Yes, but you also said "Pot doesnt really present a cause for worry on the roads". Intoxication of any kind is potentially lethal when driving, however much or little is taken, from whatever source. Inhibiting attention doesnt lead to over-cautious driving.

You use the most dangerous drugs available, but are against some drugs that are less harmful but illegal. Not a hypocrite, but maybe confused.

If you actually believe what you just wrote, I expect you to be campaigning to outlaw all alcoholic beverages immediately.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/drving.htm

Alcohol: Published studies suggest that as many as 86% of homicide offenders, 37% of assault offenders, 60% of sexual offenders, up to 57% of men and 27% of women involved in marital violence, and 13% of child abusers were drinking at the time of the offense.
http://www.vpcla.org/factAlcohol.htm

Marijuana: There are many articles citing rising violence associated with marijuana use, but curiously none of them quote cases of users being violent while under the influence; every single case concerns violence between rival gangs in the production, promotion and transportation of the drug, similar the rise of gangs in the '20s when alcohol was illegal.

In other words, your arguments against are much more applicable to the legal drug that you probably use than the illegal one you rage against.

[quote=Sailor Steve]You use the most dangerous drugs available, but are against some drugs that are less harmful but illegal. Not a hypocrite, but maybe confused.

quote]

'Confused'....no chance :nope:

In my line of work I think 'Hypocrite' is more apt/fitting :yep:

:lol:

[quote=kurtz]that quote is not from me.

some good pionts had been made on the importance of the situation in which to take drugs. I was not aware that LSd was used in therapy of alcoholism, but I habe my problems with imagining it to be successful. However, I know the context in which Stanislaww Grof used LSD. He no longer does that, which does not make his theory of a peri-natale matrix less interesting. It is fascinating - and a hopbby of your ego.

Also, the point is that cannabis may have less developement and mind-paralysing effects on older people than younger people. but that can only be an argument in favour of NOT legalizing it, because younger people have even less affect-control, and are accepting greater risks, nicetalking the consequences.

Using mushroom poisons for spiritual rites and self-induced trances is a very old thing. But here again: it was given great care to use it in a ritualised, carfefully arranged situational context, well, mostly it was like that, not always.

If somebdoy wants to check these "spiritual" aspects of usin drugs in an according context, okay, then it maybe should be made possible to do so in a well-guarded, empathic and mecially monitored context, especially with not so soft drugs like LSD. As a meditation teacher I of course can only warn of mistaken that with any kind of "freeing your mind". A LSD-fantasy is not the same like an enlightenment experience in meditation, and both quantities are of very different qualities. and to have visions that give you - maybe even valuable - intellectual information - still are not what is meant with enlightenment, or a free mind.

reading these arguments, I still see no reason why drugs being mentioned here should be legalized. And the health-endangering effects of cannabis on young ones, Kiwi, P_Funk, are a medical fact that you cannot just ignore. One of you said that he has so far never seen victims from cannabis, only victims from alcohol., Maybe that is becasue you have not come around wide enough. but I have seen such victims sometimes - at hospitals, in psychiatric ambulances and long term caretaking asylums.

I admit that for certain kinds of social institutions and rules, for systems and hierarchies representing any kind of leadership by some, social rule of communal life for others, the thioughts being thought by a mind after haviong consummed drugs could be a thread, a subversive rebellious elemnt putting key assumptions of such a society at risk. Some people argue that this is the reason why certain drugs are supressed by our society. And still, this is only one small part of the truth, and still cannot neutralize other valid arguments in favour of banning drugs.

If you want freedom of mind, first learn to become somebody so that you can loose yourself when realizing the emptiness in your imgination of yourself. If you want transcendence, first you need to construct. If you want to pass thorugh the illusion of your ego, first you mujst raise and have an ego. If you want enlightenment, you must overlook yourself, forget your self. Only then you relaize that you always have been what you are yearning to become, and that you must not go anywhere, since you are already there.

Drugs do not give you that. they motivate your neurons to fire hectically, they make you replacing one false image of yourself with another one, like a fever dream. they make you not construct and transcendent, but to simply imagine something. You are the director, cameraman and the audience of your own movie running inside your head. You are not being make to oversee yourself. Instead you strongly, fanatically focus and stick to your self which wears latest fantasy picture fashion to deceive you, and to make you think itself is real.

You think you have won freedom - and that makes you giving up, since you think you already gained freedom, and you lay back in captivity and do no longer try to escape.

The same what I wrote about false prophets, could be said about drugs, just exchange the words.

The quote system seems to be having fun with this thread :)

As regards marijuana, I grow wary of discussions that compare it and alcohol. The legalisation of weed is possible, the criminalisation of alcohol is impossible, at least in our society. Saying that if alcohol/cigs are legal, then so should marijuana be, is spurious.

at least we could do stop selling alcohol and tobacco to under 20 year old, and stop advertizing for it in open of hidden form. Statistics show very clearly that the probability to turn a person beyond the age of 18, 19, 20, into a smoker if he/she has not smoked before, falls dramatically, the risk is less than a fifth, compared to teenagers. If that is for physiological or changed social-cultural variables, is unimportant. This is also the reason why the young ones are so heavily targetted by advertizing for smoking, and why they are given so many smoking idols in adverts. the industry knows very well that it must have turned them into addicts before reaching that critical age, if it wants to secure them as customers for a lifetime.

I call it brutal and inhumane child abuse, and cigarette companies are criminals and dealers, hurting and killing our families. How else could you call turning youngsters into addicts, selling them poison and making them becoming ill and dying earlier than necessary for profit?

Yes I wasn't aware of this either until I saw a very good documentary on the history of LSD. It was invented by accident by some German pharmaceutical or chemical company (if I recall correctly). The effects of LSD seem to have been to allow a person to have very clear perception of his own memories and beahvior and apparently, with a counselor at his side guiding him, appreciate in a way that was very difficult before, the reasons why he abuses alcohol and other such enlightening things. The enlightenment was merely a result of his conscious mind being able to see past the neurotic blocks that make such people dysfunctional. Once fully aware of the brutal reality of their life and choices then they are better able to address the solution and change themselves. Its no mystical vision quest but really a radical introspective experience. Skybird you are right that it is all about finding yourself within yourself and that such things can be achieved as effectively without drugs but the fact is that a healthy mind cannot be used as the basis for comparison. That would be like saying I don't need a gold cart to go to all 18 holes cause I can walk... but what if I have a limp? People that benefitted from LSD treatment basically had a limp and were daunted far worse than any healthy person at facing their problems. The story behind it is quite fascinating and it really makes you question the motivation behind the complete banning of it (no leeway for clinical use).



Skybird I hope you, being as smart and aware as you are, would know that the wholesale prohibition of something does a better job of advertising and encouraging use than the healthy responsible control of it. It is especially true that young people who are at a stage where they may rebel against society would want to use a drug which is illegal for the very reason that it is illegal. This is not a hard and fast rule but there is also something to be said for taking away the taboo character of the drug so that it won't be as attractive in such a way. I'll refer to Denis Leary for my support on this. In one interview I heard him talk about what it was like as a Catholic when he was young. He said, and I paraphrase, that his church would send out a newsletter every month and in it there would be a list of things that parents should guard their children against. He said "Me and my freinds had never heard of George Carlin before but when we read it in the newsletter we said we've gotta get that record."

So lets face the facts of how we handle prohibition in our societies. When we ban something like a substance from the whole public then we also make it taboo. With that we add the stigma of the thing so we react to it in a very negative way. We don't educate people about it because we're trying to pretend it doesn't exist and we spread around lots of exaggerated or incorrect information about it. Those old Reefer Madness movies are one kind of proof of this. And if we legalize it then it becomes a socially acceptable thing to use as an adult, responsibly, and so then we'd still make it unavailable to minors. So then we should educate people about it like we would with alcohol or tobacco. You can't keep kids who will use these things from using them, but you will dimish the cultural power of something if it turns into something available at the corner store. Weed is a big deal in high school, while ciggarettes are less common at least in mention. People that smoke smoke, and so they will no matter the legality of it. Prohibition however encourages illegal behavior and regardless of teh potential risks if they are no different than other legal drugs then it is damaging to the integrity of our laws and freedoms to make such double standards. Besides education leads to less abuse than pretending something is evil, which will happen regardless of what we really know when you prohibit it. As they say, prohibition in the depression only accomplished the goal of bringing the majority of the public in contact with the criminal element. You're much better off making it an acceptable topic in society than demonizing it as if children cannot be made aware. Treating them like kids is always disrespectful and more likely to drive them to rebel and of course why should we control the bulk of the population for the obvious immaturity of a minority of the population? Prevention of drug abuse comes only from education and awareness to the reasons why its pursued. Actual control of the drug itself doesn't accomplish much.

Yes and driving when regulated by the government with liscensing and police on the roads is very acceptable, however driving recklessly is not. The fact is that there are safe and unsafe ways to act in regard to most things. Fear of the worst possibility only clouds judgement. That more primitive cultures could use such drugs in a way that actually held their culture together, rather than tore it apart, says that it isn't a particularly difficult concept (moderation and responsibility) to hold in your mind. Building a culture of responsibility around something leads to smarter use ultimately. Its been seen that building a culture of feer and oppressive prohibition only encourages curiosity and rebellion. Just saying no to drugs seems to make many people say yes!

Tobacco and Alcohol are also not prohibited. Which does not make their consuming less attractive. I do not buy the argument that if drugs remain illegal they remain to be attractive. It is not that simple and one-sided. Making marijuana f.e. legal would only cause this: a rise in juveniles consuming it. If something activates the reward centre in your brain, and all those happiness hormones get produced and flood your mind and body, and you can have it legally, it is no point to assume that people would shy away from it. Exactly the opposite.

I have rejected the use of drugs as a "cheat" in general before, so I also do not accept that comparison of a golf cart on a golf course when you miss a limb. There is no such thing like a happiness pill that is your free ride into Nirvana and enlightenment becasue you are handicapped, or lazy. Drugs maybe give people a timeout in which they flee the fate of their regular lifes for a limited time, but they need to return sooner or later - and then they still are where they left.

One thing also is different. If not drinking regularly, or excessively, but with modesty, the occasional red vine, alcohol most likely will not damage your body. with tobacco you already are in different terrain, even a low rate smoker who smokes regularly will see the ammount of poisen in his body raising over the years. With drugs, you always run a risk of ending offside or receiving serious deficits if not damages in the way your neural system behaves, f.e. what I said about yoluth's developement being slowed down or stopped when using cannabis: they become dumb in that their intellectual level, and level of general activity, is not up to what would be expected of their age some years later. their is a damage in their neural hardware. It does not make sense to ignore this.

And to end my participation in this thread: I must say that I find modern society's example to raise young people in a culture or responsibility - not really convincing by results, because manners and behavior are in free fall, egoism is on the jump-rise, and short-sighted day-to-day pragmatism and self-deception about unpleasant grim truths are the rule.

How exactly does what I said compel me to campaign for or against anything? I do believe it and I think you misunderstood it. I really wouldn't care whether alcohol or tobacco were legal or not because the legality of this or that is beside the point. We all know that alcohol and tobacco are more or less addictive or dangerous depending on the hands they're in. For some, alcohol might be the worst drug. For others, it might be cocaine. But all that is irrelevant. "Your rights end where mine begin, and vice-versa" is a philosophy that applies equally to drugs (legal or otherwise), firearms ownership, motor vehicle ownership, etc. Believe me, if there's one thing I support, it's the second amendment. But I'm also an advocate of acknowledging one's personal responsibilities. But drug users, whether they use alcohol, marijuana, or submarine sims, nearly always seem to be the ones who feel they owe society nothing.

Not often that I agree with Skybird, but here I do. That's all from me.

But why do you want to use a drug? The motivation for usage is different for people. Some use it for a type of escape or for numbing pain, while others do it out of irrational rebellion. Making something legal when the thing itself is proliferated already to every corner of society (really most every row of lockers had one guy selling it in my high school) doesn't seem like it'll have much negative effect. Like I said you can't ignore the nature of a taboo. Are you actually saying that there aren't alot of people that do things because they're taboo? Sex is a taboo in conservative culture and as a result being ignorant of it leads many people to experiment, and then unsafely. Denying something raises curiosity, especially in immature teens.

And many scientists, therapists, and cases of success disagree with you. What you seem to be expounding here isn't a scientific reality but more of a moral disagreement. Whats a cheat? If it works it works. And I never said it was a miracle drug. What I said was that under correct circumstances an individual is aided in facing himself, but that its still about that individual taking action with what he learns of himself. You in this case I think are simplifying what I and others are saying, and perhaps on purpose out of disdain for the argument.



If we make laws to match the attitudes of our time then we'll just reinforce this. But then you will deny freedoms to those who are capable of this because of a minority who are not responsible. It doesn't add up in a free society to rule by the worst case. Whatever the cumulative effects of smoking or drinking or eating too much food that is my job to regulate it. The government isn't here to tell me whether my interest in somethig is acceptable unless it directly infringes on the interests or rights of others. Children offer a difficult compromise in this since they are considered to not have the ability to make their own decisions. But babying the population because parents don't do a good job these days is not an answer.

BTW I don't find it acceptable to detail 3 paragraphs of arguments and rebuff other people's points of view then declare you're out of the discussion. You either argue or you leave, you don't get to do both. I just think thats disrespectful.

P_Funk,

I have started to repeat my arguments. No need to do so. So I said I wish to leave it here. You and me will not agree on the vital points here anyway. I would also reject very many of your claims you have just made in your latest posting again. But for what? you would not change your opinion, and still would ignore much of what I said - while I think that some of your reasoning is simply very much twisted. Last but not least, though I have not specialised in anti-drug therapy, I had to deal with it occasionally, and so see it from a professional's (psychotherapist's) perspective, having been in exchange with medical staff and doctors as well. Some of the claims you are making are simply wrong, on the level of hard facts.

So, I could repeat my posiiton and arguments again, and criticise yours again, but it would lead to nothing.

So I leave. that is not an issue of respect or lack of it, but simply avoiding fruitless repetition. I have said what i have to say on the issues, and I named the reaosns for my position repeatedly. You may say that I leave it now is disrespectful, but to me it seems you do not wish to accept that you have not the arguments to convince me of your position.

Again, I have said all what I have to say on these things, and i explained why I think like I do. Take it like that, or don't. ;)

Well I don't think anybody posts in the GT to change anyone's mind, or at least expects to. Theres too much ego at stake to say "I'm wrong and you're right". ;)

But you're not entirely repeating your arguments either. That last point, the one you went out on ironically, is not repeated but something of a new comment. So I understand your meaning, but I still think laying your departure down with that much accompanying verbiage is gonna leave people a bit miffed. If I were to leave a discussion I'd either say it and not repeat anything said before or just not post at all.

Beer and grass is all I need thanks.


Oh and anyone against weed should do the following:

Throw out most of the music you have because most of it was written while influenced by at least pot.

Bill Hicks!:cool:

[quote=SUBMAN1]See Paulie Shore:rotfl: :dead: