I hope this is not an antidrug advocating forum…
What is your opinion of this strange substance? What does it to our minds? Its always advertised as something to expand your mind, free your spirit and make you laugh like hell. But what is it really?
My personal opinion is to complicated to say the least, I will not discress it right now.
But what do you think?
Weed is the shit for me. I love it because it’s a fair exchange. Creative thinking and receptivity to the manifestations at the expense of a bit of paranoia (which you can learn to use as another tool) and mild speech problems. But I talk too much and joke around sober so it’s a good break sometimes. I use pot more as a spice, a vapourous coffee if you will.
My views on pot have been discussed many times, much more in depth, but I sprained my finger playing basketball so I’m not gonna type it all out again.
Basically drug use in general is about knowing yourself more than knowing the drug. For alot of people this is a very hard concept because from my experience, the drugs have opened up my mind to myself. In the beginning I just sort of said 'is this all there is to life?" from there I cautiously ventured into the realm of distortion and enlightenment. Somewhat like a river it’s relatively safe if you are cautious and use (what isn’t common enough) sense.
Most of the people here disagree with me but I get the feeling, no… I -know- that you know what I’m talking about.
I don’t experiment with Marijuana as much as I did in my younger days, but I believe smoking a little pot every once in a while is a good release. Marijuana can also be an effective tool if utilized correctly for opening one’s mind to different avenues of thought and perception.
There is a lengthy thread (indeed 2 lengthy threads) where Gobbo, detrop, myself and a couple of others outlined our views in a reasonable amount of details, I suggest that you use the handy ‘search’ function at the top of the page. If I remember correctly both of the threads are here in the philosophy forum (rather than Natural Science, Mundane Babble and so on)…
in order to overdose, you need to ingest 40,000 times as much as you normally would in order to get high. compare that to between 1:4 and 1:9, depending on body weight, for alcohol. so the dangers of the drug are definetely, clearly not why it is illegal.
around 1920, the paper, cotton, oil, medicine, alcohol, and other industries had already been established. hemp was used more than any other plant for any reason, for 10,000 years for these same purposes, but was much more difficult to harvest industrially than these products were. so in 1920, hemp was in the background, and the super-rich owners of these businesses utilized other resources instead.
then the decorticator was invented, which brought the harvesting of hemp into the industrial age. hemp paper lasts longer, yields more paper per acre and grows back in only one year. hemp fabric is strong and more water resitant. hempseed oil is at least 4 times more useful for ethanol than corn is, and similarly does not pollute. there are 9,000 documented medical uses and you can grow the plant in your windowsill for free. there are 50,000 industrial uses and the plant is annually renewable and can be used to aerate soil that isnt being used. 6% of americas farmland is currently not being used, but if it was being harvested for hempseed oil, which it easily could be, we wouldnt need foreign petroleum.
basically, the super rich owners of america would be fucked out of a lot of money if hemp was used as the new “Billion Dollar Crop” as popular mechanics described its potential, soon after the invention of the decorticator. no plant had ever been described as so potentially useful, excitement was high.
then, people started hating mexicans and blacks who smoked “marijuana” which everyone believed was entirely unrelated to “cannabis” and hemp. william randolph hearst, a soulless automaton of Satan and tree paper tycoon, owned a lot of newspapers and magazines. tons of stories were written describing how marijuana caused black people to go crazy and rape white women, among other crazily violent things.
so congress met in a shady meeting to discuss the marihuana tax act of 1920something to make it impossible to grow marijuana or most kinds of hemp (what is the relationship between these two? can you grow hemp without marijuana? is it as good?). someone from the american medical association came to the meeting and said that making this thing illegal is totally wrong, and “cannabis” (which is what all the scientists knew it as) was one of the safest and most exciting medical developments in history. francis young, from the DEA in the 80s would later say that it is “one of the safest therapetuically active substances known to man”.
well william randolph hurst disagreed. he had his congressslaves present, apparently in oppositon to the medical mumbo jumbo, stories from WRH’s newspapers and magazines that described black people turning violently crazy and raping white women. keep in mind that WRH stands to lose a fucking ton of money with his stupid tree paper business if hemp paper becomes succesfull. also keep in mind that anyone who has ever smoked will tell you that it causes you to crazily and violently sit perfectly still on your couch and stare at a screen, not rape white women.
when the bill was presented to congress, the only question that congress asked was whether or not the AMA supported the bill. instead of saying the truth, which is that some guy from the AMA went to the committee and said it was stupid and wrong to make it illegal, they said that some other guy, who wasnt there, said it was a good idea to ban it. the AMA, to this day, says marijuana should be decriminalized and legalized for medical purposes.
so like ive said before, these people are soulless, selfish, disgusting, horrifying automatons of Satan and it is our divine duty to make sure that they are wiped from the face of the earth at all costs. who knows what kind of similar travesties have been perpetrated.
was this travesty perpetrated as i have described it? should hemp be an amazingly awesome alternative to these products? did jack herer describe it accurately in his book, The Emperor Wears No Clothes? (all my marijuana knowledge comes from jackherer.com)
that said, smoking pot every day makes you lazy and your brain slow. dont do that. also, when i quit smoking it every day, i started having the most incredible, ridiculous, epic, hilarious, vivid, fun dreams that i completely remembered in the morning. i looked forward to sleeping every night. anyone else have that experience?
when i stopped my whole life became more vivid and rich with experiences, i had an much easier time to sleep and even talking to people. something which had become very difficult for me… (isnt this the exact opposite of what this drug is suposed to do?) regarding dreams, mine actually became less fantastic, even really creepy sometimes, but that has mellowed out by now. now i dream in a very standard way. 
…thats a girl for yah,always changing.
When I was 17 I found that it caused me to have epileptic seizures after smoking it for a year about twice a day to once a day just a few hits at a time. Those seizures were a trip, I really never want to experience such mind opening visions again. Not to mention rather embarassing to have it happen in public although a few were rather humourous.
The majority of my friends are between 45 and 80 yrs old. Wealthy, steady jobs or retired. You would be amazed at how many toke up once in awhile.
The ones that have it as more of a habit have definite short term memory problems. Their cognitave skills are interesting to see, aparently when high they think better and faster at a normal sober way and speed. When sober they slow way down on the thinking process. This is after a lifetime of hitting the stuff. Ages 60 and above really have the beginnings of long term memory problems, below that it seems to affect just short term memory.
I may just be a chemical exception but I don’t tend to suffer from memory problems - one only has to look at the reams of stuff I can quote off the top of my head to see that, and I’ve been known to be a regular smoker…
It does not affect everyone the same, just like drinking. I must say though I do love that flick Reefer Madness.
Just another thought, I remember that smoke used to be limited with its names such as Sens, Maui waui, Purple hair, creep weed, etc. the effects were limited too. There are some new ones out there a lot actually that I never heard of. How do they achieve the differences? Are they raised with different chemicals or just laced?
Even an orthodox extreamist christain cant deny that mary is made by god. Well, they can…
wEEd Is HOLY
IT IS A HOLY PLANT. But it must be respected, not abused. It is a spiritual tool.
they are bred and crossed…there are familys of species…indica, sativa are the main two…people engineer them.
every different ‘brand’ of marijuana or hash gives you a different kinda trip. i dont know about the states but here in europe we really have a shitload of them, if you go to holland every coffeshop will have 30 or more different trips to choose from. personal favorite: white widow.
Hmm, I think should I ever go back to doing any drug beside beer and tobacco it will be Shrooms. That was the best and most controlable. No hangover , no flashbacks, No passin out, just rib splittin fun.
pot makes me feel cool. thats important these days. also it helps me keep off the ego all of my freinds and family keep throwing at me. my moms been keeping me out of pastels since day 1, and my freinds dont believe im serious. i refuse to be a parady. unwanted and forgotten i think i ll just become a poem.
mmm… shrooms
Mmm, or not.
Weed is dangerous to the establishment not for means-of-production/quasi-Marxist reasons, it’s because it radically alters your perception of things, makes you change your mind and what not.
Old Malcolm X said “they know you’re more dangerous sober.” That was true of beer, and is also true of sit-on-the-sofa-watching-movies-everyday pot-heads; but it is not true of thinkers who use acid, mushrooms, weed or whatever other things they get prescribed, find-out or cook-up. The State needs robots, not people thinking all over the map-- and into ‘dangerous’ areas: that is why weed is largly illegal.
weed doesn’t expand you’re mind, if anything it makes you sleepy, or hungry and distorts your reasoning skills, language skills, weakens you’re motive.
Sort of like your post.
Gorgias,
Well said 
then why do people worship and use it?