[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
Any idea why potheads have the reputation they do? Isn’t it because a lot of them are lazy, dumb, spaced out ne’er-do-wells and smelly longhairs and radicals and lay abouts? [/quote]
Sure.
Just like a lot of people who drink alcohol are aggressive, loud, bellicose wife-beaters who kill people in automobile accidents.
Just like a lot of people who use opiates are strung-out, emaciated junkies who rob, steal, kill and prostitute themselves to get the next fix, always just one syringe away from a overdose or HIV.
Just like a lot of tobacco users are smelly, gray-skinned hacking coughers with raspy voices, yellow stains on their fingers, lips and teeth, cancerous tumours on their tongues, lungs and larynges, and stomas cut into their throats.
However, many are not.
A broad brush and two or three colours makes for a bold painting, if not a very nuanced one, SexMachine.
Full disclosure, I am far more partial to a glass of red wine or a vodka tonic with grapefruit juice than I am to a toke of Mary Jane. I have smoked a bit, actually prefer ingestion to inhalation, and have come up with some magnificent story ideas shortly after a pot of chicken curry made with cannabis-infused oil. I have also come up with many great stories without the aid of cannabis, so it’s not like I NEED it, any more than I NEED a drink or a cigarette.
Of the many drugs out there, I think cannabis is one of the sillier ones, but by no means do I think it’s dangerous enough to eradicate.
Nor do I think that coca, opium poppies or the Psilocybe cubensis mushroom need to be wiped out just because some people abuse them. For that matter, I would hate to see grapes, barley and tobacco plants extincted just because people can’t control their consumption of wine, beer and cigarettes.
No, cannabis may not be the wonder drug that will heal the planet, but neither is it the evil demon weed that causes “reefer madness” which incites rioting, violence and murder, and induces good white Christian girls to listen to jazz and fuck black men, as was claimed at the congressional hearing that resulted in the illegalisation of marijuana in the previous century.
It’s a plant. Consuming it makes you laugh, say stupid stuff, think stupid thoughts, eat stupid food, and go to sleep.
It is not that big of a deal. Unless you make it one.[/quote]
You’re painting a picture of a relatively benign substance which is simply not true. One of the things about pot is the unpredictable effects such as the alarming number of young people developing serious mental illness - induced by heavy marijuana use. I know it doesn’t effect everyone like that but it does happen. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a kid get nuttier and nuttier and more off the planet the more he smoked. He developed full blown schizophrenia and eventually jumped off a cliff killing himself after a camping trip with friends. I knew the guy real well. Every time he smoked he got paranoid and delusional and eventually he started “hearing voices” and we all knew he was a schizophrenic. Very sad. I went to the funeral and talked to his mother and his brother at the wake.[/quote]
Sounds like you have causation and co-relation mixed up. Pot can make people anxious and paranoid, especially if they are new to it and take too big a dose.
It’s actually the case unfortunately that pot brings about paranoia and anxiousness acutely in people who are paranoid schizophrenic… It’s like throwing fire on fire with some people. That is one caveat that people should be aware of with people who have mental illnesses. It doesn’t cause schizophrenia, it seems to encourage episodes of delusion in people who ARE schizophrenic.
