Well. I'm a bit too tired tonight to respond to all of that but i'll touch on one thing. You argue that:
Drug use is not safe - neither for you nor for others. You may think it's safe for the moment, but in small quantities everything is safe enough. Over time that safety disappears. Most people get addicted to alcohol, even if the addiction is mild.
I see several problems here with your argument. For starters, you argue that drug use is not safe for the user. Well. For the user it depends on the drug. Obviously Caffiene, for example, is a very low risk drug. Heroin, cocaine and meth for example, would be on the extreme other end of the spectrum. Alcohol and pot fall somewhere in between. As you note, in small quantities (moderation) such substances are safe enough.
Secondly, you argue that drug is not safe for others around the user. I love it when people argue this. It implies the drugs are to blame for people's actions, not the people themselves. I grant you that sometimes drugs are a motivating factor in some crimes and that sometimes people under the influence of drugs and alcohol do stupid things, but many times the drugs are simply an excuse. "I was drunk when I said that hurtful thing so please forgive me" or "I was drunk when I beat you, so it's not my fault". Truth is in the first case the person probably held that hurtful believe and somebody who beats his wife drunk is probably not a fantastic husband sober. Do drugs cause bad things to happen? No. They merely provide a convenient scapegoat.
I should note that if, as you argue, substance use is a progressive disease gradually taking hold of a person who can do nothing at all to resist (who is powerless), then you cannot blame a person at all under the influence or at all addicted for his actions, however reprehensible. You'd end up having to let anybody off the hook for any crime who indulged in a substance, even a little, because according to you that makes you "a little" addicted and therefore controlled by a substances and not in control of one's faculties. Of course in holding this believe you completely throw personal responsibility out the window, but that's not a concept that ever gained a huge deal of acceptance in Soviet Russia so i'm not surprised you're more likely to view human beings as machines than as sentient beings with free will who make choices and can choose to responsibly use, abstain, or quit substances.
Why, then, do people abuse drugs and alcohol? Simple. Because they like it. They like it more than their lives and they often like it more than they love their kids. It's a choice. That's not the fault of the drug. It's the fault of the selfish individual who chooses to over-indulge rather than take care of his or her responsibilities. Selfish individuals will also neglect their responsibilities for any number of other reasons, hardly limited to drugs or alcohol. It's simply a matter of choosing pleasure over the needs of others. Somebody likely to do that with drugs or alcohol (not everybody) is likely to do it with something else were alcohol and drugs not around.
That's the way I see things anyway, and you're more than free to disagree. I just hope that someday, before you die, you smoke a joint or have a drink -- just to know what it's like. One is not going to kill you or make you into some robotic "addict" who has no free will. If you don't, it's your loss.
I tried that for a while. Headaches went away but I didn't have the energy or concentration to do shit well at all (diagnosed with ADHD). A variation of the sawtooth method with a near (but not complete -- to avoid headaches), withdrawal works for me.
Well. That's my point. You don't know what you're missing. And you don't mind. Yes. Alcohol has risks but I live in Europe and having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with lunch is quite common and believe it or not -- enjoyable. You might go through life never trying -- Chocolate. That's OK too. But you're still missing out and if you're doing it simply because you're afraid you might not be able to control yourself because of how your father or whatever was, I think that's the wrong reason. Everything has some risk but the vast, vast, majority of those who consume substances, whether pot or Alcohol do so responsibly. Going through life never taking any risks -- even the smallest -- because something might go wrong is just sad to me. You only have so much time on this pointless fucking planet, and then you die. Might as well try and experience as much as you can from as many perspectives as possible within reasonably safe limits is the way I see it.
Yeah. That's why you take a time to withdrawal or return to a very low level of caffiene, during which time you're at 90%. Then you increase your dosage to get up to 110% when you need it. I absolutely agree that if you're drinking coffee 100% of the time nothing will happen but you'll need it to return to 100%, but that's not the optimal way to use coffee. It's the same thing with pot. If you smoke all the time, a joint won't even do much at all. That's why the proper way to use drugs is to abstain periodically to reset tolerance when you don't need the effect for what you're doing and then return to usage when the effect is desired or necessary. If you're doing it all the time then you're just a wasteful fucking idiot. I quit drinking coffee when the benefits wear off. I resume when I really need to concentrate on some project.
Think of it as a turbo button in some racing game. You can slam down the turbo button and waste all your nitro at once, but then by the time you need it not enough will have recharged. Instead, you try and keep the boost gauge close to fool (tolerance gauge close to empty) and only hit the "boost" button when you really need it, and only use so much as is needed while still leaving enough to recharge for the next time. Drug use is not something that is always done properly, but it very well can be. There isn't much point in doing it improperly and never gaining any real effect anyway.
What's the point of life? I'm actually interested in your view on this. How you can see temporary self alteration as harm... In my view, with live being as finite as it is, there's no other point to it than to have as much fun as possible before ceasing to exist. To me that involves having as many experiences as possible. As long as it's relatively safe and has little chance of causing me any permanent harm, I've never seen a reason not to do something. I'm just fascinated as to what might be your reason. Is it religion? Was somebody close to you an addict or a drunk? Living in some country where it's uber-illegal?
Jesus. I feel sorry for people like you. Going through life never knowing what they've missed. It's like living life without ever hearing music even once.
Ah. But could the pharma industry make money off cannabinoid based products? Hard to sell a plant at the prices they do with competing drugs when somebody can just grow something better at home. It's not rocket science to make cannabis tinctures, edibles, etc. Dispensaries do it today. Vaporizers also take the dangers of smoking away. Tin foil hats aside, the pharma industry would have a lot to lose were marijuana legal and they do fund anti-drug propaganda (as well as the alcohol and tobacco industries). It's just good business sense. It's not a conspiracy when it's done right out in the open.
Weed helps people to recognize pattens. Sometimes patterns are an indicator of something, sometimes they're not. Its important to realize the distinction and some people forget that, thinking instead that weed somehow tells them the truth. It can help you with insight, yes. Give you the truth... no. If it did that everybody who smoked would believe the same conspiracy theory. Part of what also might have happened to your friends had to do with the dealer switching strains on them to one more prone to paranoia. As to your claim pot causes permanent changes -- there is no evidence of that. Never has been. If they stop smoking or come to the realization on their own that possibilities != truth, they'll be fine.
Not if you wean off gradually or instead of quitting completely, cut down to 1 cup or a half a cup a day (just enough to hold off withdrawals). There are plenty of ways to get the benefits of caffeine without the downsides.
Source? I see nothing about that on the wikipedia (or it's more detailed effects article). Now I recognize some people might classify it as such, but I don't think there is any consensus it's a depressant. So far as I know it's classified as a "cannibinoid" -- in other words shoved in an "other" category because it doesn't really fit conveniently into any. As you note, depending on the strain, person, dosage, and other factors (even harvesting times) it can be quite a few different things.
My god. A person who knows there are, my god, *different* strains of pot. Good luck explaining this to 300 million people, most of which oppose all pot out of some reactionary puritanism and the rest of whom would rather get "fucked up" than care about things like the genetics and different ratios of cannabinoids in their weed. Hell. There are lots of growers out there who have no clue.
"most studies would indicate"? Like Amphetamines they give kids today so they can concentrate in school? Those kinds of drugs don't aid in mental processes involved in programming? You're right, though, that there haven't been a whole lot of studies done on competing products such as Haze (Pot strain class with amphetamine like effects). It's hard to have studies when it's illegal to do so without the government's approval and they only do so when they supply the (lock you to the couch) weed.
Most people don't know Pot comes in a very wide variety of effects (and side effects). Some might make a person drowsy while another might make a person more alert. One might have a side effect of affecting short term memory. Another strain might not, but cause something else. Some strains might very well be useful for coding. There are lots of Sativa dominant strains that are very similar to amphetamines / caffiene, in that they have a stimulant effect and in many people tend to stimulate creativity. It's really impossible to say definitively marijuana does this or that with so many varieties around. Many American recreational users are just concerned with raw THC content when this matters very little (it's the balance of different Cannabinoids that makes the difference). The government's lack of attention to this issue in their propaganda does little to help. Medical users, on the other hand, have known these things for decades. You have one strain for the day, and one for the night time. If you're going to try pot, my recommendation is to do your research. Start off with an Indica dominant strain unlikely to cause paranoia (the most unpleasant side effect), and graduate up to something that is a little more cerebral and leaves you less drowsy. My personal recommendation is Hindu Kush. It's a very calming, typical Indica smoke but at the same time is totally like other Indicas in that it won't leave you drowsy
Rothbard makes a decent argument against this "implied contract" argument, but yeah, you've outlined well why some libertarians can claim to be pro-life. There's also the enforcement to consider. How do you possibly enforce prohibition against abortion without stepping on all kinds of rights.
So you don't think Obama and his DEA / Justice Dept. is going to interfere with Colorado and Washington for legalizing pot. When the DEA raids the first coffeshop, i'll be sure to remind you how Obama in how way intends to tell people "how to live" or what substances are kosher to consume.
24 Glorified torture? Really? Did you actually watch the whole of a season? The whole series? Bauer even becomes a fucking Muslim in the end and Islam is portrayed as a "religion of peace" framed for violence by a corrupt and conspiratorial US government. It even turns out the president plots to detonate WMDs on US soil to justify his wars. Defense contractors are portrayed as in a conspiracy to take over the country. It doesn't get any more ridiculously PC. The few instances in which torture is used it turns out to be a mistake. It's a parable against torture, not a commercial for it.
Depends. If you're civilization that's millions of years old that has encountered little, if any, resistance out of the countless conquered planets, you might actually become a bit overconfident and neglect to patch things on a timely basis.
There's a good one in Skyfall too, if a bit cliche. Towards the end of the movie a helicopter crashes into fairly large building made of stone and blows it completely apart.
My favorite was dude's data-center with all the empty racks save those ridiculous cables and odd blinking red light. Also the part where the new "Q" plugs evil dude's laptop directly into the main Mi6 network.
That's what I read on the web too, but all the apps prompt me to repurchase. Perhaps you moved to a country speaking the same language. Tech support (and her surpervisor) told me I had to repurchase. Also even if I did have the apps back, that would only be a small portion of my purchases. We're talking seasons of TV, movies, etc.
To be fair to Apple, I had that exact same 8600m problem with my MBP out of warranty and they fixed it for free. Also, the Apple lawyers were probably uninformed in that article. According to the "Genius" I talked to, the second revision "logic board" I got does not have the same problem. Actually it's partially this pleasant experience that prompted me to switch countries in my iTunes account. I wanted to buy Mountain Lion to show my appreciation. LOL. No good deed, as they say... And now I'm finding a real difficult time selling the thing considering the late 07 series with the 8600M NVIDIA chip-set are considered lemons.
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Well. I'm a bit too tired tonight to respond to all of that but i'll touch on one thing. You argue that:
I see several problems here with your argument. For starters, you argue that drug use is not safe for the user. Well. For the user it depends on the drug. Obviously Caffiene, for example, is a very low risk drug. Heroin, cocaine and meth for example, would be on the extreme other end of the spectrum. Alcohol and pot fall somewhere in between. As you note, in small quantities (moderation) such substances are safe enough.
Secondly, you argue that drug is not safe for others around the user. I love it when people argue this. It implies the drugs are to blame for people's actions, not the people themselves. I grant you that sometimes drugs are a motivating factor in some crimes and that sometimes people under the influence of drugs and alcohol do stupid things, but many times the drugs are simply an excuse. "I was drunk when I said that hurtful thing so please forgive me" or "I was drunk when I beat you, so it's not my fault". Truth is in the first case the person probably held that hurtful believe and somebody who beats his wife drunk is probably not a fantastic husband sober. Do drugs cause bad things to happen? No. They merely provide a convenient scapegoat.
I should note that if, as you argue, substance use is a progressive disease gradually taking hold of a person who can do nothing at all to resist (who is powerless), then you cannot blame a person at all under the influence or at all addicted for his actions, however reprehensible. You'd end up having to let anybody off the hook for any crime who indulged in a substance, even a little, because according to you that makes you "a little" addicted and therefore controlled by a substances and not in control of one's faculties. Of course in holding this believe you completely throw personal responsibility out the window, but that's not a concept that ever gained a huge deal of acceptance in Soviet Russia so i'm not surprised you're more likely to view human beings as machines than as sentient beings with free will who make choices and can choose to responsibly use, abstain, or quit substances.
Why, then, do people abuse drugs and alcohol? Simple. Because they like it. They like it more than their lives and they often like it more than they love their kids. It's a choice. That's not the fault of the drug. It's the fault of the selfish individual who chooses to over-indulge rather than take care of his or her responsibilities. Selfish individuals will also neglect their responsibilities for any number of other reasons, hardly limited to drugs or alcohol. It's simply a matter of choosing pleasure over the needs of others. Somebody likely to do that with drugs or alcohol (not everybody) is likely to do it with something else were alcohol and drugs not around.
That's the way I see things anyway, and you're more than free to disagree. I just hope that someday, before you die, you smoke a joint or have a drink -- just to know what it's like. One is not going to kill you or make you into some robotic "addict" who has no free will. If you don't, it's your loss.
I tried that for a while. Headaches went away but I didn't have the energy or concentration to do shit well at all (diagnosed with ADHD). A variation of the sawtooth method with a near (but not complete -- to avoid headaches), withdrawal works for me.
Well. That's my point. You don't know what you're missing. And you don't mind. Yes. Alcohol has risks but I live in Europe and having a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with lunch is quite common and believe it or not -- enjoyable. You might go through life never trying -- Chocolate. That's OK too. But you're still missing out and if you're doing it simply because you're afraid you might not be able to control yourself because of how your father or whatever was, I think that's the wrong reason. Everything has some risk but the vast, vast, majority of those who consume substances, whether pot or Alcohol do so responsibly. Going through life never taking any risks -- even the smallest -- because something might go wrong is just sad to me. You only have so much time on this pointless fucking planet, and then you die. Might as well try and experience as much as you can from as many perspectives as possible within reasonably safe limits is the way I see it.
Yeah. That's why you take a time to withdrawal or return to a very low level of caffiene, during which time you're at 90%. Then you increase your dosage to get up to 110% when you need it. I absolutely agree that if you're drinking coffee 100% of the time nothing will happen but you'll need it to return to 100%, but that's not the optimal way to use coffee. It's the same thing with pot. If you smoke all the time, a joint won't even do much at all. That's why the proper way to use drugs is to abstain periodically to reset tolerance when you don't need the effect for what you're doing and then return to usage when the effect is desired or necessary. If you're doing it all the time then you're just a wasteful fucking idiot. I quit drinking coffee when the benefits wear off. I resume when I really need to concentrate on some project.
Think of it as a turbo button in some racing game. You can slam down the turbo button and waste all your nitro at once, but then by the time you need it not enough will have recharged. Instead, you try and keep the boost gauge close to fool (tolerance gauge close to empty) and only hit the "boost" button when you really need it, and only use so much as is needed while still leaving enough to recharge for the next time. Drug use is not something that is always done properly, but it very well can be. There isn't much point in doing it improperly and never gaining any real effect anyway.
What's the point of life? I'm actually interested in your view on this. How you can see temporary self alteration as harm... In my view, with live being as finite as it is, there's no other point to it than to have as much fun as possible before ceasing to exist. To me that involves having as many experiences as possible. As long as it's relatively safe and has little chance of causing me any permanent harm, I've never seen a reason not to do something. I'm just fascinated as to what might be your reason. Is it religion? Was somebody close to you an addict or a drunk? Living in some country where it's uber-illegal?
Jesus. I feel sorry for people like you. Going through life never knowing what they've missed. It's like living life without ever hearing music even once.
Ah. But could the pharma industry make money off cannabinoid based products? Hard to sell a plant at the prices they do with competing drugs when somebody can just grow something better at home. It's not rocket science to make cannabis tinctures, edibles, etc. Dispensaries do it today. Vaporizers also take the dangers of smoking away. Tin foil hats aside, the pharma industry would have a lot to lose were marijuana legal and they do fund anti-drug propaganda (as well as the alcohol and tobacco industries). It's just good business sense. It's not a conspiracy when it's done right out in the open.
Weed helps people to recognize pattens. Sometimes patterns are an indicator of something, sometimes they're not. Its important to realize the distinction and some people forget that, thinking instead that weed somehow tells them the truth. It can help you with insight, yes. Give you the truth... no. If it did that everybody who smoked would believe the same conspiracy theory. Part of what also might have happened to your friends had to do with the dealer switching strains on them to one more prone to paranoia. As to your claim pot causes permanent changes -- there is no evidence of that. Never has been. If they stop smoking or come to the realization on their own that possibilities != truth, they'll be fine.
That's true, but if you strategize when you need 110% and when you can deal with 90%, it can indeed be quite useful.
Not if you wean off gradually or instead of quitting completely, cut down to 1 cup or a half a cup a day (just enough to hold off withdrawals). There are plenty of ways to get the benefits of caffeine without the downsides.
Source? I see nothing about that on the wikipedia (or it's more detailed effects article). Now I recognize some people might classify it as such, but I don't think there is any consensus it's a depressant. So far as I know it's classified as a "cannibinoid" -- in other words shoved in an "other" category because it doesn't really fit conveniently into any. As you note, depending on the strain, person, dosage, and other factors (even harvesting times) it can be quite a few different things.
My god. A person who knows there are, my god, *different* strains of pot. Good luck explaining this to 300 million people, most of which oppose all pot out of some reactionary puritanism and the rest of whom would rather get "fucked up" than care about things like the genetics and different ratios of cannabinoids in their weed. Hell. There are lots of growers out there who have no clue.
"most studies would indicate"? Like Amphetamines they give kids today so they can concentrate in school? Those kinds of drugs don't aid in mental processes involved in programming? You're right, though, that there haven't been a whole lot of studies done on competing products such as Haze (Pot strain class with amphetamine like effects). It's hard to have studies when it's illegal to do so without the government's approval and they only do so when they supply the (lock you to the couch) weed.
Only pot is not a depressant. Depending on the strain it can very well be a stimulant.
Most people don't know Pot comes in a very wide variety of effects (and side effects). Some might make a person drowsy while another might make a person more alert. One might have a side effect of affecting short term memory. Another strain might not, but cause something else. Some strains might very well be useful for coding. There are lots of Sativa dominant strains that are very similar to amphetamines / caffiene, in that they have a stimulant effect and in many people tend to stimulate creativity. It's really impossible to say definitively marijuana does this or that with so many varieties around. Many American recreational users are just concerned with raw THC content when this matters very little (it's the balance of different Cannabinoids that makes the difference). The government's lack of attention to this issue in their propaganda does little to help. Medical users, on the other hand, have known these things for decades. You have one strain for the day, and one for the night time. If you're going to try pot, my recommendation is to do your research. Start off with an Indica dominant strain unlikely to cause paranoia (the most unpleasant side effect), and graduate up to something that is a little more cerebral and leaves you less drowsy. My personal recommendation is Hindu Kush. It's a very calming, typical Indica smoke but at the same time is totally like other Indicas in that it won't leave you drowsy
Maybe you're right. I only saw the movie once.
Rothbard makes a decent argument against this "implied contract" argument, but yeah, you've outlined well why some libertarians can claim to be pro-life. There's also the enforcement to consider. How do you possibly enforce prohibition against abortion without stepping on all kinds of rights.
So you don't think Obama and his DEA / Justice Dept. is going to interfere with Colorado and Washington for legalizing pot. When the DEA raids the first coffeshop, i'll be sure to remind you how Obama in how way intends to tell people "how to live" or what substances are kosher to consume.
24 Glorified torture? Really? Did you actually watch the whole of a season? The whole series? Bauer even becomes a fucking Muslim in the end and Islam is portrayed as a "religion of peace" framed for violence by a corrupt and conspiratorial US government. It even turns out the president plots to detonate WMDs on US soil to justify his wars. Defense contractors are portrayed as in a conspiracy to take over the country. It doesn't get any more ridiculously PC. The few instances in which torture is used it turns out to be a mistake. It's a parable against torture, not a commercial for it.
Depends. If you're civilization that's millions of years old that has encountered little, if any, resistance out of the countless conquered planets, you might actually become a bit overconfident and neglect to patch things on a timely basis.
There's a good one in Skyfall too, if a bit cliche. Towards the end of the movie a helicopter crashes into fairly large building made of stone and blows it completely apart.
It'd bad. It's really bad... but it's so bad it's actually funny this time. Just bring a friend and poke fun at it together.
My favorite was dude's data-center with all the empty racks save those ridiculous cables and odd blinking red light. Also the part where the new "Q" plugs evil dude's laptop directly into the main Mi6 network.
That's what I read on the web too, but all the apps prompt me to repurchase. Perhaps you moved to a country speaking the same language. Tech support (and her surpervisor) told me I had to repurchase. Also even if I did have the apps back, that would only be a small portion of my purchases. We're talking seasons of TV, movies, etc.
To be fair to Apple, I had that exact same 8600m problem with my MBP out of warranty and they fixed it for free. Also, the Apple lawyers were probably uninformed in that article. According to the "Genius" I talked to, the second revision "logic board" I got does not have the same problem. Actually it's partially this pleasant experience that prompted me to switch countries in my iTunes account. I wanted to buy Mountain Lion to show my appreciation. LOL. No good deed, as they say... And now I'm finding a real difficult time selling the thing considering the late 07 series with the 8600M NVIDIA chip-set are considered lemons.