There's my link to support my statement. Please provide a link supporting yours.
Posted on 09/27/2006 10:02:41 PM PDT by freepatriot32
As someone who was a staunch non-smoker for most of my life, and tried pot for the first time as a fully mature adult (and who took notes on the experience), I have a pretty unique perspective on the matter.
Everyone else I met at the Cannabis Cup had either been smoking pot for many years, often decades, or had started as a teenager (or both). Either way, everyone else had been smoking pot for a pretty long time.
Actually, I found it surprisingly easy to learn to smoke pot, although in retrospect, it makes sense. As a life-long asthma sufferer, I'm quite used to inhaling a strange gas and holding it for as long as possible. The mental block was thinking of pot smoke as a hideous, life-ruining substance instead of as a healing medical herb.
There are many ways of using cannabis, but the most common formats are: as hand rolled cigarettes ("joints"), in a pipe, or in a water-pipe ("bong"). It can also be cooked... "space cakes", cupcakes laced with marijuana extract, are for sale in a number of places. On Kristin's advice, we bought a small bong at the Bluebird, the first coffeeshop we went to, and having since tried the other popular methods, I recommend a water-pipe for the novice pot-smoker. The smoke is drawn through a reservoir of cold water, which acts as a filter and also cools the smoke down so that it isn't as painful on your throat.
The first time pot-smoker should also give careful thought to the setting in which they first try it out. Pick a location that's warm and comfortable. (If you can't get to one of the many nice coffeehouses in Amsterdam, I'd recommend your own living room.) Make sure there's nothing you need to do for the next couple of hours. In particular, make sure you don't need to drive anywhere.
It's also a really good idea to have an experienced guide with you during your first time out, someone who can teach you what to do and help make the experience a pleasant one for you.
This brings me to another of the many surprising things I learned about the art and practice of smoking pot: it's an extremely social activity. The people behind the War on Drugs portray all illegal drug use as a solitary and self-destructive activity, and that stereotype left me completely unprepared for the reality of the shared experience that is the smoking of pot.
One more thing: I would not recommend a week-long binge for the first timer.
OK, Fine. But What is Smoking Pot Really Like? As anyone who met me there will attest to, I was constantly taking notes in little notebooks during the Cannabis Cup. I wrote down all sorts of things, but a key question throughout my first experiments with pot was to evaluate the experience itself. I saw myself as a man with a mission: to go into the hazy world of the pot-smoker and come back with a description of what it's actually like to get stoned, from the perspective of someone who's never tried it, and for the benefit of anyone who's curious about what it's like.
One of the first and most surprising observations I had about marijuana is that it wasn't at all like I imagined it would be. Somehow, although I had no experience with it, I had developed my own ideas about what it would be like: I sort of figured it would be like watching a really strange movie, or having a bizarre dream. However, it isn't like that at all. It's more like you're IN the movie, or the bizarre dream. It's not a passive experience; instead, it changes the way you perceive things.
Attempting to describe what it's like is actually rather difficult. It's like trying to look at something that moves out of sight whenever you look it its direction. Marijuana does not make things look different, or sound different, or taste different... and yet, it does. You tend to notice things you'd never noticed before. You appreciate more fully details that you'd otherwise have skipped. But they are nonetheless no different than they were before you got stoned.
One night (Tuesday, actually), we were sitting in the Grey Area coffeeshop (a place where the chairs say hello) with Maria and Jessica, and I was discussing my desire to find a way of describing the experience to a virgin (although I didn't use that term at the time). Maria used the phrase "transportation of reality," which I really like. "Yeah, it's like going to another place," I replied.
It's kind of like that episode of Star Trek when Captain Kirk finds himself on the evil starship Enterprise, except that its a calm, beautiful place, not an evil one. It's like stepping into parallel dimension, or onto another plane of existence. Physically, everything is the same. It looks exactly like our own universe. And yet, something's different. It's hard to put a finger on it, but it's undeniable.
Your senses seem to become heightened. Physical sensations, like if someone runs their fingernails along your arm, are more intense. Things taste better. This of course is the well known "munchies" effect, and it's true. Imagine the most delicious tasting thing you know of, and then imagine turning the volume up a notch or two.
Time seems to slow down. There were times when I'd look at my watch, and then check it again after what seemed like an hour, to find that it had been 10 minutes. Contrary to the old saying, I was having fun, and yet the time was not flying.
Without question, it makes you feels good. I'd previously heard this effect described as a feeling of euphoria, although that seems a bit strong to me. Happy and contented seem more accurate.
The feeling creeps up on you. After you've had your first hit, you start wondering, "OK, when's it gonna start happening?" After awhile, you realize that it's already started. The transition is hard to identify. It's like trying to examine the moment of falling asleep. Try as you might, you always wake up the next morning with no memory of what it was actually like to fall asleep.
The first observation I had, when the effect had become distinctly noticeable, was that being stoned is something you need to consciously point out to yourself. One part of your brain starts wondering what's going on, and another part of the brain has to remind the first part that things will be different because of the drug. "When someone says 'I'm really stoned,'" I wrote in my log that first time, "it's like when someone in a dream pinches themselves and says 'I must be dreaming.'"
Here's another observation I wrote down: "When you think back on something you just said, you can't be sure if you actually said it or if you merely thought about saying it."
The effects last around 3 hours, although they get decreasingly intense as the time passes.
Increase it to what? Death penalty?
"It's a dangerous drug ..."
Define dangerous. Cars are dangerous. Electricity is dangerous. Number 2 pencils are dangerous. In exactly what way is marajuana dangerous?
"that leads to even more dangerous addiction, ..."TT>
Like what? Fast food? Television?
"so backsliding and submitting to its promoters undermine us all."
No. What undermines us all are inane comments from the perpetually misinformed. There are some very dangerous drugs in this world, but marajuana isn't one of them. You try to pass that BS off on kids these days and you'll only succeed in losing their trust. Then when you try to tell them that crack and heroin are dangerous they'll ignore you.
Be different. Be honest.
"What is Smoking Pot Really Like?"
Let this non-smoker who tried it a few times tell you:
*Cough*
*Hack*
*Cough*
*Wheeze*
"Could someome give me a beer instead?"
Never bought into the idea that legalizing pot would cause greatly expanded use for that very reason. If you don't smoke cigarettes, weed is harsh on the lungs and the after flavor is less appealing and doesn't have the addictive nicotine to keep you hooked. I'd take a good beer buzz any day.
Your comments betray that you buy into the fantasy world garbage that pot is not dangerous. You need to dare to be different and stop following in lock step with the promoters of addiction.
Pot addiction is a legitimate concern requiring societal control through its lawa and penalties. That simple enough for you?
Sounds like an anxiety attack over using the dangerous herb. You should try again. :)
And to think I was actually hoping you'd back up your assertion with some evidence. The burden of proof is on you, lady. You say pot is dangerous, I ask you to flesh that out a bit more for the sake of clarity and you fail to deliver.
"You need to dare to be different and stop following in lock step with the promoters of addiction."
You need to stop parroting government propaganda like some mindless robot.
"Pot addiction is a legitimate concern requiring societal control through its lawa and penalties. That simple enough for you?"
Actually, it's TOO simple. Sophomoric even. For starters, you're trying to force a conclusion from a premise you've neglected to establish. Last time you said pot was "dangerous", but you never clarified as to how, despite being challenged to do so. Now you say it's a "legitimate concern." That could mean a lot of things, all of it arguable. Second, the laws and penalties I suspect you are referring to have done more harm than good. If the intention was to reduce drug use, it failed miserably. The only thing they've managed to do is pack our jails so full we have to cut people loose early to make room, effectively reducing jail times for the real criminals, thereby making our justice system the joke that it currently is.
Not a bad description, actually!
You could say the same thing about reality television programming.
Are you saying it's safe?
Beginning at midnight (about 45 minutes from now) ET, the History Channel is showing 4 hours of the series, Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way. First up, marijuana.
Ugh.
The first time I tried pot I was drunk and couldn't remember a thing five seconds after it happened. That was rather interesting.
The second time I decided it would be an interesting idea to watch Disney's Fantasia.
Apparently, that was a rather big mistake... the movie is quite hypnotic, I fell into a trance of sorts, freaked out, and started getting paranoid delusions that "The Illuminati" was screwing with my mind... and my trusty tin-foil hat was so far, far away.
Yeah, it was that screwed up.
I've loved Fantasia ever since, but pot really isn't my thing.
IOW, the libertarian vote in the last election.
"Are you saying it's safe?"
No. I'm asking; ""In exactly what way is marajuana dangerous?"
Exactly? It's still being studied. Which is the point. It's not been proven safe. Therefore it's dangerous.
If you prefer the descriptor "unsafe", that's fine also.
Hmmmm. How many hospital admissions for aspirin? Anything close to the 50,000 admitted for marijuana? The 70,000 treated in the ER for marijuana reactions and released?
Would you propose that marijuana be legalized and available like aspirin? Perhaps right there at the check-out counter next to the gum?
I mean, since it's safer than aspirin.
"Between 1992 and 2002, adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions reporting marijuana as the primary substance increased from 23% to 64%; while substance abuse treatment admissions reporting alcohol as the primary substance decreased from 56% to 20% of all adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions. In 2002, more than half (54%) of adolescent substance abuse admissions were referred to substance abuse treatment through the criminal justice system compared with 40% in 1992."
There's my link to support my statement. Please provide a link supporting yours.
What a pathetic attempt at a reply. Abuse treatment admissions are more than a "mention".
"Between 1992 and 2002, adolescent substance abuse treatment admissions reporting marijuana..."
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.