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Carl Sagan, as "Mr. X," Extolled Benefits of Marijuana
New submitter Colin Castro writes with an exceprt from the San Francisco Chronicle that reveals a different side of Carl Sagan: MarijuanaMajority.com founder Tom Angell spent a few days this summer in the Library of Congress researching the iconic American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author and has come away with a bounty. Angell says he found some never-before-released writings on marijuana policy from the author of classics such as 'Contact' and the TV show 'Cosmos', which is the most widely watched series in the history of American public television. ... I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs,' Sagan wrote in 1971, under the name Mr. X.
They want their Carl Sagan news back.
I like Sagan's popular science work, and so do a lot of you. So what? His opinion on marijuana policy is no more valid than anybody else's.
Sure, if you smoke pot, you might end up like Carl Sagan, but you could also end up like Obama, Bush, or Clinton.
Do you want your teen to grow up and have 27% approval ratings? I thought not.
>> Carl Sagan Extolled Benefits of Marijuana
After hearing Sagan prattle on about "billions upon billions of stars" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Phrase_.27billions_and_billions.27), is anyone really surprised?
I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs
So wait, Carl Sagan is saying our school systems and our culture are so fucked up that we need drugs to understand what the fuck we should actually be thinking?
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I know, my post will be down-voted to oblivion, but Sagan was very talented individual and very hard working man. Don't give a fuck that another stoner wrote an article, that camouflaged as "Words of wise man" about benefits of smoking weed.
Weed or any other drug, will not make Sagan or Einstein, not they will bring you to closer to God (infinity, or whatever fuck you call it).
Hard work, imagination, creativity.....
Nobody thinks of the economic impact of freeing millions and millions of American citizens from indentured servitude.
How will the prison industrial complex get cheap labor if we legalize MJ, which is used to imprison non-whites and seize all their assets without warrants?
If the South has to give that up, it could be the end of the plantations!
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Posted by timothy on Thursday October 09, 2014 @02:20PM
Sorry Timothy, you're a couple of hours too early to get posted. ..or perhaps we are not in the same time zone.
I'm in a group that takes his philosophy of science...and marijauana...and spreads it via some pretty spaced out electronic music.
/shameless plug
We're called the Sagan Youth Boys. Check us out on Soundcloud for a taste. https://soundcloud.com/sagan-y...
Our 2nd album is coming out in a few months that'll be a hard sci-fi concept album based on a manned mission to Enceladus.
"Tom Angell spent a few days this summer in the Library of Congress researching"
He couldn't have done that on marijuana.
What twenty years of research on cannabis use has taught us
Read the full study in the journal Addiction
What twenty years of research on cannabis use has taught us
In the past 20 years recreational cannabis use has grown tremendously, becoming almost as common as tobacco use among adolescents and young adults, and so has the research evidence. A major new review in the scientific journal Addiction sets out the latest information on the effects of cannabis use on mental and physical health.
The key conclusions are:
Adverse effects of acute cannabis use
- Cannabis does not produce fatal overdoses.
- Driving while cannabis-intoxicated doubles the risk of a car crash; this risk increases substantially if users are also alcohol-intoxicated.
- Cannabis use during pregnancy slightly reduces birth weight of the baby.
Adverse effects of chronic cannabis use
- Regular cannabis users can develop a dependence syndrome, the risks of which are around 1 in 10 of all cannabis users and 1 in 6 among those who start in adolescence.
- Regular cannabis users double their risks of experiencing psychotic symptoms and disorders, especially if they have a personal or family history of psychotic disorders, and if they start using cannabis in their mid-teens.
- Regular adolescent cannabis users have lower educational attainment than non-using peers but we donâ(TM)t know whether the link is causal.
- Regular adolescent cannabis users are more likely to use other illicit drugs, but we donâ(TM)t know whether the link is causal.
- Regular cannabis use that begins in adolescence and continues throughout young adulthood appears to produce intellectual impairment, but the mechanism and reversibility of the impairment is unclear.
- Regular cannabis use in adolescence approximately doubles the risk of being diagnosed with schizophrenia or reporting psychotic symptoms in adulthood.
- Regular cannabis smokers have a higher risk of developing chronic bronchitis.
- Cannabis smoking by middle aged adults probably increases the risk of myocardial infarction.
Professor Hallâ(TM)s report is published online today in the scientific journal Addition.
Can we take Carl off the pedestal yet? I know, it's hard to let go of childhood heroes, but almost all of his "contributions" to science were of a metaphysical nature, which is to say, not really scientific contributions at all. These writings included.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
A male dolphin.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
A frustrated romance of Sagan's played a small role in Lilly's most famous dolphin study. One night in St. Thomas, Sagan dined at a remote mountaintop restaurant. The hostess caught his eye. She was an attractive young woman with dark hair and a healthy, tomboyish quality. Her name was Margaret Howe. She told Sagan that she was bored. Her job as a hostess was evenings only. She wanted something else to occupy her on the island.
Sagan tried to get Howe into bed. Howe rebuffed him, but the meeting had one result: Sagan introduced Howe to anthropologist Gregory Bateson, who was then running the St. Thomas facility. This led to a job and plunged Howe into one of the most unusual experiments of the 1960s.
In the summer of 1965, Howe lived in the company of "Peter," a male dolphin, 24 hours a day, six days a week in a simplified flooded house. There are surreal photographs of Howe working efficiently at a desk or chatting on the telephone, eyed curiously by a dolphin as her whole environment is sopping in 24 inches of water.
"A dolphin is more like a shadow than a roommate," Howe said. The thing would stay by her all day and never leave. She could talk on the phone for hours. The dolphin wouldn't get bored. It wouldn't leave. As weeks passed, Howe was subject to depression and crying jags. "I have found that during the day I will find any excuse to get out of the flooded room," she wrote in her diary. (Lilly meanwhile was contemplating a flooded car for the future bi-species society.)
Peter began exhibiting courting behavior. He lightly nibbled Howe's legs, getting erections, and rubbing against her ardently. As a matter of expediency, Howe took to giving the dolphin hand jobs. Peter would "reach some sort of orgasm, mouth open, eyes closed, body shaking, then his penis would relax and withdraw." Dolphin libidos being what they are, this had to be repeated two or three times; then, finally, the dolphin could concentrate on its lessons.
That made for a pretty good conversation stopper. Otherwise the experiment's results were debatable. It seemed that Peter learned to say "hello" and "ball" and parrot consonant sounds. When Howe asked Peter to get the ball, he would often get the cloth.
* * *
After this experiment, Sagan visited St. Thomas and played a game of catch with Peter. Sagan threw the ball to Peter, and Peter dove under it and batted it back with his snout. His aim was as accurate as a human's. Then, after a few volleys, the dolphin began returning the ball far to the side of Sagan. Peter was toying with Carl, performing an "experiment" of his own. Figuring that two can play that game, Sagan retrieved the ball one last time and held it, treading water.
For about a minute, both mammals stood their ground. Peter gave in. He swam into Sagan's side of the tank, circling him, repeatedly brushing past him. This puzzled Sagan. It didn't seem like the dolphin's tail flukes had brushed him. Then he realized the dolphin had a hard-on.
The frustrated triangle of Sagan, Howe, and Peter was worthy of Sartre. There was a further twist. Peter was one of Lilly's ex-actor dolphins. Sagan had been propositioned by Flipper.
The fact that you call this "prattle" illustrates Sagan's point - because of his altered perception, he was able to grasp the magnitude of what he was working with. Smaller minds more easily dismiss it as foolish and inconsequential because their brains just can't handle the idea of "billions upon billions".
I mean this in the nicest possible way - go smoke some weed and stare up into the stars. It helps put things into perspective.
Pro-cannabis legislation organizations estimate that only around 40,000 Americans are locked up for pot. That's orders of magnitude less than your hyperbolic claim.
It puts you in a different state of mind. You may or may not benefit from that state of mind, but there would generally not be a great risk of harm.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Yeah, I know, right? What a horrible, tiresome person this Carl Sagan was.
That carl Sagan was a supporter of cannabis and used some himself is not news. SO "reveal a different side" is pure marketing BS, as this side was at least publicly known by 1999 for his bio. They only found a few "more" writing of sagan extolling MJl. No scoop here.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Weed or any other drug, will not make Sagan or Einstein, not they will bring you to closer to God (infinity, or whatever fuck you call it).
By what authority do you instruct others as to what will or won't bring them closer to G_d?
Actually, your comment shows you narrow-mindedness.
Sure, people who are under the influence of perception-altering drugs seem annoying to listen to or be around. But being "unable to think straight" means they're thinking in very non-standard/non-traditional ways. I think attributes such as one's creativeness, imagination or even intelligence level, aren't subject to change just by taking drugs. But the creative mind, under those conditions, might well come up with some very interesting things that it wasn't likely to come up with while the brain was functioning normally.
Driving is a task that requires a particular set of skills and behaviors; none of which would be enhanced (or even remain unaffected) by getting drunk. That's pretty irrelevant to asking if, say, the artist under the influence of LSD might create more interesting music or artwork than he/she did without it.
Have you heard Moonlight by Rameses B? I very much like that track.
That fact you specified illegal drugs shows Carl was right :) Society has done more to fuck you up than a plant ever could slashmydota.
Of course gods are imaginary, so how do you get closer to something that's imaginary? Maybe by becoming more delusional. Pot won't really help with that though. For serious religious delusions, you want Ketamine.
Btw, you seem to be so afraid of an imaginary concept that you can't spell the pretend sky-fairy's name. That's really sad and childish.
That's 40,000 too many. We should never allow misguided governments to harm peaceful people.
I dunno. Lots of association-or-causation questions there.
I read Nora Volkow's review article in NEJM. Here's a good article in MedPage Today commenting on it. http://www.medpagetoday.com/Ps...
...on weed?!?!
Carl Sagan or the President of the United States? 27% approval ratings be damned, I'll take that job over whatever I'll be able to achieve in life otherwise. Did you intend for that to be a negative?
I took a course with Sagan at Cornell in the 1980's. It was widely known that he did psychedelic drugs with Lester Grinspoon. Yawn. Such people were enamored with the mind altering effects of the drugs while ignoring the profound negative physical effects, just like today. They are both deceased.
8 edgy me
Actually, your comment shows you narrow-mindedness.
Doesn't your comment essentially do the same? You summarily dismiss fairly well established and studied evidence that drunk/high people often display shockingly poor judgement and insight while waving your hands saying "I think" and "might well". Not very scientific. If you referenced a peer reviewed study perhaps...
That's pretty irrelevant to asking if, say, the artist under the influence of LSD might create more interesting music or artwork than he/she did without it.
Just for giggles I'll pull out my sample set of one. Had a friend that took LSD...thought he was king shit and had expanded his mind and was sooo much better than anyone else as a result. Nice guy and we were very good friends. No from that sample he most certainly did not do anything more anything as a result of LSD. He did much better after he stopped. Like I said it is a sample of one so it is a piss poor proof but I never have seen any proof to the contrary in 40 years. I must live a sheltered life though.
Anyone under the influence of illegal drugs think they're sooo intelligent and creative and imaginative and infinitely smarter. In reality, they can't even think straight.
And yet, the structure of DNA was figured out by a man who was on drugs (LSD) at the time.
That's 40,000 too many/
Maybe 20,000. About half have other offenses, such as property and violent crimes.
Also, I forgot Mullis, who was using LSD when he figured out PCR. So two of the greatest advances of the 20th century, right there, off the top of my head...
>Hard work, imagination, creativity.....
Will? Or at least might?
Well there you go then, I think you've just made his argument for him. Our culture and education system embraces hard work, but largely goes out of its way to crush imagination and creativity. Meanwhile smoking weed has a reputation for enhancing both. (stoners notwithstanding - but then you wouldn't judge the value of alcohol by looking only at drunkards)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
But then the Republicans with their thugs in blue wouldn't be able to beat us. That is what their kind lives for. It is their way. You can't change them so we need to end them in order to end their attack on us. They are not capable of comprehending why it is wrong to murder so many Africans so we need to kill them to put an end to it. That is the only solution that will work against Republicans. We need to do violence in order to be nonviolent.
I smoke and grow my own weed to feel nice and relaxed, not to talk to an oracle of the cosmos. THANK YOU
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
Silence is a state of mime.
this is how slashdot editors tell everyone that they're so high
... to make special brownies from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
So you're saying that prior to 1937 (or at the very least prior to 1906), the influence of cannabis didn't have this effect?
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
I knew there had to be some correlation here. One look at the tremendous amount of astrophysicists surrounding the MacArthur bart station in oakland is all you need.
Check out the influence Sagan had on Neil DeGrasse Tyson:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
American culture and education so crushes imagination and creativity that the creative industry is a major contribution to the nation's economy and for decades has been steadily replacing many "hard work" fields like farming and manufacturing. Come on, stoner, imagination and creativity is doing just fine in the US, in fact it's one of our major exports. I know you want to sit around and get high, and I support legalization myself, but there's no need to rave about how the Man is holding you down.
You forget it counts as part of three strikes penalties and sentence modifiers, and also affects criminal records, leading to job aspects - and not having a job increases the probability of further incidence.
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Drunk people think they're great at driving too. Anyone under the influence of illegal drugs think they're sooo intelligent and creative and imaginative and infinitely smarter. In reality, they can't even think straight.
I think you meant to say using a cell phone or tablet while driving, which is the primary cause of accidents in BC this year, not alcohol or medications.
Same stats in WA, OR, CA.
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All I can say is..
Umm yeah. Right. Gotta love the propaganda engine that's alive and well and promoting the sales and distribution of weed.
The daily telegraph? you need to cite something better than that.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Pointing out that Carl Sagan (or Nobel prize winners, etc) liked to smoke marijuana is a valid retort to the popular misconception that "marijuana users are lazy, stupid, stoners" (an ad hominem frequently used by supporters of prohibition).
Knowing that some of the greatest minds of our era are marijuana smokers disproves that misconception.
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actually lsd can improve eye hand coord, and make a user better able to drive etc. read about the baseball pitcher who accidentally took a large lsd dose and ended up pitching the best game of his life... the ball left little rainbows that he could follow and aim to make perfect pitches.
pot just dumbs you down, but it makes things seem awesome. it knocks out short term memory and prevents new memories from sticking. your brain has to re-encode old memories each time they are recalled... pot interrupts that function so you will lose previous knowledge over time with use. the bad does exist, but there are folks who think there are neuro-protective effects as well. haven't read the evidence but that would be good. It can help with (or cause) seizures and so on
Alcohol does not improve much of anything. it purely dumbs the user down. it removes inhibitions, which can be useful.
I smoke pot often with multiple millionaire clients that I have. Each owns the company that I do work for. Each built that company from the ground up. As the article points out (that Carl said) smoking marijuana (and doing other drugs) can open our minds to things that ordinarily wouldn't be accessible.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
The main purpose of smoking pot is to chill out, to be mellow. If you smoke a bunch of pot and you feel wound up, driven, ambitious and motivated you might want a refund.
> the popular misconception that "marijuana users are lazy, stupid, stoners" (an ad hominem frequently used by supporters of prohibition).
The belief is that being a pothead tends to make people mellow/chill/lazy (true, at 15 I was getting scholarship offers, after smoking pot for a year I did nothing but sit around smoking pot), stupid (true - try talking to a stoned person while you're 100% sober), and stoners (true by definition).
It's not an ad hominem (attack on the person) to recognize that pot changes my state of mind in several ways. Nor is it an ad hominem to recognize that those effects include making me relaxed/chill/lazy. That's kind of the whole point of smoking pot, the purpose - to mellow the heck out, to get lazy rather than ambitious for a while.
You probably don't even realize that you come across as a clueless reactionary. You seem to have a mistaken belief in your own superiority, when you stand out as someone who often makes foolish posts.
Unfortunatly the cannabis produced today (skunk) is way more potent than that available in the nineteen seventies. Then, average THC content under 2%, now average THC content 20%.
No study anywhere has ever reported an "average THC content 20%". That would be about right for the most potent samples on record not for an average of anything. 14% THC sensimilla was available (and measured by the DEA) in 1975. Currently the DEA reports an average potency of all cannabis samples of 4.89% (2010, most recent released figures), only about twice as high as the average in 1987 (2.38%). And of course hash/hash oil was available in the 1970s that was 40% THC.
This "today's pot is totally different from the past" is a lie based on deliberately false comparisons, similar to claiming that today's whiskey is WA-A-Y more potent than yesterday's beer.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
This is a myth about dissociatives, they don't induce psychotic states unless one is prone to psychosis. You can filter your thoughts as well with them as you can with classical psychedelics, though they also have an undeserved reputation for causing psychotic states when they don't
That's kind of the whole point of smoking pot
That's just your reason.
Supporters of prohibition frequently believe that the "lazy, stupid, stoner" effects of marijuana persist after the intoxication has passed (and that eventually they become "burnouts" in the style of Cheech & Chong)
"Stoner" is the marijuana stereotype equivalent of "the town drunkard" (and thus counts as an ad hominem).
We all know that the "drunkard/alcoholic" stereotype does not apply to the vast majority of alcohol consumers. The next step is to get the public to understand that "the stoner" stereotype does not apply to the vast majority of marijuana consumers.
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From Wikipedia: "Since winning the Nobel Prize, Mullis has been criticized in The New York Times for promoting ideas in areas in which he has no expertise.[6] He has promoted AIDS denialism,[7][8][9][10][11][12] climate change denial[7] and his belief in astrology.[6][7]"
An interesting role model in deed.
Bye!
if your clients own the company that you work for, doesn't that make them your bosses? or is it a term in use, like massage clients?
I do freelance IT work.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
no one said Mullis was a role model -- the point was that this person "used drugs" and made a significant contribution to science. Don't be a jackass with your ad hominem bullshit.
The main purpose of smoking pot is to chill out, to be mellow. If you smoke a bunch of pot and you feel wound up, driven, ambitious and motivated you might want a refund.
Different strains of pot have different effects. Sativa blends are usually more of an intellectual high, indica blends tend to give the mellow "do nothing" couchlock high. In my experience smoking a sativa blend will make mundane tasks more tolerable (one can actually be more productive whilst stoned) and occasionally provides problem solving inspiration for more complicated tasks.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I remember one time being really fucked up and suddenly having this epiphany on the subject of gender discrimination/sexual harassment(like I had just been hit by the "Point of View Gun" from the Hitchhikers Guide Movie*).
It was essentially the idea that my prejudices against women/misogyny were largely driven by selection/confirmation biases and that it seemed really unfair that these attitudes towards women simultaneously objectified them and belittled their accomplishments. All of this for no crime more severe than being born with a uterus(and having to suffer all of the social pressures that go with that).
I felt a sudden and overwhelming sadness that other human beings had to endure injustice, and I was overcome with a profound sense of guilt for being one of the people contributing to human suffering/making the world such a horrible place.
These feelings detracted from my usual smug sense of moral superiority, and I suddenly realized how my arbitrary and whimsical attitudes towards cruelty to others played a contributing factor in my own struggles with major depressive disorder.
*Context: I was diagnosed with Aspergers at one point, so you might guess empathy for other's perspectives isn't really my strong suit. As an example: my solution to the Ebola epidemic going on in Africa right now was the same one used in the 1995 film "Outbreak". My belief that the ends justify the means also makes me totally unqualified to judge others for their behavior under such circumstances that I haven't personally experienced myself. I frequently surprise myself with how little is sacred to me when it becomes inconvenient to draw lines in the sand...
All of this in the name of expediency, convenience, and simple solutions to complex problems? Keeping in mind: Solutions where it frequently becomes evident they were entirely unnecessary/reactionary moral compromises once the dust has settled and more complex solutions have won the day.
If drugs can make someone like me(a miserable cunt) feel empathy for other people: they must be some good shit(Oxytocin?)! Don't worry though, this epiphany didn't change who I was. I'm still a douchebag with almost zero compassion. But these days I find it more difficult to speak in absolutes without doubt popping in to my head. Isn't that how ignorance is cured? One doubt-inducing experience at a time?
Another example for those still reading: There was a very nice cab driver who was in a long distance relationship. He was a good person who would have been widowed if one of my more hard-nosed "simple solutions" to complex problems had ever been implemented. My desire for simplicity and black and white thinking made this proposal seem so easy when I knew no one who would be impacted negatively by it, but it suddenly hit much closer to home when it would have severe negative impacts on someone I met personally and had liked.
If drugs can make me less of a bigoted/reactionary/prejudiced dick-head, maybe they can make the world a less ignorant & violent place?
This has been an episode of: "Confessions of an internet-troll".
Einstein used to claim that average people were much closer to being geniuses than they had been trained to believe.
"I am neither especially clever nor especially gifted. I am only very, very curious." - Albert Einstein
Your "Hard work, imagination, creativity..." (and curiosity, as in the quote above), were all things Einstein thought could be cultivated by anyone who wanted to be wiser or smarter, and would let anyone create the sort of ideas he was famous for creating.
On imagination, he said "Imagination is more important than knowledge." - Albert Einstein
Yet, he also praised even the lsss disciplined forms of imagination:
"The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent or absorbing positive knowledge." - Albert Einstein
Given that he thought many people were capable of genius far beyond what they actually did, he may well have believed that taking some risks, such as drugs, could have positive outcomes in freeing up that genius. It's not like Einstein was still around when most of the psychoactives became famous/infamous, so I wouldn't care to bet money he would have been either ardently anit-drug or pro-drug in that respect, but I suspect he would have thought the people considering drugs as paths to understanding the universe at least deserved credit for wanting to understand the universe, instead of taking the drugs common in his day, which seemed to promise mostly mindless obliteration (alcohol and the opiates and barbiturates).
Who is John Cabal?
Interesting....I know a musician that had commented once that he was sorry that he had gotten another musician hooked on pot because his creativity went downhill afterwards (IMHO, the creativity of both of them tanked the more they smoked).
Can anyone tell me the physical measurements of these writings? I'm curious as to how many secret drug habits are in a Library of Congress.
During Gulf War #1 Carl Sagan and a group of concerned scientists kept talking about a skipped summer due to particulates from the oil well fires. That was just way off base. The climate change alarmists could learn a lesson from that.
"They call him Fapper, Fapper, faster than lightning,
no-one you see, is hornier than he,
and we know Fapper, lives in a world full of wonder there,
flying off underwear, under the sea!"
Table-ized A.I.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Super smart people who recommend using and/or gloat about using marijuana (contrary to scientific medical advice), but then don't seem to live a full human lifespan. Professor Sagan lived to 62 years after suffering a protracted illness. That's not exactly old age. Someone said he died from pneumonia. Isn't that a lung disease? Maybe he could have lived another 2 - 4 decades. Why would anyone take a chance with their health? We each get only 1.
By far my best physics demos have all been thought of while under the influence of some non-standard brain chemistry. I wouldn't trust my self with a hammer or even a wooden spoon at the time but I find that I make a lot more "ah-HA" connections that lead to more interesting and clearer demonstrations of physics concepts (I'm talking high school and early university level not quantum/astro/geo/etc. physics). Messing with your brain chemistry is like using a coloured filter to remove noise of the same colour from an image allowing you to see what was already there but you had just never noticed before.
Alcohol is likely to induce the false self-confidence you speak of, whereas marijuana (and psychedelics) induce a sense of humility, which is one of the reasons for its use in religious groups like the Rastafari.
If your only experience with psychoactive chemicals has been alcohol, and your only 'research' into marijuana has been the spoon-fed government propaganda, I could see your generalization being an easy trap to fall into. Although you can't force life experiences on someone, my advice would be to at least look at what the scientific literature has to say regarding marijuana.
Sorry, I'll trust The Lancet more than Telegraph.
Most people just think of him as that slightly-too-academic air that PBS pushed in Cosmos, and who commented on various TV interviews related to the Viking Mars landers and the Voyager probes; a generically "sciencey" guy who the authorities held out as an authority on spacey things.
The real Carl, like many other famous smart people, had some very odd quirks. He had a fixation on the color orange (more like Gollum and his precious than "fave color"), and if I recall correctly he had an unnaturally strong chocolate fetish
The thing too many people seem to miss is that human beings are very complex and NOBODY should be presumed to be right about everything just because he/she is right on something or good at something. Sagan was good on Mars, probably not so much on pot. Some athletes are good on the field, probably not so good with guns or not so good for their wives, or kids, (or with dogs). Einstein was good with theoretical physics, not so great on hair care products.
In your opinion for how do you need to smoke to notice the described effect. I used to smoke maybe 2 times a month max and did not notice any positive effect(((
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
The problem is, any attempt by "we" to actually do this quickly turns us into another government.
And of course, the entire War on Drugs exist precisely because a lot of people are not only okay with but actively support harming peaceful people. It makes them feel though or something.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I'll agree with you when the offense doesn't include things like DUI, or other such stupidity.
Just another day in Paradise
Of course he smoked weed. Why else would you say things like, "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe"?
A drug is something that puts chemicals in our systems that effect how our bodies work.
Go to a pharmacy and you will see all sorts of drugs that do this to a positive effect. Some are man made, but most have their roots in something naturally occurring. So its not an impossible notion that there are beneficial aspects to pot.
Im not one to say that all drugs should be legalized. Many (especially the man made crap) are dangerous as hell and should be illegal. But just because a bunch of lawmakers got together and decided Marijuana is bad doesnt make it true.
People bitch about pot being the "gateway drug." Bullshit. You know what the gateway drugs are? Sugar and caffeine. These are the two that every kid at some point has too much of and goes "oooh. I feel funny."
Amen to that. And I'm sure the drugs helped him expand his amazing knowledge of AIDS and made up astrophysics.
I have solid, proven, documented proof that the highest IQ test ratings, the best software programming I can achieve, and the greatest creative problem solving and creativity is after 8.5 hours of sleep and a sufficient diet with lots of B vitamins. That is supported by all of science and biology. Having random, idiotic ideas pop into my head while my synapses fire randomly because of THC does not constitute a superior means of thinking, it is in fact completely inferior. It is illogical and useless and the thought patterns would be easily achieved in a superior way by simple concentration and mental exercises while not under the influence of drugs.
Prove it, or admit that you're lying. No other option is possible.
Oh I forgot one! You know "the men who stare at goats?" Yeah, that was a gigantic drug-fueled waste of time by pretend scientists who thought halucinogens made them super smart and gave people super powers with quantum waves of life force and blah blah blah and other bullshit that doesn't exist in real science.