I am not a fan of mornings either, even though I don’t drink coffee. Though I’ve started drinking tea on work days.

Being in the moment: I have mixed feelings on it. Yes, no, maybe so? If I was always in the moment I’d never get all the stuff I’m supposed to do done. And I’d be really flaky. Hmmmm.

Pot: I’m all for legalizing it as then there would be regulations and taxes and the whole nine yards. Could I expect it to happen realistically? Not really. But hey, maybe some day our culture won’t care so much and then it’ll happen. Or something.

Thanks, I’m glad the colors worked out!

I don’t mean to overwhelm, I’m just trying to write down some ideas that have occupied me lately. I try and do this when I read something I like, but even though it’s a tried-and-true method of retaining information and developing ideas, I almost never actually take the initiative to do it. So now I’m using FC! for that, and you’re paying the price! Sorry!

Heather:

To start, I understand your point about dose making the poison. It would have been more accurate to say that while it’s probably possible for THC to kill you, you’d have to try really really hard to do it (and also nobody’s succeeded yet), whereas a number of people have actually died from caffeine overdoses, probably a large number of them from caffeine pills. To all intents and purposes, I think it’s safe to say that you’re not going to OD on THC.

Anyway!

I didn’t really want this post to be about pot/legality/etc. to the extent that it was, and I think that as a result, I oversimplified and didn’t explain myself well enough on those points (which ended up being the core of the post, oops). I was thinking primarily of altered states of mind, but having just read a book that deals with the subject as it relates to marijuana, I think I let myself get carried away. I get overenthusiastic about books sometimes?

(BTW, I’m going to refer to the US because that’s what I had in mind and it’s what I’m most familiar with.) I don’t believe that if pot was legal, the US government and economy would topple because of some kind of great insight that pot reveals to its users, and I doubt that many politicians really believe this either. Legalizing pot would institutionalize it, make it subject to taxes and regulations, to some extent incorporate it into the economy, and yes, eliminate a massive financial sinkhole. But it’s a cultural taboo, even though, as you say, just about everyone’s done it. For the cycle you mentioned (of fear, misinformation, and inability to perform research) to exist, pot has to have somehow become an issue in the first place.

Which is no reason to invoke conspiracy: more likely, marijuana provided a really easy talking point to get jus’folks riled up about longhairs, like the gay marriage issue gets people in the US riled up today. Alcohol was once demonized widely and even prohibited, but now cheap crap beer is a central part of American culture; just listen to Sarah Palin refer to her conservative base as “Joe Six-pack”. It seems that cultures demonize and lionize certain things to better define themselves, and just what those things are tends to be quite variable. Or rather, politicians demonize and lionize certain things to try and define the culture that they are a part of (and their own roles in that culture). Find something that strikes a chord with the public, and a whole lot of politicians jump on the bandwagon. Soon enough you’ll get some pretty insane policies backed by a shift in a culture’s widely-held opinions. But that’s not a conspiracy, it’s just opportunism.

Personally, I don’t see that as invalidating the point about pot being unacceptable at least in part because using it makes the world appear different in a way that alcohol and caffeine don’t. It’s not that THC necessarily opens up some secret door that lets you glimpse the hidden truth that They don’t want you to know, but it’s the general characterization of the substance as bringing people to a place outside of their responsibilities or outside responsibility as a concept, even—perpetuated in current anti-marijuana ads—that is used to turn public opinion against pot. It’s like each side is telling a different version of the same story. Or the same story with a different moral.

And the times have indeed changed: I don’t know too much about how public perception of amphetamines has shifted, but in the 30s, pot was thought to make people violent! (Especially Mexicans.)

I hope that made some sense. And I’m glad you liked the bunny!

I’ve heard the argument before, from annoying self-righteous hippies, that psychedelics and pot is banned because of its MAGICAL EYE OPENING POWERS ™, but I think the more likely explanation is not some overarching desire of the powerful to keep the masses down (because seriously who the fuck hasn’t done pot?), but rather a product of poor education and lack of research in the field?  Lack of information and fear mongering makes it extremely difficult to conduct meaningful research in psychedelics, and lack of research leads to more misinformation, and it’s a vicious cycle from thereon.   Being classified under massive and retarded term of “drugs”  (as if caffiene and ibuprofin aren’t drugs but i digress)  makes psychedelics seem as scary and destructive as crack cocaine or something, which only makes fear mongering easier, which makes it seem like a bigger conspiracy to the hippies, both of which just feeds the retard cycle even more.  I agree that spending that much money to bust teenagers with bad pot is like hemmoraging money.  Plus, with the war on drugs, police corruption’s been the highest since the prohibition of alcohol.  It’s total bullshit, but not for the reasons that some people think it is.

Also, I feel like I should be an asshole and point out that dose makes the poison.  Pot can kill you, as can water, if you take it in large enough amounts - and by large I mean like, inject yourself with 50g of THC every hour.  That’d probabily kill you.