--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltabl...@...> wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, I am the eternal <L.Shaddai@> > wrote: > > > > This is gratuitous. I've heard this a million times. It > > is the same litany, pretty much word for word. Practice > > makes perfect. "I can get stoned and act perfectly normal. > > Nobody is the wiser." I'm not sure if I buy this or not. > > I would like to see some studies that show this is really > > the case and not just a stoner telling me it's the case.
I would agree with you about "perfectly normal." But the word you're searching for is to "maintain." Some can "maintain" better than others, just as some on this forum can rein in their anger and not lash out, and others can't. It's a control issue, as I wrote about once using martial arts and sports metaphors. That said, I was not reassured by stories wafting down the hill from Los Alamos of people having found roaches (and not the insect kind) in the nuclear reactor room. That's not "maintaining," that's being an idiot, and those people should be tracked down and moved into a job in which the safety of others does not depend on them. The four physicists I knew who worked at that lab, and who all smoked, agreed with me completely. They smoked at home. > In this case it is a non stoner telling you it is my experience > of stoners. We don't know what functions are enhanced or impaired > by pot. But in my experience in the tech field with computer > programmers, a blanket statement that it makes you stupid is > wrong. Many fields have a high number of high functioning users. Including religion and alternative spirituality and politics. > Equating use with abuse of any drug is an over generalization. > > I don't think your term "gratuitous" is context appropriate. > Especially after I mentioned its value in the bedroom. If you > haven't experienced it you don't know what I am talking about. A good point. There are some here who believe that bedrooms are only to sleep in. :-) There is a testable lengthening of reaction time in most pot users. But not all. Still, this occurs in a high enough percentage of users that I'd go on record as saying they should not drive, fly planes, or perform any activity that could injure other people. That said, some of the prescription medicines that commercial pilots are allowed to take impair their reaction time just as much, so go figure. The difference is that the users of the prescription medicines have not been systematically demonized for decades. I am with Curtis in being down on meth. And heroin. And, for me, cocaine. I've seen a number of lives destroyed by cocaine. But marijuana and some of the hallucinogens -- used wisely -- I do not think that they should be classed with the other three. Instead, they should be handled with tolerance and with education. Last time I was in Amsterdam (some years ago now), I saw a couple of fairly young (20s) tourists buying some shrooms. They were in a convenience store, and the psychedelic mushrooms were in the fridge, in shrinkwrap. Each was labeled as to its potency, the likely duration of the trip, and all possible side effects. The couple selected one of the less potent brands of shrooms and walked to the counter with them. The proprietor of the convenience store looked at the couple, noted what they had selected, and refused to sell it to them until he had given them a five- minute talk about what to expect, and what to do if they found themselves in any way scared or having a "bad trip." I thought that this was fairly responsible vending of a hallucinogenic substance. This would not have happened if the shrooms had been made illegal. There would have been at best a five- second furtive transaction in a back alley, with only the shrooms changing hands, and none of the knowledge.
