Do you, or do you have friends who use marijuana often?

The idea that drugs makes you a better artist is a fallacy that has been perpetuated by American artists. I have lots of friends who tried to get high and do a sculpture or a painting and half the time they’d end up doing either a) nothing or b) some really shit work.

The whole idea of getting high is to escape. It’s no different than those who go to a park, except that going to a park is legal and getting high is not. My brother-in-law is a waste of space – he would have been better off in a tissue if you know what I mean – and he gets high every day. He’s not productive. He’s just lazy.

I had friends who causally got high, and I admittedly, got high (2 years clean) and sold it for a bit back in the day. I felt that I needed a way to cope with things rather than just dealing with them. While some may not agree that getting high is an escape, I believe it is. And there are many days I wish I still did.

Aargh… a post like this can’t really be that piratey.

Aye! I used to smoke it several times a day but it made me stupid so I gave it up. Arrr!

Yaargh! I stand on me dry rotted peg leg corrected. It can be piratey.

Usually my policy is that if you aren’t dealing with heavy machinery or driving a car, it’s pretty much harmless—in certain quantities.

There was a girl in my class who smoked A LOT. (She also dealt. But from what I could tell, she seemed to be her own best client.) She smoked so much that she seemed constantly high. During a final review, she got up in front of our professor and a pretty esteemed guest panel and did that pothead giggle—for like five minutes. It felt like an eternity. I felt kind of bad for her. Pothead or not, I know she had spent days (no, weeks!) on her project and it was all going down the chute (to the slow agonizing soundtrack of a pothead giggle).

I’m never scared because of what I think someone high will do but I’m regularly scared about the irrational decisions that drunk people make.

Getting high doesn’t make you want to beat the crap out of some guy because of trivial differences or because he bumped into your chair. There aren’t even a quarter as many marijuana related vehicular assaults (DUIs where someone dies).

I think it should be legal. It doesn’t harm the body as much as alcohol. It’s only illegal because of profiteering and racism based political policy.

Like any substance, you would want to limit your intake of it. You can die of ‘water intoxication’ but we haven’t banned water yet. Wake up America.

I used to smoke all the time but I guess I grew out of it. I get nothing done when I’m high….

Aye! I once went to a dining establishment (Steak & Shake) and couldn’t order me food because I was so high. I ended up pointing at me meal and nodding me, seemingly, piratey bobble head when asked aye or no. Still makes me laugh, but I realize how stupid I must have looked at that moment, yaargh.

@bodyhead Aargh, well put. I did hear about a recent study stating marijuana caused cancer faster than cigarettes. What me tiny pea brain can’t understand is that we ban smokin’ ‘cause it causes cancer, we ban marijuana ‘cause… well this pirate taint sure why, but we leave vehicles on the road. If’n you chose to smoke in your garage with t’ door down, you surely wouldn’t die, but if’n you turn your car on with t’ garage door down… we all know ye be seein’ davey jones’ locker. So which one is really more cancerous. Cigarettes and Bud or Cars?

Yes. It’s relaxing. Plain and simple.

I’m a very productive member of society. I am not lazy. I am not stupid. I am not a waste of space.

I like to smoke because it is a peaceful experience at the end of a stressful work day. :)

Smoking pot causes cancer sponsored by Camel, Marlboro and Kool

Get real. No one I know smokes two packs of joints a day. I would agree that it needs further study but cancer causing carcinogens are inhaled when any type of smoke is put into the body. The papers and cigars that people use to wrap the joints are extremely unhealthy for you to pull into your lungs as smoke.

Joint or blunt – the most unhealthy
Pipe – a little more healthy but you’re still breathing in a lot of inpurities
Bong – much more healthy because the water takes some impurities out of the smoke
Vaporizer – no ill side effects and the cancer argument becomes null and void because you aren’t actually inhaling smoke. You’re just inhaling THC vapor.

I don’t really like to do it myself but I will support any movement to legalize it.

Arrgh! Even though I haven’t had any for over a year now, I’ll be the first to support the legalization of medical marijuana.

Just to clarify. I support the legalization of recreational use to marijuana. If I can buy beer, I should be able to buy pot. Yea, if you smoke all the time, you’re probably an idiot but I don’t know too many shining stars that drink all the time either.

My old roommate used to smoke all day.
Mostly because he was depressed.
Though part of the reason why he was depressed was that he was unemployed.
And I can’t say smoking pot all day really helped him out so much in that department.

(But I am happy to report that he’s out of that phase of his life.) Yay!

@bodyhead YAARGH! I wasn’t arguing with ye. I was supporting your point. =) I’ve heard a’ many people dyin’ from the poisonin’ of alcohol but never of someone gettin’ stoned to death. (Unless ye take it in the literal form and then I’m sure someone has.)

@girlofscience Me own family members have gotten high for years. They’ve all been productive. Me argument isn’t that people aren’t. It’s that he isn’t. Many people can walk and talk at the same time. He can barely form coherent sentences – stoned or not.

No worries tWrex, I’m not striking out at you. I have been very vocal about legal weed and there are plenty of studies that come out to the conclusion that pot causes cancer. People will slap this in my face all the time. I just don’t buy it. I’m speaking out more against them then I am you.

As an aside:
Lazy deadbeats will use any excuse to blame their conditions on outside forces.

“No, see, well, I’m lazy because of the pot. It’s not because I’m just lazy… Honest.”

@girlofscience: I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind, to say more about what you do and how it feels? I wondered what your ritual was (do you light up as soon as you get home, or do you sit in a comfy chair first, or eat something or what?), and if you could be a little more descriptive in how it changes the way you feel. I’ll understand if you don’t want to. Actually, if anyone can shed light on this for me, I’d appreciate it.

I haven’t smoked in a long time. I’m not quite sure if I remember much about what it did to me. I know it tended to make me both hungry and horny. But before that, it did something else. Once I had an almost out-of-body experience, singing with a friend of mine. We were doing something in that sounded more like native american singing than anything else, and it seemed like we knew exactly what the other person was going to do before either of us did it. Of course, I’ve also had that same feeling while straight. But not quite the same. With pot, it was more dreamy; without, it’s more magical.

And of course, there’s the way you get fascinated by music and each little intricate part—or a movie in a similar way. Then there’s the short-term memory problems, like finding yourself at the end of a sentence and not remembering what you just said in the beginning of the sentence. Oh. I get it. Must be some kind of split brain thing. One part of your mind knows what you’re talking about, and keeps on talking and making sense (or not), but you (as in the seat of your awareness) are focusing on something else, or thinking about something else, and are unaware of the the talking part of your brain is doing.

Yeah. That happens with dancing and music, too, that kind of split consciousness, but it’s different straight, because somehow it seems like I can be more aware of what’s happening, while when high, I kind of lose touch with the ordinary narrative of life.

Most of the people I know smoke pot—attorneys, musicians, teachers, PhDs, MFTs, LSWs, students…

I used to be a total stoner; a multiple times a day stoner. It was mostly in college, and for a bit of time after I graduated. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from UCLA, so no real negative side effects for me. I still know total pot-heads, and most of them lead normal lives. Smoking pot to them is like having a drink after work, or partying with friends on the weekend.

Pot is sooo less destructive than alcohol. Legalize it and tax the shit out of it. It’d be great for the economy.

A little saying: Drunk drivers run red lights, stoned drivers stop at green ones. ;)

How do you all feel about (legitiment) medical marijuana?

@tinyfaery roflao at yer “saying”.

I don’t just support legal medical marijuana, I think it’s stupid and insane that we aren’t using it already (under federal law). If you have aids, I don’t think you’re exactly hurting the American way by smoking a little weed to get your appetite in order to eat and stay alive for one more day.

I know state sanctioned weed farmers in Oregon and in California. What they are doing is 100% legal on the state level but illegal on a federal level. They both sell to hospitals or other legal buyers.

Is this what you want to support? No me. I say live and let live unless they have an inoperable brain tumor and they’re using pot to keep themselves alive in which case it’s insane that it’s not legal to smoke pot.

Ive been in a number of different bands and I also smoke weed so i’ve encountered this situation many a times. I’ve found that in the bands that I take more seriously I do not smoke before we practice.

I’ve had friends who I jam out with and in that case we would smoke almost every time we practiced but it was more of a hang out and blaze and let’s play some music while we do. The more serious bands I very rarely smoked with and if I did it was more of a fun jam than a practice.

I’m pretty sure it did not make me a better musician but it definitely made the music sound a whole hell of a lot better! (which is one of being high’s best qualities in my opinion)

I was in one particular band where the drummer and i used to blaze before every practice and the other guitarist and bassist would just meet up with us afterwords or just hang out inside when we would go to smoke and that was never a problem with anyone.

now that I think about it btw i’ve been in 4 different drummers and every single one of them has smoked weed so maybe as a drummer it does make you a better player lol. When I was 15 before I really smoked very much my drummer would just get high by himself every practice before during and after. (altho we would usually after not before or during haha)

Music and buds = :D

If I’m not high I usually have a song stuck in my head, even though most of the time I don’t realize it. There’s a good chance you have a song stuck in your head right now too. There’s a good chance that if you ask someone if they have a song stuck in their head at any given moment they will.

Within a few seconds of smoking that stops. My mind, which is usually full of chatter instantly clears. I hear sounds that are outside my head, like birds and cars and people, and nothing inside my head. Everything is quiet and nice.

My musician friends smoke because they can concentrate on sounds better when they’re high. I have one friend who can’t tune a guitar by ear when sober, but can when high.

This pirate talk is creeping me out

Pete: Is song a euphemism?

I won’t knowingly associate with folks who deliberately break laws, because I might be falsely accused of something, right along with them, and I have experienced assumed guilt by association in my life, and it is not at all enjoyable.

i smoke it…. habitually, and by habitually, i mean 6 doobies a day is normal
i can fully function under the influence, and quite often i find that it makes reading and studying easier

Even though were not in a court of law…..Everyone plead the fifth :)

I got a PM from someone in here who wrote, quote, “I am using it rite Now and I snghskjyuw ahgfoietb iJHDFY SAO9W AOKANLA.Q ADN”

@JackAdams: I thought we weren’t going to talk about that. Thanks for spilling the beans. What are you? On crack? ;-)

He also said, “bskjhgfy agt dk eiwxv fhasie djasg dkaw .sl[=sd.” [paraphrased, not an exact quote]

You left out the bsdfklj. Without the bsdfklj, the meaning is changed entirely! You’ve got to stop paraphrasing me.

Sorry.

I beg forgiveness.

Keep in mind that I never mentioned your name…

What? Huh? Ooops. My bad. Damn! I gotta lay off this shit!

I love how many smokers are on Fluther. I smoke occasionally because I used to have a problem with panic attacks and since I had no insurance it was cheaper than doctors and prescriptions, now tell me I’m a bad person for doing it, fucking naysayers.

:)