Everything you consume has an effect on your mind. The food you eat alters your blood glucose levels throughout the day, affecting cognition, not including any phytochemicals within the food that have a psychoactive effect. If you are dehydrated your cognition is affected, and can cause hallucinations. How much you exercise affects the levels of aggression hormones (Not just testosterone) in your body and blood. Meditation and deep prayer are proven to directly affect EEG, fMRI and other brain-metrics. Some gurus claim to be capable of reaching and maintaining psychedelic states by the force of thought alone. We are all on drugs.
That said, I am a firm believer in better living through chemistry. I have a chronic heart condition. I've been on beta blockers and calcium channel blockers since I was less than 6 months old, I only discontinued them because I now have a pacemaker/defibrillator, and the blockers were decreasing my energy levels, and I need all I can get. These drugs are proven to have effects on the brain, especially with long term use. I have had a rainbow of pain meds prescribed to me over the years, and can tell you that I completely understand why people get addicted to morphine, it feels GREAT, even if you are mid heart-attack. Since starting college I've consumed alcohol, THC in several different forms, as well as a few psychedelics. And let me tell you, alcohol is more dangerous than any other recreational chemical available today. Legally, I can walk down to the store, purchase a few big bottles of ethanol, chug them, and get behind the wheel of a car and kill whomever I bump into first. I can take that same ethanol, consume it with a handful of common prescription or over the counter drugs, and kill myself, with only a little mess, and a few minutes of absorption.
THC taught me that adults, or those in power, lie. They lie to accomplish specific goals, and further specific agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of anything but a few wallets/bank accounts. This has affected my life drastically, because I assume silent complicity in this lie of anyone who does not make a point to state otherwise. LSD and psilocybin taught me a hell of a lot more, and a lot that was very personally valuable, but this isn't the space to share those lessons. I won't be doing LSD again anytime soon though. Alan Watts said, of psychedelic experience 'Once you get the message, hang up the phone.'
Can you elaborate on this some? Do you mean that the effects of the drug itself caused you to have this realization, or that understanding the drug and what it does to people made you realize this?THC taught me that adults, or those in power, lie. They lie to accomplish specific goals, and further specific agendas that have nothing to do with the welfare of anything but a few wallets/bank accounts.
I think he means that he finds pot way less dangerous than alcohol, yet alcohol is legal due to factors like the alcohol lobby and giant companies spending money on political campaigns etc, and pot is illegal and there's a lot of government propaganda about how pot will ruin your life, etc. You're incredibly more likely to kill or seriously injure someone drunk than stoned.
OK this is largely how I interpreted the response as well, but I wanted to make sure. I've dabbled in a handful of drugs, and pot is still a part of my life, but I wanted to understand this perspective. It sounds relatable to me.
Both. After trying it for the first time, combined with my previous academic knowledge of its pharmacology, the racist/capitalist reasons it was originally made illegal, and the politidal forces (Private prison lobby) that are fighting to keep it illegal, I realized the latter. Subjectively, when under the influence, there are a lot of lessons learned.
I understand. I would describe my experiences similarly. I wanted to say that, while I think both are true, I've learned more simply by partaking in the drug, the culture, etc, than I have while high. That's not to say that I haven't had important and useful experiences or thoughts because of Marijuana.