Throughout this whole interesting argument, why is no one mentioning that pot is a drug that allows the brain to run on a different track, fire along different circuitries, and perceive other possibilities in reality.
Pot and even more so hashish, is essentially a mystical drug, and yes it was a gateway for me; it was a gateway to LSD, psilocybin, mescaline. LOL
There are many people who use pot who don't seem to be able to tune into the full spectrum of what it offers and use it to "get wasted" - maybe their spirits aren't there yet.
Taking psychedelic drugs opens the doors of perception and forever alters mundane views of reality. It is NOT necessary to keep taking these drugs; in fact, I only took them for about two years of my life. But they changed me - and not into a Cheech & Chong parody of a person.
Take a look at art and design of the 21 st century and you will see motifs that come from the use of "mind-expanding" drugs. You will hear it in the music. See it in signs and advertising. Look at your Oriental rug and enjoy the patterns invented centuries ago by hashish smokers.
These drugs open the same pathways in the brain as meditation.
I have always believed that pot was suppressed largely by the alcohol purveyors, but also by those who feared people who had opened their minds. People who open their minds tend to resist propaganda and weak logic and being controlled by the government, and they are to be persecuted. People who get wasted and numb don't make that kind of trouble.
All this was perfectly well understood in the 60's and 70's, but at some point the drug movement went towards drugs that release endorphins, like cocaine. Cocaine also opens centers of the brain that are normally closed. Not entirely bad, except it creates an uncontrollable desire to do it again, and again, and everything becomes focused around how to get more.
I have gone to few (if any) pot parties or acid parties where the conversation was about how to get more pot and acid. But coke, completely different, the whole focus is on getting more in two hours and not coming down.
There are lots of different drugs, and they really do different things, and are all conflated because they're part of an illegal society. Take away the illegal part and they would not be all jammed together by association.
If all the art and creativity that has come out of using mind-altering drugs could be erased from our society, erased not only in its direct influence but all the humor and writing, films. art, textiles. crafts that draw on direct creations, if everything that derived from all the this was grayed out and disappeared, I wonder what our world would look like.
Those of you who like jazz, would it even exist?
There's a lot of bad that has come from too much getting stoned and not enough productivity, but for those who have managed a balance, much has been created.
quote:
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go
I'm filling the cracks that ran though the door
and kept my mind from wandering
where it will go
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right where I belong
I'm right where I belong
See the people standing there
who disagree and never win
and wonder why they don't get in my door
I'm painting my room in a colorful way,
and when my mind is wandering
there I will go
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right where I belong
I'm right where I belong
Silly people run around
they worry me and never ask me
why they don't get past my door
I'm taking my time for a number of things
that weren't important yesterday
and I still go
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go
where it will go
I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go.
Keeping this Puna related, you should all fix the holes where rain and centipedes get in, while the sun shines.
[:p]
