Of course it’s the person - with alcohol or cocaine etc. it’s also the person taking the stuff, not the drug forcing them.
Regarding alcohol, I believe it’s a much more problematic drug, but also for better and for worse far more ingrained in our culture.
I believe that your assumption is incorrect.
As someone else already mentioned, it’s what each individual user of any inebriant chooses to do after/during consumption (not to mention how frequently) which determines the difference between mere usage and actual addiction.
To claim that any negative effects you’ve personally witnessed are both widespread and “catastrophic” is egregious hyperbole, at best. That’s why I jumped straight from discussing casual use to addiction, because what you described is a result of the latter.
I had this epiphany a long time ago: One day I arrived at home very busy, a bit stressed out with a lot of stuff I had to do; I was a bit hyped but also kind of excited. However, to relax a bit I decided to smoke a small joint, so I when outside, into the garden, to do just that.
In the garden, I suddenly realized that I wasn’t busy with all the things I had to do, there was no hurry, instead I could and should just sit here end relax and watch how the plants grew, the birds sang, etc. - it was an aesthetically very pleasing experience and an important insight that this perspective was also available and that at that moment I had to shift to this perspective.
And I thought of that as an example of marijuana actually being a good thing because it could create an important shift of perspective - which is why I totally get what Sagan is saying here.
And yet I totally disagree - because later it struck me: If having many perspectives available in this way is necessary, and it, why do I need a drug to do it? Why do I, so to speak, need that kind of a mental crutch?
And that’s what I still think: The valid levels of perception about which Sagan is talking are real, but they’re not unavailable to us without such drugs. Such drugs, including cannabis, are the easy way out. We don’t need them.
This, might I add, not to condemn or criticize in any way anyone who likes taking the drug and feels it enriches their life. I’m glad it makes your day. I’d only like personally to take the opportunity of its legalization (hopefully soon coming to Europe) to stop eulogizing it myself.
I just caught the BOGO deal of the year, $50.00 US for 1 oz of Romulan Grapefruit nugz and second oz for nothing, plus some 20 mg CBD gummies were tossed in the bag for good measure. Thanksgiving came early!
BB’ers, smoke’m if ya got’em.
Can’t; I’m at work right now.
But once I get home, I have some yummy White Rhino/Super Sour Diesel hybrid waiting for me.
Can I be your friend?
I thought we already were?
Oh, I forgot. How that happen…
Roger that…
Boy, that escalated quickly.
It is universally axiomatic that the opinions of Mr Sagan > the opinions of agger_modspil
I’ll leave it at that because unpacking your attempt to apply personal experience to anyone else is meaningless.
Want to come over to my house so we can sit around looking at our phones here?
I think it’s quite hypocritical and dishonest of you to, on one hand, praise the effects of marijuana and to say you’re not criticizing ‘in any way’ people who use it, and then to accuse marijuana users of causing catastrophic effects on the community they live in and to mock people who use it as losers who “hang around doing nothing for years”.
Perhaps that’s why they call it “getting high?”
*lolz
The line is three hours long at the new dispensary today, with an hour+ wait for the shuttle bus to get you there from the satellite parking lots they’ve set up! I’ll wait until the excitement dies down to get’em.
I’m sending you love right now.
[Me in 2015] Sure. Sounds fun. We can alternate between FB and IG. Tap tap slide the day away.
[Me in 2018] Naw but thanks.
I’m not criticizing the choices of individuals, I’m criticizing the effect on communities.
The same analysis might apply (please follow me here) to the effects of alcohol, and even so many people like the effects on themselves while still being horrified on the devastating effect it may have on communities.
I’m using this example because alcohol use is so much more abundant, and its effects so much worse.
Communities like… oh, I dunno… British Columbia, or Amsterdam, for instance; where recreational cannabis has been legal for ages?
Bottom line; the incredibly negative viewpoint you seem to have (‘catastrophic’, even!) doesn’t appear to be based upon any actual empirical evidence.
If people you know and care about smoke pot and then waste their lives away, that’s highly unfortunate, but it doesn’t mean that entire communities are somehow being destroyed and torn asunder.
