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"Teens who frequently use marijuana are almost four times as likely to commit a violent act"

Goodness Gracious Meme

17:50 / 07.11.02

ladies and gents - the magic of Freevibe.com (the name says it all, can't you just hear Simon Mayo saying it...)

"Over the long term, smoking pot can cause you to lose interest in how you look "

Nope. Still as vain as ever, I'm afraid.

"For athletes, THC's effect on timing, coordination, and movement-which can last for up to 24 hours-can seriously hurt performance. "

Remind me not to do buckets before that next triathlon.

or check out hempfiles.com for some hysterical quotes:

"Marihuana makes fiends of boys in thirty days -- Hashish goads users to bloodlust." - Patty Hearst

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing" -
Federal Bureau of Narcotics Chief Harry J. Anslinger, 1948

(via Urban75 BBoard

18:00 / 07.11.02

Hmmm... I swear I just read this great article about how the "High Times" staff softball team is ALWAYS the big winner against other magazine's teams, "but usually only the pitcher smokes up. It helps him concentrate."

(Realize that's not anti-drug, just wanted to counteract and will try and find out where I heard this, seriously..)

Tryphena Absent

18:27 / 07.11.02

As soon as you see the word 'drugs' used in such a general way you know it's gonna be bad.

This is my favourite anti-drug spiel: when I was in the sixth form one of our teachers decided to do a series of drugs talks. He actually stood there and told us that if we touched 'shrooms we'd die. Naturally half the group screamed with laughter and everyone else sat there and looked confused. Guess what- I'm not dead yet! Even some of the teachers couldn't disguise there expressions of disbelief as he talked the biggest amount of shit about things he'd clearly never done.

18:50 / 07.11.02

I'd be severely disappointing in you guys if you generally refused to take onboard anything negative about cannabis due to 50/25/10 year old propaganda. That'd be pretty dumb.

Tryphena Absent

19:08 / 07.11.02

No one's saying that cannabis is this shining grail of a drug that does nothing wrong. It has negative attributes and I could talk about them for hours (I can't smoke it anymore- weep for me) but it's just so completely yuk and naive when people refuse to distinguish between one drug and another.

The thing I'd like to ask you D is what propaganda are you referring to? For me drug propaganda reaches as far as your own experience with that drug if you've taken it. I won't be influenced with regards to marijuana anymore I know what it does and I know it's psychotropic and can make you see some nasty shit and make you freak out and I still think it should be legalized. On the other hand I've never touched heroin, thinks it's a bad drug, think it should be illegal.

Hey maybe the ex-addicts should be the ones governing us.

19:17 / 07.11.02

Hey maybe the ex-addicts should be the ones governing us.

Well, actually -- oh never mind, that one is just too easy.

Goodness Gracious Meme

19:25 / 07.11.02

erm, D - thought it'd be taken as read that this wasn't a 'well thank god for that, drugs are safe and cool and lovely' thread. Just pointing out some of the hysterias, er, humourously? Isn't accurate information the aim?

19:26 / 07.11.02

The usual line to keep it illegal is results from a study showing that it's harmful. Which doesn't seem like enough really, given that everything is harmful, but it's acknowledged that prohibition of it (alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, saturated fat) is just impossible to enforce.

It's odd that the prohibition of alcohol and marijuana both failed to stop widespread use of both, but alcohol prohibition only lasted 8 years or so?

Did anyone see what the results of the Nevada legalisation vote were on Tuesday?

XXII:X:II = XXX

23:33 / 07.11.02

It got trounced, I'm sorry to say, as did same sex marriage. The country is going firmly in favor of the alcoholic het boys. You know what? All the more reason to do your own thing. They will seem all the more brilliant in the encroaching darkness, and others will notice the differences more, which is the necessary first step to understanding. But keep an international location in mind if things start getting too scary across the board.

Back on topic, who on pot alone has ever seen anyone be excessively violent? Throw some liquor or coke in the mix, then perhaps, but pot alone? Not in this world. I wonder if these studies ever bother to come up with a number for the percentage of violent acts while under the influence of alcohol alone. Bet that's about ten times as likely, at the least.

00:40 / 08.11.02

Just pointing out some of the hysterias, er, humourously? Isn't accurate information the aim?

No problem with that. The problem comes in when the line between propaganda and fact becomes blurred. Perfect example here actually:

"Over the long term, smoking pot can cause you to lose interest in how you look "

It's a short step between ridiculing this statement as a falsehood and denying the fact that cannabis use can cause or exacerbate depression. Is sweeping self-satisfied scorn that draws right into the zone where fact and factoid become blurred really going to help anybody understand the issue?
It's as unhelpful and partisan as that terrible Woody Harrelson hemp movie.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

02:06 / 08.11.02

I think the big problem with thre anti-drug stuff given to us by the government is that it is a scare tactic not based on the reality of drug use.

Instead of saying people on Pot get all hopped up and go looking for people to beat up, move to heroin first chance they get, are paying for Al Qaeda and make your brain into an egg, they should deal with the reality of it.

You know, if you smoke pot, you're taking in a bunch of the same chemicals as in tobacco and keeping it in your body longer, possibly killing you with cancer. Whoops, can't badmouth tobacco. In some people it causes a loss of drive and ambition, making it so they pretty much spend a hell of a lot of time in Community Colleges playing video games and bitching about the toasted cheese sammiches.

OK, so that's MY experience.

But still, overselling the danger causes people to turn off the serious messages that addictions to ANYTHING can fuck up your life.

02:19 / 08.11.02

It's like that Bill Hicks line: "I have never seen two people get in a fight because - it's fucking impossible".

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:01 / 08.11.02

"makes fiends of boys in thirty days"

God, but I'm using that line somewhere. I got dibbs.

Surely the worst anti-drugs adverts are those 'My Anti-Drug' ads that we UK peeps only ever see in comics (often in comics clearly written under the influence, but I digress).

"Fear of getting a vicious beatdown from my stepdad: my anti-drug!"

11:33 / 08.11.02

A pretty obvious gag, but it has to be done:

"Over the long term, smoking pot can cause you to lose interest in how you look "

"For athletes, THC's effect on timing, coordination, and movement-which can last for up to 24 hours-can seriously hurt performance. "

"Marihuana leads to pacifism and communist brainwashing"

I think it's time for a quiet word with my parents about the contents of my baby food..

Last week I went to the cinema to see a collection of anti-drug propaganda and stuff - "The Drug Scare Film Show" - predictably, very funny indeed - "hey man, you wanna be a square all your life? Take a drag on this, get with the countdown and ride the rocket to Kicksville!"

(I couldn't help thinking how great it would be if pot actually DID turn you into some kind of insane deviant hipster who went around saying stuff like that..)

In a moment of fantastic irony suitable for an Onion headline, my stoner housemate said he couldn't go because, quote; "it's cold outside and I've spent all my money on weed".

11:56 / 08.11.02

There are currently print, TV, and radio advertisements here in the States that feature the immortal tagline:

Tobacco is Wacko (if you're a kid)

Presumably these are paid for by Philip Morris et al. as part of the tobacco lawsuit settlement.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:15 / 08.11.02

THAT'LL BE:

'IF YOU'RE A TEEN'

OKAY!

14:47 / 08.11.02

mea culpa, mea culpa

14:53 / 08.11.02

Yea, the government makes them pay for anti-tobacco ads. So, I think they get around it by making them so annoyingly bad that it'll drive kids to WANT to smoke out of rebellion.