Pot: it can't be that great...right?

[Spiral_Staircase]

well-said, melon.
z-edge and klodo, thanks for your responses. I was hoping to get maybe a couple of the people who don't see much wrong with pot to answer. My guess is most people, even those who are pro-pot here, would have a problem with someone giving a joint to a nine year old. Why? Probably because we see using pot as something with risks associated with it. Maybe those risks are no more than with alcohol or cigarettes (maybe less?), but there are risks. As the HORROR points out, if the risks outweigh the benefits, why do it? There are a lot of risks: arrest, unknown effects on brain function, increased potential for lung cancer. I won't get into the possibility of this leading to other drug use. Then there's the benefits. Well, it feels cool...for a while. All this to say that Lilly seems to have good reason to question her friend's pot-smoking. It seems that she's taking significant risks and getting little or no benefit. So Lilly points this out to her. So then she says she's stopped, but really hasn't. Now she's lying to her best friend. I'm not saying we should all quit doing anything our friends say we should do. But I think it's clear that Lilly had a legitimate concern with what her friend was doing. So why did her friend decide to continuing smoking pot, rather than quitting, or at least being honest with her? What about pot would cause someone to make that decision? I think that's a great question, Lilly. Could erper, Sicy, paxetora, or someone else who's used marijuana offer any ideas? The question is (see subject line) "is it really that great?"

[adam's_mistress]

I've used pot before - I still do in exteme moderation. Some people wind down with a drink on the weekends, some people smoke a joint. It's a matter of picking your poison. We can argue about the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption and say it's better than pot because it has cardio vascular benefits, but how many people do you know actually drink a couple of Budweisers while watching a game because it's "good for your health?"

We all know there is a social stigma attached to any kind of drug - but the drug we're talking about is marijuana. As a society we've been fed Reefer Madness and have the words "just say no" echoing in our heads all our lives. As far as pot goes, one of the reasons why it is illegal in the US is because of a gentleman names Ainslinger who had headed up Prohibition. When Prohibition was lifted, he needed to find a new scapegoat to keep himself employed. He chose marijuana. Marijuana was smoked in Mexico - it was a part of their culture, it was what the Mexican people used to wind their days down with. Much like people here wind their weekend day down with a drink, pot was used in the same manner of relaxation. Back in the early part of the 1900's, there was a large flux of Mexican immigrants coming into the states. The jobs they took were field working jobs, and after days of toiling hard under the sun, they'd wind down with some music and a joint. These customs 'scared' the white folks and people unfamiliar with Mexican customs. In a time when racism was prominent, it was no wonder that cultures and customs that weren't "white American" were blasted as well. Thus marijuana became the new scapegoat after the first war on drugs failed. The War on Alcohol.

Now that that drivel is out of the way... Is pot worth a friendship? No, it's not. No drug is. Anyone with half a brain knows this. Because of the social stigmas attached to marijuana use, that is probably why Lilly's friend hid it from her and resorted to lying to her friend because she didn't want to let her down. I don't think her friend was doing this to be mean spirited, but I think her friend was doing this because she didn't want to be lectured about "how stupid" smoking pot is. Much like young adults don't want to be lectured by their friends about how stupid getting drunk is.

The thing is, Lilly needs to find out why her friend is lying to her. They need to sort it out. Lilly's friend knows where Lilly stands as far as smoking pot goes - but they both need to have a heart to heart with each other. And they both need to listen and try to see each side by standing in one another's shoes. It's the only way to sort out a mess in a friendship gone sour. There could be other factors besides weed that Lilly or us don't know about. And at the very least, to maintain a friendship, Lilly's friend should refrain from smoking pot around her or being high around her. If Lilly's friend can't do that out of courtesy, then I'm sorry to say that the friendship may be nothing more than sour grapes.

[bonoman]

Well we all know we cant change eachothers minds. Just to let anyone know that isnt familar with the judicial system, they wont waste their time on you for having a joint. Period. Maybe if you had a ounce or pound but certainally not a joint or a gram.

So legalities aside. I see people talking about the morals of smoking pot. Morals? Give me a break they arnt forcing it upon you, holding you down and making you smoke it are they? This is a personal decsion. If your friend decides to smoke pot without telling you then so be it. I dont tell my friends everything i do. Its like sex. Do you kiss and tell? hopefully not. Its a personal issue. This is as well.

Pot has been and will be around for a long time. It is now becoming less and less stigmatic. The baby boomers smoked it and now gen-x is. As time goes on this 'drug' will become more common and more accepted.

Oh and this was kind of ironic to read becasue i just finished rolling a joint. Off to get high. By all.

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Running to Stand Still-"you gotta cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice."

"we're not burning out we're burning up...we're the loudest folk band in the world!"-Bono

[RavenStar]

I think there is a positive and negative side to everything. Pot can make people happy and ruin their life at the same time. You know I would rather have someone on pot in their basement hurting themselves then driving drunk. It's their life. If they want it to be short that is their choice.

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Please,
Evil
Acts
Can
End

[U2Bama]

Smoking pot and eating meat are two issues where I agree with melon.

~U2Alabama

[KhanadaRhodes]

just because i haven't smoked it doesn't mean i can't have an opinion on it. pot can totally fuck up families. believe me, i know.

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if there's secrets she has to be pardoned to every one of them, if there's heaven she gets to the heart...
ME!

[melon]

Originally posted by bonoman:
I see people talking about the morals of smoking pot. Morals? Give me a break they arnt forcing it upon you, holding you down and making you smoke it are they?

This I do agree with. Even though I am opposed to its usage, I don't see people who use it as "immoral." Stupid, maybe, but that is my personal opinion. Oh well...

Melon

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"He had lived through an age when men and women with energy and ruthlessness but without much ability or persistence excelled. And even though most of them had gone under, their ignorance had confused Roy, making him wonder whether the things he had striven to learn, and thought of as 'culture,' were irrelevant. Everything was supposed to be the same: commercials, Beethoven's late quartets, pop records, shopfronts, Freud, multi-coloured hair. Greatness, comparison, value, depth: gone, gone, gone. Anything could give some pleasure; he saw that. But not everything provided the sustenance of a deeper understanding." - Hanif Kureishi, Love in a Blue Time

[pax]

There appear, at least, to be some speculative health benefits of marijuana. Smoking cigarettes, you may as well rip out your lungs and set them on fire.

And no, I would never give pot to a nine-year-old. Hell, I have mixed feelings about nine-year-olds with refined sugar and remote-control cars. But I find it positively ludicrous that my government wants to tell me not to use a substance which, in very controlled moderation (as in, specifically, once every few months for me; pot's expensive!), makes me feel good and has never done any wrong by me or my friends.

Is pot worth a relationship? No. Should you stop using it if it interferes with your daily functioning? Yes, just like you should quit smoking or drinking if that becomes the case. Can it be dangerous? I guess so, but it wouldn't seem any more dangerous than cigarettes, fried food, or driving over the speed limit.

I think all of the hand-wringing about pot is much ado about nothing. Pass the bowl, mon...

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If you cannot live together in here, you cannot live together out there, let me tell ya. --Bono

You've got to cry without weeping, talk without speaking, scream without raising your voice... --Bono

[Klodomir]

Originally posted by melon:
What I'm very tired of is this very propagandistic line of alcohol being more dangerous than marijuana. And I thought I had heard every piece of revisionism imaginable?

Call it propaganda or revisionism if you like, I'm just speaking from experience as someone having lived in countries where both have been semi-legal all my life. Alcohol causes more problems - and more deaths - than marijuana in both those countries, but if you can prove otherwise, be my guest. You don't need to have an opinion on everything, you know?

[This message has been edited by Klodomir (edited 02-11-2002).]

[Klodomir]

Originally posted by melon:
I don't see people who use it as "immoral." Stupid, maybe, but that is my personal opinion.

In fairness to Bubba, I have to object to that statement.

[Anthony]

Whatever.

When I was 14 I said to myself that I would try anything once, with the exception of incest, and so far I've lived up to my promise. Its a big world with a lot of things to experience, if you want to find out about something you should try it out, that way you can be fully qualified to make an opinion concerning it.

I tried it once, and it was the most boring experience (except listening to the Conservative Manifesto EVERY YEAR) I've ever had, and I never could understand what people seek in it. Its irritating to prepare and smoke, its tedious to 'enjoy' and it leaves you stinking like a Colombian drug-lord afterwards; the smell was positively redolent of canchred shit. A truly monotonous experience and I never cared to repeat it again.

Having said that, I don't see why smoking pot (or any other drug) makes you less of a human being if people can still vote Conservative and be called 'intelligent people'.

The world's a big place, its a large price for such a small vice, and true open-mindedness is in realising that there are different things for different people, calling something immoral just because you find it offensive is not only ridiculous but really rather silly.

Ant.

[Sicy]

Good first paragraph there adam's mistress.

I dont care to try to argue why people like pot.. I feel like it would be a waste of time on you bunch so I just wanted to post some facts and be on my way.

To each his own, but if you've never tried it I dont see how you can comment on it being bad or evil or whatever.

And no I would not give a 9 yr old a joint, just like I would not give a 9 yr old alcohol.

[U2girl]

Lilly: NO. Nothing is worth sacrificing a friendship.

Personally, i haven't tried drugs. It's not something anyone i know would do, i was never interested in those things - plus it's too scary not to be in control of your body and mind. I guess some people can do it occasionally and they don't suffer any major consequences, though if it affects your everyday life and you become addicted it's time to quit.

[z edge]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Whatever.

if you want to find out about something you should try it out, that way you can be fully qualified to make an opinion concerning it.

I tried it once, and it was the most boring experience I've ever had, and I never could understand what people seek in it.

Ant.

Dude. You only tried it once? Your really not qualified to make an opinion concerning it then. Third time is the charm, it IS boring until then, but after that........

[Spiral_Staircase]

Originally posted by paxetaurora:
And no, I would never give pot to a nine-year-old. Hell, I have mixed feelings about nine-year-olds with refined sugar and remote-control cars.

Enjoyable.

[joyfulgirl]

I enjoy a bit of weed. I have a great job and am a high-energy, health conscious kind of woman. I don't fit any pot-smoking stereotypes you can think of. Inhaling smoke into one's lungs is never a good idea, but like adam's mistress said, we all pick our poison. Marijuana is mine. I haven't eaten meat in 14 years, and rarely drink alcohol, but I enjoy smoking pot.

I went to a business dinner Saturday night and all of my colleagues got drunk except for me, and don't remember the evening. I went home sober, smoked a joint to chill out, watched a U2 video, got up early the next morning, went to the gym, cleaned my house, did laundry, had a productive day, and this morning I had to tell all my colleagues what they did and said Saturday night because they don't remember and 2 days later, are still hungover.

Now, I know this thread really isn't about comparing alcohol to marijuana, but I just wanted to offer a little snippet out of the life of an ordinary pot-smoker as compared with ordinary drinkers because of the stigma attached to the pot-smoker. I looked around that room Saturday night and felt like the most together-person there, but I know I would probably be judged as the fucked up one (in general, in life) were it common knowledge that I smoked weed.

Anyway, all in moderation.

[KhanadaRhodes]

but that's the problem, though. people like you, joyfulgirl, can smoke it in moderation, never go overboard with it, etc. for some people, for too many (for me one is too many) use it as a stepping stone to move on to worse things, or to at least take it enough to where you have to have it once a month, then once a week, then once a day, etc. i know not everyone is like that but the ones who get addicted just fuck it up for everyone else. it kinda sucks...like the jerk in kindergarden who gets the whole class in trouble, i guess. i for one think pot should be legalised. if it was, i'd have no problems with anyone smoking it. really.

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and your heart beats so slow through the sleet and driving snow, across the fields of mourning lights in the distance...
ME!
"...a poptart in pants..." -- elizabeth

[This message has been edited by KhanadaRhodes (edited 02-12-2002).]

[joyfulgirl]

Originally posted by KhanadaRhodes:
but that's the problem, though. people like you, joyfulgirl, can smoke it in moderation, never go overboard with it, etc. for some people, for too many (for me one is too many) use it as a stepping stone to move on to worse things, or to at least take it enough to where you have to have it once a month, then once a week, then once a day, etc. i know not everyone is like that but the ones who get addicted just fuck it up for everyone else. it kinda sucks...like the jerk in kindergarden who gets the whole class in trouble, i guess. i for one think pot should be legalised. if it was, i'd have no problems with anyone smoking it. really.

from the Institute of Medicine, 1999:
Q: Is marijuana addictive?

A: "Compared to most other drugs ... dependence among marijuana users is relatively rare." [p. 94]


"In summary, although few marijuana users develop dependence, some do. But they appear to be less likely to do so than users of other drugs (including alcohol and nicotine), and marijuana dependence appears to be less severe than dependence on other drugs." [p. 98]

Q: Does marijuana lead to harder drugs?

A: "It does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association." [p. 101]

"There is no evidence that marijuana serves as a stepping stone on the basis of its particular physiological effect." [p. 99]

Taking a hit of pot every day is no different than having a glass of wine with dinner.

[Anthony]

Originally posted by z edge:
Dude. You only tried it once? Your really not qualified to make an opinion concerning it then. Third time is the charm, it IS boring until then, but after that........

I must admit, z edge, its not the only thing I've tried, believe me - if it didn't impress me the first time, a third time won't help.

Ant.

[joyfulgirl]

Originally posted by KhanadaRhodes:
i didn't say it was guaranteed that everyone who smokes pot will definitely become addicted *and* also move on to harder drugs. i said it can happen. i don't see what is so wrong with me thinking smoking pot is wrong. after all, it is illegal. doesn't matter how stupid the reason is for why it's illegal, it is. i don't wanna risk throwing away my entire future to get high.

Nothing wrong at all with you thinking smoking pot is wrong. I was simply addressing two common myths about marijuana smoking.