(By Smoking Pot)
by Jesse Vernon
I would love to share a spliff with Betty Crocker. Especially
her 1965 incarnation (the hottest), with those delicate pearls, her
flipped bob, sharp eyes, and flirty smirk. She’d sit on the counter
while I did the work, doling out wise guidance (“Grease your pan with
unsalted butter”) interspersed with anachronisms (“Peanut butter
cookies are a favorite with men and children”), her blazed grin and
glazed eyes defying her corporate creators.
See, baking is magic disguised as domesticity. And magic should
always be done high. First, take a hit (or two). Then take a bunch of
ingredients that can’t hold their own (unsweetened chocolate scarred my
childhood), combine them in a particular order with precise
measurements, swirl them around with instruments of varying shape and
composition (wood here, steel there, silicone intermittently), and
apply heat. In the time it takes to smoke a bowl, your gooey brownish
blobs will have transfigured into little glistening disks of delight.
Ta-da. Even the most epicurean of potheads has fallen prey to the lure
of the quick and easy munchie fix, but the restorative powers of any
off-the-shelf sugar bomb are paltry in comparison to a treat of your
own creation.
While pot expands the breadth of my senses—mundane textures
become fascinating (slimy, elusive egg whites; silky, billowing flour),
common smells become seductive (melting butter, caramelizing
sugar)—it also finely hones them. My sober friends would be
surprised to learn that a lot of my best snacks are made under the
influence. The neuroses-enhancing side of pot is helpful, especially if
you’re already a details person: With near-neurotic accuracy, I’ve
learned to heed Betty’s direction (her Cooky Book is my holy
book) and create bites of perfection. As long as I remember to set the
timer.
(By Smoking Pot)
by Brendan Kiley
I was 15 and not so good at gardening, which was too bad
because gardening was my job. Being outside was nice (when it wasn’t
November) and I liked the idea of being a gardener (like Gregor
Mendel), but the actual gardening could be crushingly
dull—especially
weeding the perennial beds at the neighbors’
house where I worked on Saturdays. Starting was easy, but I’d get
restless and rush through the job, leaving weeds in my wake.
Rick, the other gardener, was studying graphic design at an art
college. He was a nice guy, but my lousy work ethic frustrated him.
“You’re a good worker when you want to do something,” he would say.
“But when you’re bored, you’re useless.” Then he’d go back to talking
about music and girls and stuff.
One Saturday, he solved my problem. We went into the woods and
smoked some pot out of his small, silver pipe.
The garden I stumbled back into was not the garden I’d left. It was
brighter and richer, I paid more attention to textures and colors, and
the plants seemed to have grown personalities while I was gone. The
work was suddenly fun, my attention span seemed infinite, and lunch
came faster than ever. (That afternoon, eating chips and salsa was like
discovering a continent.) Pruning roses, transplanting
Crocosmia, turning the compost piles—it was all fun, fun,
and fun. I could sit out in the dirt, let my mind wander, and happily
weed my life away.
Gardening was the gateway drug. Eventually I learned pot improved
all kinds of chores: laundry, sweeping, scrubbing the bathroom. A puff
is to my patience what a can of spinach is to Popeye’s muscles. Don’t
want to do the dishes tonight? Just hand me a joint and a sponge.
(By Smoking Pot)
by Christopher Frizzelle
I n middle school, I quit swim team, watched my parents’
marriage self-destruct, and ate a lot of Cheez-Its. I would stack them
between my fingers and eat the stack. One day after school, I unsealed
a jar of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts and ate it in a sitting. Then for
dinner: Taco Bell, Burger King, or pizza. Military family. In the
suburbs. Trying to save money. In high school, my brothers played
sports and stayed in shape; I started the school newspaper and literary
magazine, and produced them almost single-handedly (with the assistance
of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts). You get so fat that, at a certain
point, not eating another homemade chocolate-chip cookie isn’t
going to do you any fucking good—you’re so far gone already, and
it’s not like you have any friends to impress, and it’s not like you
can come out of the closet in your shitty town anyway—so you just
go ahead and eat it. The next time you see a chocolate-chip cookie, you
do the same calculation. By the time I was 17, I was six foot four, 280
pounds. I used to say, “I’m big boned.” My older brother would say,
“How big can bones be?”
If you start running every other day after school, you notice very
little change. It wasn’t until I kept running and stopped
eating—almost entirely—that anything changed. I always knew
it was a corrective measure and not a long-term solution, though.
Simply avoiding Taco Bell and Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts doesn’t do
it. If your body has been very fat before, your body would like to be
fat again. The only thing to do is to make working out a regular part
of your life, a three-or-four-times-a-week thing.
Lifting weights is, of course, boring. Goddamn, it’s boring. Here,
pick this up and put it down again and again and again and again and
again—times a million. I tried lifting weights for years and
could never stick with it past a month or two. Then one day, a friend
confessed a secret. REALLY?! Right before going to the gym? Don’t you
have trouble breathing after having all that smoke in your lungs? Don’t
you get tripped up while warming up on the treadmill? Don’t you
accidentally drop things on yourself? He insisted I try it, and we
did—and lifting weights, and running, and the state of my biceps
have never been the same. Pot takes any rote activity (see also:
parenting, cleaning, baking) and turns the boringness into mental
candy. It makes time stretchy. It limits your ability to focus too long
on anything, so you don’t get stuck thinking about how repetitive
something is. You can run forever: Between the pot and the music in
your headphones, you’re on a bodiless plane of existence. Pain is kind
of fun, so you can lift more than usual. (Be careful.) And, because
you’re breaking the law, you’ve got a secret—a mischievous habit,
a private rebellion—that you associate with going to the gym (a
corporate, brightly lit, rule-bound environment) that happens to make
the gym really fun.
I’m in better shape than ever. I finally have muscles. The last of
my love handles will be gone soon. People always ask me about having
been fat, about how I lost it, about how I keep it off. Some friends
simply think I’m unusually dedicated to health and fitness. The truth
is, I’ve just been smoking a lot of pot.
(By Smoking Pot)
by I. Havenoballs*
W hen my daughter was born in December, my life took the
expected course correction. Excessive drinking, video games, smoking
pot, chronic masturbation—save for that last item, each weapon in
my free-time arsenal was dismantled, melted down, and converted into
things like bottles, diaper bins, and tools to combat meconium.
Recently, however, smoking has started to make a bit of a comeback.
Gone are my days of waking and baking, but one thing I’ve learned over
the past eight months is that when it comes to the mind-numbing
repetition of playtime, a little puff makes the experience not just
bearable, but enjoyable. It helps keep me sane—and during the
first year of parenthood, sanity tends to be in short supply.
Take my daughter’s current obsession with a set of cheap plastic
cups. These cups vary in size and color, and she can spend hours having
me stack them in the proper order just so she can quickly unstack them.
It’s a game that never gets boring for her; every time the cups are
stacked, it’s as if they’ve been stacked for the very first time. And
during these extended sessions of monotony—first green cup, then
blue cup, then red cup, then yellow cup, then orange cup, then rinse
and repeat—a quick hit of pot can cut through the stress and
noise that comes with new parenthood and instead keep me focused,
patient, and engaged with my daughter’s development. And that, really,
is all that matters.
(By Smoking Pot)
by David Schmader
O ne of the traits I inherited from my German-on-both-sides
family is a deep drive for certainty, tidiness, and order—three
things in short supply during the act of writing, or at least during
the early stages of writing, when making a mess is the point.
Brainstorming, jotting down half-formed ideas, banging out messy first
drafts—these tasks made my skin itch. Saddled with a brain
obsessed with finding the Right Answer (or as Germans sometimes call
it, the Final Solution), I found myself paralyzed by the possibilities,
as my would-be happy playground of creativity morphed into a gulag
rigged with a million ways to be wrong.
And then I smoked pot. For some people, pot means munchies and
moving in what feels like slow motion; for others, stress and
sleeplessness. For me, pot is the perfect stupefier, slowing down my
frantically racing
thoughts—OhmygodwhatamIgoingtowrite
andhowamIgoingtowriteitandwheredoIstart
andwhatdoIincludeandhowdoIincludeit?—to
the point where each thought can be addressed individually, while
leaving me with enough brain power to do the addressing. Properly
stoned, I could wade through the swamp of messy imperfection that lay
before every finished piece and finally start writing.
Before long, I was getting paid for my writing—a lucky break
that came with an implicit invitation to become a professional pothead.
Luckily, the work doesn’t pay enough to support such an arrangement, so
eventually I set about learning nonpot methods of stupefying my
answer-seeking brain. Mundane things like sitting still for 15 minutes
and breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth. But there’s
no denying that the welcome mat to this new way of being was a big wad
of pot.
(By Smoking Pot)
by I. M. Whipped*
T he only thing worse than spending time with your own family
is spending time with someone else’s family. Sober.
For years, I was dragged to Thanksgivings, Christmases, and Easters
with my wife’s family, which is about as right-wing nutso as you can
get without joining a militia. My father-in-law is a Fox-News-loving,
we-need-a-border-fence-now, George W. apologist. He is a mountain man.
I am a city slicker who works for an artsy-fartsy homo newspaper. We
have little in common.
Normally at family functions, I’d sit in the corner, try not to make
eye contact, and only make small talk when escape was not an option.
There was never any booze, making all my other problems—social
anxiety, a psychological aversion to family time—agonizing. Then
Christmas 2006 happened. As gun-nut uncles, pregnant teenage nieces,
and trailer-park-dwelling grandparents held hands and prayed to baby
Jebus around the living room of a suburban home, my wife, my
sister-in-law, and I snuck out, drove around, and smoked out of a
gross, resin-stained glass pipe until we were suitably baked and
alarmingly affable. It was a Christmas miracle, and it has since become
a holiday tradition—a permanent solution to any anxiety about
spending time with family.
Now, septuagenarian aunts’ and uncles’ stories about internal family
battles seem like fascinating epic poems, sitting on a couch and
staring into space is no longer a chore, and engagement in small talk
is less teeth-grindingly awful. Smoking pot hasn’t made me like these
people any more, but it makes my wife not want to strangle me so much
now that I’m perfectly willing to sit and talk to her dad about
computer parts and the benefits of FAT32 and NTFS file systems for the
better part of an hour. And if I get stoned enough, I barely remember I
was there at all.
(By Smoking Pot)
by Ari Spool
H aving sex on dope is almost everything your parents said you
should never do, with the exception of eating ice cream for breakfast.
But we all know by now that the things your parents specifically railed
against are the things your parents were totally doing when you weren’t
looking.
The reasons your parents were (are) having all that sex on all that
dope: (1) It just feels better, and (2) you can tell the other
participant what you really want to do without feeling shy. When my
roommates go to bonetown after smoking a blunt in the living room, I
hear slapping. When they are sober, it sounds boring—not even any
moaning. And they’ve been dating forever; they know each other inside
and out. Stony sex is way easier and cheaper and hotter than couples
counseling or being instructed to dress up or other weird things that
couples on TV do when “the magic runs away.” Also, I don’t know about
you, but I get all pouncy and am way more liable to look at you next to
me on the couch with popcorn on your shirt and give you that
look. I am thinking “RRRAAAWWWRRR MAKE ME NAKED!”
This is way healthier than the drunken “RRRAAAWWWRRR,” because I
already know you. We were just getting stoned on the couch together,
we’re at least buddies or probably even dating, and pot hasn’t made you
look any hotter than you actually are (weed doesn’t give you drunk
goggles). I am making a much more educated and safe decision, with no
weird, shameful walk home in the morning. And there’s no rush. Take it
slow, baby.
I honestly don’t know why you would ever have sex without getting
stoned first. Those fun sex jokes are more likely to happen, and maybe
there will be tickling. You have no one to tickle? Well, it makes
masturbation better, too. I’m talking to the dames. Maybe you’re kind
of nervous about it? Like, you just bought this new dildong and you are
looking at it and, let’s be honest, you aren’t sexually
attracted to it. And you are gonna do WHAT with it? On weed, that
weirdness goes away. You just nod and proceed to make yourself happy
enough to never shoot up any fitness centers, ever. 
* Pseudonyms for Stranger writers who are wusses.
these comments are yet another reason why smart people CAN do drugs!
@ 50: You’re right about 12 – that was pretty good! I meant to acknowledge him way earlier…
OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP! i am not going to read this article, i just can’t even stand it anymore. why does there have to be so much advocacy for this stupid fucking drug? it makes people boring and ugly and the sight of your dirty little fingers rolling a joint turns my stomach. if you all love it so much why do we need to have articles about it? who are you trying to convince? if people like it, they already like it and don’t need a fucking article, and if they don’t, like me, you just ruined their lunch break.
I’m just going to second everything blah910 said. And add this: you’re in Seattle, the most liberal city in the country. You’re not edgy for smoking pot. You’re a bunch of trendy, hipster sychophants conforming to local norms. Big deal. How rebellious. Get over yourselves.
@ sall
while i agree with you that people should not use pot to make their children tolerable, i don’t believe that’s what the poster was doing.
“when it comes to the mind-numbing repetition of playtime, a little puff makes the experience not just bearable, but enjoyable. It helps keep me sane—and during the first year of parenthood, sanity tends to be in short supply.
Take my daughter’s current obsession with a set of cheap plastic cups. These cups vary in size and color, and she can spend hours having me stack them in the proper order just so she can quickly unstack them. It’s a game that never gets boring for her; every time the cups are stacked, it’s as if they’ve been stacked for the very first time. And during these extended sessions of monotony—first green cup, then blue cup, then red cup, then yellow cup, then orange cup, then rinse and repeat—a quick hit of pot can cut through the stress and noise that comes with new parenthood and instead keep me focused, patient, and engaged with my daughter’s development.”
-jesse
there is a vast difference between a parent who is so uninterested/uncaring about their children that they have to get stoned to treat them right, and a parent who tokes so that play time will be more fun for them, witch usually makes it more fun or the child.
i am not a parent yet (one on the way) but my mom did daycare and for the last three years i have spent nearly every weekend playing with my wife’s nieces and nephews. i can tell you from experience that no matter how much i may love the little tykes, it sometimes takes all my patience to not scream out loud when one of them wants to play the 20th round of push-me-on-the-swing-set.
sorry to be so long winded here, and i agree with you on some of your points sall, but i don’t think that the poster is one of these parents your where talking about who couldn’t pick their kid out of a line up. i am not him so i can’t speak for the poster, but i never got the impression from the article that he “need(s) to get stoned to appreciate (his) kids.”
“I think that people who need to get stoned to appreciate their kids (that is basically what he said he has to do) probably wouldn’t recognize their own kid in a lineup of children”
-sall
anyway thanks all for the great comments and thanks Jesse for the great article!
omg. 53’s lunch break!!! Goddamn it.
Also.. regarding the parenting.. can everyone just chill? I mean, I understand that it’s a DRUGGGG and all that. But let’s take a look at the situation in this case. The writer talks about his little girl playing in a way that she finds enjoyable because lack of experience in life, etc. Obviously, an adult is not NEARLY as entertained by this playing, though.
Now we all know that smokin a little chronic definitely makes boring things seem interesting, so why not apply that here? I mean it’s not like he has to hit a joint before he can appreciate his daughter’s first steps or anything.. but i can totally understand how stacking cups would be boring otherwise. i really don’t see the parenting problem to this, sorry.
I love these well-written, insightful and honest articles and also enjoyed reading the comments.
As to the child-care issue: would you say someone isn’t qualified to look after a child after they’d had a beer? There could be a problem if someone gets overly stoned and an emergency happens; perhaps parents who indulge for child care could be sure the other parent is a “designated driver” at the time. (I too have noticed increased relating with children after a puff. It’s nice for both of us.)
As to commenter #53, who won’t even open his/her mind to the positive side of what is mostly a positive mind stimulant, he/she is only thinking of the visible overuser rather than the nonvisible responsible smoker that is the norm. Many luminaries throughout history have found cannabis inspirational and our culture has benefited greatly from their work (see http://www.VeryImportantPotheads.com).
That science is discovering we have cannabinoid receptors all over our brains and bodies supports the notion that it really does affect a great many of our human traits. In fact, we seem to have co-evolved with cannabis, and it’s insane to prohibit it.
As to the f@#$ing hippies comment, we ended the Vietnam War and the draft. Most of the posters here would be in Iraq against their will right now without the hippies. What has your generation done except go to raves and Burning Man?
And as to those who get paranoid on pot: could it be because it’s illegal? The reason to keep talking about it is the injustice of the laws.
An interesting book just came out: Marijuana is SAFER, So why are we driving people to drink? Put that in your pipe and smoke it. http://www.canorml.org/orderform.html#ha…
#53, Notice how alone you are on this comment list… I live in Orem, Utah and am surrounded by completely blind, mentally challenged people like you. I’m %100 proud to be a pot smoker due to the herb opening my eyes to closeminded people such as yourself. GROW THE FUCK UP!
#53, Notice how alone you are regarding your on this comment list… I live in Orem, Utah and am surrounded by completely blind, mentally challenged people like you. I’m %100 proud to be a pot smoker due to the herb opening my eyes to close-minded people such as yourself. GROW THE FUCK UP!
number 57, number 53 here. are you in high school? because I have been hearing impassioned arguments like yours about the positive and benign aspects of pot since then–nearly twenty fucking years ago. i DON’T CARE. I also don’t care if people use it, luminary or not. Lots of people i know and love smoke the ganj, I just don’t want to myself, or even be around people when they are if i can help it, and i certainly don’t want to read about it in a newspaper when there is actual NEWS to report. leave this shit to High Times.
VIPelle
“And as to those who get paranoid on pot could it be because it’s illegal?”
That is the most retarded rational as to why ….
Look, I’m not against ANYONE smoking pot, and yes I tried it … And aftr my brief boredom cycle, I would slip into the paranoia cycle … and then my brain would like it was wadded with cotten for a week and a half.
AND PEOPLE FUNCTION LIKE THAT! Fine! There is nothing wrong with people who think it is fun, or it relaxes them etc. etc. Great! But seriously, I’m not going to nark you out or judge you for smoking …. But some of you guys get so baked and narcisistic that you think everyone’s body chemistry is the same … it’s ludicrous!
I have been waiting a long time to read an article like this. It addresses something that is neglected in the all too familiar dialogue about pot – how everyday people can use and hold a balanced, healthy life. It’s no longer a story dominated by images of unmotivated stoner adolescents or hippies. This is how the movement to reschedule/decriminalize this drug is going to come about – a stratification of people from all socioeconomic groups, including highly successful ones, coming forward and admitting to smoking marijuana. This will essentially eliminate the negative social stigma (which is the ONLY grounds there was for making it illegal in the first place*).
*Marijuana is currently a schedule 1 narcotic along with heroine and cocaine, which means it has at least one of these few qualities: A. highly addictive and has a risk for abuse, B. No medical benefit or the health risks overshadow any benefit it may have, C. a negative social stigma. Decades of research have shown to debunk ANY claims that A and B are true. Now we need to work on C. Let people come forward, tell their stories on how they integrate marijuana into their life without harm. And let the FDA reschedule this drug once and for all.
I have been waiting a long time to read an article like this. It addresses something that is neglected in the all too familiar dialogue about pot – how everyday people can use and hold a balanced, healthy life. It’s no longer a story dominated by images of unmotivated stoner adolescents or hippies. This is how the movement to reschedule/decriminalize this drug is going to come about – a stratification of people from all socioeconomic groups, including highly successful ones, coming forward and admitting to smoking marijuana. This will essentially eliminate the negative social stigma (which is the ONLY grounds there was for making it illegal in the first place*).
*Marijuana is currently a schedule 1 narcotic along with heroine and cocaine, which means it has at least one of these few qualities: A. highly addictive and has a risk for abuse, B. No medical benefit or the health risks overshadow any benefit it may have, C. a negative social stigma. Decades of research have shown to debunk ANY claims that A and B are true. Now we need to work on C. Let people come forward, tell their stories on how they integrate marijuana into their life without harm. And let the FDA reschedule this drug once and for all.
@53 You said you’re not going to read the article because it wastes your time, yet you take extra time to post a comment about how your time has been wasted… Good one. No one’s trying to convince someone that already likes it, articles like this don’t seem to have any political role, just some suggestions to the use of pot. However, I think more people SHOULD be convinced that it’s safe, so we could get it legalized. Go do some searching on the net, see how many weed-related deaths you can find. Spend exactly an hour looking. Then go search for alcohol-related deaths, and spend only 5 minutes. I guarantee the second set of results will be infinitely larger than the first.
@54 You think people smoke pot to try to be trendy and hip? How close-minded can you possibly be? It’s not some Hello Kitty fad for teenagers trying to be cool. It’s an all natural, safe drug to make people feel better, and to make things more fun. I really hope you don’t drink alcohol, or take any prescription drugs, because your post would make you a hypocrite. Also, how can you say smoking pot is conforming to a local norm? You’re the conformist here, joining up with right-wing conservatives that bash pot and people who use it because they can’t control it. You’re just a sheep, a blind follower who knows nothing of their outside world. Go out, live a little, try pot. I guarantee you won’t find any situation worse while high, and hey, guess what? You won’t be destroying any vital organ of your body while you use it, unlike it’s legal and more deadly counterpart.
@ 49: I wasn’t making an argument so your post makes no sense. You should leave the commenting to the competent.
@63: Wonderful observation and information!
As many know, one of the main reasons marijuana was deemed illegal was due to the many uses of hemp. These uses were (are) so practical and economical that already existing companies (ex. paper mills) would have been put out of business. Since these existing companies already had power and money, they were able to persuade government leaders into making marijuana illegal.
Hopefully, these decades of research will be able to overcome the will of the greedy old business man.
puff puff…”ear”…ahhhh
If you didn’t know, “ear” is the most commonly used phrase among pot smokers. Literally translated…here.
@62/63 Actually, the negative social stigma has no place in why pot is illegal. Originally, it was made illegal by a man named William Hearst, a paper industry tycoon. Hemp was to rival the paper industry by becoming a much cheaper and easier substance used to produce paper, so he went into action to have it made illegal. It remains illegal, however, because of the economy. It’s true that if the government capitalized on marijuana there would be a lot of money able to be made. However, the problem exists in the side effects marijuana production has on the agriculture. The government wouldn’t be able to officially grow, harvest, and produce marijuana on a large scale without seriously damaging existing ecosystems, therefore, removing the possibility of profit. Sure, independent growers that currently exist could expand their business and it wouldn’t cause too much of a problem. If you take this argument to a government bureaucrat, they’ll be able to make up many economic reasons against allowing the legalization of marijuana, and many of them make sense.
I’m not saying I agree, I think it should be legal, but it would really help the cause if everyone knew all the facts about it, and stop all of their personal speculation.
@64. Guess what? I smoked pot for years, and then I got sick of it because it made me paranoid and gave me panic attacks. I don’t care if other people use it, I don’t care if they like it, and I don’t care if it’s legal or illegal. And you know what? I don’t drink either. I don’t think alcohol is any better. I know it’s easy to call me a right-wing fundamentalist, but I’m not right-wing, I’m just opposed to people suppressing their emotions with substances instead facing themsevles, their problems and life’s daily struggles. So I have been out in the world (lived in two other countries, actually), and I’ve been immersed in the drug culture, and I’m just saying that smoking pot is just as trite as not smoking pot. There is nothing exceptional about a bunch of kids in a dorm getting high or some wannabe artist getting stoned before painting. It’s just boring. Boring. Boring. Boring.
#65/#67. You are absolutely right about why some people lobbied for the illegalization of marijuana–their motivations to monopolize the paper, crop, and fuel industry. But your reasons do not describe how. The FDA could not outright make marijuana a Schedule 1 narcotic unless it had one of the three characteristics I outlined (#63). It is well documented that the men, such as William Hearst, who worked to make the drug illegal didn’t run on a platform of hemp’s ability to out-compete other industries, but rather used a smear campaign to spread disingenuous images and information of the effects and users of the drug. This misinformation caused the negative social stigma, allowing the FDA to make an easy case for making it a Schedule I narcotic. To rid of the social stigma will allow a rescheduling, not an increased awareness of the motivations of those who lobbied to make it illegal in the first place.
@ 65, touchy today are we?
@ 63, good points!
@ 39, you tricky guy you. You stuck two of my sentences from separate posts together as thought they were part of one.
Like I said, you’re not far from voting a straight republican ticket with that imagination!
@68 – Very reasonable, but not reasonably advanced. Or, rather, presumes motivations not in evidence. I seem to get into this same argument about my tattoos–how there’s nothing subversive about getting tattoos anymore. Now, I imagine that depends on the content of one’s tattoos, but even granting that argument, the only motivation for getting tattoos that eliminates is the will to subversion . . . which is actually the least of my reasons for getting them in the first place.
I certainly don’t think you’re a right-wing fundamentalist for getting bored with it; a lot of my acquaintances over the years reached the same conclusion. And bully for you for not drinking. Still, I wonder how many people actually do engage in these activities for the sake of being interesting, or why one would be any more likely to engage in such for that reason than they would be to consume black coffee or listen to jazz to the same end.
As to suppressing emotions, I’m not convinced that drinking or smoking weed has any more to do with that than does watching television, wearing bright colors, or choosing a satisfying career. We all mitigate reality in whatever way we can to make it palatable. Sure, there times when our canes become crutches, but that’s no more subject to objective measure than the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin.
sall – How is smoking because your mother-in-law bores you less self-absorbed than smoking because the play modes of a pre-verbal child bore you?
I could go on my usual rant in defense of self-absorption; suffice it to say that we’d probably never move out of the house, get jobs, develop tastes or interests, or be interesting lovers without at least a bit of it. It requires moderation, of course, but I, for one, would say that a little toke before playtime is well within reasonable parameters.
Sall- I do what I want.
Now I want to get high.
I would enjoy getting high too after reading this…Simply Marijuana can be used as a form of meditation in everyday life. Slows down our racing minds and he complexities of our society and allows one to focus on the now…That present moment whether it be with a child, gardening, writing whatever. It disintegrates the worries of tomorrow and opens you to the purity the awesomeness of this current moment of what your participating in…Life..
the simplest way to describe it is that pot just makes everything better. everything.
Grow up.
More proof that the Stranger as a publication in general hasn’t grown the fuck up. Might be an interesting article if it weren’t written by a publication that already harbors the ideal of numbing yourself to the already unsatisfying lifestyle that Seattle has to offer.
@The parent who is brainwashed into thinking they are becoming a better parent by smoking pot: face the issues at hand. If your child playing with cups is too distressing and miserable a situation for you, you probably shouldn’t have had the child. That’s fuck up number one. Fuck up number two: assuming the child was born under appropriate circumstances, you aren’t being present to your relationship with your child. Big mistake. Smoking obviously will alleviate your stress in the short-term, but I encourage you to write a review of this experiment, oh, maybe 10 years from now. Chances are you won’t remember anything that meaningful from the relationship with your daughter.
@The quasi-author who thinks pot makes them a real author: Look up the etymology of the term ‘pipe dream.’
This may seem like an obvious point to me, but for those such as the infamous Sall, as well as the pro-marijuana zealots, pot does different things for different people. For some, (perhaps because of a military style police force, almost a century of blatant and not-so-blatant brainwashing, and not to mention the threat of being thrown into prison for a harmless substance), it makes them as paranoid as a cracked-out Tricky Dick in a jet fighter at Mach 1, heading directly for South Central LA. For others, it is an unbelievably euphoric experience leading to complete incapacitation, and consequently some highly dangerous repercussions for society as a whole (pun definitely intended).
Maybe, however, this article points to how mundane many of our lives actually are, and how for good or worse, we need to implement some sort of mind altering substance or activity to make it bearable. Let’s try and find some new outlet eh? Take control of your life; smoke pot, start a revolution, or go take a freaking hike. Don’t just sit and complain about how the status quo sucks.
how to fuck up-by smoking pot, how to fix fuck up- by smoking pot, how to blameshift fuckup-by smoking pot, is it the pot being smoked or the smoker who is fucking up- by smoking pot, its all about who can and can’t or who should or shouldn’t smoke pot-by smoking pot. If you havn’t smoked pot how can you know or criticise-by smoking pot. This can go on and on and on-by smoking pot.
well then #53 fuck off to something that does interest you or just fuck off or just go to the toilet n jerk y.self off for lunch. I dont smoke it but i also am not acting like a fuck stick.
i <3 this article very much
what i dont understand is how people can make all these claims for or against the drug if the only research they have done is to watch their biased media and what they think is stereotypical of a drug user. nobody ever stops to think that everybodys body chemistry is different, every strain in every single bag you buy is different, this plant affects people in different ways…the same way any type of pharmecutical medicine does. nothing is going to affect me the same as it affects anybody else…the medicinial, helpful benefits of the plant far out way the dangers; and thats JUST the medicinal benefits…
if you dont like it, dont do it. i dont like cabbage, so i dont eat it. but i did TRY it to decide if i didnt like it. the freedom to make that choice needs to be there for everybody.
out weigh*
I’m 19 years old, I’ve been smoking pot regularly since I was about 15, and now a significant amount almost every day. That being said, I do have conflicted feelings about it.
As for any argument about functionality and/or motivation, despite smoking throughout high school and half of college, I’ve maintained exceptional grades and always been active in other activities as well. I’ve taken done homework high, given presentations high, and even taken tests high (not that I would recommend any of these). I’m also one of the most motivated and ambitious people I know. I’ve proven to myself that I can function at a high level while being high -alot-. Michael Phelps showed that even the best athletes in the world can smoke (though I seriously doubt he smokes during the season or tokes before competitions).
As for the idea of having an open mind or affecting the way you think, I believe that these qualities go much deeper than pot can. So people who for whatever reason have a mind more open to new experiences will react a certain way, and those with a more closed mindset or more anxiety or emotional negativity will react differently. In fact, I think everybody will react differently. I think that marijuana slightly alters the way the brain functions in ways that are still not fully understood, and each person’s reaction, unlike with a drug like alcohol, has more to do with what’s already going on in their heads than the pot they’re smoking.
That being said, I’m not a weed apologist or one to think that it’s a miracle-drug that will solve all your problems. I’m not qualified to speak on any health benefits/risks, but I know that it can affect situations negatively as well as positively. There have been plenty of times when I was high and wished I wasn’t, so that I could think more clearly, calm social anxieties better, or not have to worry about being detected. But like each person’s personal reaction depends on their own mindset, I’ve found that my mindset, whether I’m stressed, relaxed, anxious, upset, affects completely the way that I react.
I’ve also had a couple of important realizations about myself, my life, and the way I want to live it while high. These are realizations that have stuck with me past the time I was high and that continue to influence my life. On the other hand, I’ve been convinced of a lot of bullshit thoughts while high.
I guess I’m somewhere between those who think weed enhances everything in the universe and offers eternal wisdom and those who think it turns people into nonfunctional idiots or psychopaths. I do know that not seeing things in terms of “right-wing conservative closed-minded tightwad” and “loser slacker stoner” aren’t going to advance anybody’s thinking.
Reading this article was like having a 37 year old excitedly tell me they had finally learned how to ride a bike, only to find out they still need the training wheels. God bless coping mechanisms, they get us through the day. However, aren’t we capable of moving past them?
Reading this article was like having a 37 friend excitedly tell me they had finally learned to ride a bike, only to find out they still need the training wheels. God bless coping mechanisms, they get us through the day. However once we’ve learned to cope, we move on.
I submit to you the following: Modern consumer culture with its many pleasures, stimulations and diversions, creates in us an over-stimulated mind and a short attention span. Our minds are racing and over-stimulated, just at baseline, and this makes it hard to achieve the calm mindset necessary to do the very things that, due to the imminent collapse of the consumer economy, NEED to be learned and done well ASAP on a widespread basis, e.g. gardening, cooking, fucking, childcare, or let’s say any type of craftsmanship. You can get there through pot but I’d say it’s a shortcut, and as you know a shortcut isn’t always a shortcut, and in the case of pot there are certain costs… money of course, plus the effects are temporary, the habit is sort of demanding, and there are certain side-effects) or you can get there through a long-term practice of deep breathing/meditation as Schmader says or I’m sure there are a million ways of achieving a contemplative state.
pot=
fun
fun + problems
finally
just problems
I’ve never been able to hit the gym on a regular basis because it. is. so. god. damn. boring. I’m totally gonna try out getting stoned before the gym when I get home. If this works and I get fit, I will be in your debt forever. Fuck trainers and diets, my friendly local Strangers have all the answers.
This is my mantra, minus the kids and workout section. Don’t have kids, and have never found pot did anything for my workouts or strenous hikes except make me feel like I have on cement shoes.
Gardening and housework a joy while under the influence of the lovely herb!
#84 you are so right. I dont smoke it now, after being a long term toker (not user, there is a difference)i do have the right to express an honest opinion based on experience. There are some real fuckwits out there that want to vent there shit, deluded and very hipocritical, only to offend and nothing more. The crap that can fall out of some peoples mouths is only a measure of the actual offender/s-FUCKWITS. Good artical that has flushed out the RIFF RAFF of society.
I don’t have anything against smoking pot in and of itself, but until it’s legalized, is anyone thinking about the consequences of buying pot? I mean, people are really suffering in Mexico as a result of drug cartels that are driven by the illegal use of marijuana in the U.S.
Obviously, this issue could easily be resolved by legalizing pot–which is certainly no more harmful than cigarettes or alcohol–but until that time, the writers at The Stranger seem to be intelligent folks–aren’t they at all concerned about this side of the issue?
Oh, or all they all growing pot in their green houses?
really dude? really? you think that people are buying pot from the drug cartels? that weed that they import from mexico is called dirt weed for a reason. it is utter shit.
the weed that i buy (actually bought, i’m on probation for possession right now) is all locally grown. from the growers, it goes through my friend’s supplier that i introduced him to, then on to my friend and then to the consumers. so there is one person involved in the process that i don’t know, and he certainly isn’t parading around the city in a black SUV shooting AK’s at innocent civilians, then paying off the press and government to act like nothing happened. if i were to do cocaine or meth, yeah that might be the case as those are very highly profitable drugs that mexicans are good at producing, but i don’t support cartel activities, and i don’t support the drugs that they supply.
furthermore, i have started growing a small personal crop for myself, so unless i sleepwalk and am flying to mexico every night to team up with the cartels and kill civilians, i am almost completely sure that my weed is conflict free.
Wow, so many blanket statements on all sides I’m surprised anyone can breathe.
Fact: The same drug can and will have different effects on different people. This applies to all drugs, including OTC.
Fact: Pot is significantly less harmful than alcohol and has not been proven to be chemically addictive. It can, however, be seriously abused through psychological addiction, and can in that manner ruin lives.
Fact: It is only a matter of time before pot is legalized in the US. This will not happen under Obama. He is not so stupid as to associate the first black presidency with pot legalization.
Fact: Most users of pot are, like myself, casual and occasional users. Most I have met in this group are smart enough not to fall for either the pothead line (pot as panacea) or the prohibition line (pot as a great evil), and are annoyed by both.
Final and Overall Fact: Just about everything to do with marijuana is far more complex than the zealots on either side would have you believe.
Stoned or sober, don’t forget to think, kids.
BlahMcBride – You guys come off as big time assholes whether or not you’ve ever smoked. Whether you like it or not it’s a hot topic right now for a lot of people.
“I’m tired of it so don’t do it?” Seriously??? What else can the rest of the world not do because you’re not interested or you had a bad experience? You don’t like it, move along, like you do with tv, the radio, or idiot stoners.
@73, Smoking pot before being around family is self-serving, not necessarily full-blown self absorbed – in my opinion. Being a parent who smokes pot occasionally isn’t self absorbed either. It’s just the way that article was written that seemed to me like that person just isn’t that into being a parent.
@ 74 aka sohigh_notfat, I’m glad you do what you want, so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Did I say you shouldn’t? You still manipulated my sentences, which is, not cool.
I don’t know you – but I love you.
I am the epitome of the description given of Betty Crocker with a joint. Come 2 am every morning any passerbye can sample the smells wafting from my kitchen. Maybe its pancakes. Maybe its pasta in alfredo sauce. Most likely it contains bacon. But it is always delicious. You may think i am an overweight stoner. Alas, I hold two jobs and go to school full time, I am also in shape. I just like weed, and your metabolism is sped up which is why you get the munchies anyway. So take a hit after your scrumptious meal and youre smooth sailing. Your description was spot on. Nail meet head.