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The Smoke Rises

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by DrFrylock, Nov 7, 2012.

  1. DrFrylock

    DrFrylock
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    So yesterday they kinda sorta legalized weed in a couple states (Colorado, Washington). Apparently the whole city of Boulder came out to vote. I think it's still federally illegal, so there'll probably be a court case about who wins on that. But for now, unless you're working a federal government or contractor job (sorry all you defense contractors out in Colorado Springs) you're probably pretty safe schmoking some doobs.

    I, personally, don't. This is probably not surprising to most of you given how square I am. You know the classic 1950s-style parent, like Red Foreman? I was born like that.

    So most of the schmokers I know are on the Internet. As a 1950s-parent-type, I am emotionally predisposed to think weed comes from the Devil. I have had plenty of bad experiences (family, friends) with drugs of all sorts, both legal and illegal. Not weed in any case. Booze, cigarettes, prescription pills, meth, plenty of that. All those things have made my life suck in various ways, so when you say "oh just legalize weed, everything will be so much better" my instinctual response is "fuck you."

    But having read the extensive argumentation on weed on the Internet, my logical mind is swayed to believe that Everything is Probably Going to Be OK now that the legalization process has started in earnest. This does not, however, mean that I will suddenly be all happy about the large swaths of fucking annoying weed advocates out there.

    Categories of weed smokers that annoy the fuck out of me include:

    1. The Cosmos Crowd: Reportedly, Carl Sagan smoked more weed than Snoop Dogg (Snoop Lion?) However, some smokers think that smoking weed makes them as smart as Carl Sagan. Please fuck off, you are not.

    2. The "Weed Makes Everything Better" Brigade: These are the people who believe that smoking weed has 100% positive effects and 0% negative effects. Weed cures disease. It mows your lawn. It mends broken families. It reduces the heartbreak of psoriasis. Please fuck off.

    3. The Smoking Fetish Syndicate: These are the people who try to put some kind of rigorous/scientific/medical veneer on their getting high. They're talking about bongs designed through CAD with supercomputer fluid dynamics simulations and shit. Included here are also the people who do combinations of drugs and record dosages like they were fucking surgeons. "12.2mg Scopolamine intramuscular + 500mg Ketamine orally + 0.5g cannabis sativa vaporized to 1,000PPM in an aqueous solution." Fuck you guys. You know what you sound like? Someone who whacks off and then posts shit like "36.2 seconds of left-handed stroking at 14 strokes/minute using 8 Newtons of pressure and 0.05 foot-pounds of torque counterclockwise."

    Yes, I know we have a drugs thread somewhere in the Permanent Thread pile, but I thought the recent election made this a timely topic. Try to minimize politics in this thread, please (though it's hard to talk about weed without politics these days).

    FOCUS: WEEEEED. Love it? Hate it? What effect do you think legalization will have? Will everyone come into work trading weed-growing tips in the lunchroom? Will all the secretaries be high all day? Or the managers? Will average freeway speeds decrease to 35MPH? Will there be a patchouli shortage?
     
  2. Crown Royal

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    Like you had to ask.

    Look, if it DOES get some sort of mass legalization (don't hold your breath) how much different would it be? I mean, I would get to smoke weed every day, but then again I already DO that. I already smoke it, grow it, buy it, and even flew to Amsterdam to hang out with it in its natural environment, but in the end things won't change too much, legal or illegal.

    What WILL happen is this: prisons will stop getting as much traffic, and people will stop getting thrown in jail and have their lives turned into a slippery slope for infinity for a childish, stupid fucking charge. With it legal, people will have an alternate pain medication to turn to than pills. It has been proven to help with many things, like tourettes, iritis, anxiety, depression etc. And finally it will strip the shitty label splashed all over it since the 1930s, and hopefully stop making pot smokers-- which there are millions and millions and millions and millions of-- feel like criminals ALL THE TIME.
     
  3. Nitwit

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    I smoked it in college. I stopped afterwards. Legalization will lower the cost of Mexican or other imported weed. Some people will actually move into these states to live their "lifestyles" legally. Companies that don't want their employees being high at work will increase testing.

    A friend of mine works in ICE. They chase tractor loads of dope and could care less about whether or not Crown gets high. If a local operation gets big enough, they will hit it just to show they can.

    EDIT: The "War on Drugs" is a joke. The only threat the current administration will see this as is if that all states adopt this policy it will jeopardize a shit ton of government jobs.
     
  4. downndirty

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    Aside from the political/social aspects of it, which I could give a fuck less about, if it was legal, I would smoke probably once a week. I'm introverted, and when I'm high, I am usually dead silent, so it's not exactly a social phenomenon for me. However, I'm a believer that weed works in the opposite direction of caffeine. Caffeine makes doing boring things go quicker, weed makes doing boring things interesting. I would be the smoker who comes home from work/gym, smokes a bowl while cooking dinner, eats dinner, smokes another bowl and watches tv.

    The only reason I never did that sort of thing is fear of a random drug test. I despise this policy, for a variety of reasons, but it successfully kept me from becoming a full-time smoker. If I ever found myself in a stable, professional career, I think smoking a bit around or during the weekends would help keep me from going insane with boredom. Also, there is no more peaceful, relaxing sleep for me than high sleep.

    With all of that said, weed culture can go fuck a stump. From the inexplicable (for me, anyway) fascination with reggae, to all sorts of hippy culture, to High Times and the stunning stupidity that high people often find profound, I can say that most of my hatred for hippies stems from the weed culture they embrace.
     
  5. Trakiel

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    Call me Caitlyn. Got any cake?

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    From an economic, rational standpoint, this is a step in the right direction. Decriminalizing weed is going to help eliminte several societal problems, primarily the ones Crown Royal mentioned.

    Personally? I hope to hell this doesn't mean I have to start dealing with potheads. As far as I'm concerned, here's the big difference between weed and alcohol: Plenty of people drink because they enjoy the taste of alcohol or to relax a little; almost everyone smokes weed in order to get high. And people who are high, just like people who are drunk, are annoying and bothersome 90% of the time. Even worse, unlike alcohol even if you're fortunate enough to find non-annoying potheads you can't get away from the consumption of weed in and of itself; since people mostly smoke it just being around it means you have to smell the disgustingness and listen to people take hits and sound like they're about to cough up a lung. It's gross.

    In fairness, I must disclose that all of my experiences with weed were in a high school or college age environment.
     
  6. DrFrylock

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    Also I hate weed because of what it has done to Kevin Smith. I don't think every film Kevin Smith has made has been the awesomest thing ever, but I like his work.

    If you watch the Evening with Kevin Smith videos, the first ones (before he became a pothead) are joyful and he's infused with a sense of wonder. You can tell he's got a little of the tortured artist thing going on there - he has always had some (objectively unjustifiable) issues with insecurity. In the latest one, post-potheadedness, the depression is ratcheted up, much of the joy and wonder is basically gone, and he can't shut the fuck up about smoking all the time. And yet you still get the impression that he believes that the weed is really enhancing who he is.

    Kevin Smith, if you're reading this, you were pretty great even before you started smoking. You didn't need weed to bring out who you were. Kevin Smith on Weed isn't "more" Kevin Smith, or "Better" Kevin Smith. It really seems like "Less" Kevin Smith, actually.
     
  7. Kubla Kahn

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    I think it's great that it might have a chance of a real social break through. I used to smoke quite a bit in high school but gave it up freshman year of college. After years of being inundated with the shit my hippy friends would drone on about I used to take the opposite side just for spite. I really hate the cure all arguments people try to make just makes them sound ridiculous and hurts their cause. Really, it's going to solve our debt crisis, dug wars, prison over crowding, insider trading, cures cancer, assburgers, AiDs, Super aids, hepatitis, sweaty balls, the G funk, AND it gets you high? Fuck balls I didn't know we could kill twenty five birds with one stone of compressed hash!


    Keep it fucking simple. It's a god damn privacy issue that's it. Weed should be legal because god damn adults should have the right to do with their body what they want in the privacy of their own home. Also, stop blubbering on about having the government tax and regulate it. They fuck up enough as is with taxes and regulations, keep their fucking talons off of it. Funny, or maybe telling for a guy who spent serious time in prison for selling bongs, that Tommy Chong has the same take on it keeping the government out of it.


    Nothing gets me worked up more than god damned hippies.
     
  8. Crown Royal

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    I am sorry to hear that you have hung out with nothing but apparently the most annoying potheads in North America. Comparing it to alcohol? Look... I loves booze, and have proven that over time. But which was is worse is not open for debate: Potheads are not constantly grabbing my wife's ass in bars while I am holding her hand, punching poeple in the face for no reason, and sending their best friends throught the windshield of their car at 70 mph.

    I have news for you: you already deal with potheads. LOTS of 'em. You just can't tell. We're all up in yo grill, cuz! There is no "pot tank" at the police station. It is the only drug that does not kill people. You have to give it at least that.

    Pot sub-culture drives me up the wall. It is so played-out and childish, not unlike Cosplay or writing fan fiction. I mean..."High Times" magazine? The FUCK out of my office. You do not need a monthly subscription dedicated to a dead plant. The stupid pot leaf shirts, sunglasses, rasta hats, belt buckles, All these smoking apparatuses....FUCK. Battery powered pipes...for those who forget how to breathe, apparently. How complex are you trying to make things in order to relax? Here's what you need:

    Buy some papers
    Buy a pipe/Bong, nothing taller than 12 inches
    Buy a vapourizer if you have the cash. Trust me.

    That's it.

    Pimptress, sound off on this shit already. This is your state we're talking about, and I want to know If you are still on the wagon after hearing this news.
     
  9. DrFrylock

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    See, even someone who rails against Pot Subculture is infected with Pot Exceptionalism.

    • Caffeine
    • Acetaminophen
    • Ibuprofen
    • MDMA
    • Mephedrone (mostly)

    Yes, I know that all these have an LD50, but you're pretty unlikely to die from these drugs on accident.

    Additionally, "kill people" is a big statement, because most alcohol users and cigarette smokers don't die right away. The body has extraordinary tolerance for morphine-based drugs, too. I'm sure there are plenty of "functional" Oxy users out there doing important jobs.
     
  10. Revengeofthenerds

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    I suffer from major bouts of depression and have spent the past several years seeing more doctors than I can count and taking more prescribed medications than I care to recount in an attempt to bring myself back to "normal."

    Marijuana resolves these issues completely, but because I live in Texas there's as much a chance of country music being banned from radio as there is of marijuana being legalized. The way I see it, I have more to lose by being jailed than I do by fixing my depression. So, I don't smoke, and I don't expect I will ever be legally-allowed to.

    But then again, I never thought I'd see the day when gay marriage was legalized either. So I'd say I don't think marijuana will ever be legalized, but I've been proven wrong in my skepticism before.

    I think marijuana should be legalized, and for me that is a "well duh" belief because marijuana is right for me But I also don't think it's my place or right to say whether or not marijuana or the legalization thereof is right for everyone. False consensus bias. Few things if any are black and white and I'm sure there will be as many downsides to legalization as there would be benefits.... I just don't get why there's more debate than there is actual action.
     
  11. Nitwit

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    Yea, that.

    My cousins in Dallas were really into it. They used to have grow houses. Big houses in fancy neighborhoods. Downstairs, everything looked like a normal house. Upstairs, everything weed. They used the closets for incubating seeds and the bedrooms were nothing but row after row of plants. The rooms had UV lamps and rows of plastic tubing running out from giant cannisters of CO2. They were all on timers.

    Anyway, they would smoke out of those vaporizers all the time. It became a tradition on Christmas that we would end up at their house to smoke and watch a movie. Running family joke...one hit and Nitwit out.

    The vaporizer: (I think this girl may be putting coke in hers)



    Also, I wonder what commercials on TV may begin to look like in Colorado and Washington.
     
    #11 Nitwit, Nov 8, 2012
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 27, 2015
  12. Crown Royal

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    By kill people, I mean straight-up lethality. I'm sure if you smoked enough, it could kill you. So could standing over a campfire. In the issue of American Scientist in March of 2007, they completed a long-term university study in England that determined without a doubt that alcohol and tobacco have a far-- far-- greater lethality than pot (or LSD, or MDMA for that matter).

    And you are right- there are plenty or responsible Oxy users, but there are also the ones that steal their mother's insulin money to get it. That drug is so fucking out of control they had to change the chemical make-up of it around here so it couldn't be melted down and shot anymore. There is one of the things I DO like about the pot sub-culture: no desperate/murderous/utterly immoral psychopaths stealing eveyone around them blind. Even if a pothead DOES have murder in his heart, he'll soon learn interest when an rerun of She's The Sherrif pops up on the TV.
     
  13. archer

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    Functional pothead of over 10 years right here.

    I work hard and hold down a respectable job in a corporate environment that i am very good at. My co-workers have no idea i smoke, to my colleagues im just a clean cut young man in a suit that has a pretty laid back and cruisy attitude, but gets shit done when it needs doing and is very reliable. Come 5pm that suits on the rack and im high as fuck.

    I hate the whole weed culture thing and the stigma these fuckheads give your regular smoker.

    My friends all know i smoke but i don't push it on them, if they want to join me all they have to do is ask but i dont go around preaching about my lifestyle and how weed just makes everything so much better maaaaan. Fuck that noise.

    Its just something i do, it makes me happy and has a minimal impact on my health and mental wellbeing and zero impact on my work or social lives. Especially compared to some of the other drugs i have tried in the past (I very nearly went down a bad road with meth a long time ago, and ive watched those friends that didnt get out completely destroy their lives since then).

    Im with Crown, you guys who think you dont know or interact with any stoners? Ill put money on the fact that you do, and have no idea because they are just as normal and functional as you (OK... maybe not right after ripping a bowl but generally speaking).

    The legalization in these states is a good step forward, but America's worldwide war on drugs has a fair bit of momentum behind it and things aren't just gonna flip direction overnight. Its progress, but im not holding my breath down here in the 51st state. Our politicians are possibly more fucked up and backward than yours.

    EDIT: I do like Cypress Hill... make of that what you will.
     
  14. audreymonroe

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    I smoked pretty heavily from 14-16, then stopped and began smoking again now and then once I was in college. Most of those times since have been once I was already drunk. I thought I was very aware of all of the reasons and justifications people have for smoking pot, but I was surprised to learn today that people use it to help treat depression and, especially, anxiety. The main reason I stopped smoking was because it was exponentially increasing my depression - the last thing I need when I'm feeling depressed is to get even more inside my own head. One of the reasons I so greatly prefer my drug of choice - alcohol - for healthily dealing with my feelings is that it muddles my thoughts. And I have this feeling that I either wouldn't have issues with anxiety, or at least as many issues, if I hadn't smoked so much, especially at that age. (Of course, the development could have been totally coincidental.) But I would get paranoid as fuck and in the last six months or so of that time period it would make me hallucinate like I was on an acid trip. When I already felt like I was losing my mind when I was sober, it was not pleasant.

    Some of my greatest memories from growing up revolved around smoking, but so did a lot of the saddest and scariest ones too. I do still have these random moments where I really want to get high but, overall, it's not for me. Even when I do smoke now I don't get that high because I'm too scared of it slipping from the laughing-for-twenty-minutes-at-my-cat place to the curled-up-in-a-fetal-position-having-a-panic-attack place. And while a lot of the things I liked about smoking during those few years were the social aspects of it, I agree with what others have said that weed culture drives me up the fucking wall. It feels immature to me, but I know that's probably just because I associate it so strongly with the time of my life when everyone's immature. All that being said, I think pot should be legal. As with alcohol or cigarettes, I think there should still be laws about pot but it seems silly to me that it's still illegal.
     
  15. Cult

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    I don't care what other people do with their lives / bodies as long as it has no effect on me, I think pot should be legalized but I probably wouldn't smoke it if it was. I've smoked pot before and enjoyed it, but it was never really something I felt the urge to continue doing, I just don't like how I act when I get high.
     
  16. mav_ian

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    I smoked on and off socially for a few years, stopped for a while, then spent a year-ish as a several times-a-week smoker. I basically stopped when I had the kid, but since he's apparently an anomaly, he sleeps 7pm right through to 7am, I could easily take it up again and not have it effect my parenting (for the time being anyway).
    I wouldn't call myself functional when high, though I did build up a small tolerance, I experienced mainly physiological effects more than mental (I don't get paranoid, and nor do I "trip" or anything like that), and while I don't need to be any slower, hungrier or more lethargic, I also found I'd be more responsive emotionally; mostly I used it to have more fun watching movies and tv. I'd get more drawn into whatever fictional world it was, and my cynicism and pretention would evaporate.

    There is a world of pop culture out there I want to absorb, but when straight I'm prone to dick around, "um and ah" about what I want to watch and end up wasting half the night procrastinating on the net and not make a decision. When high I tend to make decisions a lot quicker (only because I don't hesitate), and thus I could really catch up on what I'd been meaning to for ages (hello old Godzilla movies). And because I'd have a fun time, I wouldn't feel like I wasted my time.
    Also my writing output increased for the same reason. When straight I would stare at a blank screen and hate every little thing I could slowly squeeze out. High, I could zap my hesitation and just come back later and edit the typos and nonsense. Same thing when getting drunk, but then I sacrifice a lot more cognizance. Plus sobering up from alcohol is a lot less fun.

    I used to get it off a chick I used to work with. Her husband smoked it in massive amounts, but we both left that workplace, and her husband cut down for employment, so it's a lot harder to come by for me, not knowing any 'dealers' and my social circle has shrunk a great deal.
     
  17. Juice

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    I'd be all for legalizing every drug, except we're stuck with everyone's healthcare bills now. I'm not trying to be political, but its a legitimate factor with this kind of stuff. As for weed itself? Fuck it. Legalize and tax it.
     
  18. Fabrique

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    What a timely thread.

     
  19. PIMPTRESS

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    After two months on the wagon, I smoked a couple of times with my girlfriend. This news is great, in my opinion, but I probably won't see any changes in the public out here since it's been easy to obtain a red card for most people. It's very common for people to be high around here, I smell it on my customers, on fellow shoppers at the grocery store, and you are guaranteed a contact high at any concert. I am happy that it will be taxed and the funds used for schools and such.

    I enjoy getting high, but had decided to cut back for my health. I've had an interesting year and realized I was smoking to avoid dealing with some things. I took a break to realign my head and have been enjoying the clarity. However, I am not enjoying the pain I am in, my ribs ache incessantly and when my ovaries flare up I want to cry.

    There are the annoying smokers, just like annoying drinkers. The only thing that truly aggravates me is when people smoke themselves retarded and go out in public. Not because they are rude or assholes, but because I end up repeating myself a hundred times trying to explain basic things. It's amazing how many chink eyed customers I get in my store, asking the same question over and over.

    Moderation, people. Pot, alcohol, food, whatever.
     
  20. Flat_Rate

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    I would love to be able to smoke pot, helps with migraine headaches I get sometimes, and let's face it an awesome way to relax.

    I haven't been able to smoke since college, for those of you that still do it must be nice to have jobs that don't drug test. I get tested twice a year on average from "random" drug selection testing at work.

    The fact that this country STILL has this argument about pot being illegal is baffling to me, it's a fucking plant.

    If I had a job that didn't care or was independently weathly I'd be high right now.