General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsF*ck Tweety and the Kennedys on the issue of pot.
Did you see this?
"There is hard science showing loss of IQ and motivation" ONLY if tons is smoked when you are a teen (the IQ part).
I smoked pot every day for at least 10 years. All through college and law school. Every day. I'd be a fucking genius if pot lowered my IQ (sorry, don't mean to sound arrogant but I did good at book learning....while on pot!)
PISSING ME OFF!
I know the Kennedys have had their share of problems with drugs and alcohol but I don't forgive them for not "getting it".
And don't tell me I'm not an addictive personality. Cigarettes for 30 years and I still chew the damned nicotine gum and let me tell you about my food addiction. Pot was the easiest to give up. I gave it up because as a lawyer I didn't think it was a good idea so did less of it and much more alcohol (it was just a miracle I didn't kill someone drunk driving) then I had kids and gave it up. Except for a couple of times a year.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)I'd kick your addicted ass but you.........seem to have given everything up.
Hamlette
(15,394 posts)I had to give up alcohol to give up cigarettes but I do love me some ice cream. In fact. . . brb
DefenseLawyer
(11,101 posts)Know your dope fiend!!! Your life may depend on it.
As long as there is money to be made we will have reefer madness.
spanone
(135,636 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)the more things change ...
WillyT
(72,631 posts)Preaching and trying to influence policy for the rest of us.
Dude... YOU fucked up... most do not.
Take your new found sobriety, thank your lucky stars, and shut the hell up!
Hamlette
(15,394 posts)that's what I was trying to say.
I was so pissed I couldn't even talk.
Especially when they went off on "all we know is anecdotal evidence" Yeah, and I have some of my own. There was a huge group of us in law school who smoked everyday. And ALL of us are upstanding, successful people, not all rich mind you, most of us when into public service, legal services, public defenders but we are NOT lazy and we did not lack ambition. We just wanted our lives to mean something besides saving some insurance company some money. And none of us hippies turned to harder drugs (yeah, we tried 'em all).
I'm sure it would be hard to watch a family member hit bottom and it might provide you with comfort to say it was all because of pot but it wasn't. It was because that person had "issues" and most of us do not.
Blue_In_AK
(46,436 posts)Just because "you" can't handle drugs doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
babylonsister
(170,963 posts)and their opinions are in the minority.
valerief
(53,235 posts)TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)RainDog
(28,784 posts)even when they make you look like an idiot. just sayin'
TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)cup of shut the fuck up.
RainDog
(28,784 posts)TheKentuckian
(24,949 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)It's what happens when rich men marry wives for their looks instead of brains. Each generation gets dumber than the last.
polichick
(37,152 posts)We can all choose for ourselves.
Tweety should have at least included non-addicts who use weed responsibly.
delrem
(9,688 posts)"The Rat Park experiment
Are drugs addictive? As odd as it might sound, one scientist believes that they weren't at least not to the degree most people insisted. He thought it had more to do with overwhelming misery and depressing environments, and to prove it he created the ideal environment... for rats.
In the late 1970s, Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander was distressed by the laws and policies pertaining to opiate drugs. He didn't approve of the harsh penalties dealt out to people in the name of addiction prevention. Generally those penalties were applied in order to prevent drug dealers from pushing their product on new people at which point the addictive nature of drugs caused people to be hooked.
When Alexander looked at the studies indicating the addictive properties of drugs, he found what he believed to be insufficient evidence. There were plenty of interviews with drug users who self-reported themselves as being addicted, but Alexander reasoned that they had reasons of their own to declare that their affinity for drugs was beyond their control. Meanwhile, the relatively few studies done on addiction were highly technical and all relied on one thing: they were conducted on rats that lived and died in miserable, cramped cages.
It seemed to Alexander that the reported increased rates of addiction in economically depressed areas might have something in common with the consistently high rates of addiction in studies done on rats in distressing environments. Drugs provided relief from pain, and if it was the only relief available, it was no wonder that anything animal or human would turn to it with the fervor of an addict. Alexander began to put forward a new hypothesis. If rats were given a beautiful living area that allowed them a relatively happy life, they would not become addicted.
And so he built "Rat Park," a testing facility meant to give the rats inside it plenty of room, exercise and play facilities, good food, lots of bottles and boxes to explore, mixed-gender company, and private areas to raise their young. His group even painted the walls to resemble a forest. Before populating Rat Park, they forced many of its future inhabitants to ingest morphine hydrochloride for a month and a half. Less lucky rats were fed with morphine and then put in standard lab cages. Once the two groups of rats were housed, they were given a choice between morphine-laced water and regular water. Although the caged rats overwhelmingly chose the morphine-laced water, relatively few of the Rat Park residents did.
Alexander began trying to induce the Rat Park rats to take the morphine. His best results were with a sugar solution. Rats love sugar, and if the morphine was heavily sugared the rats did try it, but they still didn't consume nearly as much as the caged rats did. At one point, the caged rats were consuming twenty times as much as the Rat Park residents were. Alexander published his results, declaring that miserable living conditions were the primary cause of addiction to opiates, not the opiates themselves.
His theory did not gain much popularity. His procedure, overall, seems to have drawn more attention than his conclusions. Scientists realized that isolated animals in cages may not provide a useful response in experiments determining human behavior, but few people hold to the theory that drugs are not, for the most part, addictive. A similar experiment that seemed to contradict his results didn't help, although its framers admitted that they might have done the experiment with two different rat subspecies, one of which might be resistant to addiction.
It's understandable that no one wants to say that drugs aren't addictive. If they are, and people get hooked, one announcement might spawn a generation of addicts. And if they're not, they're hardly healthy. Still, the idea of easing up on drug penalties and using any money saved to prevent the societal conditions that may contribute to addiction in the first place has an allure. What do you think of Rat Park?"
former9thward
(31,805 posts)That said I don't care if people smoke pot, tobacco or drink alcohol. But to suggest you could use it everyday with day's levels and get through school is not reality.
DisgustipatedinCA
(12,530 posts)Raises, promotions, bonuses--all of these things can and do happen for daily smokers.
former9thward
(31,805 posts)And they aren't getting through life. I guess we see different ones.
Buddyblazon
(3,014 posts)there's my mentor. Smoked pot everyday for the last 30 years. He's a VP of operations for a fortune 500 company.
Then there's me...
I recently retired from a successful 17 year career in production. When I left, I was the production manager at THE top club venue in this country (though 3600 is a BIG club) for THE top promoter in the world...
I retired to go run my own grow store here in Denver...and we're absolutely crushing it. Landed our SECOND dispensary account this week. Landed the first one earlier in the week (both thanks to my rock and roll connections...a golden goose that is bringing us every insider in the business). We've moved about 50k in product...THIS week.
I'm currently working 6 days a week (that touches on the "lazy" crap).
I've smoked daily since I was 25...and I'm 41.
So yes...you are seeing "different ones".
Lizzie Poppet
(10,164 posts)Just take fewer hits...
former9thward
(31,805 posts)He implied he could do it full blast like he did back in the day. Some strains are 25 times as powerful as they were in the 60s/70s.
Buddyblazon
(3,014 posts)a strain that will "couchlock" you.
I have a strain called Lemon Grass Thai that will make you want to strip your cabinets, paint your house, and go run a marathon.
Anybody could smoke it all day. They'd get a lot of stuff done. But they could smoke it all day.