MadMonkè said:
how can you be or not be a fan of something if you never tried? just wondering the logic...
you can, not be fans of potheads because you dont like how they behave, or believe they are not successful.
but I personally know some people who are very successful and balanced in business/life who smoke up. While others I've met seem a bit dependent and unmotivated. I dont believe weed can be attributed to the cause of how people are.
I don't like what weed smoking and recreational drug use represents I guess. I find it irresponsible, reckless (particularly with harder drugs) and I don't like the blase attitude of "it's fine to do it because it's always been fine for me" that is often advocated with people who have no scientific evidence to back their claims up. That's what I mean by "not a fan."
And I'm not attacking anyone on these boards by saying that, just pointing out things people have said to me in the past on the matter. You've phrased your opinions in a well-thought out and critical manner
I've spent 2 years so far studying chemicals at an advanced level and it's given me not only a beginning of an understanding of them, but a respect for their numerous uses and their dangers.
You're correct with your second point: I'm not a fan of "potheads". To me, anybody who spends a lot of their time lounging around stoned is not making the most of their life.
It's their personal choice of course, but I just don't see how that can be a positive influence on someone's wellbeing or life aspirations. It just seems like a total waste, espeically when some become dependant and end up dropping out of education and becoming full-time druggies. Like those old friends of mine I mentioned.
but I personally know some people who are very successful and balanced in business/life who smoke up. While others I've met seem a bit dependent and unmotivated. I dont believe weed can be attributed to the cause of how people are.
The personality of the user may obviously have an impact on what sort of role the drug plays in their life, true. However, if those "dependant and unmotivated" people had never lit up in the first place, don't you think perhaps they would have more incentive to get out there and do something productive?
Drug and medicine are one and the same.
anything you take that alters your bodily state is a drug/medicine. allergy pills can help you keep a functioning nose or you can get the prescription kind and really get wasted. take a redbull with alcohol for another kind of energy. chocolate can lift your mood... but it does have toxins. eat enough and you can get really sick. eat even more and you can die... in theory...
the usefulness of a drug is determined by the intended purpose.
much like a knife is both a tool and a weapon.
Exactly. This is why I don't see any problem with someone with severe multiple sclerosis using it medicinally, but I don't particularly agree with people getting wasted on it for "lolz".
To me, a drug is a powerful biological agent that can be deployed to rectify problems within the body. It's a tool to be used to restore health - and the design of a drug without side-effects (some serious) is almost impossible.
So people who misuse those tools just to feel spaced out do strike me as quite irresponsible with their health, as they often don't fully understand the magnitude of what they're dealing with.
I sometimes advocate weed... Admittedly... but only in belief that its more harmless than man made drugs.. with a much larger margin for error. 0 cases of death have been caused by an overdose of weed.
0 cases of death is fair enough. But how many cases of irreversible schizophrenia might have been triggered in genetically pre-disposed people smoking weed over a long period? Or over a short period, in large concentrations?
The answer is that people who study that area for decades don't actually know! If something can potentially screw with your DNA, or trigger damaging genes, that's an effect that is extremely difficult to isolate or understand. There just appears to be a surface correlation, which to me suggests that people should not advocate the drug to others just because it is "fine for them".
Another point I'd like to raise: I've repeatedly see people mention that cannabis is "natural", and this means it is less dangerous than other drugs.
This point is illogical, because you could create the active compounds in cannabis (or any other drug) in a laboratory and it'd work just like the "real" thing. So it's really no different from any other synthetic drug, even if it's from a natural source!
Think of poisonous plants out there - to suggest they're safe or good to misuse simply because they're natural would be foolhardy.
So, to sum up, I just think it's wrong to advocate or revel in what is essentially the misuse of a chemical to produce a physical sensation.
Anyway, I hope I didn't sound too high-and-mighty there. It's of course down to personal choice in the end...it just isn't mine
(I should add, before the alcohol/weed comparison comes up, that I also don't believe in the abuse of alcohol...
)