When walking back (OT)

On 9/13/2013 8:08 PM, Bastette wrote:
jmcquown wrote:

On 9/13/2013 6:01 PM, Cheryl wrote:
On 9/13/2013 5:35 PM, Judith Latham wrote:

In article , Christina Websell

I've never tried cannabis but would like to just once to see what all
the fuss is about.

When I was in the sixth form at school one of my friends had an elder
brother who was at university and on a visit to see him my friend had
tried cannabis. He said he didn't see what all the fuss was about and
that
he wouldn't bother again. that's as close as I've got to anyone who took
any from of illegal drugs.

When I was a student, the smoke wafted through certain areas of the
campus - you couldn't avoid smelling it. I thought it smelled even worse
than tobacco, and given my general aversion to smoking anything, never
tried it. It made a friend of mine very silly and giggly and relaxed
while she was under the influence.

I'll admit I smoked pot when I was in my teens. It made all of us a
little silly and sometimes giggly, yes. Relaxed, yes. We'd do it after
school. Sit around, listen to music and talk.

I'd *still* like to know what the fuss is about.

Well, I enjoyed it in my late teens. I wasn't a total waste case (ie,
stoned 24/7), but my friends and I smoked a few times a week. It was fun.
Music sounded *great*. Everything was much funnier. I can't say it relaxed
me, exactly, but I had a great time. And I really liked the smell of pot
smoke (still do).

Music, sitting around talking. It was fun!

But all of a sudden, I stopped enjoying it. It made me really anxious,
and all my neuroses and phobias came out. I didn't get paranoid about the
people I was with - I went for the big stuff, like having fantasies about
burning to death in a nuclear attack. Nice, huh?

Yikes!

There's a certain intense
focus that happens when you're stoned, and I would often forget that I
*could choose* not to think about something if it was becoming unpleasant.
So I'd have these horrific thoughts and fantasies, and it wouldn't occur
to me that I could think about or do something else. I'd be glued to my
thoughts, getting more and more freaked out.

That was not my experience. I'll admit, at times I was anxious. But it
was more about my surroundings or did I forget to do something. Not
something horrific.

So it seemed like maybe it was a good time to stop.

Clearly!

This wasn't a difficult decision - it wasn't like giving up something I liked for my
health. There was simply no point in doing it anymore because I'd stopped
enjoying it. I also started getting really jittery and fidgety when high -
the opposite of relaxed. This was when I was about 20. Everyone I knew
continued to smoke, but I'd had enough apocalyptic visions, thanks. I
never minded being around other people getting high, and fortunately I
had decent friends who didn't try to egg me on or give me a hard time
for "going straight".

I never had anyone "egg me on" when I quit. I just quit. I got busy
with other things. I still know people who smoke pot.

Jill
Jill

On 9/14/2013 8:55 AM, jmcquown wrote:


I think there is more of a problem with prescription drugs these days
than I ever saw with marijuana. I believe if pot "leads" people to
something stronger, those people have other problems.

Misuse of prescription drugs has been a problem for decades, and
probably always will be - like misuse of other drugs.

Again, it depends on the drug. I don't believe marijuana is addictive.
I do believe there are addictive personalities. I certainly had no
problem giving it up.

I said a minority of people have problems with drugs - including
marijuana. I didn't say you were one of them, just that they exist. Lots
of people drink alcohol and smoke tobacco without problems, but that
doesn't mean no one has problems due to that use. And I have certainly
known people whose problems with marijuana are exactly like those people
have with drugs that are more widely-recognized as addictive. I have
heard reports that such problems are becoming more common since
selective breeding has produced marijuana that's much stronger than that
used in my youth, and complaints from legal users that the illegal
marijuana is better than what they are supposed to use.

If, in fact, you're growing your own, using seeds etc from legal
sources, it's a private activity. If you're buying it from someone who's
claiming that of course this product was grown by a private individual
who was just growing a few plants in the attic or on land and so didn't
need the bear traps, guard dogs, armed guards, etc to protect his
investment - well, you might be hearing the truth. Or you might not.
Truth in advertising and consumer protection rules don't apply in such
cases.

I'm not sure you're hearing me. I went to school with these guys. (I
don't know where they got the seeds for the plants.) I saw the couple
or three pot plants (in pots) in the attic. There were no armed guards
or guard dogs or weapons or anything else... Truly, what you're
describing sounds like it belongs on television.

Like I said, IF you get your drugs from such sources, you can probably
be reasonably sure they aren't linked to various gangs. Not everyone -
and certainly not everyone middle-class - does. Lots of nice middle and
upper class people obtain their drugs from people who fit into their
milieu - and don't question too much where those sellers get the drugs.
The end users don't buy drugs on the street corner from some dealer, and
they don't all have a friend with a plant or two in the attic.

You must have grown up in an environment way different from mine. I was
living in middle-class suburbia, Memphis, TN. It was pretty boring.

Ha, you've got to be kidding. I grew up in a very conservative middle &
working class small town at a time and in a place where the only drugs
used and abused were tobacco and alcohol. I've moved in largely
middle-class or mixed socioeconomic settings all my life, but I've kept
my eyes and ears open, and due to my age and background, I saw and heard
a lot over the years since my late teens and early 20s coincided with an
increase in illegal drug use among my peers.

BTW, the U.S. government has been growing marijuana at the University of
Mississippi for decades.

So? The Canadian government grows it, too, and if you get a license
showing you have medical need, you can legally use it. That has nothing
to do with whether or not some people run into addiction problems with
it, or whether or not most of the supply comes from someone with a
couple plants in his attic.

--
Cheryl

Cheryl wrote:
On 9/13/2013 8:53 PM, jmcquown wrote:

I never saw marijuana lead to "hard drugs". Never saw anyone commit a
crime (other than smoking pot). We weren't dealing with a big crime
syndicate. There wasn't a supply chain. It was some guys growing weed
in pots under grow-lights in the attic. Or on some small plot of land.
$15 an ounce. No one was getting rich. No one was getting killed
over it.

Well, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but for what it's worth, yes, I
know people who started with marijuana and ended up with a serious drug
addiction - some only with marijuana, some with harder drugs, most with
a combination of drugs, some legal, some not. The risk is probably
smaller than was implied by the anti-drug education of my youth (and
probably yours), but it is a very real risk for a minority of people -
and mostly people don't know if they're in that minority until they are
using enough to cause serious problems, and then have serious difficulty
getting off the drugs, if that's what they want to do.

Case in point: "Lady Day" (jazz singer Billy Holiday). But she was
far from the only jazz musician who started with marijuana, then
graduated to the hard stuff. However, I do think drug use should be
de-criminalized. (Just like alcohol consumption during Prohibition -
all the law succeeded in doing was to popularize drinking in
"speak-easies" and encourage criminals to provide it.)

jmcquown wrote:

Again, it depends on the drug. I don't believe marijuana is addictive.

Neither is alcohol (in theory) but that doesn't prevent an awful lot of
people being addicted to it!

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message
...


jmcquown wrote:

Again, it depends on the drug. I don't believe marijuana is addictive.

Neither is alcohol (in theory) but that doesn't prevent an awful lot of
people being addicted to it!


Alcohol *is* addictive, Evelyn. Otherwise there wouldn't be any alcoholics.
So is tobacco.
I don't know whether cannabis is addictive, as such, but a lot of people
seem to like it ;-)
It's perfectly legal in the Netherlands and I haven't heard that they have a
huge hard drug problem there.

On 9/14/2013 2:49 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Cheryl wrote:
On 9/13/2013 8:53 PM, jmcquown wrote:

I never saw marijuana lead to "hard drugs". Never saw anyone commit a
crime (other than smoking pot). We weren't dealing with a big crime
syndicate. There wasn't a supply chain. It was some guys growing weed
in pots under grow-lights in the attic. Or on some small plot of land.
$15 an ounce. No one was getting rich. No one was getting killed
over it.

Well, the plural of anecdote isn't data, but for what it's worth, yes,
I know people who started with marijuana and ended up with a serious
drug addiction - some only with marijuana, some with harder drugs,
most with a combination of drugs, some legal, some not. The risk is
probably smaller than was implied by the anti-drug education of my
youth (and probably yours), but it is a very real risk for a minority
of people - and mostly people don't know if they're in that minority
until they are using enough to cause serious problems, and then have
serious difficulty getting off the drugs, if that's what they want to do.

Case in point: "Lady Day" (jazz singer Billy Holiday). But she was
far from the only jazz musician who started with marijuana, then
graduated to the hard stuff.

Janis Joplin, Hendrix, yada yada yada. How about people you know? Did
you ever meet someone who was suddenly a drug addict because they smoked
pot?

I never saw pot *lead* anyone to hard drugs, unless they were already
inclined to try other things. I certainly never was tempted. So what
if I smoked a little pot? Really, it was no big deal. And it wasn't
being sold to me by some criminal enterprise. Just a couple of guys I
went to school with who grew some plants in their attic. I think their
parents knew they were growing it, too. After all, they lived with
their parents.

However, I do think drug use should be
de-criminalized. (Just like alcohol consumption during Prohibition -
all the law succeeded in doing was to popularize drinking in
"speak-easies" and encourage criminals to provide it.)

Prohibition was a ridiculous law. During that era my paternal
grandfather brewed beer in the basement and my father helped him. Dad
was just a little kid at the time. It wasn't for sale, it was for
personal consumption.

Jill

jmcquown wrote:
On 9/14/2013 2:49 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Case in point: "Lady Day" (jazz singer Billy Holiday). But she was
far from the only jazz musician who started with marijuana, then
graduated to the hard stuff.

Janis Joplin, Hendrix, yada yada yada. How about people you know? Did
you ever meet someone who was suddenly a drug addict because they smoked
pot?

SFAIK, I never knew anyone who smoked pot! (Except for professional
jazz musicians, my generation just didn't.)

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote in message
m...


jmcquown wrote:
On 9/14/2013 2:49 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Case in point: "Lady Day" (jazz singer Billy Holiday). But she was
far from the only jazz musician who started with marijuana, then
graduated to the hard stuff.

Janis Joplin, Hendrix, yada yada yada. How about people you know? Did
you ever meet someone who was suddenly a drug addict because they smoked
pot?

SFAIK, I never knew anyone who smoked pot! (Except for professional jazz
musicians, my generation just didn't.)

I suspect you and I may be in the same generation. When I was in high
school, I went to school one day to find the whole campus buzzing. A
surprise search of gym lockers had found some pot in one of them. Everybody
in the school was shocked.

Joy

On 9/15/2013 3:19 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


jmcquown wrote:
On 9/14/2013 2:49 PM, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


Case in point: "Lady Day" (jazz singer Billy Holiday). But she was
far from the only jazz musician who started with marijuana, then
graduated to the hard stuff.

Janis Joplin, Hendrix, yada yada yada. How about people you know?
Did you ever meet someone who was suddenly a drug addict because they
smoked pot?

SFAIK, I never knew anyone who smoked pot! (Except for professional
jazz musicians, my generation just didn't.)

Yes, different generation. Or those who did kept it well hidden. (I
never knew any professional jazz musicians, either.)

At any rate, I'm not promoting smoking pot. I'm just saying I never saw
any evidence of it leading to harder drugs among my peer group.

Jill

"EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)" wrote:



jmcquown wrote:

Again, it depends on the drug. I don't believe marijuana is addictive.

Neither is alcohol (in theory) but that doesn't prevent an awful lot of
people being addicted to it!

Alcohol has far more addictive properties than marijuana. Alcoholics develop
a tolerance to the drug and then require more and more to achieve the same
effect. Their body becomes dependent on it and withdrawing is a difficult
phase of becoming sober. I don't think marijuana has any of those properties,
on either the chemical or biological level. However, it's true that some
people get psychologically dependent to it. They might appear to be similar
to alcoholics, but technically, they're different issues.

--
Joyce

He spent one-third of the time telling me about the musical he was writing about raccoons, one-third of the time talking about C++, and one-third of the time demonstrating the plot of Othello using the salt and pepper shakers.
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