cannabis consumption?

[mr. piper]

How many people out there, will admit to having smoked cannabis or marijuana? also, would you offend your peers admitting so. I have just read that the main reason that kids start smoking weed is peer pressure, an avenue drug reformists have not concentrated on. If there are reasons for starting drugs are they the reasons for continuing?

I admit smoking cannabis all my life since i was 14, it has done me no harm at 45, but i know that the influence of my pals had a big part in starting me off, but i choose to do it now, anyway it is better than 9% lager i can say!!!!

And while i am at it, has anyone taken harder drugs or other drugs should i say, and never tried weed? As it does seem the accepted progression to start with a splif and carry on to pills and potions?

[MargeB]

(Disclaimer: I'm writing this to be honest).

All in all, I think for many people there is an unexplored risk in not taking cannabis. (No typo there). The entire debate at the moment about the dangers of cannabis rests on the assumption that it has no beneficial effects (I mean apart from MS sufferers) and that possible negative consequences show that no one should use it at all. Another assumption (kind of a post-christian hangover) is that this life is a task, and is a preparation for the next, and we should follow some code, therefore our thinking should be in some kind of 'straight jacket', and also that God created us with minds that were perfect for the kinds of thinking we should demand of them. Well, I'm sorry, but I reject these assumptions outright.

I'm not one who is desperate to try heroin or LSD, side effects or not, just for the 'buzz' or to get 'high'. However I do strongly hold the view that the human brain is NOT evolved in a natural state for the tasks to which it should be put.

Life should carry a health warning 'Using your brain for the purposes for which it was designed may lead to a boring and unexplored life and extreme anguish on your deathbed'.

I must say I was really shocked when told by a leading neuropsychopharmacologist that she entirely subscribed to this view and that if drugs such as this could be found to be risk free (as well as other cognitive enhancers) then basically we should be taking them.

I take drugs every day, unfortunately all legal over the counter ones: Neurozan, gingko biloba, ginseng and codliver oil. They have an enormous effect on my mental agility that I am utterly certain of. I cannot take cannabis at the moment due to study pressures (it would just demotivate me too much). Otherwise I would very much like to.

[pixi]

Hi Mr Piper

I too have smoked weed most of my life (started aged 16 and I'm now 39)  I think the main reason I started was 'to see what it was like' - no peer pressure at all,  I think it is given a lot of bad press ie dope smokers usually end up on heroin.  This is crap, I know loads of people of all ages who smoke and have never tried heroin and never would.  I agree it is better than lager (I don't drink at all) You never ever see or hear of people getting stoned then rampaging through town beating people up, throwing up and urinating in public and generally making a nuisance of themselves.   Roll on the day that it's legalised (if ever)

Pixi

[OBonio]

I started with weed (well, solids) at 17. All peer pressure. Early 20s experimented with speed and E again due to peer pressure and curiosity. Then stopped when I started having panic attacks. I last had a spliff in Amsterdam about 6 years ago which gave me the fear big style!! So just booze and ciggies for me now. Don't miss the drugs at all.

[MargeB]

I don't believe there is any good evidence that cannabis is a gateway drug.

The old line about smoking weed being better than drinking because drinking causes yob behaviour sounds very cliched, but drinking yob culture is going out of control and accounts for a huge demand on public services, accounts for half of all A and E cases, leads to huge relationship and personal breakdown, isn't THAT much fun (you totally lose it when drunk) and destroys a great many lives.

Mind you, can't see Tony Blur standing up in parliament saying this in defence of cannabis. Whether he knew it true or not.

[natalie_1982]

Hello!

This feels a bit like an AA group....

Hello my name is Natalie I'm from somewhere and I smoke weed.  I smoke very little (I think so anyway) maybe a few joints a month, then there are months I won't have any and weeks when I'll have one most nights.

I smoked crack once, I didn't know what it was I didn't get a buzz - maybe because I didn't know I'd smoked it? - or maybe I was smoking it wrong?  I was 19 then.

Once someone spiked my drink with E, and it just made me really sick (I think it was the fact that I hadn't drunk much that it frightened me and I had some sort of episode of fitting out and being sick).  I was 14 then.

I have no intention to smoke anything 'bigger' than weed and never have done.  I started smoking becuase me and my friends all wanted to try it, I guess that probably counts as peer pressure?  Though I feel it is my choice now. Oh, and I started when I was 14 and now am 22.

[Chillum]

I've smoked for 20 odd years, have a happy and fairly successfull life. I still do it because I still like it. I give up for "lent" every now and again, and don't notice much difference in day to day life, but I do miss the quiet contemplation time that a spliff can give. I've never been particularly drawn to other (illegal) drugs, though I've tried some just because they were available. I've never liked tripping, and have never tried heroin, though I sat with my two best mates as they began taking it, and refused to have anything to do with it. I did flirt with ecstacy for a few months when it first arrived on the scene, and had a great time, but the novelty soon wore off. When you're buying pot, you obviously come in to contact with other drugs, that's got a great deal to do with the so called "progression". Mankind has always, and will always seek ways to alter his conciousness. Why do we enjoy rolling down a hill as a child and making ourselves dizzy? That's where it starts - ban all the hills! that's what I say. Overall I don't think it's had a negative influence on my life, but the crucial question is...would I like my kids to be doing it? and the answer is, probably not.

[MargeB]

Chillum, it's clearly a gateway drug: first you smoke weed, then you subscribe to lent, then you're a regular churchgoer. Where do you think the pope started?

Natalie, that was a good answer. But why do all Alcoholics Anonymous meetings start with people giving out their names?

[natalie_1982]

I was trying to make a funny Marge.  Apparently I shouldn't have.  I've never been to an Addict's meeting so I don't know what you say when you're there and whether you introduce yourself or not but I have seen sketches on TV and I felt a bit like I was in support circle confessing!  Jeeeez...... wish I hadn't bothered now!

[Chillum]

So, MargeB, that explains the chimney smoke at the Vatican then.

[kazzee69]

Hi, when I was in school all my friends smoked and were always trying to make me do it. I always said 'NO' until they got the message. I was never going to let myself be pressured into anything I didn't want to do. Then once at a party I was standing with my friend and she was smoking weed and I asked her if I could try some. No-one pressured me to do it. I did it in my own time and because I felt like it. Turns out I didn't like it anyway.

[BigDogsWang]

I first started to wear women�s underwear when I was about 25, I liked the.......

Oops..........sorry, wrong subject.

Ahem�.

I first started smoking puff when I was about 25. I'm 37 now and still indulge once in a while (probably every 3 or 4 weeks when in London visiting my brother). I like the immediate release of tension, and how you suddenly find it easy to open up, relax and talk.

However.......I've started noticing in the last few years that for the first few days afterwards, I feel very down and de-motivated, almost to the point of depression. I also notice that my breathing is shallow, and I get a lot of 'tightness' around the throat. I have since found out there is a connection between cannabis and over action of the thyroid gland, and the symptoms explained on medical websites match exactly how I feel. I have met a number of people who suffer this way, and I fully believe what psychologists say about the effect it can have on the mind of certain people.
Hypocritical though it may sound, I do not believe it should be legalised, as it would be far too difficult to monitor people who work in a career where public safety is paramount.

[MargeB]

Natalie, you've picked me up wrongly. They do stand up and give out their names, as you humourously satirized, however I was pointing out the irony in first asking people to give out their name in a meeting which is supposed to be Anonymous.

Chillum, the smoke comes out at the Joint meeting of Cardinals.

[natalie_1982]

Sorry MargeB, I see now!  Perhaps I just gave myself another reason not to smoke weed.  It prevents you from any making sense at all.

[orange-gnome]

Hi,

I started smoking at the age of 16, my then bf smoked it but didnt pressure me into it, one day I just wanted to try it. Like everyone else I like the relief of tension that first drag brings, like a weight has lifted from my shoulders.
I was a very heavy weed smoker for about a year I used to get up have a spliff for breakfast, roll myself one for my lunchbreak, and then when I got home from work smoke all evening, this made me paranoid, I thought that everyone was just pretending to like me so as not to hurt my feelings I was never depressed on it though. I wasn't able to talk to people properly because I seriously believed they didn't want to be there talking to me! So I know that smoking does have an effect on your mental state if you smoke a lot for a long period of time.
I tried ecstasy twice and both times had a dreadful time, makes for a funny story now but at the time I was frightened beyond belief, again I tried it out of curiosity and I am glad that I did because I wouldn't do anything harder than weed again just because you don't know what could happen.

I still smoke weed with not as much regularity as I used to, I probably will always smoke it because I like it. As I smoke it less the paranoia is no longer there and I am my normal self. The only down side of smoking pot is that quite often if I watch a movie or something I don't remember any of it! I recently spent a long weekend in Amsterdam and only remember small bits, I couldn't tell you how I got home, I can't remember any of the journey!!

I hardly ever drink and I believe that if all football supporters were handed a joint as they waited in line to go into the stadium there would be no punch ups because no body would be bothered.
Spread the love and bring on legalisation is what I say.
Now I feel like one!! Anyone have any papers?? : )

[Englishbird]

my sides, my sides!! ;o)

I have smoke dope, and tried speed and cocaine.  speed was the only one i enjoyed for a short time.  I've never taken any of it in vast quantities and I now don't take anything.  Basically because I don't like the way any of it makes me feel.  i am a drinker and am much more confortable with alcohol.

I don't think I started because of peer pressure, although i can't remember the first joint i had - but probably more through curiosity.  The majority of my friends take cocaine and i hate it.  If anything they occasionally feel awkward around me because i'm not joining in.  It can be hard sticking to your guns sometimes, although I don't take drugs because of any moral stance, just because i don't like the effect they have on me (and what complete idiots the people that are on it are!)

[MargeB]

I kind of know what you mean Englishbird, a friend had a fight with a window when last coked up and lost!

This turning into a nice thread! To be honest, something went wrong (right?) for me, must have been the campaigns by the tory party about Heroin, when people on here talk about E or cocaine I feel like a prude. Could someone let me know what the effects of coke and E and LSD are like when you take them? One of my friends did a ton of coke and to be honest I think I see all the effects, some really weird behaviour at times.

The one thing I've never really understood is paranoia, I guess its the philosopher in me. If you say 'hallucinations' I know totally what you mean. But paranoia? We don't have a perfect handle on the world around us enough to predict anything with total precision, its a bit 'fuzzy logic'. Hard to know when this is so bad that you make too much of things.

[MargeB]

Nice tune by Sublime. Says it all. :-)

(she was living in a single room with three other individuals.
One of them was a male and the other two, well, the other two were females.
God only know what they were up to in there.
And furthermore susan, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that all four of them
Habitually smoke marijuana cigarettes... reefers)

I smoke two joints in the morning.
I smoke two joints at night.
I smoke two joints in the afternoon, it makes me feel alright
I smoke two joints in time of peace, and two in time of war
I smoke two joints before I smoke two joints,
And then I smoke two more

Smoked cigarettes ’til the day she died
Toke a big spliff of some good sensimillia
Smoked cigarettes ’til the day she died
Toke a big spliff of some good sensamill...
Easy-e were ya ever caught slippin’? hell no!

Daddy he once told me son you be hard workin’ man
And momma she once told me son you do the best you can
But, then one day I met a man who came to me and said
Hard work good, and hard work fine but first take care of head

(guitar solo)

[jno]

Pixi, you're right about stoners not beating people up. On the other hand, I reckon driving stoned is just as bad as driving drunk; I wouldn't want to be run over by either of them - wouldn't want to be in the same street as either of them -  and I'm not sure any moves to legalise weed are a good idea, for that reason. Easier to ban weed than cars.

[MargeB]

If they can find their car keys.

[dmsjps]

Never tried anything at all, never wanted to, was never tempted. It was all around me at school but I just wasn't interested. It's not that I'm a prude or anything - give me a bottle of cider (big 2-litre bottle, mind, especially if it's got 50% extra free and ends up being 3 litres!) - and I'm happy; it's just that I never understood why anyone would want to smoke that stuff, I just don't get it. Suppose I'd have to try it and then I would, but I don't want to. I'm 40 now, so if the urge hasn't got me yet I guess it never will. I know people who do it and we have some good times: some with their smokes, some with their booze, some with both!

 

I do agree strongly regarding the driving issue though. I don't drive when I'm drinking and I don't think people should drive when they've taken any substances that would affect their judgement or their manner. It's easy to bag a drink-driver; is it easy to do the same when people have used other substances?