DRUGS!

I smoked some pot once. I recall it being fun (and Fleetwood Mac sounding totally awesome.)I've always been interested in trying psychedelics, particularly in the experience of synesthesia, but I never have.I guess the deal is - I'm not that interested in drugs, I don't really get hooked on them (I can't even maintain a caffeine addiction), and I don't know anybody who uses them so I can't get access to them safely.I guess if they were legal I'd keep some pot around just for the occasional weekend, but the risks (like, getting shot by reprobates in the parts of town where drugs are sold) have always kept me far away.

Do they actually taste like mushrooms? That would be the deal-killer for me. Unless you could roast and stuff them like a big portabella, which would make for some very interesting dining.

If I can take an aspirin for a headache, or even Celexa for depression*, why can't I take medication for boredom? Or for "not-pleasure"?Why is "wanting to get high" any less of a legitimate medical disorder than, say, "social anxiety" or "restless leg syndrome"? Or pain? (Actually pain is a really hard condition to get doctors to medicate, as it turns out.)*keep in mind that, while it's understood that actual clinical depression is a physiological condition, there's absolutely no definitive diagnosis of depression. I was prescribed, and took, Celexa for months, based on the fact that I had a few of the symptoms of depression - but I wasn't physiologically depressed, I just hated my classes. When I dropped out the "symptoms" disappeared.They hand out drugs like candy for "feeling blue", or for "feeling anxious", or for "feeling ants crawling inside my legs." I don't understand why you think it's inherently illegitimate to medicate feelings of boredom or "not-yet-high-enough."

Really? Eat much sugar? Drink coffee, ever?Explain to me the difference.

Neither is depression. Depression is a psychological condition, which is why psychiatrists are the ones who prescribe for it.There's no diagnostic test for depression - or rather, the only test is "prescribe SSRI's and see if it goes away." Says you. If it's an undesired state interfering with normal functioning - you know, like hunger can be: "OMG I'm so hungry I can't even think!" - then clearly it's a condition that reasonable adults should have the option to have "treated." Especially when we're talking about drugs that are completely natural and non-toxic, like cannabis. I'm sure your husband can tell you what thoughts of aggression, violence, and rage constitute. It's enough of a disorder that when a person has those feelings a lot, we mandate treatment for them. C'mon. "Restless leg syndrome" shortens people's lives? Nobody's literally ever been anxious to death, either. And the vast majority of people with depression don't kill themselves; clearly you're very accepting of medications to treat a number of quasi-conditions - yet, you're dubious of the idea of taking drugs for pleasure, unless it's a certain narrow list of "ok" drugs, like caffeine and alcohol - both of which are thousands of times more dangerous and deadly than, say, marijuana - upon which it is impossible to overdose. There was nothing hasty about it. I saw several mental health professionals and consulted our family's doctor, who had known me since birth. They all agreed that I should start taking Celexa - because taking the drug is the only diagnostic test for depression. And it isn't even a reliable diagnostic. Plenty of people with "real" depression don't respond to SSRI's - because they don't really know how they work. Why? Because you have a moral objection to pharmacology? If a remedy is cheap, effective, and has limited side effects, from what basis would you deny someone "the easy way" to treat an undesirable condition? Your own moral belief that suffering makes us better people? Makes our lives meaningful?Why do you let people medicate themselves with caffeine? Surely being tired from not getting enough sleep isn't a "disorder", either? But you don't have a problem with that use of psychoactive drugs, do you?

A position you no doubt consider yourself to hold. How blessed are we that you would deign to shine the light of your sun down upon us lowly, benighted savages!

But you do have some, which makes you as immoral as the rest of us, I guess. (As if we didn't already know that.) "I'm right because I say I'm right." Who knew that the pinnacle of human reasoning was indistinguishable from second-grade playground antics?

At your age, it does.

No, in your case it's definitely something else. Only you can tell us why the reasoning you're displaying in these posts is so impaired.

No, it's your double standard. You're the one who's talking about how immoral it is to make changes to your brain chemistry, but every time you eat a meal, that's exactly what you're doing.Of course, you've moved the goalposts - now it's "impaired reason", and the only person who gets to determine if reason is impaired is you. This, after you proclaimed yourself the pinnacle of human thought.Uh-huh.

That's not what I'm doing. I'm telling you that you accept medication for a whole host of non-medical conditions already, and pointing out that it's just puritanism to disallow people to take drugs for entertainment when you're already letting them take drugs for slight headaches, bumps and bruises, and "restless leg syndrome".Boredom is just an example, and it's not inherently less of a legitimate problem than feeling blue. I appreciate that, and I don't mean to write stuff that may be triggers. Surely you recognize that there's a whole host of negative feelings that the psychiatric community recognizes as worthy of concern; there's no reason "wanting to get high" or whatever motivation you'd like to put behind the reason people take drugs for pleasure, and I'm including alcohol and caffeine use in that. The only people having a hard time sleeping with "restless leg syndrome" are the people on TV.Look, you've got no problem with people taking drugs to relax, because you see the importance of sleep. So why the problem with people taking drugs to stimulate themselves? Surely you recognize stimulation as equally important as sleep, right? We can't be asleep all our lives. Maybe we're talking about debilitating boredom, too. Don't people have a right to experience pleasure without being set on the same level as murderers, abusers, and rapists? When I described people who want to get high, you countered with people who want to hurt other people. But isn't it obvious that's a false comparison? People don't hurt other people on pot, they sit around and giggle and listen to Fleetwood Mac. It's a fun communal activity - at worst, it's a "victimless crime." Those people are guilty of nothing but experiencing pleasure. Why is pleasure an inherently suspect goal? Based on the LD50, yeah. Marijuana's LD50 is so high - meaning it takes so high a dosage to be toxic - that it's nearly impossible to measure. It approaches the LD50 of most foodstuffs.Another way to measure drug toxicity is by comparing the effective dose versus the lethal dose. For alcohol, the lethal dose is about ten times the effective dose. For THC, the lethal dose is more than a thousand times the effective dose - just a little safer than LSD.There are zero known cases of death from marijuana toxicity; of course, hundreds die annually from acute alcohol poisoning. It's far, far safer than alcohol. I don't think it should just be legalized; I think it should be embraced. I think we should get over our collective scorn of people who smoke a little pot - especially since nearly everyone has done it at one time - and recognize how many people are drugging themselves every morning with coffee and drugging themselves every night with their dinner wine.They're all drugs, taken for pleasure. I don't see why we need to harsh on people. Sometimes there is a quick fix. I'm not saying that drugs are the answer, or that they're that quick fix. But sometimes there's a direct solution to a problem that we're taught by society to eschew.This isn't meant as a refutation, I'm just sharing my philosophy as you shared yours. Obviously, a lot of quick fixes just cause more problems. But sometimes a philosophy of self-denial is its own problem, too. I think that's a little iffy. Symptoms of caffeine withdrawal are known to include grogginess and lagging concentration, but I'd agree that the symptoms are mild compared to, say, heavy alcohol intoxication. I couldn't tell you about pot but I didn't have any trouble driving home under it's influence (at 3 am in the nearly-deserted streets of my hometown.)

I've often suspected a connection between my general nonreceptivity to religion and my general apathy towards drugs.

Active ingredients, Buz. Not "made-up hippie-granola bullshit" ingredients.