do You do the Ganja

ted · Post by **ted** » 13 Jul 2004 16:33

I have to express my amusement that the thread about drug use contains the most pathetic attempts to communicate I have seen on this board.

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 14 Jul 2004 08:53

I haven't smoked in 3 days straight. Yeehaw, and I got to say I have no need to smoke at this time.

Cigarettes however, get into my system and grab me like a rabid dog and won't let go. I have quit several times on the patch, but I really have to want to quit for it to be successful.

My longest attempt at not smoking cigarettes has been 2 years and when I met a friend that smoked, I was hooked again. It really sucks.

I have never had this type of addiction to pot or alcohol.

I have to express my amusement that the thread about drug use contains the most pathetic attempts to communicate I have seen on this board.

Please elaborate....

Posi-Cole · Post by **Posi-Cole** » 15 Jul 2004 04:28

FlexThis wrote:I haven't smoked in 3 days straight. Yeehaw, and I got to say I have no need to smoke at this time.

Cigarettes however, get into my system and grab me like a rabid dog and won't let go. I have quit several times on the patch, but I really have to want to quit for it to be successful.

My longest attempt at not smoking cigarettes has been 2 years and when I met a friend that smoked, I was hooked again. It really sucks.

I have never had this type of addiction to pot or alcohol.

I have to express my amusement that the thread about drug use contains the most pathetic attempts to communicate I have seen on this board.
Please elaborate....

I think he may be referring to every post made in this thread by a certain somebody, simply due to their lack of proper punctuation, spelling, and grammer. He's definitely not talking about you, so I wouldn't worry about it.

420FootBager · Post by **420FootBager** » 15 Jul 2004 04:56

yeah ciggeretts are a bitch even when i manage to quit the cravings really never go away, especially when some one lights up right infront of me.

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 15 Jul 2004 23:59

d0000d im sooo PHUCKING STONNNED

(this ones for u ted)

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 16 Jul 2004 07:00

Going on 7 days sober.

cheebs · Post by **cheebs** » 18 Jul 2004 07:46

I found this post in a thread on Marijuana.com about legalization and found it to be very informative and almost enlightening. You should definately read it.

"Legalization is the only answer, not only for pot but for all drugs. But, legal doesn't mean over the counter for everything, some such as PCP we do need to think hard about how we want to deal with them and restrict use to the medical community as much as possible. What we're now doing doesn't work though, not on any level.

An interesting detail that many aren't aware of is that for most of the history of mankind drugs were legal, and for much of the history of the U.S. drugs were legal. This whole prohibition idea is a fairly new one on the national or world concern level, though it had been tried at a smaller scale in the past and normally failed. Up till 1906 opiates, pot and its extracts such as hash, heroin, and most other substances were often included as up to 50% of the "tonic" that we gave to our children or grandmother for a tooth or back ache, some properly labeled and many not.

Back in 1906 the U.S. passed the single most effective bit of anti drug abuse legislation that we or to my knowledge anyone else has ever passed. The Pure Food and Drug Act specified that a product was "misbranded," "if the package fails to bear a statement of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide."

With the passage of that act opiate use dropped from an estimated 3-5% in the nation to roughly 1% on no stronger urging than people being told what they were taking. If we'd stuck to that approach we might be fine today, most people aren't stupid. Use today including legal prescribed use is probably as high or higher than it was at the time, we've gained nothing for 70 years of death and ruined lives.

In fact we've lost, a lot. Cops used to enforce the type of laws where people would pay them to hang around, now they enforce the type of laws where people would pay them to go away. It's forced an attitude shift, rather than protect the public from predators they had to become predators themselves and hunt for "criminals" that nobody was reporting and who was hurting nobody, and where often there's easy money or property to be had that few would report missing. We've lost the trust and respect between cops and the public as well as between the Government and the public.

Protecting the kids? Not even close. Drugs are easier to get than alcohol is, it always has been. Once a dealer takes the step to deal he doesn't care what the age of his client is, he's already risking prison. In a regulated establishment they have every reason to card people for the same reasons they do with alcohol. We've not only put them at serious risk of easy access to drugs, we then had the brilliant idea of ruining our credibility in the process and haven't stopped yet. Most overdose deaths are due to contaminated substances, allergic reactions to the agent used to cut the product, or to unknown potency levels. All prohibition related, not drug related. If properly labeled with clean needles the costs of addiction would fall dramatically. Most crime the same, it isn't because they are stoned, it's because in Government created black market they are forced to fight for territory with guns instead of with commercials or lawsuits.

Madness, murder, insanity was the first litany of lies about pot. That was followed a short time later with the claims that it was more addictive than heroin and the contradictory to the first claim idea that it now turned the kids into pacifists and was a tool of the communists. Then we tried a string of other lies and junk science including suffocating several monkeys and pretending it was pot related and we have a professional drug liar (some call him czar) out there whose job seems to be to make it up as he goes and see what he can get into print.

Back in 1906 we didn't have a drug problem that we couldn't have a huge effect on with a little simple education, people trusted their Government then. Today, we have a big problem, and we created it ourselves. The kids know we lied about some things so they don't trust us on anything else either and find out for themselves, they get stoned to our old reefer madness movies and laugh at the lies. Then they wonder what else we lied about, so experiment. We turned drug abuse from a health problem into a status symbol and integral part of the counter culture, and we've nobody to blame for that but ourselves. If we'd instead offer them accurate science based info so we weren't on separate sides we could then attack drugs the same way we did racism, work toward an attitude shift that teaches responsibility and makes abuse about as sexy as a case of hemorrhoids or VD would be. Just another nasty health problem rather than a part of youth rebellion.

More of the same isn't the way out. The truth and rational discussion of health care and educational rather than criminal alternatives is.

And BTW, what has been the result of all of this other than the near destruction of our own freedoms and society? We've managed to support and finance terrorists and organized crime from one side of the world to the other for decades, and we know it. If we want to destroy terrorism and organized crime it's pretty damned simple, remove their funding. Let our farmers grow what the terrorists now grow, let our pharmacies or liquor stores distribute instead of the street dealer. They are plant extracts that ancient people have used for centuries or longer, there's no reason for them to cost much more than a bottle of Rose Hips or Ginseng. Cut the throats of organized crime and terrorism, when the price falls and there are legit sources they no longer have a market that's worth enough to attract dealers, and their funding takes a bigger hit than anything else we could do.

Want another bonus to ending the war? We've seen a 6 times growth in the prison population since the late 1970's, and a pretty heavy growth in the load on our court systems too. We probably spend about as much as year between State, Federal, and foreign aid spending related to the drug war as we do in Iraq right now. We all panic about the cost of Iraq, but we do this every year and the costs just keep getting higher as we year by year escalate the efforts. We spend more in a year or two now then we used to in a decade. Want another one? How about our overloaded court systems, ending the war on drugs and reducing both those arrests and the violence related to them would reduce the load on our court systems by a great deal, perhaps offering them as much as twice the time per case that they now have. Real cases, real crimes against people rather than because you took or sold something that someone didn't like.

So, why are we in this drug war again?"
-posted by Yana Usdi

marc · Post by **marc** » 18 Jul 2004 09:46

I've seen that post as well. It's definitly worth reading.

AIvanyo · Post by **AIvanyo** » 18 Jul 2004 17:33

Yeah, it takes a while to read, but it sure does clear up a few things. I personally don't think what people on forums say will actually change the laws. What you need is a pot head to get into the Senate or the House of Reps. and start a bill that will state most of what we all are saying and that might be enough to start something in our favor. Who knows, if it was legal at one point, it might be legal again in the near future.

wolfpac444 · Post by **wolfpac444** » 18 Jul 2004 23:31

cheebs wrote:I found this post in a thread on Marijuana.com about legalization and found it to be very informative and almost enlightening. You should definately read it.
-posted by Yana Usdi

Really? I think things like this actually hurt any case for legalization of any drug. I don't know how a reader could come to the end of the post without coming away with the feeling that the author really has no true understanding of that which he is speaking. (If you wish, I'll tear that post apart tomorrow, but I'm too tired at the moment.)

sPinko-Mania · Post by **sPinko-Mania** » 19 Jul 2004 03:31

^^^ I would like to hear it. I think the post made a number of strong points, which could have been articulated/clarified better, and since no cites were given I'm not sure about the facts given, but it seemed alright in general.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 19 Jul 2004 05:48

cheebs wrote: "Legalization is the only answer, not only for pot but for all drugs. But, legal doesn't mean over the counter for everything, some such as PCP we do need to think hard about how we want to deal with them and restrict use to the medical community as much as possible. What we're now doing doesn't work though, not on any level.

This would not deal with the problem of recreational drug use at all if the drugs are being legalised for medical uses only - and recreational drug use is where the problems are.

An interesting detail that many aren't aware of is that for most of the history of mankind drugs were legal, and for much of the history of the U.S. drugs were legal. This whole prohibition idea is a fairly new one on the national or world concern level, though it had been tried at a smaller scale in the past and normally failed. Up till 1906 opiates, pot and its extracts such as hash, heroin, and most other substances were often included as up to 50% of the "tonic" that we gave to our children or grandmother for a tooth or back ache, some properly labeled and many not.

However these drugs were not refinied to the level that we see today - and thus were not anywhere near as powerful and addictive as they now are.

Use today including legal prescribed use is probably as high or higher than it was at the time, we've gained nothing for 70 years of death and ruined lives.

How can this person know what the world would have been like if drugs were legal. We may have saved 50 million lives because drugs are mainly illegal. We may have lost lives because they are - it's ridiculous to state such an assumption that we have gained nothing as if it's a fact.

In fact we've lost, a lot. Cops used to enforce the type of laws where people would pay them to hang around, now they enforce the type of laws where people would pay them to go away. It's forced an attitude shift, rather than protect the public from predators they had to become predators themselves and hunt for "criminals" that nobody was reporting and who was hurting nobody, and where often there's easy money or property to be had that few would report missing. We've lost the trust and respect between cops and the public as well as between the Government and the public.

I would say that in many cases the cops are going after criminals that hurt people. People don't report these criminals because they are addicted to the drug - but I am convinced that there are many nasty drug dealers around. There are, of course, other drug dealers that aren't nasty - but again - it's a big assumption - especially regarding his point later about selling drugs to children.

Protecting the kids? Not even close. Drugs are easier to get than alcohol is, it always has been. Once a dealer takes the step to deal he doesn't care what the age of his client is, he's already risking prison. In a regulated establishment they have every reason to card people for the same reasons they do with alcohol. We've not only put them at serious risk of easy access to drugs, we then had the brilliant idea of ruining our credibility in the process and haven't stopped yet. Most overdose deaths are due to contaminated substances, allergic reactions to the agent used to cut the product, or to unknown potency levels. All prohibition related, not drug related. If properly labeled with clean needles the costs of addiction would fall dramatically. Most crime the same, it isn't because they are stoned, it's because in Government created black market they are forced to fight for territory with guns instead of with commercials or lawsuits.

I don't know what it's like in the US, but I always found it a lot easier to get alcohol than it was to get drugs. Often at parties - especially when I was about 15 and older, it was standard practice to get older kids (18+) to buy alcohol for us. The very same thing would happen with drugs if they were available in the same manner.

Madness, murder, insanity was the first litany of lies about pot. That was followed a short time later with the claims that it was more addictive than heroin and the contradictory to the first claim idea that it now turned the kids into pacifists and was a tool of the communists. Then we tried a string of other lies and junk science including suffocating several monkeys and pretending it was pot related and we have a professional drug liar (some call him czar) out there whose job seems to be to make it up as he goes and see what he can get into print.

I smoke dope and I'm a pacifist and almost a communist... (although I had those views before smoking dope - so I don't know if it's a fair aguement)

Back in 1906 we didn't have a drug problem that we couldn't have a huge effect on with a little simple education, people trusted their Government then. Today, we have a big problem, and we created it ourselves. The kids know we lied about some things so they don't trust us on anything else either and find out for themselves, they get stoned to our old reefer madness movies and laugh at the lies. Then they wonder what else we lied about, so experiment. We turned drug abuse from a health problem into a status symbol and integral part of the counter culture, and we've nobody to blame for that but ourselves. If we'd instead offer them accurate science based info so we weren't on separate sides we could then attack drugs the same way we did racism, work toward an attitude shift that teaches responsibility and makes abuse about as sexy as a case of hemorrhoids or VD would be. Just another nasty health problem rather than a part of youth rebellion.

The difference between drugs and racism is that many drugs are addictive while racism is not. My step dad is highly educated. He knows the dangers of smoking tobacco. It is causing him many health problems and is linked to his current health problems - yet the first thing he did when he got out of hospital yesterday was to have a smoke. I can't see any way you could educate him so that he does not continue to smoke.

And BTW, what has been the result of all of this other than the near destruction of our own freedoms and society? We've managed to support and finance terrorists and organized crime from one side of the world to the other for decades, and we know it. If we want to destroy terrorism and organized crime it's pretty damned simple, remove their funding. Let our farmers grow what the terrorists now grow, let our pharmacies or liquor stores distribute instead of the street dealer. They are plant extracts that ancient people have used for centuries or longer, there's no reason for them to cost much more than a bottle of Rose Hips or Ginseng. Cut the throats of organized crime and terrorism, when the price falls and there are legit sources they no longer have a market that's worth enough to attract dealers, and their funding takes a bigger hit than anything else we could do.

The rest of my arguements have been a bit weak - and me just argueing for the sake of hit. However I find this above paragraph rather offensive. There are two main parts of the world that have huge black market drug economies. I'll mention them both.

Afghanistan.
Under the Taliban - who have much stronger links to terrorists than the regimes before and after - all opium was siezed and drug trafficking was stamped out. Since the US invasion and the current occupation we've seen a massive increase in the amount of opium growen and sold. Of course part of this is because the government of Afghanistan is largely made up of war lords who opposed the Taliban so they could sell their drugs again - The terrorists of the Middle East are also mostly lead by religious fanatics - who are opposed to drug usage and drugs in general - there is little evidence of a link between Islamic terrorists and drugs. Infact most likely this apparant link is racism on the part of the author of this post - assuming that since Arabs grow most of the worlds opium and many terrorists are Arabs they must be connected.
Colombia.
Colombia is a sad, sad story. I represented Colombia in a pretend United Nations Security Council competition and have done considerable research about it. Because of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) - big US and international farming corporations are competing with small time farmers. The big corporations have cut prices to such a level that the farmers can not support themselves on the money earnt from growing legal crops. Hence they have no choice but to either starve or grow illicit drugs. In an effort to stop this, the US gave the corrupt Colombian government large amounts of defoiliants - similar to Agent Orange - that were sprayed over large areas of fertile Colombian farmland. Those areas are now completely unusable and the occupants have fled - adding to Colombia's enourmas refugee problem (Colombia has more internally displaced people than any other country in the world).
There are two opposing factions in Colombia - there is the US backed government which is also supported by right wing militia groups and there is the rebel leftist group - FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). The Colombian government accuses FARC as not only being a terrorist organisation but of being funded by drug money. To some extent this is true - FARC subsidies the prices of legal crops in order to encourage farmers to grow legal crops, rather than drug crops - and taxes the money earnt from drug crops - so they are getting money for the drugs - but they are using the money to encourage the growth of legal crops. It is debatable wether they are terrorists or not. However the right wing militias have been responsible for a number of massacres of entire villages who have been accused of supporting FARC. FARC promises the people democracy, equality and freedom. They make it profitable to grow legal crops and they are made up of peasants. The Colombian government and the militias kill the peasants, posion their food and land and arrest them for growing the only profitable crops they can grow. It is no surprise that the majority of people support FARC.
Anyway my point of that is cutting off the profits from drugs to Colombia will not help their situation at all - it will probably make things worse - and the people who will suffer are the peasants - not the "terrorists"

Want another bonus to ending the war? We've seen a 6 times growth in the prison population since the late 1970's, and a pretty heavy growth in the load on our court systems too. We probably spend about as much as year between State, Federal, and foreign aid spending related to the drug war as we do in Iraq right now. We all panic about the cost of Iraq, but we do this every year and the costs just keep getting higher as we year by year escalate the efforts. We spend more in a year or two now then we used to in a decade. Want another one? How about our overloaded court systems, ending the war on drugs and reducing both those arrests and the violence related to them would reduce the load on our court systems by a great deal, perhaps offering them as much as twice the time per case that they now have. Real cases, real crimes against people rather than because you took or sold something that someone didn't like.

However people who are stoned - especially on dope - lose motivation - they may even stop work and expect the government to provide for them - it is arguable that the economy would not benifit at all.

Anyway that's just some arguements - apart from the terrorist one, I can think of plenty of counter arguements and I tended to agree with the most of the points made.

zachatree · Post by **zachatree** » 19 Jul 2004 05:53

im stoned as shit well i got pixies on both sides an i figar if i can do it toasted i can do them really nice once im sob

cant wait for to night lol

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 19 Jul 2004 07:03

10 days and counting sober.

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 19 Jul 2004 08:47

However people who are stoned - especially on dope - lose motivation - they may even stop work and expect the government to provide for them - it is arguable that the economy would not benifit at all.

I disagree with that statment. Dope affects people differently. I have a built up tolerance to pot. I can smoke all day long without lose of motivation. In fact, I am often more motivated because my state of mind is in bliss rather than constant random thought. I find it easier to concentrate and enjoy focusing on subjects at greater lengths while stoned. Although I cannot argue that motor skills are more relaxed and short term memory lose takes affect. The job still gets done.

I am on day 10 without pot of any kind, and I must say it is quite boring and unmodivating. I have done less at home, less with my family, and am quite cranky. My mind is constantly racing with lifes problems, that I can not seem to get motivated to solve or even dwell on at great length. My art has suffered from lack of creativity. While my motor skills have improved and my insight into debate have increased, I'd rather be happy instead of just being.

For me it is a release as well as a stimulator. My mind is open to explore and my body is willing to carry out the exploration. Without, I am bored stiff and fall into an accountant type mood. Get it done, eventually, and however it needs to get done, without thought to more productive or creative solutions. It may just be me, but I am a happier more creative and productive person when pot is a part of my life versus being in the state I am now, which is total boredom. Video games even seem boring as my acute mind wants to pick them apart rather than enjoy them for the sake of playing some video games. Noticed my avatar and signature haven't changed in a while? I have no creative energies to draw from, and really don't care about it at this time.

zachatree · Post by **zachatree** » 19 Jul 2004 08:51

True that, im the same way i can rember way back when, when i took those first few tokes i was so stoned now to get to that point i have to smoke the best KBs an blunts worth to get to the same point but i been like this for a while an its not hard at all for me to modivat an flex is right on,

Hoffa

420FootBager · Post by **420FootBager** » 19 Jul 2004 08:58

damn straight... i feel much more modivated i first got into footbag and all my other pass times whilst stoned it never makes me feel unmotivated and I am more willing to learn because everything seems so interesting.....

FlexThis · Post by **FlexThis** » 20 Jul 2004 07:07

Finally a break in the streak. First thing I did was pick up 3 Minis and start juggling. It was dark out and I have to work everyday so I only kicked the bag around for like 5 minutes, but it felt so good and my spirits were up as opposed to stagnant.

Splint · Post by **Splint** » 20 Jul 2004 07:40

im so stoand i kan hit cympozium blurroke...butt the inglish langwaj is a hoal uthir challanj.

sPinko-Mania · Post by **sPinko-Mania** » 21 Jul 2004 01:01

^^^