Its funny how people are excited by how we’re all living longer now. Really? What’s so great about living to 120? If there was a way to make your 20’s last for thirty years that would be great. Unfortunately the extra years you get are when you’re old and decrepit.
Time for another cigarette.
@duderino
*bows graciously*
You’ve seen the Ol’ El Paso ad, Senõr? “Why noy both?” as in experiencing both help and depression from MAARRY JAAAAAAANE (sorry, couldn’t help it).
In regards to the military…mate…we had a 34 year old in my platoon and he did the job pretty well, plus we had a Padre pushing sixty years old who’d run circles ’round us and smash out push ups with ease, he wouldn’t let me in on his stash of Jesus Juice however… My point being you’re not too old, long as you can do what’s expected of you and to a very high standard, I don’t see any reason why you wouldn’t be enlisted.
(Of course there’s the medical side of stuff etc and criteria may differ in your country)
Ha, I always cringe when my friends make that argument. Yes it will knock 10-20 years off your life. But its also probably going to make your last 10 years miserable. Dependent on oxygen, gasping for breath with the slightest exertion, etc. Saw it in my grandma. Died at 62. First heart attack and lung cancer at 49 and 51 respectively.
@c4 not to be combative, but my late brother (who was my closest relative, by far), may he rest i peace, died in his mid fifties from lung cancer, and he didn’t even smoke that much — although he lived with a smoker
believe me, you don’t want to see the pain and suffering of cancer patients, let alone those who are very close to you
aside form the health issues, i simply can’t physiologically stand cigarette smoke — my body viscerally reacts as though it’s ingesting (via breathing second-hand smoke) poison — which modern cigarettes with all their additives, quite literally are
@re i love your suggestion of both actually a friend of mine who suffers from depression, has been telling me to delve into mary jane; as luck would have it, i think last night i finally made a good reliable connection, since in general terms, i’m way out of the loop on these matters
your bow is graciously honored, as your contribution to this site, as duly noted by many, is extremely appreciated
@Duderino; No offense meant, that’s just my opinion.
I’ve never thought of death as sad – to me it’s inevitable and natural. My dad died a few years ago, so did a friend I’d known since we were eight. I never cried or felt sorry for either of them. It was their time to go, so they left. It happens. It happens to everyone. Grief, or any emotion won’t change what’s happened or what will happen to all of us eventually.
Don’t mean to sound glum.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
no offense taken
i enjoy your comments and perspectives very much: you seem to be a very grounded person, who’s managed to accept with equanimity life’s rough edges — a rare gift
happy valentine’s day
Its a depressant. You do the math.
No I’m not anti-pot, smoked it long ago myself. ALOT. When I was depressed and suicidal, Dr said. Hey, why don’t you knock that off. It doesn’t help.
@jjb
is there anything else you can recommend ?
I can see some of you need to do a little more research… or rather, do any, since it seems like you’re all just spouting parroted party-lines about cannabis being “bad.”
Not smoking weed makes me more depressed, definitely.
The ONLY problem with cannabis, is the laws. Too many people believe the BS fear-mongering and stigmas. The only part that hurts you in any way, is the particulate matter in the smoke; if you vape it, it won’t hurt you at all (at least, relatively speaking… even sunlight and dairy products will cause harm in the long run… but we all gotta die someday, and cannabis’ benefits far outweigh any detriment it may facilitate).
The drug that will help in the long run (considering that evey other drug will make you pay the initial benefit with way too much suffering) are anti depressants. There are many types, the most accreditated are IMAO, that are inhibitors of MAO. MAO are cellular enzymes that destroy Serotonin.
I recommend you this because i tried drugs (marijuana, hashish, alcool and cigarettes) and i can’t say that any of those substance would have helped me finding a stable happiness. They express their positive effect the first time you use them, but after that, you become resistant to the dosage (so you don’t feel anything) and dependent (so, as Clevername said, you feel void when you don’t take them).
It’s really a subject i have on heart. The balance i drawn is: that no leisure substance will help, but will fuck your life instead. What you need is a precise substance that specifically acts on your brain, and not random endorfine-like shit (like endocannabinoids).
no… we need to be allowed to access enjoyable experiences. Other people’s imposed rules, disallowing us from enjoying those experiences, is at the root of depression.
and it’s not that i feel “void,” it’s that i feel PAIN, and it does not go away! Do you understand? Cannabis makes me Feel better.
The real problem is that there’s this huge global cultural clusterfuck designed to demonize anything that makes people feel Good!
“They” want us to suffer! That’s both infuriating and depressing!
I don’t want this world to be the way it is, but i can’t change it!
And no, responsible cannabis use does not lead to “resistance.” You’re not supposed to smoke as much as possible all the time. THAT is “abuse.” You’re supposed to use it responsibly and in moderation, not like a teenager who just felt his first high.
STIGMA! See? THIS is what i’m talking about. Stop trying to demonize cannabis. It doesn’t belong in the same sentence as “alcohol” and “tobacco” and “heroin.”
@duderino: (in re: “What drug makes you feel well”): mixed amphetamine salts @ 20mg, 2x a day. Probably the D-isomer in isolation would work more efficiently, but that’s harder to get than mixed L/D isomers. Isn’t perfect, but it works OK for me, most of the time.
I see.. i agree on the social aspect, of course. 1) People have not the right to choose what you and me could or could not smoke, so i should be able to do the fuck i want.
2) Marijuana is not comparable to heavy drugs like heroin.
But this is beyond the issue. I talk for my personal experience, and for me marijuana has been a failure. I felt really good, don’t misunderstand me – i had maybe the most amazing experiences thanks to it. But you can’t judge a drug (and in general, a substance) only on the positive sides, if you want to suggest it or to discourage it.
And the negative sides for me were too heavy to be balanced by the positive ones.
We are talking about suggesting a depressed people to use pot, and this amplifies furthermore the collateral effects, that are: dependency, addiction. I have been a user myself, i still have friends that use it, and i think it’s undeniable that these are the collateral effects. They are not secluded to abusers, they are present with increasing intensity in every user with reference to the dosage.
It works this way:
you’re not only depressed for your own problems, but you feel the downward spiral of dependency; so you have to smoke it.
But you’re accustomed, so you don’t get the initial effect.
So you smoke more. But what does this lead you to? To be more accustomed.
I hope you don’t confine me as the classic churchy dull opposer of marijuana, as many people are. I made my opinion on facts, not on prejudice.
Of course, i don’t think that my view is the right one, but it’s what i firmly believe in.
Huh? I smoked multiple ounces of pot a day and never experienced any dependency or addiction. One day I realized I didn’t like smoking pot, so I stopped and experienced no ill effects from that choice. If you want to talk addiction and dependence, try smoking tobacco. Now that shit will mess with you if you stop cold-turkey.
I’ve had discussions with a friend of mine about the “problem of psychological dependence,” especially when it comes to psychiatric meds. I don’t think there’s anything wrong, per se, with dependence, so long as it’s responsibly approached. We’re dependent on food, water, air, free from pathogenic contaminates, and the intake of vitamins to support proper cellular function and overall life. If taking some substance makes living more tolerable and less difficult, I have no qualms about depending on that substance, granted it continues to provide the same return over time. Because, let’s face it, any substance you ingest (vitamins, water, food, air, etc..) is modifying or interacting with the function of specific cells in specific parts of the body. When discussing drug use, those cells are neurons in the brain.
The dependency i’m referring to is especially psychological. This means that you feel a sense of void, a sense of demotivation, a sense of something lacking from your life. I have experienced it too clear to negate it, and this is not all: all my friends are currently smoking and to them it’s happening the same.
Not only: this is also written is quite every study done on cannabis.
I’m happy for you if you manage to stop without consequences 🙂
What is often confused with psychological dependency is the physical one: and cannabis cause a physichal dependency that is unimportant. But here’s a reminder: the dependency that fucks you deeper, it’s always the pshycological.
Cigarettes that you mentioned, cause a far more intense pshychological and physical dependency; but trust a man that managed to stopped smoking cigarettes: the dependency that fucks you is always the psychological, never the pshysical (that consist in a feeling of hunger, nausea, headache, that goes away in term of days)
I completely understand what you’re saying. I thought it too, at the time.
Here’s the breakage point:
“I have no qualms about depending on that substance, granted it continues to provide the same return over time.”
Cannabis (in general, drugs) does not.
Cannabis does not provide the same return at all: this is the explained and worlwide demonstrated process of addiction. (that is different from dependency. Addiction means that you need a higher dosage to feel the same effect)
the ‘war against drugs’ (a stupid euphemism if there ever was one) is at its heart, an econo-religious-political war: the economics goes against the legally established drugs — alcohol, tobacco, psychotropics (benna’s post notwithstanding, the science behind the psychotropics is extremely scant at best, which is why all the major pharmaceutical companies are curtailing their psychotropic research),the religious component goes against the fear of anything that is not part of the official sacrament, and the political component is quite simply to disenfranchise poor black people
luckily, times-they-are-a-changin, or so it seems
there are actually some excellent books on this topic, but i’m too tired, and it’s too late, for me to look up the references some other time
And to be honest, this that i just mentioned is not the reason why dependency is bad.
The reason is that dependency makes you feel void if you don’t assume the drug.
This is different from the dependency that we have on food and vital substances, because the dependency that we have on vital substances is necessary; the dependency on drugs are not.
This means that to feel normal, a normal man has to get food. A drug addict, has to get food plus the drug to feel NORMAL. (because of the fenomenon of addiction). And this is evidently bad.
Trust me, i’ve been there, especially for cigarettes, but it works either way for cannabis.
@benna: I’ve read the studies, and I’ve also read the studies which contradict them. The question of psychological dependence with marijuana use is a question mired in political implication and scientific controversy, because the idea of dependence itself has negative psychological connotations. I think it’s silly to say dependence is always a bad thing, because clearly we depend on a great many things without questioning their merits. Some things improve quality of life, while some may be seen as detrimental, but if pot increases that quality for an individual, I can’t understand disparaging it. Now heroin, for example, is normally done using an IV or free-base route (smoking), both of which carry a different set of high-risk consequences, granted you’re smoking or injecting a refined tar made by amateurs using makeshift equipment. Heroin itself also has a psychical dependency profile, unlike marijuana (although some studies seem to suggest pot is physically addictive, I’ve never seen that manifest in practice).
But the withdrawal you describe from smoking cigarettes sounds light compared to what I get from it. Which is not surprising: I don’t think I’ve met anyone who goes through what I do when I try to give the stupid things up. It’s almost like I fall into a state of complete stupor and can’t even understand simple sentences. That’s why I get irritable when trying to quit. The world becomes incomprehensible and frustrating. That, far more than the psychological aspects of smoking, is what fucks me over when trying to quit.
@benna
slight correction: it’s ‘tolerance’ that means that you need a higher dosage to feel the same effect
@benna: The tolerance to marijuana use continues on an ever expanding upward trajectory – it doesn’t seem to increase exponentially, you simply get familiar with the effects from it and even out at a certain plateau, where you remain for a significant amount of time without any fluctuation either up or down. It’s also been suggested that one of the chemicals in cannabis (aside from THC) causes a “reverse physical tolerance” over prolonged use, but I’m not entirely sure that’s true. I do know that it always took roughly the same amount of pot to get me stoned over the course of the several years I smoked it, and the only reason I increased my intake was to become “more,” stoned than I really needed to be. I was a young idiot, though, and really liked excess.
@benna: Semantics. You feel lethargic and like crap if you don’t eat right. Likewise, you might feel lethargic and like crap even despite eating well, but feel better when taking some psychoactive substance. That’s all there is to it.
We’re almost there.
If you are normal, don’t smoking does not lead a change in your mood: you stay happy.
If you are an addict and if you don’t smoke, you’re unhappy. (and this is absolutely undeniable)
Therefore, dependency does cause you depression. (and try to imagine how could fuck up an already depressed guy!)
If you smoke instead, and fuel the tolerance, what happens? You are not unhappy that day, but the dependency continues to hang over your head like a guillotine. What’s more, you don’t even get the full effects due to tolerance.
In the same category as drugs, though, most people in the developed world are absolutely dependent on cars, technology, fossil fuels, convenience provided at deferred cost by corporate entities, and government subsidies. There are stupidly arbitrary categories of dependence that serve to compartmentalize the subjects and make people into hypocrites when examined non-judgmentally.
@benna: If you’re an, “addict,” you’re probably unhappy before you even try smoking pot to relieve that feeling, so your argument is moot.
This is way we should start getting rid of some of them, starting with marijuana. Then, i’m not demonizing it. I’m demonizing the abitual use, but for recreational purposes it’s amazing and i suggest everybody to try it at least once. You get stoned, you’re happy, but you don’t let it enter into your life, because otherwise you just have another fuel you have to buy to be able to go.
AAAnyway. Cannabis aside. Do you wanna talk about cigarettes? those bitches really are the devil. Tell me about your nicotine story, i’ll tell you mine 🙂
oh, fuck, i’m tired talking about joints. You smoke them and i don’t, ok? 🙂
The only real way to get rid of them (in re: things we’re dependent on) is to get rid of civilization and the foundation of our economy. I mean, do you use toothpaste to clean your teeth every day? What do you suppose would happen if you stopped using products intended to improve dental hygiene? Well, tooth-decay and inevitable tooth-loss is one probable outcome. But why? Naturally, primates do not clean their teeth with fluoride-containing products. Well, it’s a dependency useful at offsetting the fact that our food supply is saturated with refined sugars (which do not occur in anywhere near such abundance in nature). In a state of nature, therefore, fluoride-containing toothpastes and hygiene products would be superfluous. Likewise, so would drugs that alter one’s neurochemical processes. Society is like a powerful opiate that every one of its members is equally addicted to; how each member copes with it will vary from person to person.
I understood now what you’re saying. Your thought is reasonable and true. I agree with it; now, i ask you to order these things we are dependent on, considering their efficiency to do what they are supposed to do.
For the knowledge that i have of toothpaste, this will be in the top ten; but marijuana will be one of the last, because of
1) tolerance
2) you’re not happy if you don’t do it (that does not happen in a toothpaste, i think 🙂 ) This process i call : psychological dependency.
starting with marijuana?
/What?/ I don’t even…
I can’t even respond because of how absurd your reasoning seems.
Anyone who thinks cannabis needs to be eradicated or prohibited, with laws authorizing use of force and imprisonment for “offenders,” needs to just go die already. Seriously.
I don’t think pot causes an unmanageable issue with tolerance. That’s the only problem I see with what you’re saying. I mean, you might say amphetamine use for ADHD has an obvious problem with the same issue, but that’s easily mitigated by not taking it for a few weeks to flatten one’s tolerance following several months or more of regular use. And that’s exactly how I use my ADHD meds. Why would it not work the same way with pot? Sure, there’s a little discomfort involved, but the drug maintains it’s efficacy for a much further extended period of time, if not indefinitely. Why must it be black and white?
Also, @benna: I think you would be very unhappy if you stopped offsetting the problems caused by the massive intake in refined sugars that comprise most people’s diets. That’s assuming you’re not diabetic, of course, but even then, eating habits are much different for civilized people as they are for our primate relatives, which also contributes to the problem. Having your teeth falling out would most likely dampen your self-worth and your emotional state, if not only a little.
No came on, clevername. Don’t wish me death 🙂 I know you’re a supporter and i said in a post before that i think it’s wrong to impose to others what to do. So if you want, do it.
I think my opinion about marijuana can be riassumed as:
in the long run, an abitual use it’s not worth it.
Feel free to think differently.
Well, @lorax i think that -and this is not a little achievement- we managed to establish specifically in what we don’t agree. I think tolerance plays a bigger role than you think. And i think that psychological dependency of marijuana is not balanced by a beneficial effect (as, the toothpaste one), but you think so.
Also, you’re super right when you say that nothing it’s black or white. I’m semplifying by considering the limit situations, but infinite mid-situations exist (for which maybe my thought do not apply, or are less true -if true at all)
The only “problem” with weed is the laws, and the laws only became law due to fraud and perjury (which technically makes them invalid, which means millions of people have had their lives literally ruined due to unjust and invalid laws, which the courts have refused to allow to be changed, for a very long time). If i didn’t have to be threatened by an authoritarian government, I’d be high /right now/, and would not be nearly as miserable, even in otherwise identical circumstances.
That’s the point: it helps in ways nothing else can, when nothing else can.
It is indeed “worth it.”
I guess you just don’t understand.
@benna: If you personally found that pot doesn’t help much in your specific situation, I’d ague that not everyone has the same neurochemical makeup, and therefore, pot does not effect everyone the same way. I smoked pot for a number of years and it made me intensely anxious/paranoid, most of the time, but I continued doing it because on some level I was oblivious to those effects, or that they might stop if I stopped smoking pot. Once I realized that fact, I stopped smoking it, and was perfectly content not to smoke it again (with a few exceptions: if I have body aches or have some sort of pain, I might still smoke a little bit of pot, but not enough to get me stoned, and it’s most definitely not often that this happens – more like once every four to eight months). Some people are just frankly more happy and function better when high, and I don’t grudge them one bit for it.
1. it only made me “paranoid” or “anxious,” in circumstances that would still be uncomfortable sober.
2. i noticed that the longer i waited between “doses,” the more susceptible i was to the paranoia effect.
3. ultimately, the benefits outweighed the negatives of the substance itself, and i was very rarely “too paranoid,” if ever.
Like I said, I think it works differently for everyone. When I was getting stoned every day, I was happy to go out in social situations, provided I was with a group and I could defer pretty much all social activity to the other people in the group (I.E. I didn’t have to really do much other than laugh or make jokes occasionally – but doing things of my own volition put me straight into panic-mode, so I was usually more keen on never leaving the house). I know it’s not like that for lots of people who smoke it, though – I’ve met people it has the opposite effect on, who feel extremely anxious going out in public while sober, but can manage it like a boss while stoned. I was reading about the different compounds in marijuana, and I had a realization: only one time did I have an exceptional experience with pot, where it left me clear-headed and not anxious at all in public, and that was after smoking this stuff we were told was, generically, blueberry hydro.
Well, it seems that some strains have a higher ration of CBD to THC than others, and strains high in CBD actually relieve anxiety, while those lower in CBD increase anxiety. If I could get my hands on some high-CBD strain, I’d be very curious about growing it and seeing how i feel while smoking the stuff. I suppose that will be one huge benefit of legalization, if it ever comes about; people can more precisely know what they’re smoking than they due under criminalization.
do, not due*
I hope you are honest and i’m therefore happy for all of you that this substance is giving you, or has given to you, such good and free positive effects. I don’t only base my thought on my experience and on my little knowledge of biology, though, but on other people’s experience.
Now, what i see, and i see everyday, is really different from what you’re telling me.
Almost every close friend of mine is a user, i’m talking about like 10 guys.
Not a single one of them that has attempted to quit, has managed. And they were willing to do it. On the other hand, my experience was the same.
So i don’t know @lorax how you could peacefully quit like you never smoked, but i’m happy for you.
Not only: they smoke regularly, 2 joints per day, while they were smoking much less in the first stage: BUT they sort the same effects. (typical of tolerance).
Not only: when they don’t smoke, they are nervous and annoying as shit. Coincidence?
Here is my opinion: for a normal man, this drug is not worth it.
It makes you numb all day long while it does allow you to go completely high, only with higher dosage. You can’t find peace without it, like in all psychological dependency.
You get to the point where you smoke because you need it, not because you want it. You are unmotivated, tired, you lose your energy! One friend told me he was trying to quit because he wanted to hit again on girls!
For a depressed man, this drug is ridicolous. You might as well take painkillers, analgesics, endorfines, and a little knowledge is required to see that the administration of these substance does not help balance the problem, but go hit a whole different target, which is the pain relieving, that has NOTHING to do with depression! Then, you have to face the collateral effects (that every drug has, anti-depressants included) of a drug that hasn’t helped you in the first place.
Peace
I smoked well over 2 ounces of pot a day (which is a helluvalot more than 2 joints, by a wide margin), and I’m being completely honest about quitting as I did. I have two close friends who quit at around the same time, for the same reason, with similar results. Of my friends who I’m still in contact with, though, I’m the only one who is personally OK with using pot very infrequently as a last-ditch pain-reliever, in low doses. Each of those people are equally gung-ho about marijuana legalization (complete decriminalization, not just medical use). At the same time, I’ve met people who had a really hard time quitting because they personally identified with the so-called, “marijuana subculture” (I.E. they had pot-leaf posters on their wall, defined themselves as a pothead, followed all the pot-promoting media icons fervently, and generally held a very close personal connection with the idea of smoking pot). I think that’s a whole spectrum of problems which would likely evaporate if the drug were made legal, because it would no longer be a rebellious, or counter-cultural thing to do.
why would anyone WANT to quit smoking weed?
The ONLY reasons are laws and piss tests. This is also the primary source of any paranoia.
Eliminate the cause of the problem, and it won’t be a problem anymore.
@clevername: I don’t think it’s black/white – there’s a wide margin for variation between people, when it comes to how they respond to the stuff. I think the laws and demonization that come from drug-tests in places of employment should vanish like smoke so we could all see what that smoke was actually concealing. Because it’s very true that it’s currently clouding everyone to the reality under discussion by limiting people’s access to reliable information about the contents of what they’re smoking, and criminalizing behavior that doesn’t harm anyone based on a spurious argument that it’s harming the people smoking it, while those very people scoff at the idea that it’s harming them. It’s a huge clusterfuck of mythology and stupidity. Very little of it is based on science or free-inquiry. In fact, it’s mostly based on just the opposite.
Not everything that humans enjoy enough to continue doing regularly, should be generalized under the stigmatic label of “addiction.”
I like to do what i like to do, as much as i can, because someday i will not be alive to enjoy any of those things.
Smoking two joints a day is not that much. Two OUNCES (lorax!) is WAYYY too much. You don’t need /nearly/ that much. I was a regular self-medicator for almost 20 years. I would have had a hard time smoking just a quarter in a day. I would have to try hard to burn through an eighth of kind-bud in a day.
Like i keep repeating (which keeps being ignored)… it’s all about responsible moderation. My tolerance never increased past needing more than 3 “hits” to be “high.” 3 hits is really all it takes… maybe 4-5 on a particularly stressful day; anything beyond that is just superfluous, but still not “harmful.”
I had a friend who was in the import/export business, if you know what I mean, so I helped him with his importing of uh, products, and so I had a fairly massive amount of, uh, products in which to revel. And like I mentioned elsewhere, I really liked reveling back then and tended to overdo everything just because I could. I’m a little older, a little wiser, and a lot more in favor of moderation these days.
Also, @clevername: I totally get what you’re saying, and I totally agree with it. I just don’t respond to it the same way as other people do, and that’s natural variation at work, I think. Some people like alcohol, other people think it’s annoying to feel buzzed, while other people are just social drinkers. Same is true for most every drug, imo. Just some are more difficult to work with than others (I.E. the “hard,” drugs).
If you’re subject to random urinalysis you’ll quit smoking, especially if “pissing dirty” means you’ll lose your source of income.
It’s strange, your “personal time” isn’t yours to use as you please. I know quite a few people who were excellent employees that lost their job because of what they chose to do off the clock.
well… i think i “know what you mean,” and i’ve certainly had my fair share of “smoke outs,” but… there’s “self-medicating,” and then there’s “partying.”
I honestly think a lot of people overuse and abuse it, just because that’s what they’re taught… and also partially due to the stigma about “drugs,” and the fact that people who “get into drugs,” tend to be predominantly “self-destructive” or “reckless” or “rebellious,” and so are rather prone to taking anything further than it needs to go… just to “stick it to the man,” or the parents, or whatever.
But still, i’m not really saying anyone shouldn’t get super-blazed once in a while, or even thrice in a while… but the worst that can happen (aside from getting raided or failing a piss test) is that people will sit on a couch and laugh at stupid jokes, and eat doritos until they pass out (and sleep wonderfully, i might add), and then wake up feeling great.
To contrast: just think of all the potentially fatal circumstances that can arise from humans engaging in sexual intercourse. Should we make that illegal too? And would that really stop anyone? And does making unjust laws mean the system facilitating such a thing should be respected? I’m pretty sure the answer to those questions is “no.”
@c4:
“If you’re subject to random urinalysis you’ll quit smoking, especially if “pissing dirty†means you’ll lose your source of income.”
But would you define that as “wanting” or “being compelled by unavoidable circumstance?” I’m going with the latter, which isn’t the same, and isn’t “wanting to quit.” It’s being terrorized into quitting (fear of loss of income counts as terrorism, because without income, most of us will either starve to death or freeze to death).
@clevername: Making anything illegal has the consequence of making it attractive to young people who think authority figures are stupid and should be ignored. I say legalize everything and let the chips fall where they may. If people have a hard time regulating their behavior on their own, let them get treatment once they come to terms with the fact that it’s causing them problems. If it were up to me, there would be no such thing as employment screening for drug use, because I think that’s stupid, pointless, and completely arbitrary. If they’re stoned at work, the only time that should be a problem is when it turns into a problem (I.E. they act stupidly, or do something reckless or dangerous). Much like it would be for non-stoned people. I don’t think it’s a given that people who are stoned will naturally create problems at places of employment. I’ve met some extremely competent stoned people in my life. If they’re stoned at home, who the hell cares, unless they’re stoned at work and causing problems because of it? Our whole cultural approach to drug-use is absurd and draconian.
@clevername: I didn’t want to quit but I had to comply or risk losing my livelihood. I was high the entire time I was awake for about 3 years. hehe Those were good times. I got good grades during my high years, too.
Now I’m a responsible alcoholic adult. They won, I admit defeat, and I’m ok with it.
Are we meeting up for karaoke or what, clevername? You gonna rock the mic? I’ll buy the first round, c’mon.
Maybe if there were only reasonable and respectable laws, more people would respect the laws and their enforcers, and consider them valid and worth honoring, rather than simply submitting and complying due to fear of consequences.
Maybe if all laws made sense, and were explained sufficiently to “the youth,” then they would think “this is good, this is a good law, and i understand why it needs to be law, and agree that everyone should follow it.”
But instead, our system makes stupid laws for the wrong reasons, and then only offers threats and insistence, rather than any satisfactory explanation based on sound and “just” reasoning (irony: “justice” bears an uncanny amount of similarity to “just-is,” which sort of means “i can’t/won’t explain, and that will have to be good enough for you to comply anyway…”).
That reminds me of an answer my mom gave me as a kid. I would ask “how do you know that God really exists”? She would answer “because I SAID SO. I KNOW”.
That didn’t sound like a good enough reason to me. “Because I said so” sounds a bit tyrannical.
“Because I said so! Now shut up and eat your soylent green.”
“But what IS soylent green?”
“What did I just say? Ask one more stupid question and you’ll go to bed without dinner!”
“Yes, ma…”
Yeah… good ‘ole “because i said so.” Never worked for me either.
“…well, why did you say so?”
“because i said so!”
“oh… so, you said so, because you said so; you don’t even know WHY you said so; you simply made a choice to declare whatever it is that you want me to believe, and expect that i will simply believe it without evidence or explanation… you must think i’m stupid…”
Yes. “Who do you think you are questioning me”?! “The egg doesn’t question the chicken”!
Oh, sorry. Maybe I never asked to be born to stupid parents. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, *****.
I wasn’t the ideal child. – Never question your elders. They know best.
Not.
I think the roots of my existential crisis began when a teacher of mine said, “There are no such thing as stupid questions.” I then asked how we can know that unicorns don’t exist. It was all downhill from there.
I recently saw graffiti which read “question everything”. Underneath that somebody spray painted “Why”?
I liked that.
Lorax, you’re undergoing an existential crisis? I don’t believe that for a second. You just need a motorcycle. It’ll change your life, man. Second best thing you can put between your legs you know.
My uncle’s supposed to be giving me his motorcycle, since he’s an old fart now with a wife and two kids, but I haven’t heard anything about that in a while. It’s some generic Honda that’s been sitting in his garage for ages, but I think it’d be pretty cool to have one. It’d confuse a friend of mine, too, who’s always railing on about how he doesn’t understand why people ride motorcycles, and how dumb and dangerous it is. I figure the more dumb and dangerous it is, the more fun it might be, but one can only tell for sure by trying it at least once.
Shit. Smoking is allegedly dumb & dangerous but that’s never stopped me from seeking pleasure.
Don’t listen to the paranoid people who want to live forever – they’re fucking boring.
Fix up the Honda and form a gang. You guys can be renegade landscapers er something.
You’ve ridden a bicycle before, right? Imagine riding a motorized bike that does triple digits uphill and corners like a Banshee. Flick your wrist, twist that throttle and go. It’s best without a helmet, too. (Helmets are like condoms – totally kills the sensation).
I have two motorcycles. They can be fun.
I’m smoking right now. And fuck those stupid store-bought, pre-manufactured cigarettes. If I want to smoke plastic, I’ll put some in when I roll the things myself. I like tobacco too much – it’s such a magnificent plant with pretty dainty flowers and huge, interesting leaves that I thoroughly enjoy smoking.
@c4 I would never ride without a helmet. It was bad enough to see someone go down and nearly lose their entire leg right in front of me. That said, I’m in for the SP ride meetup. While I don’t smoke weed, there are few people who hate the state as much as I do. But it’s hard to get harassed by them when it’s 3 a.m. on a summer night and you’re cruising at the top of 6th 🙂
@Fro-not-so-zen; I find you intriguing. What will you sing on karaoke night? You’re on stage, you’re holding the mic, you pick the song……how will you entertain the assembled throng? The entire SP audience is caught in your spell…..
Yeh, I need reasons to humiliate myself like I need holes in the head. For the sake of pretending though, and if unintelligible humming counts, then the circus theme music. Hands down.
Dude, the audience is drunk. They’re jerking off and falling asleep.
Circus theme music? What are the words to that? You’re going to hum into the microphone?
Yawn.
I’m getting sleepy.
G’nite.
(I’ll be dreaming of Japanese cartoon characters as I nod off).
I could do Old Man River
I can’t stop laughing. If somebody gets up to the microphone on karaoke night and starts humming circus theme music, you might want to swiftly dismiss yourself. Cause all I can see in my head is some psycho path that is about to start slaughtering people while he waltzes around continuing to hum as calmly as he would be walking through a candy store or something.
It’s only fitting in the absurd land of the confidently degenerate and morally deprived. I don’t really know what to tell you if you construe it as anything outside of a joke, maybe a lame one at that. You need to do what’s right and raise your kid instead of trying to start shit with me.
I think you’d rock the mic, Fro.
Let’s try some Iron Maiden. Let your inner child shriek.
If not now, when?
Wasn’t trying to “start shit” with anyone. It was just an image that popped into my head while reading it. And there is nothing I’d rather do then be with me son and raise him as I want. Thanks for commenting on things you obviously don’t know or understand. Maybe your not much of an eagle and should flock back out to the people you describe in your first post. Cause for a “self aware” person how how did you miss the fact your an asshole? And your perception to understand obviously lacks if you decided to read my posts and throw my son in my face in that manner. So fuck you good sir. Sorry for simply commenting on an imaginary situation to begin with. Have a great fucking night.
If that’s the case then I apologize. You don’t need to tell me who I am. If I was unaware I wouldn’t be here. Sorry for going low, I hope everything works out for you and your family.