Originally posted by scilosopher
Banshee, Did you see the Simpsons this week? Homer gets prescribed medicinal marijuana and coincidentally it has one of the most random plots of all time ... Lectures rarely are effective. It is better to positively propose a system of thought or perspective which is contrary to smoking ...
Banshe and Scilosopher: It is sad to learn you took my contribution intended to give you the other side of the story as a lecture. I used to attend lectures during the early part of my life, and I am glad I did. I learned a lot, believe it or not, as I was the guy that always kept asking the lecturer "why", "how", "when", "who" and "where". Those five questions are the basis of science and knowledge. Later in my life, I was the one who was invited to give lectures, and I was glad when somebody asked those questions, because I saw there was an inquiring mind.
You were making statements and comments, so I intruded in your chat and innocently wanted to give my side of the story, this time from the scientific point of view. Yours were an exchange of recolections and emotional experiences, so I'll do my last contribution this time from an emotional point of view.
My personal experience with MJ might be purely anecdotal, but it served me. I went to the USA at the age 23, back in 1960, to study Commercial Art and Advertising at the Art Students League in New York, and later at the Pratts Institute (there were no CAD and computer art then, you had to draw or paint with your own hands, so help you God, your genes and talent). <b>ALL</b> my friends smoked MJ or Hashish, none was on cocaine or heroin --yet. Among my friends were Jack Kerouac, Norman Mailer, and Robert Frank, the photographer, although I was much younger than them. I was at the party when Mailer stabbed his wife, no one know for what reason, but I can guess why he did it.
They always offered to share their joints with me, but I gently refused. I did smoke cigarretes (about 10 a day, but quit smoking them in 1969) and many years after I developed a taste for Cuban cigars -one good Partagas a day, no inhaling, just savouring it in the mouth- and drank about 1 can of beer every two to three days. No whiskey, gin or vodka or any kind of hard liquor. I was the black sheep in the bunch.
As I always had a scientific mind, at last I decided to give it a try, but first I had ready paper, pen, and a tape recorder, and away we went smoking pot. We got high --a sensation that disgusted me very much-- and talked about "very profound matters", I played the guitar and improvised some jazz at the piano. All was taped in my Geloso tape recorder, and we made drawings that were kept to posterity. Everybody were delighted by my music, our drawings and our talk. Deep, profound philosophy, and we thought our sensitivity had been elevated to sublime grounds. Then everybody went home to sleep.
Next morning, I rewinded the tape and listened to the talk and the music. Then looked at the drawings. I couldn't believe my ears and eyes! How could I have said such simplistic, stupid things, how could I have played such clumsy jazz, and did incredibly idiotic drawings! Everybody believed we were being geniuses at the moment. Under the light of reason we had been a bunch of morons.
Maybe MJ acted differently on me because it was my first (and only time), but it acted on the others in the same way it did on me. It took us about three or four levels down in our creativity and reasoning. It converted us into paleolithic human beings. So I decided that (besides the awful sensation of being high) if MJ was going to make me talk like an idiot, I'd better stay away from it. Much, much later I discovered that MJ had quite nasty side effects on the brain and the genes, so I guess I was just plain lucky I didn't smoke again.
My son and daughter don't drink alcohol, don't smoke, and make me go out to the front porch when I take out my Cuban cigar for smoking when we watch the Simpsons. We enjoy the Simpsons because it is a faithful picture of how sick the American society has become. You might not be aware of the fact, because you are immersed in the medium without recognizing it, like the fish that only become aware there is something called "water" when it is taken out of it. Did you know that artists are the only ones that first recognize the changes occurring in society? (According to Marshall McLuhan, of course, and I agree with him).
So please excuse me for my intruding. Next time I see somebody discussing with emotional arguments as a basis for keep doing something that harm their health, I'll stay out of the matter.
