TJ Those statistics citing teenage drug use are wildly inaccurate and certainly do not indicate the "success" of the war on drugs. When I was a junior in high school a "councilor" came into our class and passed out one of those pseudo-surveys. After ensuring us that they were anonymous, they passed them out. I was still reeling from my weekend pot party and filled the survey out as if I was Richard Prior on a crack binge. I was completely dishonest, as were many of my friends. Kids these days are smarter, with access to instant information on any subject imaginable. They would be far more likely to buck a sh*t survey like this. As well, these "statistics" are supposedly measuring teenage drug use on a month by month basis. Anna Perenna was dead nuts correct. People have always used drugs, and they always will. As a society, we must stop and sum up the situation. If you can do this, then I would ask you a question; In your opinion, what good comes from marijuana prohibition? Our children get their drugs from street level dealers. It is easier for a child to buy marijuana than it is for a child to buy over the counter cold pills. The new laws that have swept the nation since 2003 have taken an appropriate step in quelling drug manufacturing. They (Pseudophederin cold pills) are available only in pharmacies and only to customers 18 years of age who present photo identification and sign for the medicine. Much hailed as an effective method of fighting methamphetamines, would you not say that this would also be a great way of fighting teenage marijuana use? Make 'em present themselves through proper ID to a clerk whom is being held to strict law as a means of providing a check-and-balance system. It's pretty sad that kids have a harder time buying Sudafed then they do buying weed. Don't 'cha think?
Thje part your missing is that the same is true every year, not just one year. The kids who are honest or dishonest while taking the survey will stay about the same so the drop in those who respond to being drug users is a real and measurable thing. In fact, back when the surveys were first started, there was a higher pressure against drug use on a moral level so the likelyhood of honesty was much lower compared to the modern times. Think about it, if what your saying is true, then nobody would say they used drugs so the result should have been zero if all stoners thought the way you do. No, considering the greater likelyhood of honestly due to less social pressures, I would say the success of the war on drugs is greater than we can see on paper. As far as the access of drugs to children, well that would be due to adults selling to children, not the government. Any scum who would sell drugs to children is a stain on society and needs to be removed. We will always have scum like that, not much we can do about that. I don't believe we should lower standards just because we feel the scum have beat us. We can use your same arguement of accessability to cocain, crack, heroin, any drug can be easily purchased without the need of an ID, so make everything legal because of that fact right????????? I know your arguement is the pot has a lower harm but I do not agree. I see any recreational drug as bad on the mental if not physical level. Escaping our problems in a haze of smoke is no better than escaping with a needle or a crack pipe. Our problems do not dissapear just because we can scramble our minds with chemicals. In most cases, trying to avoid facing our problems only makes them worse. Remember, I am talking about the average man, you even admitted your friends always have drugs on them so you will not allow them around your kid, clearly the average person cannot be as responsible with their drug use as you are.
Well no. My point was made many posts ago. If we wish to combat truly destructive drugs we must make concessions in the war. As of now, our fronts are spread to thin. The base attack on marijuana is the faulty assumption that it is a "gateway" drug. If this is true then why keep the gates open? If marijuana will cause our children to try heroin, then make marijuana less accessible to them by legalizing and regulating its distribution. I disagree. Marijuana is wholly different then is injectable opiates and hardcore smokables like cocaine. Marijuana is the key to relieving Americas social stress crisis. Stress is killing people and ruining lives everyday. And ones only legal option is to turn to multi-billion dollar legal drug dealers like the AMA (American Medical Association), Pfizer and Eli Lilly's. When people get stressed the body floods the brain with blood flow, blocking the flow of serotonin. In the central nervous system, serotonin is believed to play an important role as a neurotransmitter, in the inhibition of anger, aggression, body temperature, mood, sleep, vomiting, sexuality, and appetite. Marijuana has been shown to increase plasmatic releases of serotonin unless the patient suffers from acute migraine headaches. As to why this is, it is a mystery. Cannabinoids Block Release of Serotonin in Migraine Patients
First of all, making pot legal will not reduce exposure, it will increase it ten fold. Making it legal will have it grown in every home that wants it within three months. Second, part of what keep people from using it now is the fact it is illegal, making it socially acceptable like beer will make it's use be just as heavy, maybe more so because they can grow it themselves. But all stress is created in the mind, so if you have control of your mind, you don't have to battle stress in the first place. So, your wanting pot to battle a mental condition that you created in your own mind, you wish to escape this self created stress with drugs instead of facing and dealing with your problem. By treating the symptom and ignoring the cause, your guranteed to never improve. You see, the medical supplied drugs have counseling to go with them, the drugs are not the treatment, they are the vehicle to the treatment the doctor provides with counseling. By self medicating, your missing the real cure to your problems because your not getting the counseling you need to change your mindset and relieve the stress.
Wish in your right hand and then sh*t in your left hand and tell me which one weighs more. Stress causes depression. Stress can be alleviated by pharmacia, the act of self medication/intoxication through narcotics. Depression is a plague on our fast paced, capitalist career driven society. It is often said that people should not escape their stress by intoxication. I disagree. Doing so full time, yes, this is bad. But doing so in a responsible manner is purely sensible and effectual. If one can accomplish this through a zen like state of meditation, than fine. If this can be done by smoking marijuana at the end of a long hard day, this is fine as well and NONE of societies business what I ingest nor how I handle my stress. Ones mind doesn't create all stress. This presumption is baseless. The overzealous expectations of society create the stress I speak of. The pressures of work, school, family and finances create stress. I speak from experience. My stress went away for good and my condition did far more than improve when I began to smoke pot again. The stress and depression simply went away. Mind over body, however sometimes our minds need a shove in the right direction. Marijuana proved to provide me with the correct state of mind necessary to deal with my most intense moment of stress, the loss of my family through divorce. The drugs you speak of inhibit natural brain function. Zombifying the mind for subjection to counseling. Counseling becomes a life long addiction. This puts you in a position of being controlled by others. A most undesirable plan of action. Facts are, this rarely works. It sounds nice, what you said.. But more befit for the likes of an AMA pamphlet i.e. a business card. There is a reason why depression is qualified as a disease by the AMA. This allows insurance companies to cover the cost, lining the pockets of all of their associates, first and second parties alike. Depressive disorder is big business in America. The same companies that launch volley after volley against marijuana will try hard to convince you that being bummed out is a clinical disease. See your local doctor for the cure. A cure that requires funneling monies into the pockets of councilors, psychiatrists and most namely, the multi-billion dollar drug companies. Here are some lines of sh*t that the peddlers of snake oil wish for you to believe; Preschoolers? Suck my dick. Ya gotta be jerking me on this. They can't be serious, can they? Some facts; Sounds great for business. Imagine that, an 80% return business rate. CHA-CHING! Combine the two, anti-depressants and therapy, and we have a recipe for recidivism. My point; If you find something that works for you, than do it. If jerking off all day helps, by all means, jerk off all day. If smoking pot helps you, than by all means, smoke pot. Nobody knows your mind and body better than you yourself. Unless you are stupid, of course. I went to counseling when I was going through my divorce. I was also prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in conjunction. The result was losing 3 jobs in one year after having held the same job for over eight years before the crisis took hold. The result was sitting in the dark empty home I bought for my wife and child, crying like a bitch. The best counseling came from my friends, long heart felt talks that reminded me who I really was. The medicine I prescribed my self was marijuana. Small doses, not all-day intoxication. Just something to fix my head at the end of the day. The result was a sudden ability to cope without dependence on others, as well as without a dependence on insurance to fund the life-long counseling that was being suggested. The result was starting my own small business. The result was laughing at my ex-wifes miserable dispositions as opposed to crying over my own.
Not sure where your going with that so no comment....... Stress is not an illness caused by a germ or something floating in the air, it is a mental condition created by you. Sure stress potentials assail us almost every day, but it is us that allow that to create stress insite our own minds. If you have good coping measures to deal with stress as it comes to you, you don't have negative effects of stress in your mind. A much better method is to not allow stress to build up over the day in the first place. All stress is inside your own mind, if you let it get out of control and require treatment each day to deal with that self created stress, there are too possibilities. - Your environment is wrong for you in some way. Job, relationships, the people you deal with, something is beyond your ability to cope with it and you need to take some kind of step to stop the cycle or create coping measures to help you block the stress from being created in the first place. - Your mind is creating the stress to have an excuse to get stoned. Like it or not, stress is created by you, yes 100% of it. Part of learning to cope with stress if admitting to yourself where it comes from. Work, school, falimy, yes these things can create situations that could lead to stress in a person, but it is the person that creats the stress inside their own mind, stress cannot be inserted into your mind without your help. If it went away, why do you feel compelled to keep self medicating? Clearly you are still filling some need you feel, the need to escape reality is a symptom of depression. If a person has given into stress, their incapable of dealing with the situations in life they are facing, clearly they need some outside assistance. If the ability was within them to cope, the druge, prescribed or self medicated would not have been needed right? Again, the medication is the vehicle to the cure of counseling. The counseling is not magical, it is actually a process of helping a person see that their stress can be controlled by controling yourself, your state of mind. Stress cannot be created unless you create it, most of the time it is from confusion, not being sure how to deal with things. Some say things like traffic jambs cause stress for example. Why? Well, they can make you late for work, sitting still for long time frames is boring, the AC does not work so maybe your hot, other drivers honking their horns bothers you, etc.... So, at the time your facing these potential stressors, you can decide to allow them to bother you, or you can understand that there is nothing you can do to force the traffic to get out of your way and not allow it to bother you. It is all a frame of mind. The rest of your post is simply raving against the medical world who is making money off of stress and I will agree with you, they do make lots of money from it, no arguement. They also make a ton of money treating heart disease in it's many formes. Everything from medications to hert transplants cost Americans billions of dollars for treatment, does this mean we should stop treating heart disease? Depression that is so severe that the person needs to medicate for relief is serious stuff. I am not saying that a person cannot find a cure on their own, I am sure they can, but being as the problem is % inside their own mind, it is difficult to know if that same mind is just playing tricks on you at the same time. That is why a therapist can help someone because their not seeing the situation colored through the stressed out minds view.
Then why is treating depression a multi-million dollar annual business in America? Also, why is it categorized as a disease by the American Medical Association? I would suggest that most "depression" isn't actually clinical depression despite the constant diagnosis of such. Really it is just the manifestation of the fact that life sucks, people get bummed and the weight drags them down. People leave work and have nothing to look forward too. That which used to make them happy no longer does. My depression went away, but the stress doesn't. In our society, stress is a constant. Marijuana allows me to obtain balance over the constant assault of stress upon my life. Our government is making a big mistake by keeping what is essentially a homeopathic cure for "Life sucks" illegal. Heart disease exists. My point was that Americans are funneling billions of dollars to treat a disease that doesn't exist.
Stress does exist, but turning stress into depression is causes inside the person's mind. I said if a person has good coping measures, they don't have the "negative" effects of stress, and this is 100% correct. You cannot remove stress, there will always be pressures like a demanding boss for example, but you have complete control over how you deal with that stress. But life does not suck. If your making life suck, that is your problem, not mine or the government's. Again, it is you who allows stress to bother you, not the government and not the guy down the street. When you face stressful situations, you can either let them get to you or you can decide to not let it get to you, either way, your to blame for the outcome. If your life is so stressful you must use drugs to cope with that life, then you need more then the drugs, you need a new frame of mind to help you deal with the problems. Thia is where professionals come in. Yes they will give you medications if you need them, but their real job is to help you find new ways to deal with your stress from the inside, not the outside. Depression does not exist? Your suffering from depression man, and denial is one of the first symptoms. Self medicating will never get you the real help you need to stop the stress from building up inside you. Think of it this way, look at stress as a bullet. You can either deal with extracting a bullet from yourself at the end of each day, or you can wear a bullet proof vest and keep those bullets from getting inside you in the first place. A person's bullet proof vest from stress is attitude and the ability to accept things you cannot do anything about. If your in a bad situation, how does being upset or down make it any better? You can make a decision to be happy no matter what is happening in your life, remember, stress, depression, anger, irritation, is all a creation of your own mind. But, happiness, love, humor, hope, and a good attitude is also in your mind, it is up to you to decide what your minds does with it's potential.
Speaking toward people in general, I disagree. Many people get phone calls at work telling them that their wife and children are all dead from a car accident. Many people suffer unimaginably from fatal stomach cancer. Where every second of every day is a miserable horror show of pain and suffering. Would you be so fast to tell them that "life doesn't suck"? That its all in their head? I never said that life is so stressful that I "MUST" use drugs. I like to smoke pot. It makes me feel better. It gives me something to make me feel better when I am lonely and I come home to an empty home. It passes the time in a most entertaining manner. It makes ho-hum chores fun to do. Crank some tunes and smoke a joint while I vacuum and dust my house. Much of what you said is true to some effect. Yes, there are people that make themselves miserable and they wallow in pity. But for the average Joe, turning to stimuli to enhance a positive attitude is a healthy choice. I see the straight edge types freaking out all around me. The same guy that will cast dispersions at casual pot smokers is the same guy that flips me off in traffic, knuckles white with tension as he grips his steering wheel. Me, the pot head loser that "can't deal", is just laughing at the stressed out stick in the mud. I get this vibe from folks all the time. Jittery uptight f*ck heads that freak out over the slightest accruing of inconvenience. I always notice the cross around their neck and their seemingly superior disposition to mine. I'm the drug addict. I'm the redneck scum. Yet, I'm the one that deals with life with a grin and a chuckle. Them, they go to the pharmacy and obtain their chemically engineered synthetic chemical compound brain rearrangers. Maybe they go home and treat their spouse and kids like sh*t while they knock back a Xanex and a whiskey. Go to church on Sunday and then blog about the scummy potheads of the world that can't cope.
You have obviously never dealt with the loss of a child. Try just wishing that away without gettin depressed to the point you need medication to cope. Until you have experienced every type of stressor in life that is possible you are in no position to preach to anyone about coping.
Where did I ever say bad things never happen? My point is your "reaction" to the bad things is up to you, only you can control your mind. But if you want to see my point in real life, you need to visit a childrens cancer wing and see how bald, cancer ridden children still find the ability to play, to smile, to joke and have fun, even when their completely exahusted from the treatments. Frame of mind, no matter what is happening around you, is under your control. You said you used pot to overcome your stress, that was the basis of my comments. Sure, if you remove the illegal factor, taking recreational drugs is similar to drinking beer, but I don't like that either. "Legal" booze causes society a huge amount of money, if we have this much trouble with just one recreational legal drug, I hate to consider how bad it woulf get with more. And I dissagree, average Joe's running around with undiagnosed mental problems all trying to self-medicate without the proper medical training to know what their doing to treat their depressions and such sounds like a very dangerious situation to me. No, your detached from reality with drug induced apathy, in fact that is the biggest symptom of prolonged marijuana that I have issues with. Americans are lazy enough. Sure, there are lost of stressed out people in the world, and lots of people using both illegal and legal drugs to try and cope with their conditions but in all cases, the drugs will not fix the problem, all it can do it treat the symptoms caused by the real problem, the inability to cope with stress. Nice backhand insult attempt but trying to use the Wez tactic of lashing out at others to cover your own issues does not work with me. As I already said, it is not the medication used that is important, it is the counseling that helps people to create coping skills to one day be able to live life without the need to lean on chemicals of any kind, at least that is the goal of mental health doctors. Again as I said with Jhony, where did I ever say stress does not exist? Your making the same mistake he is in believing that a person is completely helpless to stress and that is not the case. I have dealt with death at all levels including ending one (in self defense), I have been through divorce and had several very close friends die and my god daughter died of SIDS at three months old. Yes, there are major stress causing events in every person's life, but your reaction to that stress is completely under your control. Right now I have a mother who is slowly dying, one medical problem after another and the doctors have told us to prepare for her death twice but she pulled through. Each person's death is comming, there is no way to escape that reality and it is the basis of my internet name and sig about not being able to beat time. Butwatch a loved one slowly die and you know stress. But, where does this leave me? Will me getting depressed or worse change the reality of my mother slowly dying? Will smoking pot make that reality go away? If I get pissed off at the world and take my hurt feelings out on others change anything? No, in fact, these things will make my life worse and will add to my stress, perpetuating an endless cycle of self-destructive behavoir. Yep, each time you look in the mirror you see him.
Where did I ever say you said that stress does not exist? None of these comparisons even comes close to the loss of a child and the stress/sadness that comes from this. After you criticised my post about my friend in the "A Great Mom" thread as being not comparable and then you try to make it seem that because you lost a God daughter, or your mother is sick that you know what kind of pain/sadness that comes with losing a child is like. This is something that many people never recover from, people get divorced, loose jobs from the effects of this. None of your "losses" even comes close to this. Of course as we have have learned on here, you are perfect in every way, always make perfect decisions, don't feel pain and can cope with anything in the world that may attempt to affect your perfect psyche. If you truly believe that depression is something that can always be avoided and there is no use for anti-depressant medications for the treatment of depression, then you should go hang out with Tom Cruise.
Oh no man, don't take it that way. I swear that is not what I meant. I think you know I don't do people like that. My debate tactics don't involve personal attacks. That comment wasn't aimed at you. I was referencing the stuffy old Christian hierarchy that look down their nose at me. I was referencing the ignorant sh*ts that talk about pot like its heroin, and then pop a few Xanex and wash them down with a scotch. You know, the hypocrites. Whether or not you, TJ, are a hypocrite, I have no idea. Nor was I trying to say so. I apologize if you took it that way. All I meant by that was to point out my perception of the holier than thou crowd whom often speak of people like me as a barbaric scourge on an otherwise wonderful country. Or to insinuate that I must have a drug problem because I get high. I really am a nice guy with a happy disposition. I am not covering up some deep seeded issues with drug abuse. I am not a miserable criminal that treats people like sh*t when I'm not robbing them. I think there are too many stereotypes about pot smokers. Reinforcing a negative disconnect with people that have no idea what they're talking about. And I don't mean this as an insult to you. But I really feel you don't know what its all about. You know what you've been told by the status quo, but you really have no idea of the culture of marijuana smokers.
Good luck with this. I just mentioned the word "banned" and it took me several days, several PM's and I don't know how many posts in an attempt to reassure TJ that I wasn't making a threat toward him personally. I hope you have an easier time then I did.
Well I don't want to get into all that. I just want it known that I wasn't trying to backhand TJ when I mentioned people that go to church. My only reason for doing so is that many of the most intolerant folks I have met are quasi-Christian hypocrites. Almost as if they joined the church as a form of sheep's clothing to hide their wolves skin. The fact that he is a Christian and a dissenter or marijuana use, doesn't mean that I was targeting him with a slur. He may be one of the "good ones". It all goes back to something I said awhile ago. If something makes you feel better and it doesn't hurt anyone, than do it. Don't let a doctor tell you that marijuana isn't the answer, Prozac is. Because that is a sales pitch.
TJ sure took that personally... odd. He assumed I was insinuating that was him and blamed Jhony... I was, and he confirmed it.. Blame me, not an innocent life... a.k.a., Jhony... Hahahahahahahahaha How can I see that in the mirror TJ? I don't go to church, drink alcohol more than 3 times a year, take xanex or blog/chastize pot smokers?
You implied it. And you have no idea the kind of pain/sadness comes from taking another life, even if you know it was your only choice. My point was not to say that one stress or another was "equal" to another, my point was that stress comes in all shades and sizes, but the "reaction" to that stress is internal, developing depression or other mental conditions from stress is purely the individual's fault. Again, I never said it did, I was pointing out the many forms stress comes in and how it is up to each of us to decide how to deal with this stress. So you cannot argue the points and turn to personal attacks? I never said I was perfect, I never said I have never been depressed, this is your trying to color your perceptions to justify attacking me. I have been depressed and even had counseling, no human is perfect, my point is that with the right help, I was able to find my way back to where I needed to be. There is nothing to be embarrased about to admit you need help, that you have reached your limit. The embarassment comes from trying to act like you are too good to ask for help and you just keep getting worse and worse. If I have a problem with my plumbing, I call a plumber, there is nothing to be ashamed about needing professional help to fix broken plumbing, but somehow some people feel asking for help with emotional problems is bad or embarrasing. I never understood that. Again, where did I ever say that? I am fairly hard sometimes, I know this but you guys keep wanting to make stuff up to be mad at me about. I never said depression was completely avoidable, I have said self-medicating will not deal with the problem though. If you take the time to read my posts, you will find one I made to Jhony a couple pages back where I said the drugs prescribed by the doctor are the vehicle to make counseling possible and that the counseling is dealing with the problem, not the drugs. Depression is inside the mind, and getting past the depression is also inside the mind. You guys need to get past the personal attacks and start reading what I say because your jumping to conclusions. My entire point about dealing with "daily" stress is if you need to medicate yourself on a daily basis to deal with it, you need professional help, just druging yourself will not fix anything. I have no real problem with Jhony, I accept his word that he did not meant the comment in an bad way directly tword me because we have both been hostile and friendly in seperate threads, we don't hold grudges. You on the other hand tend to always be down on me and you also have moderator ability to mess with me so when you add to that tossing around the word banning, it does get my notice.
The doctor doesn't get any kickbacks from the marijuana producers. It's funny you should say this though. I have an aunt that had several conditions including migrane headaches and some other stuff that she was seeing a neurologist for. She told the neurologist that she was self medicating with marijuana and it was working. The doctor wouldn't outright tell her to keep using marijuana, but did tell her to use the treatments that work for her. Kinda like saying to use the marijuana without actually saying it.
