Bigthink - Idea Comments Feed

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:59:13 +0100

well i think you every one that has posted on this page is right in some way but the reason i started is probably the defience thing. the first time i did it i didnt do it for a year then one day i thought i want some pot theres nothing to do anymore. but that doesnt justify anything...............

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 03:17:09 +0100

Interesting cosmos ...Now I def..would like to read or find out where you got this knowledge about this evolutionary phenomenon. It would seem that we would have to have a complete knowledge of how the human brain works before we could make any def.. conclutions ..and we def. do not know how the human brain completely works...I could be wrong,,but you have my attention...(grin) and yes I guess we have jumped way of topic ...mabey post an idea concerning this topic in your profile and I will continue the conv. there...

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:31:14 +0100

OK Karmanical... said he, dragging things even further off topic [grin].

Up until last century, there was an evolutionary-match between the brain and the body. As life-expectancy grows [ due to human-intervention ], the brain will get left behind. It was originally designed to keep us actively-involved in most of our relatively-short lives. Keeping the mind occupied, is an exponentially-increasing challege, and I'm not sure we will have the means to motivate people to want to live as long as their bodies do.

Hope that clarifies my thinking a little.

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:47:40 +0100

Cosmos: please elaborate, on "burned out in active bodies"? and also on "Evolution will not be able to act on our brains fast enouph"?Not quite grasping your total thought.....

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:19:00 +0100

Absolutely agree with everything Karmanical said. Adding a little spin of my own -- Kids have a right and an expectation that they will make their own mistakes. As parents, we can only give guidance.

Tyegger -- I noticed a posting you made in another thread [ related to extending life-span ]. You mentioned that you were basically bored with, what should be, a very satisfying life-style. And this, at a time on the life-curve when everything should be at its most exciting.

To me, this is a real alarm-bell, and raises some much more fundamental questions...

Did you start on marijuana because you were bored?
Has marijuana increased or decreased your boredom?
What do you anticipate is the next step to relieve your boredom?

Now, taking a giant leap to another perspective [ please bear with me here ] -- I have suggested elsewhere on BigThink, that one of the big challenges for medical-science is to balance brain-function with an ever-extending life-span. Marijuana was not a part of the discussion, but I'm starting to identify a connection.

Look at it this way... Our brains will be burned-out in active-bodies, if we continue to extend life as we know it. Evolution will not be able to act on our brains fast enough to make a match. Perhaps there IS a rightful place for mind-altering drugs in our future.

[ Might have strayed off topic here, but the cross-thinking may be exactly what the original BigThink team had hoped for. ]

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:31:10 +0100

Tyegger: don't know how old you are but, understand these are simply opinions and are not ment to steer you in a particular direction in your life that is up to you and your parents. but on a personal note Im 37 years old and have a 17 year old son and 16 year old daugter. They have both taken different paths on the substance abuse road. In general I tend to find that boys are more likely to smoke pot then girls percentage wise anyway. As a parent I try and give my 17 year old freedom of choice, as much as possible but still give him the knowledge I have from my experience. I was lucky not to have a addictive personality and so far I don't think he does either...As anyone knows with adolescents they tend to try things that they know society (and parents) don't approve of... simply for the rush of defiance....and for others it is peer pressure.. others a way of escape...but in any case I feel that freedom of choice for our kids is def. the right thing... It gives them a sense of trust, and control. to a point of course; as parents it is still our responsability to recognize abuse. And deal with the problem according to his or her personality...but anyway without rambling on for ever Pot, alcohol or even shrooms for that matter can safely be used as recreation...continueing on to harsher drugs can either be an addictive personality or the person trying to escape or replace something missing in his or her life...

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:34:06 +0100

Yes pot is psychologically adicting. But take alcohol it is more adicting, because the body becomes dependant. Yet someone who has a botle of wine once a week with dinner, i dont belive has a problem. So yet again it comes down to weather you do it because you want to or because you need to. Hers a reall simple way to test this, go without it for amonth, if you are able to do that, and dont have any significant urges to smoke then i belive you are pretty safe.

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:22:19 +0100

I have a real problem with this, "A little bit is OK... I can control it".

As with all mind-altering drugs, once you come under their influence, you may loose the logic and ability to make a decision to quit. There is also a question of degree, and, as Skeptic says, self-control.

Putting this another way 'cause I might be messing the message -- Long-term exposure to mind-altering drugs will change your ability to self-assess and control, and thus influence many aspects of your life that were never intended. Even if the drugs are not considered addictive, there is always a psychological-addiction to any form of artificially-introduced pacification or pleasure.

There is a place for my favourite analogy here -- Consider the live frog in the cooking-pot being slowly brought to the boil. Each incremental-change goes unnoticed, until it is too late.

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:37:10 +0100

i think i can im only a freashman so i have a long time to quit. the thing i dont want to be an adult and do it unless its leagal

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:01:22 +0100

All i can say is, control yourself. Karmanical put it well if you begin to feel like you need it rather then want it you should probably stop. Also just have a simple threshold, thers nothing that says that if you do pot you are going to end up doing opium. The reason it the so called "gateway drug" is because its asociated with other drugs. So just dont do anything harsh, have a limit on what you will and will not do and stick to it.

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:58:52 +0100

tyegger : so then answer your own question. do you think YOU smoking pot is something you should keep doing or not.?

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 02:38:51 +0100

well its not like im smoking "rocks" but maybe in the future pot wont be enough maybe i will start something i cant stop the one and only question is is it worth it? is it worth bad grades is it worth being labeld a "stoner" is it worth your own mother not "likeing" you is it worth even the thought of this I do know and its not what i want to here so im not going to say it.

Comment on: Re: Marijuana right or wrong?

Bigthink — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 23:30:47 +0100

In a young mind, where there is no concept of tomorrow, it may seem like an adventure. But, in many cases, there is a tomorrow, and those yesterdays have created an intolerable 'today'.

There is no better example than a young friend of mine, who took this adventure too far -- he can never work, and is totally dependent on a carefully controlled chemical-cocktail to keep him in balance.

If there were any notions about the consequences of his early actions, he might still have been able to look to a full and fruitful life ahead.