View Single Post
Old 07-25-2007, 01:01 PM   #33 (permalink)
Jinn
Lover - Protector - Teacher
 
Jinn's Avatar
 
Location: Seattle, WA
Quote:
Pot will forever be tainted in my mind. I won't allow it in my life.
The illegality and stigma seems to be clouding the issue a bit.

Compared (as an analogy) to alcohol, the situation is much clearer.

There are alcoholics and there are people who drink one glass of wine a day for the perceived heart benefits.

There are people who are hopelessly addicted, and use it to self-medicate their dissatisfaction with life. You always see them drunk, and they’re hurting people they love by getting drunk so often and so recklessly.

There are people who drink recreationally and you’d probably never know they drank if it weren’t for a few bottles in the trash can.

It has absolutely nothing to do with the alcohol itself, and everything to do with the maturity, responsibility, intelligence, and self-control of the individual consuming it.

Replace alcohol with marijuana and the analogy does not fail.

I'm sorry that you will never be with someone who smokes marijuana, but it's similar to those I know who won't be with someone who drinks. I think it's a bit extreme to blame the substance and decide with such black-and-white polarity to exclude mates because of it, but it's nonetheless a personal choice.

I can't help but think that you still judge recreational non-habitual smokers. Maybe I'm wrong. I think perhaps your perspective would change after smoking only once. You'd recognize that despite the temporary perceptual and cognitive changes, you are still the same person inside before, during, and after.

EDIT:

Quote:
You may say, well that's their problem, but I've seen a number of close friends completely alter their outlook on life once they started smoking regularly. A number of them dropped out of college. One guy may or may not graduate after 6 years in college. I firmly believe that this would not have happened to them had marijuana never entered their lives.
You seem to be under the impression that this "change" in their personality was brought on by the drug, rather than pre-existing mental conditions being brought to the fore by their use of the drugs.

If it wasn't marijuana, it's very likely that another drug (or another sitation) would've unveiled their latent tendency to behave so poorly.

EDIT x2:

I don't smoke, by the way. Don't really like the taste/smell or the mental effects (in case my use is a factor the perception of my credibility).
__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Last edited by Jinn; 07-25-2007 at 01:07 PM..
Jinn is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360