Not true. I grew up here. I know these people. I know who they were and who they are. They are bums because of weed. They listen to jam music, you're right, because they enjoy it. No one enjoys being a bum. We used to make something of life, or try. Now we sit, indescisively, wanting to do something, but having to get the pot to make it something first. Perhaps you're right again and I'm completely blind. Perhaps it is in their defense I blame weed. Either way, without it we'd have more time; and I'm confident with they time we'd actually do something. Or we'd talk, at least - which is nice.

yeah im 100% for decriminalization-- but i'm strongly opposed to addiction. people who need to constantly smoke or else they start getting all irritable have a problem. people who perform way below their potential because their brain is constantly clouded by weed have a problem.

i have the same objection againt alcohol & alcoholics. people who show up to work drunk, etc.

the reason there is no precision work done in america is because too many people are stoned and fuck up constantly. i just found out some guy gave the the wrong zip code and my overnight parcel wont be where it was supposed to be this morning. i blame weed.

weed eats out at people's motivation & ambition & they waste their lives.

most people when young and idealistic want to amke something of their lives. problem is that even ONE bbad chouice or wrong choice or just plain dumb luck, can thwart those plans. to blame them on weed is simplistic though.
for those people, weed is an anasthetic, like alcohol is for 70-80% PERCENT OF THE POPULATION!

Decriminalize pot. Make it like alcohol and cigarettes. You know how much money they would gain by doing that?

come on, 80% of the population doesn't wake up to a beer breakfast.

I shouldn't have written make something of life. What I meant was do something with life.
I don't blame thwarted plans, those I could deal with. I blame lack of plans.

I fully agree on the smoking all the time shit man. I have never ever gone to work high and would never do so. I will smoke a bit when I get home and again around 9:00PM ro so. that's my thing. I don;t drink though. most people I know have at least 3 drinks every night.
showing up to work high or drunk or on coke or whatever is just plain fucking stupid and unprofessional, regardless of the drugs being ingested.

neither do 80% of stoners man.

Meth is death, man. Fuck meth. I will never put that shit in my body. Adderall and methylphenidate aren't that bad but I would never do them in the long term. They leave you apathetic and strung out.

Weed is the drug for me. I know plenty of stoners who are the typical dull mindless moron but it doesn't necessarily make you stupid. If it works for you, more power to you. It's a less inebriating and shorter lasting drug than alcohol. I got no problem with weed.

Coke is the devil in a red dress. I hate to love it, but I do.

life is meant to be enjoyed.

I cannot fault anyone who seeks to be high/drunk/drugged up all the time. it's their fucking life. sure it's a watse, and sure it is foolish, but what difference does it make anyways?

Can you fault the person who loves to skydive and dies in an accident at age 30? their skydiving did nothing to improve life for anyone, it did nothing to benefit mankind.

Frankly, if I was idly rich I would spend my entire life reading, drawing and painting,a nd listening to music. some people choose to spend their lives drunk. or choose to spedn their lives high. they live with their decisions.

Not to mention all of the people who are straight arrows and living "productive" lives that pretty much just buy houses, watch TV and breed.
That feels like just as much of a "waste" to someone with my particular set of priorities.

I always find it difficult to grasp that people get addicted to weed, but unfortunately some people do after so long, I guess. This seems to be a recurring topic on the boards.
normadicfollower, sounds like you need to cut down and sort it out, you've admitted it's a problem, bud, if you truly want to make something of yourself, then the only thing holding you back is yourself.

Let's all use disanologies to prove our points shall we it?

Weed is a bit like a fish. It eats things, sure - but Elephants are large, and have big appetites, so they're much worse.

Right. Let's put it this way - Weed is a shit as any other drug; all drugs are, to greater or lesser degrees, shit. Weed is third only to booze and fags as the most pervasive.

Pervasive.

Let's say that again.

Pervasive.

Good. I'm returning to my beer n' crack pipe.

Word, man. Same for me. I just can't imagine that kind of life.

Regarding the music/drug connection, I can totally agree. I don't tend to listen to Animal Collective all coked out.

pervasive just means it is around all the time.

cigarrettes kill over a hundred thoussand people in the US every year. alcohol much much more.
alcohol is the main thread running through most domestic abuse, child abuse, etc.

drunk drivers kill dozens in each city each year. stoned drivers just ahve people honk at them for driving too slow.

;)

well i think skydiving is stupid, but yeah, everyone has their choices. if people want to self-castrate for a life of marijuana smoke, yeah, it's their choice. i won't deny them. but i'll have my opinions-- like i have one about skydiving.

my experience with weed has been like this, and i think it's very similar to what other have experienced.

first time: "i feel nothing" followed by utter disorientation & paranoia

second time, and various times afterward: like looking at the world for the first time, luminous, rich with detail, the opening of the mind's eye, a river of creativity, but without focus-- great inspiration, but difficulty executing

afterwards: habituation, dulling of the luminous experience, psychological dependence, slowing of the mind, diminishment in personal grooming, and INABILITY TO COPE WITH STRESS.

life can be stressful, but the pothead prefers to sit in a cozy spot rather than face the music.

at this point you either wake up & realize you can't continue the habit, or you rationalize your habit with shit like "oh, i didn't REALLY want to do great things after all", & continue living a medicated life.

that does happen, but it also happens with food, with beer, with money, with a good fuck, with ANYTHING
\
to single out weed as the sole cause for people's apathy is ridiculous.

finding a good woman can stop you from "pursuing yoru dreams" so can getting addicted to World o warcraft, so can becoming a fatso cuz you cannto stop eating pudding.

these are HUMAN failings, not due to the drug of choice.

In NYC, the estimated marihuana use runs around FOUR TONS A DAY
that cannot be just the heavy stoner burn outs. that includes city leaders, professionals, teachers, skilled workers, etc etc etc

don;t believe the hype

I know I didn't just see you badmouthing puddin'.

I never felt those sequance of feelinsg with weed. I smoked onee, got high. smoked again , got high again.

not all drugs are for all people. not all music is for all people.
you can "waste" your entire life collecting records, spending the money that woud otherwise go to "great deeds ad achievements" so what?

I'd say that's about right, what you said about the general experience people have, but you seem to only be against the more longterm habitual smokers, are you also against occasional smoker?

Oh well, another victim of propaganda. Once again,
you seem to have a metality that labels smokers as gold-brickers who use the "devil's weed" as a psychological "crutch."

Aside from what chronically uptight people may opine,
mariujuana is an herbal plant and furthermore, your brain is equipped with natural cannaboid neuroreceptors. And nearly every scientific research study indicates that cannabis usage has the following therapeutic applications:

Relief from nausea and appetite loss (but of course, haha);
Reduction of intraocular (within the eye) pressure;
Reduction of muscle spasms;
Relief from chronic pain; and
Relief from anxiety and STRESS.

yeah i guess so. but what i noticed is so common you hear similar stories over & over.

i have nothing against collecting records. you do what you wanna do. shopaholics have a problem-- i think we could agree someone who neglects to feed their kids in order to buy records has a problem.

with chronic potsmoking, as with alcoholism, or cocaine use, or gambling addictions,i see people self-destroying ,and it's just sad.

i'm not opposed to weed per se-- i'm for legalizing it and making it safe. im also for legalized gambling, prostitution, drinking, etc.

but what nomadicfollower said is true for lots of people-- it's the weed that produces those results. surely people have addictive tendencies to start with, and if their addiction was to alcohol the results would be different, but they would be specific to alcohol. each addiction has its signature. potheads have common symptoms that cant be denied, alkies have common symptoms that cant be denied, compulsive gamblers have common symptoms that can't be denied. etc.

anyway im acting like an internet addict at the moment, so i should alt-tab and get back to work.

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

...INABILITY TO COPE WITH STRESS.

Aren't you the same dude always writing about coffee? Now there's a substance that may be causing your INABILITY TO COPE WITH STRESS.

I can't agree with this one. Anxiety is the thing that I always get when smoking pot.

what about those of us addicted to girls' big butts?

like I said, different drugs react differently in different people's bodies.

to a person with ADD methamphetamines are prescribed to CALM THEM DOWN!

dig?

weed is a hallucinogen, not a depressant. treat it as such!

Big Butts Anonymous?

Yeah, I agree with what you wrote before, Rob. Enjoy life.

what propaganda? you're the perfect example of what i'm talking about. one just has to see.

oh yeah cos my unconscious *cough* knows everything.

ok bye.

Yeah, ok. I see. That's why I avoid it.

Marijuana is a psychedelic with depressant and stimulant properties. Don't get it confused.

Sometimes a person's parasympathetic division is effected more easily than their sympathetic, or vice-versa. This is where some people get more paranoid and some get more lethargic.

Well actually I can imagine myself doing that, except for the breeding part, but yeah I can.

the sad truth is that the idea that all humans have the potential to greatness is a faulty romantic ideal, and not exactly true at all.

Cussword, you have to understand that drugs effect people differently and not all stoners are like the ones that you put down, man. Besides, many of the drug users on this bored are very informed on their drugs and effects. I don't think people who don't smoke pot should try to make facts about pot use out of observations.

And also Hayden, different strains have markedly different effects. There are buds that speed you up and there are other buds that tend to calm one down.

What propaganda? Look, I refuse to have a discussion with someone who plays the imbecile. It's an obvious fact that there is ongoing and intense propaganda that demonizes marijuana and always has been.

--------------------------------------------------------
But onto something perhaps relevant:

No studies have ever proven a link between marijuana and addiction.
It's generally clasified as a non-addictive substance.

With that in mind, it's easy (unlike hard drugs where it isn't a clear cut answer) to make a simple pleasure versus pain calculation and conclude that marijuana causes more pleasure that it does pain in one's life.

Now I will amend this post to proffer that it is my own personal belief that marijuana can be psychologically addicting for some users and that it typically lowers the smoker's intelligence quotient by anywhere from ten to twenty points with habitual usage. Therefore, unless you're gifted or a genius, there's an outstanding chance that you probably shouldn't smoke marijuana.

...my experience fits more with this than what rob's talking about...

and yes, i've continued to smoke after realizing that, yes it has affected my productivity, and yes i sometimes get irritable when i don't smoke for a while. this is true for both tobacco and weed. i used to get slammed sometimes when i first worked at offices for spending 10-15 minutes of every hour standing outside smoking cigs. that's fully 20-25% of my productivity down the drain right there. but i was far from the only one, and when you throw in making coffee and drinking it while standing outside chain smoking, there were people there who spent closer to 30-35% of every work day on the entirely unproductive task of feeding their dependencies.

as far as medicated life goes... i've also spent a couple of years walking around like a zombie on meds my psychaitrist was feeding me and my ex-wife was telling me made me more "mentally stable." i was entirely weed and alcohol free for around 3 years. i was taking fairly high doses of risperdal, seroquel and other atypical anti-psychotics that my doctor was telling me could help bi-polar disorder, which is what they said was causing my periodic problems with depression and that i just didn't recognize the periods of intense productivity and creativity coupled with often serious sleep-deprivation (so called hypomania) as problematic.

within the first 3 months of taking these medications, i had gained nearly 30 pounds. i began sleeping upwards of 12 hours a day, yet i was still falling asleep at my desk at work. on more than one occasion i had serious problems judging distances while trying to park my car, and not even parallel parking. for a short period i lost the ability to establish a mental image of the space around me. for example while driving on the highway i would glance in the rearview mirror and see a car in the next lane over a little ways behind me. when i looked back at the road in front of me, i could no longer see in my mind's eye how far behind me the other car was. i'd find myself checking my mirrors almost constantly and still only narrowly avoided a couple of accidents. i had trouble picking up an object from the desk in front of me with my eyes closed, even if i had just been looking at it. as an aspiring architect this was truly frightening.

even after finding a combination of meds that didn't have me falling asleep at my desk and stumbling on the stairs, i eventually gained around 40 pounds and my risk for diabetes had gone up fourfold. i was still sleeping 10 hours a night to feel as rested as i used to feel after 7 or 8. and i found that if i didn't take my medication, i would be literally unable to fall asleep for hours, doze off for an hour and half, then wake up and stare at the ceiling until the sun came up. i gradually stopped hanging out with my friends, lost all interest in my career, and slowly began hating myself.




since then, i've gotten divorced, quit the meds, gone back to grad school, lost nearly all the weight (i'm down to 135 from 165), become a far more sociable person and eventually resumed smoking weed on a fairly regular basis. if that's not a good thing, i don't know what is.

did you know that atari used to be a genius? and now look at him.

i've been saying that im ok with occasional pot use, like the occasional cocktail, like the occasional cocaine orgy, like the occasional ritual peyote. im all for enjoyment.

but addicts rationalizing their dysfunctional coping are just full of shit.

anyway i feel you're well schooled on your neurochemistry these days. good job.

Very true. I've just never smoked buds that made me paranoid. In fact, even as a twack star I never really got paranoid. It's just the way pot effects me as an individual.

There's propaganda for both sides.

yeah no shit. that's why when i smoke i do it right at the computer-- nicotine-powered 17-hour workdays

but i quit. it was fucking up my tongue & stinking the house.

damn internet. this shit is my main problem now. you bitches.

Understandable. I think if someone doesn't have a bad problem with anxiety or depression, they won't become the kind of users that lean on their use like a crutch. And anyone who attempts to rationalize their addiction hasn't fully accepted their addiction.

Ha. Thanks. I've had enough problems with drugs and mental illness myself that I should be well informed.

i like you when you're smart like that.