From what I've seen marijuana tends to make people less confrontational and more introspective (softens the ego), it stimulates the imagination and helps foster creative energy, it helps bring people together without leading to as many sticky situations as alcohol, heightens awareness to various things, from social dynamics to subtleties in art, encourages abstract thinking, makes things taste better... okay I'm starting to stretch. I think all these factors would have a positive impact on society as a whole, but I also think that the more popular marijuana use becomes the more divisive it will become, and I'm at a loss to see how that will play out.

You really think this is going to prevent hormonal, peer pressured teens to not smoke it all the time? I think the intelligence levels of people would drop rapidly. I could smoke it all the time if I wanted, but to be honest it's not my thing. Just because it's illegal doesn't stop people who want to smoke it from smoking it.

Here is something a lot of regular weed smokers don't realize: it is just like any other medication. Let's say you take an antidepressant. The first couple weeks, you will be on your ass. Then you build up a tolerance and then you still feel the antidepressant effect, but you are completely functional. Weed is the same way. The first few times using it (and actually feeling it), I probably looked and sounded like a complete moron. Now, though, even when I have long periods of not smoking...I just don't get that way. I smoke and I get very relaxed and my thoughts are brought to the moment. It's just enjoyable and enhances the time I spend hanging out with people.

I could write a freaking dissertation while baked out of my mind. People will not become more stupid. Lazy, maybe. But not stupid.

This. I embarassed my friends and myself the first few times, because it was all new and just an experience like I hadn't had. Now though, I just get high, relax, and I have 95% control. I do occasionally say random ****, but that's all good. I have taken tests at school while high, guess who got a 91%?

It's Red Ribbon Week here at my school, and it's ****ing pathetic and ridiculous to see what facts they pull out of their ass to get people to not smoke Marijuana.

How about we have Tommy Chong as a guest speaker and see what he has to say?
No, instead we get some guy who his life was ruined by Marijuana. But wait, I saw him in the parking lot with a 2010 Mercedes! *******s.

My textbooks were always preachy about it. They can cite the Regan studies all they want, every thinking person knows they were bunk. And for someone's life to be ruined by it? Uh... well I think they're just a loser to begin with if that's the case. Nobody is addicted to it (I think something like 5% of those in rehab clinics for Marijuana addiction are legit, the other 95% are first time offenders who opted for rehab instead of jail time). But ah well. So long as it's illegal I'm not using it.

You are one of a kind.

I don't agree. The stuff makes me more lethargic and has zero positive effect on my studies/academic/worthwhile pursuits though it makes me feel pretty good when I'm high. And I find it hard to make a distinction between laziness and stupidity in the "real" world.

Really? So someone who can't tell you when 9/11 happened and someone who just doesn't want to go to work is the same thing? And I never said weed doesn't make me lethargic...that kind of goes with the lazy thing. The point of me mentioning writing a dissertation was just to point out I can function if I need to while high. I'm not going to write a dissertation stoned, though.

TIME OUT.

What's the difference between high and stoned?

Is there a difference?

I guess I think of "stoned" as being specific to pot while "high" is a more generic term.

"High would be energetic.
Stoned would be lethargic."

This sums it up nicely.

I guess I use both interchangeably.

me too

I do too when it comes to pot. But I wouldn't describe someone who had snort a bunch of coke as "stoned", while I probably would describe them as "high".

Blown?

I greater commercialized market would call for higher production, thus creating more jobs around the country.

Snowed in?

Snow blind.

I've heard 'stoned' used to describe someone who's drunk as well. I'm not sure if this constitutes a difference in terms, but I've certainly never heard a drunk person referred to as 'high'.

I've never heard a drunk person called stoned or high, but there are certainly a lot of terms for being drunk that you don't really hear used for anything else: sloshed, smashed, trashed, hammered, etc.

I've heard "stoned" used to describe people high on drugs other than marijuana...

Such as?

I don't know specifically, but they always make the parents/teachers/various old people in movies use it to describe when kids use drugs... *shrugs*

I think it's backwards. Stoned is something Ive heard and is always connected to Marijuana. High is a universal term.

I have actually heard being drunk referred to as being high once. It threw me off because I obviously thought he meant he had just smoked. So this kind of stuff just changes depending on where you go.

Nothing is wrong with pleasure...it's the negative effects of drugs that I feel are the problem: addiction, increased cancer risk, problems with perception, interference with decision making, etc.

I wonder, too, Vanilla, what effect legalization of drugs combined with a huge public education program against using them would have on the number of drug users.

I think, judging by the decrease in the number of people who smoke cigarettes in the U.S., that teaching people about why not to use marijuana, prohibiting advertisements for marijuana, and taxing it could lead to there being fewer users over time, since this is what has happened with cigarette smoking in the U.S. (Smoking Rate Is Declining in U.S. ).

In the short term, though, I think you are right that marijuana legalization would lead to increased usage. I'd rather have people stoned on marijuana than dying right and left in Mexico due to the huge drug cartels there.

I agree: I always think of being "high" as what you say about someone who is under the influence of any drug in general (except alcohol). For marijuana specifically, I think of a person being either "mellowed out" with a little use, and "stoned" if heavily affected.

I think of people getting high off just plain cigarettes, though, because I always remember one of my high school friends who smoked telling me that it felt like her head was floating a couple feet above her body. So, literally, she felt high.

I never think of someone who is inebriated as "high." I think of a person who shows obvious signs of impairment due to alcohol as "drunk," and if the person is really losing mental abilities due to alcohol I think of her as "smashed."

I often refer to people on weed as 'baked'.

Lots of legal products in this country can be described as having the same side effects...

The degree of harm caused by the product is what is important, though, I feel. Caffeine, for example, isn't too harmful, though it is addictive and can give people jitters.

Cigarettes, though, *are* very bad...so my point would be that I feel the pleasure gained from cigarettes isn't a problem (reduced stress, greater relaxation?), but the harm caused by them is. For me, the harm much outweighs the benefits of cigarettes, especially since I feel there are other ways, and ones that are healthful, to achieve what I hear are the "benefits."

I do agree with you that it makes no sense to have cigarettes be legal but marijuana illegal, since their negative side effects are pretty similar, right?

Right.

Also, I don't believe it is the government's responsibility to tell me what I can and can't put into my body, but that opens a whole different discussion...

How are the negative side effects similar?

What does it matter if the harm to the individual outweighs the benefit? As long as they are an adult and are aware of the risks, shouldn't they be allowed to make their own decisions?

Easy, they aren't. The most harmful side effects of Marijuana (in fact, the most significant) simply come from the act of smoking it. Smoking anything is harmful. And it's not the only way to use Marijuana either. If baking doesn't work well enough, vaporization is far more effective than even smoking. Something like 95 percent pure THC.

I know this... I just wanted her to ans... wait a minute... Nice troll! :D

If your tax-money pays for public health services f.ex, then people's health and what they do to it should be your business. When they get treated by public health care, you helped pay for that, right? If your business really is noone's but your own, you should detach yourself from society completely and go live in the woods somewhere.

Maybe I don't agree with public health services either?

I agree that adults aware of the risks should be allowed to make their own decisions, which is one reason I feel drugs should be legalized (the other reason being that I want to cut down on the illegal trade of drugs that leads to so many murders, other crimes, and money wasted on the war against drugs).

My comment you wrote about was my attempt to point out that current laws appear to reflect the government's/people's idea of which drugs are most harmful to users.

Just like Tore said, I feel the severity of drug side effects matters because when people in a society are on drugs and if this increases their risk of illness or lessens their ability to work effectively, then their problems become society's unnecessary burden and expense, just like Tore said. Even if a society has no socialized medicine, having people addicted to drugs can be a drag (no pun intended :D) on the society.

Tobacco and marijuana side effects are similar in that they affect the brain and expose the smoker to carcinogens. In some ways marijuana sounds worse, such as with its impairment of brain function and work ability:

Chewing marijuana baked into brownies wouldn't have the lung effects, but should have all the others. I don't know what effects eating marijuana has on mouth and stomach cancer. Chewing tobacco increases mouth cancer risks, so I wouldn't assume eating marijuana will be harmless with regards to cancer.

drugabuse.gov


No thanks.

And if your tax money pays for law enforcement then what's illegal or not should be your business. When taxpayer-supported law enforcement arrests, prosecutes and imprisons someone you helped pay for that, right? Don't you think your tax dollars could be better spent?

I agree, but I fail to see how it's relevant to my post. The point I wanted to make was that in a modern society such a England, Norway or the US, you and your health affects other people. If you wanna be an island, go live on one.