A note from a Hippy on Pot

[salinen]

I'm sick of the drug. My soon to be ex-wife chooses getting stoned 24/7 to be preferable to marriage. My business partner has been totally stoned for 45 years and is brilliant but paranoid and difficult. My new 18 year old friend is so addicted that he's worried he won't be able to cover a court fine, and he smokes $20 worth of weed a day. His buddies have no jobs, or their Dads, and they all smoke all day long.

I cannot be convinced at this point that pot is harmless. I know it is for most. For some though, it may as well be opium.

I'm a long haired fire breathing sandal wearing tree hugging bush hater, and I think drugs suck.

[indigobusiness]

1. Yeah, I know what you mean.

The unmanageable bliss of garden gifts.

[bowens43]

2. Quit.

I did after smoking for about 20 years. Just stop. Of course to do it I had to move somewhere where I had no friends and no connections.

[salinen]

3. Quit?

What?

[bowens43]

21. Pot?

[ET Awful]

4. The word is "Hippie" not "Hippy" :)

Hippy is your Great-Aunt Gertrude trying to fit into that narrow chair in your dining room :).

Learn some vocabulary you dirty hippie :).

That said, it's very different for different people. My uncle for instance functions better and is a much more pleasant person when he's been smoking it. In fact, I think it's safe to say that most people would rather he were smoking it. With him, you could never tell he'd been smoking anyway, he actually became more "normal" when he had been.

I've had friends that would rather worry about getting cash for pot than for food.

It really depends on the person and the circumstance.

[salinen]

7. I was talking

about Great-Aunt Gertrude! But once she squeezes into that chair, and sparks up a fattie, she's pimp.

[ET Awful]

12. LOL :)

:hippie:

[RebelOne]

9. Excuse me, but did you check your dictionary?

According to "The American Heritage Dictionary": hippie also hippy n., pl. -pies A person who opposes and rejects many of the conventional, etc., etc.

And there is no definition for Great-Aunt Gertrude's hippiness.

[ET Awful]

14. Hell, even DU knows it's hippie, as shown with the Smiley below

:hippie:

[notadmblnd]

20. Hippy, is your aunt... LOL

you are just too funny.

[ET Awful]

28. Thank you, I'll be appearing all decade :) n/t

[StopTheMorans]

5. my friend Eric in college used to be a really cool, motivated guy.

went kayaking/biking/hiking all the time; occassionally smoked. the next year, we moved in with a guy who sold pot. Eric started smoking all day, every day, b/c our friend would give it to him free if he'd smoke with him. He lost interest in any of the things that we used to do, including playing guitar in the band we played in (practice became too much work for him, even though he used to love doing it). I ended up moving out because all of the people whom I lived with bored me to tears; they literally spent the majority of their days that fall playing video games and sitting around the apt. And then, when Eric quit a few years later, we started hanging out again, and I noticed that he was exactly the same person he was when I met him. I don't give a shit what people say about weed not being physically addictive, it sure as hell is psychologically addictive if you use it to escape reality every day. I guess I'm just saying that I agree with you, and that I view pot as a boring, annoying drug that has few positive social consequences.

[salinen]

10. Sega 2

is making a fortune off stoned American boys who like to fantasize all day long.

[LiberalEsto]

6. My brother started smoking weed at 17

and remained a 17-year-old emotionally for almost 4 decades. It was really depressing being around him.

Now he's coming out of his self-induced cocoon and stopped smoking for the most part, but he's been going through all those traumatic phases you see in normal 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds. He's got no education beyond high school, no career, no savings, no family -- just a dumpy basement apartment.

I used to light up myself, once upon a time, but haven't in more than 20 years. I never thought the stuff caused arrested development, but it does.

[bemildred]

8. The tendency to excess, when present, will find an outlet.

If not pot, it would be something else, alcohol, something.
I've known many like you describe, and I sympathize. My own
experience, like the other fellow says, is that you can't just
change the one thing, you have to change everything, move, stop
seeing your old "friends", then you can start anew, find something
healthier to be excessive about.

[salinen]

11. I heard a new one recently

"You must change your playmates, and your playground"

[Freebird12004]

13. so * Quit* !

[Feathered Fish]

15. Some can handle it better

I smoke pot on a daily basis for 10 years. I graduated high school with an 85% average and now I am a productive university student with a 3.2 GPA. I work part time and volunteer at the food bank. My partner has been smoking pot everyday for 15 years. He's a filmmaker who has completed 3 short films and is securing financing for a feature.
It doesn't work for everyone, but nothing is perfect. It's too bad these people in your life can't put 2 and 2 together and realize that it is not benefitting them. Ah, well... good luck.

[salinen]

19. I like to puff too

Maybe once a week or less. But I use it to celebrate, not to bury my feelings, as my soon to be ex does.

[Feathered Fish]

24. I read your post in the Lounge

I'm sorry to hear about the troubles at home right now. It seems that she is pretty unhappy about things. A good first step would be for her to drop the pot, as you have pointed out, but she doesn't seem to want to accept that. You are strong to put up with it, but enough is enough. :hug:

[Q]

16. You could replace...

...pot with drinking and the same scenario plays out all over the world. You're blaming the drug for the weakness of some who abuse it.

It's strange that our society tends to blame objects like hamburgers for being overweight and pot for addiction....when it's up to the person to be responsible.

[mike_c]

27. best response in this thread IMO....

Thank you, Q.

[K-W]

30. You could even just replace it with food.

Alchohol is more addictive than marijuana.

[enough]

17. I know two guys in their fifties

who have smoked weed every day for more than three decades. They are both very energetic, athletic, also devoted family men who have lived interesting lives (one a craftsman, one an inventor-entrepreneur type). Neither of them uses any other substances to excess.

But for every one like that, there is another who ends up down at the end of an airless cave, needing a breath of fresh air.

I think it's a matter of the underlying personality. For some of us (I was one for a while), pot is just another way of trying to deal with depression. It's lousy for that. A bicycle works a lot better.

Interesting thread, salinen.

[franksumatra]

18. peter jackson smokes tons of weed as did the whole LOTR cast

some good new zealand weed too. it didn't slow him down much

[K-W]

34. I know several older lifelong potheads

all of them are successful. Of the two I know the best, one is a successful professor and one runs his own importing business.

The people I know who had trouble with it, quit.

This is why Marijuana is not dangerous, ALOT of people try it, of those people a very very small amount even do it for an extended period of time. It doesnt force you to keep smoking it.

[ihelpu2see]

22. people abuse all sorts of legal drugs

alcohol for one. it should be decriminalized and let the chips fall where they fall.... but the $$$ saved the US tax payer from stopping the legal actions agains pot users could pay for better public schools, health care, and voter education.

ps i am not a user but i see the problems in the war on drugs as a never ending cash cow

[MsTryska]

23. i agree.......

i can't be around weedheads anymore either, and i've dumped a couple ex's because of their smoking habits.


when your sober it's really not fun sitting around all day with a silen stoner that can't hold a conversation.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

25. i smoke pot every evening

it is all about moderation, some people take things to excess.

i would be useless if i waked and baked everyday, that's why i don't.

my partner doesn't smoke at all.

moderation is good, it is a shame that some people have a problem with it.

[K-W]

26. A few points.

1. Do your friends have problems because they smoke pot, or do they smoke pot because they have problems. It isnt as easy to tell as you might think. People with problems or people who are depressed do alot of things compulively, eating, watching tv, etc.

2. Human behavior is very complex. The fact that some people can have an unhealthy relationship with something is not an idictment of it. I know people who have unhealthy relationships with food, drinking, computer games, other people, the list goes on. I dont think any of those things are bad just because they play a role in bad habits for some people.

3. Marijuana is not addictive like opium, in fact it really isnt addicitive at all. Under the right circumstances people can become addicted to all kinds of things. Often people who use marijuana compulsively do so because it alleviates anxiety/depression/bad memories/pain etc. This can cause very strong habits that resemble drug addiction, but the same thing can happen with food amongst an asortment of other things.

Marijauna does pose certain risks, and you can abuse it and have an unhealthy relationship with it, but it isn't dangerous anymore than a muffin is dangerous.

[no name no slogan]

29. That's why I swore it off in college

All weed ever did for me was make me hungry, lazy and paranoid. All I wanted to do was veg out on the couch, watch cable and eat Doritos. Hell, I can do that without spending $100/week on weed.

I don't believe that mj is necessarily a "gateway" drug, but I know a few long-term stoners, and the effects it's had on their lives is quite scary.

My sister-and-law was with a stoner for several years-- even had a baby with him. The guy is a no-count deadbeat who can't hold a job longer than a few months, and once made the remark that he couldn't work a well-paying accounting job because he "couldn't get up before 11:00 AM".

My best friend in high school got heavily into the herb one summer. He earned over $2000 that summer (a big sum of $$ 20 years ago), and basically smoked it all. He was supposed to be saving for college, but he literally blew it all on weed.

Personally, I don't care if other people smoke the sh!t as long as they don't endanger anybody else. I'm actually in favor of decriminalization or legalization, really, but I have no desire to use it myself.

If I want to be fat and lazy, I don't need a plant. I can do that pretty well on my own, thanks.

[K-W]

33. correlation does not equal causality

Do people with problems smoke more pot, or do people who smoke more pot have more problems OR is the whole question simply a misperception or just a byproduct of prohibition?

[not systems]

31. Alcohol would be worse if...

that is any comfort.

[FizzFuzz]

32. I'm addicted to DU.

Must be DU's fault.
I guess DU sucks. yes it sucks me in. Not my fault that I can't stand up and walk away. :evilgrin:

I tend to get addicted to behaviors, and not to substances.

[Cheswick2.0]

35. Join the club

I would rather be around people who had a few drinks any day. I grew up in the life you are discribing and I gave up smoking pot at the age of 14. But then I married someone like your wife and I raised a son who used pot to move on to much worse things.

If I never ever hear the words "man I was so fucking high last night" , ever again it will be too soon.

[K-W]

36. Unfair comparison.

Comparing someone who's had a few drinks to someone who abuses pot isnt really fair. Compare them to compulsive drinkers if you feel the need to compare them to anyone.

[alfredo]

37. anything can be addictive, but not everything is physically

addictive. If I don't smoke for a day, a month, or a year, I see no physical reaction, or emotional distress. I went 20 years without smoking more than a toke here and there.

I was addicted to tobacco for 17 years. When I quit I had some awful symptoms.

Sounds like the drug (pot) is not the problem, it appears to be the user. That can be said for all drugs. I have tried just about every substance known to man. Only tobacco, a known physically addictive drug, ensnared me. It was my fault, not the drug.

[ErinGoBraghLess]

38. Undercover Cop

Is this John Ashcroft trying to dupe people into admitting they committed a crime? Wouldn't surprise me if he had a listing of all DU members.

I agree about the herb thing. I don't think it's addictive but it is darned close. In my younger days I did it a lot and once I stopped I found the world opening up. That stuff causes the world to be seen through a gauze lens - kind of fuzzy and hazy. And I slept with too many guys thinking it was all trippy love. I am glad it is in the past. Although I do remember loving to play guitar while high -- everything sounded so cool!!!

[K-W]

40. ignore

ignore

[SuffragetteSal]

39. You can still be a hippie and not smoke

It's a cultural thing, not all hippies smoke.

My daughter told me she saw a bumper sticker on the way to work: A picture of GWB pointing his finger and saying "Take that you hippie...4 more years!".

Pick yourself up Salinen, we need you. Don't let the conservative right beat us. Straighten up and continue the cause, the cause for a better more peaceful loving world. You can do it!

P.s. Sorry to hear about your marriage.

[gpandas]

41. it's not the pot, it's the person...

personality disorders are abundant in our madison avenue created society. from fucked up attitudes about sex and breasts, to unbridled, senseless,consumerism, we are a culture that blames everything but ourselves for our failures. if a person is an asshole when smoking pot there is a strong chance that he will be an asshole when not smoking. that is a personal problem of some sort. if it wasn't, then everyone who smokes pot would be fucked up, and i can say from personal experience that is not true.

[txaslftist]

42. What?

[txaslftist]

43. What?