Why do some hallucinate and others punish them?

[Ganoderma]

I find it interesting how so many humans enjoy narcotic plants as part of their everyday life but many people, eventhose that do drugs, are often very harsh against people who do a different kind fo drug.

 

for sake of argument this is not man made/purified type drugs, more "natural". plants and fungi. Lets say marijuana and mushrooms as most people at least know what they are.

 

my question is, why do you think so many people enjoy these particular drugs, and so many people are outright against it. not even just against it, they actually go out of their way and work to try and make people who do them suffer (ie jail).

 

is it really that people think they have a negative pull on society? are they scared? do they just think if its illegal its not ok? religious?

 

taking marijuana for example. what exactly do those that hate it, hate it for? it has so many uses, not just a mind bender. from medicine to industry, why hate such a useful plant?

 

 

Many societies rely on plants to shape their very existence. around where i came from, if its not wrapped in plastic with a government approval sticker on it, it almost seems like a biohazard. why?

[InfiniteNow]

My first thought is that, in the US anyway, the drug of choice is caffeine and speed. Everyone wants up up up so we can profit profit profit.

 

Marajuana sort of gets in the way of high productivity. :D

 

 

I also think there is a whole group of unthinking zombies who think that anything illegal is clearly bad.

[Moontanman]

I find it interesting how so many humans enjoy narcotic plants as part of their everyday life but many people, eventhose that do drugs, are often very harsh against people who do a different kind fo drug.

 

for sake of argument this is not man made/purified type drugs, more "natural". plants and fungi. Lets say marijuana and mushrooms as most people at least know what they are.

 

my question is, why do you think so many people enjoy these particular drugs, and so many people are outright against it. not even just against it, they actually go out of their way and work to try and make people who do them suffer (ie jail).

 

is it really that people think they have a negative pull on society? are they scared? do they just think if its illegal its not ok? religious?

 

taking marijuana for example. what exactly do those that hate it, hate it for? it has so many uses, not just a mind bender. from medicine to industry, why hate such a useful plant?

 

 

Many societies rely on plants to shape their very existence. around where i came from, if its not wrapped in plastic with a government approval sticker on it, it almost seems like a biohazard. why?

 

I feel that is wrong to lump all drugs together as though they are all the same. I am very tolerant of mild hallucinogens but not stuff like opiates or meth. The tolerance of alcohol and tobacco while much less harmful things like MJ are totally not tolerated is just plain wrong. I do not associate with people who do hard drugs like crack or meth or heroine. These people can be very dangerous when they run out of their drug of choice and begin to look for money to buy more. For that matter alcohol can actually cause many individuals to act absolutely nuts that are nice people when they aren't drinking. If you smoke MJ and associate with people who do hard drugs you are much more likely to get caught and be hauled away. I guess the real problem is that most of the people in power have a vested interest in getting votes or attention and the best way to do that is to harass drug users. Lumping all drugs together is a good way to avoid all the controversy of which drugs are harmful and which ones aren't. Of course the ones the government makes money off of like alcohol and tobacco need to seen as less harmful even though this is not the case

[Turtle]

I find it interesting how so many humans enjoy narcotic plants as part of their everyday life but many people, eventhose that do drugs, are often very harsh against people who do a different kind fo drug.

...

Many societies rely on plants to shape their very existence. around where i came from, if its not wrapped in plastic with a government approval sticker on it, it almost seems like a biohazard. why?

 

:beer: :cough: :cough: huh? B) Seriously though, my favorite source for an exhaustive look at the absurdity of consensual crimes is Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. :D

[Ganoderma]

for sake of argument this is not man made/purified type drugs, more "natural". plants and fungi. Lets say marijuana and mushrooms as most people at least know what they are.

 

i am not saying speed, crack, heroin or LSD. i am talking of raw plant material. one could argue a lot in whichever direction, but even "hard" drugs like cocaine are only a problem in purified states in certain societies. Peru has little problem with chewing coca quids.

 

but i am talking more about "soft" drugs in raw form in western style societies (Canada, Australia, Europe, USA etc).

 

i am also wondering why, as a society, allow the outright hate for people doing these things. i am all for freedom of speech, thats fine if one dislikes drugs and people who consume them. but to actually take everything away from them (house, car things), take them away from their family, take their money then place them in a small cell for XX years because they had plants in their home.....i am just really missing the logic (probably a bad choice of word) here.

 

i know i always say this and you may get pissed off at me for always saying it, but i believe in it. How is it justified that a person can buy whatever amount of tobacco or alcohol (both are known narcotics, nicotine being a very powerful, and deadly, hallucinogen), which our government profits from (thats the key, I'm sure)....and someone with say 10 marijuana plants can have everything taken away from them (in my eyes this is a form of torture).

 

i know all about the fact that booze and cigs make the world a LOT of money, and marijuana is probably counter productive in the economy....but if i said you were going to loose your house and family because you like rap music, but the country music people can go on living great....how would that feel? is it really that different?

 

i think about the only thing alcohol and tobacco companies can legitimately use is "we were doing it then, and we have the right to do it now."

[Moontanman]

i am not saying speed, crack, heroin or LSD. i am talking of raw plant material. one could argue a lot in whichever direction, but even "hard" drugs like cocaine are only a problem in purified states in certain societies. Peru has little problem with chewing coca quids.

 

but i am talking more about "soft" drugs in raw form in western style societies (Canada, Australia, Europe, USA etc).

 

i am also wondering why, as a society, allow the outright hate for people doing these things. i am all for freedom of speech, thats fine if one dislikes drugs and people who consume them. but to actually take everything away from them (house, car things), take them away from their family, take their money then place them in a small cell for XX years because they had plants in their home.....i am just really missing the logic (probably a bad choice of word) here.

 

i know i always say this and you may get pissed off at me for always saying it, but i believe in it. How is it justified that a person can buy whatever amount of tobacco or alcohol (both are known narcotics, nicotine being a very powerful, and deadly, hallucinogen), which our government profits from (thats the key, I'm sure)....and someone with say 10 marijuana plants can have everything taken away from them (in my eyes this is a form of torture).

 

i know all about the fact that booze and cigs make the world a LOT of money, and marijuana is probably counter productive in the economy....but if i said you were going to loose your house and family because you like rap music, but the country music people can go on living great....how would that feel? is it really that different?

 

i think about the only thing alcohol and tobacco companies can legitimately use is "we were doing it then, and we have the right to do it now."

 

Indeed, I totally misunderstood your question and I complety agree with this post. I have had a problem understanding this my entire adult life. It makes no real sense. I have often thought that religion or at least the desire for a few to control the many in any way they can has at least something to do with it. I do know that Mj becoming illegle had a very strong racist componit. The law was first thought of as a way to deport mexicans, later it was also thought of as a "black" problem. cocaine prhibition was also greatly motivated by racism, at least in the USA. Wonderful place those golden old times weren't they?:doh:

[Ganoderma]

but why? it has to be more than ignorance/stupidity? right?

[Moontanman]

but why? it has to be more than ignorance/stupidity? right?

 

Never underestimate the power of ingnorence and stupidity or the need for control of others by a few. legislation of morality is the most widely used form of controling the population. You can get people to do almost anything if you can convince them it's a moral choice.

[HydrogenBond]

Part of the reason many people get all irrational about others doing these types of drugs, even if it is a victimless crime, is due to a hole in their knowledge that gets filled in with the imagination. There is a difference between learning about something through written or spoken work and actually experiencing it in reality. An analogy is the student who graduates knowing all types of state of the art science and science thinking. In their imagination they are going to move up the company ladder or reinvent the wheel. Once they go into the reality of the workplace, things are often different then they may have imagined. That is the affect. Because there is lack of first hand reality experience, many gain their information by reading. Being a political issue, one can expect some bias in this teaching material. The imagination is already removed from reality, being third person. To this we add bias in the original learning. The result is a lot of misunderstanding that makes people act very irrational.

 

The analogy is a large block of college students graduating, all entering the same company. They all have similar imaginations of what the work place is going to be. In this scenario, we give them all the power. The result is the work places becomes sort of a fraternity party with idealism. Relative to the company and all the seasoned professionals, they now have to work in college imaginary reality, since they are in charge. This sort of drags down the needs of the first person business reality, until it gets in more line with the imaginary third person college reality. Culture places extra burdens on them to weigh them down to help fulfill the imaginary expectation.

 

An analogy is the propaganda minister, says if you eat ABC you will be a burden to our society, since you will not be able to run a mile in 10 minutes. This deduction is all based on third hand data and information. Unfortunately, there are those who can do both. To make the propaganda minister look like he is always right, we will add 20 pound of burden, one will have to carry if they eat ABC. All those who believe the fantasy will help enforce this. Now, he can say, see eating ABC causes the very affect I said. If we took away the weight, the imaginary reality would not work as well. It makes everyone appear less rational.

 

I remember becoming a teenager. As a child I had always been on the side of the establishment. But I was learning to think for myself, so I decided to be open to new ideas even if it created a challenge to my programming. Listening to both sides, it was hard to come to a rational understanding due to salesmanship, with both sides making blank statements that didn't always apply. It didn't sit well in my gut anymore because I was out making observations to see if it was real. The only way to touch reality came down to collecting first hand data. The third hand hear-say turned out to be half true and half bull. I couldn't tell the difference with third hand data alone. Reality experience, or first hand data, made it more obvious.

 

Relative to the fraternity party-idealism example, rather than just stay in the imagination, I decided to talk to the old timers about how they used to run the company. They had good points but also seemed to have a bias. So I walked a mile in both shoes to see the reality in both sides. That is what a scientist is suppose to do. Go into it with an open mind, do your own research, collect unbiased data and analyze it in an objective way. We are not a science based culture, it more based on entertainment and drama. We use that to fill in the data hole created by third hand reality. Both sides of the issue, do the same thing; both sides have half of reality.

[Kriminal99]

I believe drug users often take an attitude of "live and let live" ie "If you don't like the way I'm livin... just leave this long haired country boy alone."

 

What they don't realize is no one lives in a vacuum and their actions effect others whether they like it or not, which is where the police come in.

 

1) By getting high, they make themselves less productive and therefore often a burden on those around them.

 

2) Drugs capable of making someone hallucinate are capable of making someone act extremely randomly without regard for rules or regulations.

 

3) By purchasing these drugs, people create a market for them. By creating a market, they create people with incentive to sell drugs. By creating such people, they create people who push drugs on our youth turning our would be star basketball player, future president, or Scientist into a drug addict. Seemingly all because the kid was called a name by another student in school, something which would not have impacted his life long term at all had he not began using because of it. (IE kids are too impressionable to decide yet they are sold to)

 

And the less imperative issue realting to #1 is that the efficiency of our race is reduced even if users don't become a burden which means less advancement and economic growth, which means quality of life is reduced for the larger group.

[Moontanman]

I believe drug users often take an attitude of "live and let live" ie "If you don't like the way I'm livin... just leave this long haired country boy alone."

 

What they don't realize is no one lives in a vacuum and their actions effect others whether they like it or not, which is where the police come in.

 

1) By getting high, they make themselves less productive and therefore often a burden on those around them.

 

2) Drugs capable of making someone hallucinate are capable of making someone act extremely randomly without regard for rules or regulations.

 

3) By purchasing these drugs, people create a market for them. By creating a market, they create people with incentive to sell drugs. By creating such people, they create people who push drugs on our youth turning our would be star basketball player, future president, or Scientist into a drug addict. Seemingly all because the kid was called a name by another student in school, something which would not have impacted his life long term at all had he not began using because of it. (IE kids are too impressionable to decide yet they are sold to)

 

And the less imperative issue realting to #1 is that the efficiency of our race is reduced even if users don't become a burden which means less advancement and economic growth, which means quality of life is reduced for the larger group.

 

This is such BS:evil: All you are doing is parroting the propaganda of the people who make the rules! Less productive? Alcohol and tobacco are far more of a burden to society than even very hard drugs. The only figures I have on hand are very damning. For every person who dies as a direct result of the effects of drugs, 1000 people die from the effects of alcohol and tobacco.:) I know, I was dead set against such a ridiculous figure but it's true. I don't have figures on productivity but since I have used pot many times over my adult life I know for a fact I never allowed it to interfere with my life. Almost everyone I know who smokes MJ is the same way. It's a mild distraction from the days grind, not an obsession.

 

Number 2 is also BS virtually all violent acts and crimes are done by people who are hooked on hard drugs and only do this when they are straight and wanting to get high but cannot afford their drug of choice. Things like MJ do not even figure into this statistic. Very few drugs actually cause a person to become violent while they are high. Of course some do "can we say alcohol"

 

Number three, the black market is created by the suppressors of drug use not the users. Although I think really hard drugs like crack, meth, and heroine should be controlled. Drugs like MJ are actually less harmful than societies drugs of choice. The reason we have a black market of drugs is exactly the reason we don't have one for alcohol. Get real, don't put the cart in front of the horse.

[Ahmabeliever]

It's all about the money!

 

When cotton farming was threatened in the South they demonised marijuana. now everyone's taking a piece of that pie, and to make it legal again a lot of fat cats in office included many public offices, would have to give up their livelihoods.

 

It doesn't matter what the Govt uses = drugs, terrorism.... A reason to go into anyone's house and tear it up, or survey anyone, is too good to let go of when the Government fancies itself as big brother...

 

There are many sci fi novels depicting the populace as sheep farmed to produce for the elite. Well...... we're already there! The fact we can protest and get minor resolution of minor things keeps us dumb enough so we don't see it but basically it is - screw you - screw you down for as much as we possibly can, keep as many secrets as possible - business first.

 

So many things don't make sense, like drugs, till you see the money flow behind the scenes.

 

Drugs are easy to demonise, just tell preachers the devil made them. They love a good story to tell of a sunday. Or, like actually happened, tell the KKK marijuana is a black persons drug...

 

Saving the cotton industry in the US is the reason I got jailed for pot in NZ. Screw the US government, they suck! And ours follow like sheep - baaaa.

 

Drugs like crack are positively evil, like a virus in the user it's incredible to see them sap the strength from the strongest of characters and turn them into semi-politicians - shiftless liars and thieves.

 

Many drugs are additionally dangerous because they are not governed and so are full of impurities. Govt control will change this ???? Well, they sell us poison and call it food, I don't trust em to get anything right they have trouble grasping basic human need, where honesty is the proverbial unicorn, and flouride is good for you, and sweeteners are approved cos you don't want to be fat - dead is a slimmer look.

[Moontanman]

It's all about the money!

 

When cotton farming was threatened in the South they demonised marijuana. now everyone's taking a piece of that pie, and to make it legal again a lot of fat cats in office included many public offices, would have to give up their livelihoods.

 

It doesn't matter what the Govt uses = drugs, terrorism.... A reason to go into anyone's house and tear it up, or survey anyone, is too good to let go of when the Government fancies itself as big brother...

 

There are many sci fi novels depicting the populace as sheep farmed to produce for the elite. Well...... we're already there! The fact we can protest and get minor resolution of minor things keeps us dumb enough so we don't see it but basically it is - screw you - screw you down for as much as we possibly can, keep as many secrets as possible - business first.

 

So many things don't make sense, like drugs, till you see the money flow behind the scenes.

 

Drugs are easy to demonise, just tell preachers the devil made them. They love a good story to tell of a sunday. Or, like actually happened, tell the KKK marijuana is a black persons drug...

 

Saving the cotton industry in the US is the reason I got jailed for pot in NZ. Screw the US government, they suck! And ours follow like sheep - baaaa.

 

Drugs like crack are positively evil, like a virus in the user it's incredible to see them sap the strength from the strongest of characters and turn them into semi-politicians - shiftless liars and thieves.

 

Many drugs are additionally dangerous because they are not governed and so are full of impurities. Govt control will change this ???? Well, they sell us poison and call it food, I don't trust em to get anything right they have trouble grasping basic human need, where honesty is the proverbial unicorn, and flouride is good for you, and sweeteners are approved cos you don't want to be fat - dead is a slimmer look.

 

Well alright! Another optimist on the list, the more of us the better! Actually it was Mexicans that originally prompted making MJ illegal, later it was also used to demonize blacks and teenagers. Almost nothing the government says about recreational drugs is true, yes any mind altering chemical can be bad for you especially those that are chemically concentrated. But putting people in jail for non violent victimless crimes is what the government does best. Too difficult to get a real handle on thieves, rapists, and murderers but you can always trot out a few drug related arrests to show you are doing a good job. From my stand point I have some sort of degenerative nerve disorder that so far everything that has prescribed by the doctor has made it much worse, but smoking a very small amount of MJ before bed time keeps the symptoms mostly at bay with out much in the way of side effects (if a good night's sleep and feeling good are side effects) I have a choice, smoke and be able to live my life in relative comfort and risk being arrested or keep sliding down a slope of facial ticks, stuttering, choking on food, and intense nerve pain in my hands and arms and neck. Not much of a choice really but so far I don't have another and I've been trying to find relief for ten years now. The best the doctors can do is keep me sedated on very strong opiates. Then I see others who take the same drugs from their doctors dyeing like flys every day, even though they are taking the pills exactly like they are told to do. :)

[Zythryn]

I disagree with the 'hate' label. People don't 'hate' mj users. MJ is illegal (weather right or wrong). As such, using or selling it is punishable by our justice system (again, right or wrong).

If you feel this is wrong, educate people and get the laws changed.

As for the government making money off of other drugs (alcohol/tobacco), get over it. I am sure the government would love to make money off taxing the sale of MJ as well.

[Moontanman]

I disagree with the 'hate' label. People don't 'hate' mj users. MJ is illegal (weather right or wrong). As such, using or selling it is punishable by our justice system (again, right or wrong).

If you feel this is wrong, educate people and get the laws changed.

As for the government making money off of other drugs (alcohol/tobacco), get over it. I am sure the government would love to make money off taxing the sale of MJ as well.

 

Do you have any idea what you just said? I can remember when NORML was formed. I thought maybe before I am too old to roll one it might be legal, never happen:naughty: Anyone in power who even listens to the argument is banned forever. Political suicide isn't a real good way to get elected. Too many people either belive the governemnt propaganda or religous propaganda, or BS from people with an axe to grind. Not to mention how good it looks to arrest a few MJ users to show you are tough on crime when you can't catch the real bad guys. Even if the government isn't making money and consolidating their power with the drug war, the powers that be need a whipping boy, MJ is the perfect whippee. :)

[UncleAl]

If DMT, mescaline, LSD, psilocybin, Salvia divinorum (Salvinorin A, the only non-nitrogeneous hallucinogen), harmine... is administered to a congenitally blind person, what is seen?

[Zythryn]

Moon, if you want to convince yourself that it is a huge government conspiracy and there is no hope that is fine, go for it.

Many states have already legalized mj for medicinal purposes.

Others are working on hemp farming as compitition to cotton and other fibres.

Education is the key. Get off the conspiracy bandwagon and do your cause some good.