Ever think of taking drugs?
Possible decider:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqh_XdGPb4U
[spoiler]How do I make a link lickable?[/spoiler]share
No.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nU7dC9bIDg
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MovieChat Forums > General Discussion > Ever think of taking drugs?
Yeah...coffee😀
shareI have legally done a selection of soft drugs. (cannabis,salvia, shrooms). Legal is nice, because you don't get in contact with possibly shady people, wanting you to try harder stuff. And of course you can be 99,9% sure of what you are getting and no cop-paranoia is also nice.
I have no desire to. I don't know any high functioning people that use drugs so that worries me as well. I think the legal worries are overblown unless you want to use something in a public area. Also, MJ is not handled exclusively by gangster types and many times it is somebody who looks and acts ordinary. How do I know? I have had people try to sell me many times and most of the time they look like ordinary people and live in a regular neighborhood. The balance are hippy or new age types that live on a quiet road. If I were a kid I would never buy on the school grounds as nearly all dealers are trying to sell a wide range of drugs with some clearly being bad for any person. I would bet quite a bit of MJ is consumed without worrying about cops. Now if you want to throw a party with dozens of people and play music loud to the point of blowing the windows out that will bring the cops and MJ possession is just another ordinance violation that they will write you up for along with disturbing the peace, fire code violations and down the line.
shareI don't know any high functioning people that use drugs so that worries me as well.
Chances are that you do, but you don't know it because they don't make it public knowledge and you can't easily tell that they occasionally partake.
Also, if you know anyone who drinks occasionally, then you know someone who uses one of the strongest and most destructive drugs in existence. It's just not called a drug because it's so popular and socially acceptable.
And as for functioning, someone who drinks shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car. Cocaine and methamphetamine, two highly stigmatized drugs, are actually less "intoxicating" and don't affect one's normal functioning the way alcohol does, so those users are quite capable of driving compared to someone who's had a few drinks. share
Oh, no doubt there are people that I know who use MJ but the opportunity has never come along to know just how well they are functioning at while high. Who I do know are the people who wear the pot leaf tee shirts and live with mom and dad well into middle age. Probably the best thing the advocates did when it came time for changing the laws was to tell Tommy Chong to sit that one out as he promotes the spaced out stoner image that many non-users see.
No argument here in that alcohol can be very destructive. I know people from my school years who never knew their mom or dad because the parent died in an alcohol related accident while the school mate was very young.
I've stated in effect that while there are laws they are not Draconian for most people. Agree or disagree?
I would disagree, I think all prohibition laws are draconian, and they have only caused unnecessary problems. Non-prohibition programs like rehab and social assistance are far more effective and constructive.
Also, industry regulations would help. One thing that I simply can't fathom is that bars are allowed to exist, and even feature parking lots. It's absurd. It should not be legal to create an establishment centered around drinking which literally encourages people to drive to it, drink, and then leave.
It's even a fun sitcom trope. "Cheers" was such a great show yet the setting represented something so terrible.
Also, drug laws are oddly inconsistent. One of the most potent psychedelics, Salvia Divinorum, is perfectly legal. You can buy it as long as it's being packaged as incense.
One of the deadliest psychedelics, Datura, is a common house plant. You can probably pick one up at Home Depot.
Another potent psychedelic which is dangerous and legal is Nutmeg. You can even buy seeds whole, which is the way it's needed in order to use it as a drug.
Meanwhile, psychedelic mushrooms are highly illegal while being largely harmless, and they were an extremely promising avenue of psychotropic drug research until they were banned and the research had to be shuttered. Mushrooms are considered
It's open public knowledge that the war on drugs is incredibly destructive and goes against basic principles of freedom, but so many people profit off this destruction that it is almost impossible to do anything about it. It's a purely moralistic (and highly hypocritical) crusade that is literally ravaging the world, destroying lives, and using up resources for no real reason.
As long as police are willing to pull a gun on someone for a private activity with no victims, and then toss that person in a cage and wreck their life, they are creating a needless conflict.
However, this is also the same world where ADULTS consider certain WORDS to be "bad."
Easy to see that we are from two different worlds. The bar trade is dying for a lot of reasons. A major reason is if there is a fatality involving drunk driving where the intoxicated person just came from a bar then the bar is named in the lawsuit. Many times in court the bar loses then there is the matter if a bar wants to spend money appealing a decision. Then at least in New York there is the matter of no public smoking permitted. I have a relative that used to own a bar and said traffic dropped dramatically when the no public smoking laws went into effect. I would assume the bar would be held to the same responsibility for smoking pot in public. Lastly, people do not have the income in a lot of communities to go to a bar anymore. If they feel they need to drink they can do so cheaper at home than pay 5 dollars or more for a bottle of beer. The bottom line is while there will be social centers in the future I think alcohol will be out of the picture within 100 years. If alcohol had not been a center of society for many many generations I think the concept of the bar would already be gone.
People say that the war on drugs is destructive but seldom can cite real world examples. The only people I have heard of that were "ruined" because of it were large volume dealers nearly all of whom were white. I know people including relatives who have addiction issues and I never saw one being thrown in jail long term because of it. Most of the time they are brought in over a disturbing the peace charge or something similar and the drug charge is just another item to be charged for versus being a headliner. Now you want to talk about destructive then there is the matter of employers testing for drugs. Should employers not be allowed to test for the presence of drugs when they also test for alcohol? Should employers be allowed to discriminate against drug users when it comes to hiring and conduct issues? Should drug screening become illegal for an employer
What do employer's today know that were not known a few generations ago? All the 60 plus year old business owners or managers back during the 1960's who got worked up over "Reefer Madness" have been long out of the picture. Why does a 35 year old HR person tend to shy from hiring a candidate that has or is suspected of having drug issues?
shareHere's a good read. Food for thought.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/opinion/sunday/portugal-drug-decriminalization.html
Could you please summarize? Then we can discuss.
shareThen at least in New York there is the matter of no public smoking permitted. I have a relative that used to own a bar and said traffic dropped dramatically when the no public smoking laws went into effect.
That's an interesting point, that public safety is considered more heavily in tobacco usage than in alcohol usage. Removing public drinking would have a huge economic impact, and politicians would rather deal with having car fatalities than going up against "big alcohol"!
A lot of the anti-smoking regulation also comes down to non-smokers simply being annoyed by smoking, which is understandable. I smoke a few cigarettes per day and I don't want that being near anyone else. I don't even like being downwind from another smoker. I would also never smoke a cigarette indoors.
Annoyance is more a important issue than lives, basically. share
I don't know where things stand today but for a long time there was big tobacco. There is probably as much data out there on the reduced cognitive function due to alcohol as there is on the ill effects of smoking tobacco which lead to the Surgeon General's Warning . I just have this feeling that politicians shrug their shoulders and feel alcohol consumption is too culturally tied in at least in the US.
shareI know that smoking rates have been dropping consistently, so the tobacco companies just don't have the income and lobbying power that they used to. This has slowly eroded them over time, starting with the removal of their youth-centric advertising, then with repeated instances of higher tobacco taxation that reduced sales further.
It's still a profitable business, just not as flush with disposable cash as it used to be.
They were at full strength financially when the tide turned against them during the 1980's. Was the possibility of decaying in a hospital bed more frightening and real to teens than being crunched in a car wreck? Did the average person see more ill effects from smoking that no matter what the tobacco companies did to suppress information that the average person was put off by tobacco?
shareIf I was to theorize, I would say that the former popularity of tobacco was inflated by the middle of the century, when cigarettes were seen as fashionable, were featured in movies constantly, and when there was that wacky advertising like with doctors preferring certain cigarette brands.
Like this:
http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_web/images/tobacco_ads/doctors_smoking/more_doctors_smoke_camels/large/camels_doctors_whiteshirt.jpg
I think a lot of the smoking death statistics are also still coming from that time of inflated popularity and over-advertising. Back then, it wasn't uncommon for people to smoke like crazy.
I guess that also, a lot of older people who got heavily hooked on smoking, would smoke indoors, and would smoke 1 to 2 or more packs per day, probably negatively influenced the appeal of smoking with their children and grandchildren.
I know my mother is virulently anti-smoking largely because her father smoked heavily for about half of his life, although it didn't seem to negatively affect his health, since he died of natural causes at 97 (and had quit long long before that).
I'm 40, I've smoked on and off for about half of my life, but I can't even fathom being able to smoke a pack a day. That's insane. A pack lasts at least four days for me, sometimes more.
The regularity of smoking has a huge impact. It's easy to compare with alcohol: Someone can drink a bottle of Vodka pretty easily over four days with no negative effects, but drinking the entire bottle in one sitting could very possibly kill them. Drinking the entire bottle over one day won't kill them, but drinking an entire bottle every day would have a huge health impact.
Regularly drinking a bottle every four days would have negligible impact. I've looked over the statistics for smoking, just for myself, and it is noted that 4 to 5 cigarettes per day causes no increase in risk for lung cancer.
Despite my time smoking, I can still run and stay active too.
"I've looked over the statistics for smoking, just for myself, and it is noted that 4 to 5 cigarettes per day causes no increase in risk for lung cancer."
Denial is not just a river in Tanzania
Statistics are statistics, even I was surprised when I found that.
But it makes sense, because there obviously has to be a progression. Smoking one cigarette in your entire life is obviously not going to guarantee you getting lung cancer. Same with two, or three, or a hundred.
There has to be a point where the amount of usage begins to show significant deleterious effects, and that point has already been seen through statistics.
It's pretty basic stuff. Drinking a glass of wine every night is not going to give you alcohol poisoning and it's not going to ravage your liver. Drinking a bottle of wine every night is going to wreck you and shorten your life. Drinking two bottles every night sounds suicidal.
See? That example is pretty basic common sense, no statistics even needed. Concentration and regularity of usage are obviously very impactful.
you probably read a report that was put out by the tobacco companies, but this report is from the Nation Cancer Institute..
Light Smokers Are Screwed, Too
A new study says smoking less than one cigarette a day is about as bad as smoking 10
Everyone who smokes, even occasionally, knows smoker logic by heart: It doesn’t really count if, say, you only smoke after sunset, or just at parties, or only when you drink. But a new study says that’s a load of nicotine-stained bullshit, and every cigarette counts a lot: According to the National Cancer Institute, so-called low-intensity smoking still translates to a higher risk of early death compared to people who don’t smoke at all"
you're right, drinking a glass of wine a day is not bad for you,
but putting carcinogens in your lungs (which there are 43 in 1 cigarette, including battery acid, formaldehyde,Hydrogen cyanide, Arsenic, Radioactive elements, such as uranium, Carbon monoxide, Ammonia, lead and more, stuff you won't find in wine) will certainly shorten your life. that's not common sense, those are facts you get from the Nation Cancer Institute.
not the tobacco companies.
No, I believe the statistics I looked at were from the NIH, National Institutes of Health.
Also, I checked out that article, which I knew would have a catch:
https://melmagazine.com/light-smokers-are-screwed-too-d67870150939
"smoking less than one cigarette a day is about as bad as smoking 10"
Just reading that, I know there has to be something weird here. That's absurd.
"Most of them reported smoking heavily earlier in life, and this was as much as they’d been able to “quit.”"
There you go. Heavy smokers. The damage was done.
"what matters with smoking is not quantity, but quality, and a quality relationship with tobacco, no matter the quantity, will kill you"
That kind of "guarantee" language is irresponsible because it gives the article an air of exaggeration and condescension. It also opens up to people quickly disproving that guarantee, like what occurs to me immediately: My grandfather smoked for decades and he died of natural causes at 97 years old. (My other grandfather just turned 100)
Lastly, it completely contradicts what they just reported earlier in the article where they mentioned that these were mostly former heavy smokers (and "mostly" is such vague language that it could mean all but one... "heavy" is such vague language that it could mean even the ones outside of "mostly" had still been smoking more heavily earlier in life). The writer of the article is doing more of an anti-smoking rant instead of accurately reporting on the study.
That's why it's much better to just stick to straight information.
lite up
shareI remember when I was in college in the 80's some of the old timer teachers used to remember when it was common for teachers and students both to smoke in the classroom. People would make ashtrays out of cups or tin cans and smoke right while lectures were going on. I cannot even imagine that just based on the rudeness of it.
The literature I read keeps getting worse on drinking. It used to be just like the "more doctors smoke ..." commercial that drinking was thought to be healthy, but now even the glass of wine with dinner is being questioned. The wine and beer thing got popular for a reason, which was that it killed germs and was actually safer than drinking water back 200 years, same with tea. Plus alcohol relaxes you and makes it easier to sleep.
I think alcohol is probably fine. I'll have half a glass of wine of a half a beer sometimes, maybe as much as 1-10 times a month. I never liked to drink much, but I do like it, I just do not go out of my way.
The real health problem these days is too much sugar and salt.
Cannabis is less of a health hazard mentally of physically than tobacco, alcohol, salt or sugar.
I'm just happy I was finally able to quit smoking in the late 80's. I used to like 555 British cigarettes that were both expensive and very strong.
The real health problem these days is too much sugar and salt.
As well as excess calories in general. I was having red wine with dinner fairly regularly until I noticed that it has basically the same calorie count as Coke. share
true, but alcohol calories are metabolized differently than glucose and fructose.
the real danger to all of us is unrestrained capitalism that pushes companies to try to make their food taste on first bite better than than the other brand such that they add sugar, salt, and other chemical flavors for more profit that ends up harming our health, and lowering our brainpower and willpower.
the bring out the worst in people. then, is it any wonder they spend tons of money to drive us away from universal health care, when one of the first things we would realize as taxpayers is that our food is killing us, and costing us all lots of money.
it would bring regulation, lower profits and lawsuits and change the whole country. that's why i support universal health care and bernie sanders.
"that's why i support universal health care and bernie sanders."
Absolutely, same here. As I mentioned in a Facebook post just the other day, universal primary schooling benefits everyone, even those who never want to have kids (then I listed a ton of the benefits). In much the same way, universal healthcare benefits everyone, even those who would barely need it.
Oops, didn't finish a sentence and ran out of space: Mushrooms are considered therapeutic and are respected by psychologists who are familiar with them. Mushrooms are also successfully used to break addictions. They have a way of "rebooting" the mind and its neurochemical makeup.
shareVery well said. Also, mushroom spores are legal to buy except in 3 states, yet it's illegal to grow them smh.
shareHow acceptable is it go out driving and killing a family?
4/5 of murders, rapes, and violent crime are under the influence...
There are some idiots out there who'll say "I don't use drugs" while drinking a beer.
My comment about the driving was only a comparison, I don't think someone should be operating a car under the influence of any substance.
share>> I don't know any high functioning people that use drugs
You're probably too young to know who Carl Sagan was. He thought marijuana was OK. It does not take long to research this on the web, so if you did not then can you really call yourself high functioning?
I not only know who Carl Sagan was but he was a neighbor while I was a student at Cornell (no bull plop). He drove a Saab and was just off of North Campus. I usually would see him driving to campus via the Thurston/Triphammer area if I had an 8AM class. Parking for a long time was scarce on campus so even though I had a permit for one area the size of a postage stamp I walked on average 2 miles per day and it rains/snows a lot in Ithaca. Anyhow, Sagan waved a few times as I am sure he waved to others that he recognized. I remember a time a frat had a party that was a little loud which in turn PO'd Sagan. The frat sought to make ammends by throwing a family style Saturday neighborhood picnic of which Sagan was invited to. He declined to show up.
Anyways, this is getting off the main discussion. Yes, there are outliers with pot just as there are people who can hold their beer but we are talking the majority of people that I know which should be a good cross section of society. I know at least a half dozen people that fit the failure to launch profile that proudly proclaim their devotion to pot and a dozen or more people that hold menial jobs because by their own admission making love to a bong is the highest priority in life.
That pretty much says that is it not the cannabis that makes the difference in people. Probably people who fail use drugs more because they can and most people in our culture who fail, fail for a reason that has nothing to do with drugs. America pretty much eats its young, and there are only so many places at the top.
Once I think in the late 80's my family was on vacation going up to see Taughannock Falls, and we stopped by Cornell where for some reason I thought I might be able as a fan to say hi to Carl Sagan. I made it to his office, but he was not in and that is as close as I ever came to meeting him. His "Intelligent Life In The Universe" was the first science non-fiction book I ever read, inspired by seeing the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. I read most of his other books and always liked science. His wife and son are also good science writers.
There are a lot of people who use marijuana or even hallucinogens such as peyote cactus or psilocybin mushrooms to expand their minds. I have no use for people who party and abuse drugs, but not every use of a drug is an abuse.
I don't think that says much of anything. We are talking about one person and we really do not know what his daily practices were. I do know that Sagan leaned heavily on TA's (teaching assistants) for his classroom time. Not that he was the only one. More than a few semesters he did not offer any classes at least going by the course catalog. Not that he was the only one. I have a friend who took classes at Baker(?) where space sciences was housed and after waiting 1 1/2 years got signed up for a "Sagan" course and Sagan did maybe a half dozen lectures. Some place I have an old faculty directory. Maybe for grins and giggles I could look up his old home address and phone number. Since he is long gone it obviously would not be a violation of privacy.
Those are not uncommon practices, especially among the "rock star" professors who are prominent authors.
shareYour perspective on this is so personal and anecdotal that you totally forsaking any kind of logic or critical thinking. There are lots of teachers who do the same things, much worse, and are not as productive or accomplished as Sagan, but you just ignore that. I'm sorry to say but your thinking process here is idiosyncratic and illogical. If I didn't know better I'd have to assume you were stoned! ;-)
shareMatt does a reefer and ruins his life!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB24X05F0wI
I just began to read TheMan's new question/questions about the law.
Somehow I think a joint might help me in understanding what in the world he wants to know.
In any case, I think that some good weed would make the topic much more fascinating!
his questions may drive me to start drinking
shareIt doesn't. Not that I've tried it, of course. 😇
shareNope and I don't want to go there.
share