The discussion about the MJ in the outlaw thread got me to thinking about the legalization issue again.

First, I'll grant there are some legitimate cautions to be observed when using ANY mind altering chemical and I'll also concede there's such a thing as TOO much.

But that being said I gotta say that I know several guys who work VERY competantly, productively and safely in the woods every day while buzzed on MJ. And if you think you work hard at whatever you may do, try working in the woods and cutting 12-15 cords a day. A humbling experience to be sure.

I recall a book that came out in the seventies, "The Marijuahana Papers". It was a compilation of various studies made by sociologists. One in particular comes to mind. They studied the productivity of the sugar cane workers in Jaimaca. They compared smoker with non smokers and the smokers won, hands down, as far as the amount of cane they'd cut in a day.

There is a difference between use and abuse, a distinction rarely made in the discussions I hear between the socalled professionals on NPR and WI public radio. It seems if one is a user you're automatically pigeonholed as an abuser and it just ain't so.

Here in the US of A, conspicuous consumption is the order of the day in some circles. I often hear socalled adults, folks in their fifties and sixties bragging about how much they drank the night before or some teeny bopper or twenties something person bragging about how much they smoked or drank. These folks are abusers as far as I'm concerned and they seem to place some self esteem VALUE on their abuse.

Personally I think its a personal issue and people vary. Some folks can handle alchohol better than others and the same goes for MJ.

To me the question comes down to: Was the person a "loser" before they smoked to excess which rendered them even more incompetant? I suspect so.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Answers

Well, yes, there is a real question as to what constitutes Use/Ab-Use of most drugs.

Unfortunately, no one that I know works better for being buzzed, either with alcohol or drugs. They are uniformly at half-speed to worthless. If I were to tender an opinion about the study on the marijuana smoking cane workers you cited, I would observe that it is probably because they could work with less pain when they were drugged, feeling less pain from repetative motion, blisters, cane- burn, etc. Marijuana does have its use as a pain killer, no denying that.

It has also been found that the natives in South America who chew Coca leaves are able to carry heavier loads for longer than undrugged porters are because they don't feel the pain, the cold, or hunger. I don't think that that equates with a benefit neccessarily, because altho they are not feeling it at the moment, the results on the body don't heal or disappear because of it. If you drug a race horse so it doesn't feel pain and wins the race and makes you money, yet has destroyed its lungs or joints, is this beneficial?

I won't deny that there are a lot of people (and not just in the US) who are pretty much wastes of air and food, whose only idea of self- worth is as to how big of slobs they can be. THere must be an awful lot of losers out there.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Oh my. Losers. I don't think I can call people losers, because I don't believe they are really losers. Maybe "loosing out" on the good things in life, the happy times without needing drugs, or something to that effect. I believe if they would stop abusing substances just for a month, they would realize they don't need it.

The alcholics that I know are actually pretty nice people sober or straight when I get to see them that way. And I do tell them that. I try to lift people up, but some don't want to be lifted up. They have their excuses.

I think that the moment that person chooses to drink or smoke in excess, they are choosing less for themselves. Less brains at the moment. Less common sense. Less mobility. Less clear speech. And on and on. But they don't have to choose that way the next time. I don't think they were loosers before the first time, but to keep doing it does not make you a winner.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

"To me the question comes down to: Was the person a "loser" before they smoked to excess which rendered them even more incompetant? I suspect so."

Oh my goodness john..........do you really believe that??? Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief...........the disease of alcholism and drug addiction really knows no boundries from what I have seen. The most interesting thing about the whole thing to me is how hard it is for the people involved to get past the denial that it is adversely affecting their lives and their performance. IMHO drug and alcohol abusers are just as sick as someone with cancer and can we call someone suffering from cancer a loser??

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

I have that intense pull to be a drunk. I come from a long line of alcoholics and I know its a sickness. I really think its the wanting to escape life! I know when I lost my young wife in an airplane accident that bottle looked really good. Jim Beam yelled "come tooo meee, it hurts tooo much". But I had 2 little kids to raise. Even now sometimes it sounds good to crawl up with a bottle and let the world go by. Weak willed sounds better than loser.

However the answer for me is to get interested in things. Find things more interesting than escape. Every abuser I know seems to have nothing else but fear.

So I guess the distinction between user and abuser is the length of time a person wants to escape!!.....Kirk

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

julie- "people who are pretty much wastes of air and food" I LOVE that! Back before I learned to play nice I used to tell worthless folks "you're not worth the air your breathing". Ah, the good old days...

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

I was mostly speaking from personal experiences and people that I know. I believe that they have chosen to be drug abusers and drinkers. I'm not sure how to classify what truly constitutes an alcoholic, but it was always my interpretation that alcoholism was more an inability to leave the alcohol alone, rather than the desire to see how drunk you could get at a bar and how big of a spectacle you could make of yourself to brag about later on. The way I interpreted it was that some of these 'recreational' drinkers may wind up as alcoholics because of the drug action that causes addiction to it.

That may be right, or not, but is how I interpret it. I was recently watching a tv program about the problems that are going on over in Britian with drunken car rallys in which younger people are getting together to get drunk and pretty much just to destroy property (in some cases they get so drunk they destroy their own cars and think it's either a good idea or hilarious.) Admittedly, it was their own car to destroy, and they didn't hurt anyone while they were beating it with a pipe and burning out the transmission. I do hope that they get their lives together some day, but I don't think that this makes them winners.

What you had to say about alcohol is a very valid point, Kirk. I was thinking about the people who don't have anything that they are trying to forget (other than some rather superficial things, such as not getting the car you wanted for your birthday, or because they hate their job that pays them so lousy that they can only afford to get drunk on Thursday nights when beer is 25 cents, or because you hate your in-laws). I've seen more of drug abusers whose only excuse is that, like lab rats, they prefer to be stoned, and they like to brag about being stoned. I've seen a few alcoholics who fit the same profile. Having small children to raise doesn't make a difference, some of them are seen in the store buying beer or a bottle, and if they have enough left over, they will buy milk and bread for their kids. Some of them give the drugs to their kids so they won't have to be stoned alone.

I don't equate that type of parent to someone ill with cancer, because in most cases, cancer patients didn't choose to get the disease. Addictive compulsion such as smoking that leads to lung cancer might be closer to it, but the parent that chooses to give their children drugs is somewhere outside of the term 'sickness' as I see it.

I don't mind it much if someone with cancer is driving a truck, but I do mind it a lot of someone who has just had 5 or 6 shots (or drug equivalent) is driving that same truck.

-- Anonymous, August 17, 2001

Cindy: I understand and appreciate the sentiment you express about the "loser" appellation. Thats why I put it in quotes. On the other hand there are those, straight or stoned, drunk or sober, who are pretty much a waste of skin. They don't want to work but recognize the necessity of having money and will do or say just about anything to get over to get that paycheck. Being honorable or having enuf self respect to keep their word doesn't even enter their mind.

The folks you referred to that work with Steve are the types I'm thinking of. If they were straight and sober do you think they'd behave that much differently? Personally I doubt it.

All of it IMO requires maturation and that happens at different rates for different people when it occurs at all. So many of these folks seem to be suffering from arrested psychological development, clinging to the attitudes and habits they had when they were teeny boppers and striving to be cool and "acceptable". Part of maturation is the development of a set of principles and priorities that honors the eternal and recognizes the existance of other people and they seem to lack that.

That's not to say however there's no hope but it uually takes the proverbial 2 x 4 to get their attention.

-- Anonymous, August 18, 2001

I'm with you john. I love it when all the experts talk about mj. Most entertaining, is people who drink alcohol and attemt to vilify mj. Hahahahaha. Especially those who have never so much as tried it. Course we all need a boogeyman. Mj is no different than most things,only in my opinion, more harmless than most. The critical term ,as you said john, is abuse. Coming from the binge drinking capital of the country, wisconsin, I have a long background dealing with alcohol. Cousins who didn't have enough to eat because the tavern was on the way home from my uncles place of employment . A nine year old girl, hung over the second floor balcony by her mother because she woke her up and mom was hung over. Friends killed or maimed after a nite of drinking. I worked for the phone company and many of my coworkers were often stoned and still climbed utility poles, seemed to function just fine. I won't say mj has no effect. I remember one experience I had myself while getting high back in the 70's. Thought I was going to die. My somach muscles hurt so bad from laughing I wasn't sure I could catch my breath. Of course in some circles that having fun thing is dangerous in and of itself. Speed kills, thats for sure and lack of speed, such as driving under the speed limit when your stoned has taken it's toll but i'm not sure how many. That being productive thing. Who says we have to be putting out 100% all the time. So we can earn more so we can buy more so we can be happy ???? Julie f, your point about masking the pain. I agree, pain is there for a reason.My question is why is western medicine so intent on doing just that,masking the pain without finding the cause of the pain. It's okay if a doctor prescribes something but wrong if it is something we can grow in our back yards? Would that give people too much control over thir own lives. Altering ones conciousness, has been around for a heck of a long time as studying most cultures will attest. It is quite obvious that reading responses on this forum will certainly demonstrate that. Whether it be religious or spiritual practice, sexual experience, birth,death, looking at the clouds. I believe it is something we all do to see things a bit differently. I believe I have had profound altering of conciousness with all of the above as well as mj. For me, mj was the most intense but that was my reality and I would neither expect or care if anyone could relate to that. I hope I don't come across as being a loser here.Haven't been drunk or stoned in many years.In fact I'm way the hell too responsible. AAhhhh for the good old days. (jz makes the peace sign) take care

-- Anonymous, August 19, 2001

Actually, I don't have much against using cannabis as a pain killer, or letting people grow it. Heck, I'm actually FOR growing hemp as a crop because it is superior in so many applications. Same thing with cannabis, with the exception that smoking it is carcinogenic and it would be better to extract the THC by some other method that doesn't involve smoke inhalation. Absolutely no problem with people with glaucoma or cancer growing and smoking it as need be, but if their pain is so severe that they need it, I'd like to know that the people self-medicating with it werent' doing so while operating heavy machinery, etc.

I'm sure that in some applications, the employer would rather that their employee was sedated to some degree, such as the cane workers, and the porters who chew Coca leaf. If someone wants to smoke it for the purpose of enlightenment, well, okay. I can even see that it's not all that much different from having an evening cocktail. However, same as with the alcohol, use it to excess and the user becomes the Ab-user. Personally, I've always got too many things to do and get done to waste time being wasted. I always did resent it a lot tho at work when I was having to do twice as much because once again, the other person was stoned. I didn't get paid twice as much.

Doctors? Most of 'em are kind of a waste too. Five minutes seeing you, don't run any tests, prescribe antibiotics that won't help you at all, tell you you should lose some weight (like I've never considered this before?) -- run off to their golf course. The only allopath I had that I liked went over to doing ER work only. I go to a holistic/chinese practitioner and a chiropractor.

-- Anonymous, August 20, 2001