Christmas decorations around Liberty Plaza. I assume unintentional
California recently voted down a move to legalize marijuana. Which is a shame. As I heard in this linked biography, all cultures adopt some psychoactive plant and reject others. In Sri Lanka the ruling political party runs under the symbol of the narcotic betel leaf. We, however, seize and arrest people for possessing marijuana. Drug policy is obviously not designed rationally. A recent Lancet study reported that alcohol is by far the most harmful drug (socially and personally), but it is also the most widely used and accepted. As the study’s co-author said, “What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science.” Indeed drug policy is often cultural. In the right social context, a dangerous drug like alcohol can be managed. What many people don’t like to think is that this type of managed intoxication may be possible with other substances as well.
Above is a fascinating documentary (part 1) called the Botany Of Desire. In it, a range of scientists concur that people are ‘born with an innate drive to experience other states of consciousness’ (Dr. Andrew Weil). As kids we are generally mad in the first place, but as adults we have to take steps to achieve these states. Yet, for some reason or another, these states are important. Personally, I think it’s adaptive to stretch your mind because you never know when a hostile environment will require you to think differently to survive. But it is a somewhat innate human trait.
The trouble is, children will kill themselves trying new things, as will adults. Parents, school and society eventually hammer that craziness out of kids and it’s allowed expression in a few culturally accepted ways. You can, for example, drink at most western(ized) weddings. At traditional Sinhala weddings you’ll give betel leaves. You can experience a few prescribed altered states depending on the culture you’re in. Just as we take children to the park to run wild, adults can go to bars. Similarly, just as we tell kids not to run with scissors, we tell adults not to drink and drive. Our cultures have evolved ways to compartmentalize this human desire in certain ways. But this particular set of highs and hows is not necessarily the best.
Marijuana is one glaring example. It’s really not that bad for you. It can actually be good. Local ayurvedic doctors have been using it in medical preparations for hundreds if not thousands of years. The Manna King of Rajagiriya has written as much to the President. Marijuana also has vague cultural acceptance with a popular and funny presence in both western and eastern film. As two examples, consider Half-Baked with a cameo by Jon Stewart and the Hindi Don remake wherein Shah Rukh Khan goes on an extended bhang binge. Marijuana is one plant which is struggling to find its place in the broader cultural consciousness, such that it becomes a state approved playground for the mind. Though the California measure has failed, I hope that other measures to bring this plant within the fold succeed.
I don’t think the desire to experience altered states can be denied. That just creates its expression in other, often more dangerous, ways. For example, in response to government bans, some people are actually manufacturing new drugs. Cultures can, however, control and regulate this desire, as they long have unconsciously. The rub is how to consciously make a drug policy that makes sense.
See what you went and did Indi, I never had any desire to experiment until reading this! : )
From what I’ve heard, it’s easy to go from one addiction to another, ie. addictions are addictive. So if marijuana is even slightly more addictive than tobacco or alcohol, I’d rather let it remain a controlled substance.
Basically your body get addicted to the active ingredient in the substance, so there is no real switching from one to another drug one you’re kooked.
have fun
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/drugs/mouse.html
Marijuana is not physically addicting. Certainly nothing like nicotine
They say that before the Brits introduced tobacco, Sri Lankans used to chew betel leaves with marijuana.
: ) I could get addicted to these little gems you post. I’m having second thoughts about experimenting now. Even if a little marijuana (is that what they call grass?) just once wasn’t harmful or addictive, I wouldn’t want to be seen acting like those mice.
What I’d heard was a behavioural thing I think, not chemical, that addictions were habit forming.
If it’s the same thng they call ‘abing’ in Sinhala, it was also used to flavour food and widely used in native medicine. I heard of someone having cancer in the mouth being given a poultice of this stuff to be placed on a nerve at the temples to ease the pain.
“In Sri Lanka the ruling political party runs under the symbol of the narcotic betel leaf”
Its amazing how you sneak in your own political bias with false claims in even such an unrelated post.
I ain’t no botanist nor a chemist, but I don’t think what your saying is true. I don’t think the betel leaf is a narcotic, at least the chemical components don’t seem to suggest that it is.(even though the nut and tobacco is considered by the so called “western society” to be so.) If anything, its supposedly an antiseptic, at least that’s what the so called “western science” says about it.
refer this page -http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1973-01-01_2_page008.html
I also find it rather interesting that the study that you mention, happen to turn up at such a decisive moment where they want to legalize the use of marijuana. Statistics is just glorified guesswork, and is often manipulated according to the needs and wants of society (not the general society but the ruling one)
“Statistics is just glorified guesswork, and is often manipulated according to the needs and wants of society (not the general society but the ruling one)”
That is fucking bullshit on so many level.
I read about some study that found alcohol to be more harmful than marijuana. I’ll post a link if I find it.
Oops. Indi has written about it.
abing=unrefined opium
poppy resin->opium->morphine->heroin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium
Oh, thanks.
@The way of the Dodo –
And what levels might that be? Statistics IS bull shit. Maybe you know more about statistics more than I do…if so, enlighten me oh great and noble one.
Nah, i’d rather let you revel in your stupidity.
obviously.
Hey don’t cry for Californians! As you may know medical Marijuana is still legal and I know a plenty who carry the card!
But I like the Xmas deco
O.M.G. All Hail The Frock of Amazingness! Amor, you look simply SPECTACULAR in that incredible frock! It is so perfect in its simplicity and divine detail and the COLOUR is AMAZING on you. I agree – Curtise is THE BEST! Sarah xxx
"diceva hegel (vado a memoria) che la differenza tra orientali e occidentali è che i primi sono liberi ma non lo sanno, i secondi invece si."aggiungerei, liberi di essere Dio e creare la vita seguendo il progetto di tutta la vita stessa, senza paure, sapendo ognuno di fare la parte che gli compete, in un disegno perfetto.e la guida di tutto e' l'amore, che ci porta a creare una cosa piuttosto che un'altra. dove si riceve piu' amore, li' si crea.indopama