[Illbay]

Thanks. I knew a lot of pot-heads in high school and college. The ones who outgrew it went on to good lives. The ones (my sister included) who never could, were and are losers to this day--those who are still alive.

This stuff is monstrous, and those who try to belittle efforts to curb its use and to continue criminal penalties for dealing it are ostriches.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"This guy was apparently pretty weak and not as intelligent as you make out."

"Pretty weak", OK, well, it is a character flaw that he can't hold his pot.(He never has touched another drug that I know of and he is a small guy that has been physically abused by other street people that make him crawl and beat him up for pot they give him.) Should he have been toughened up to be a real man so he take his pot with out breaking down and ruining his life?

Intelligence probably has nothing to do with it, because he had a genetic predispostition to marijuana's "anti-motivational syndrome". He started smoking when everyone said it was harmless and now we know some people DO REACT POORLY TO MARIJUANA - it's a fact.

[BeAllYouCanBe]

"This stuff is monstrous.."

The thing that I've heard is that the stuff sold on the street is 400-500 times more powerful than the pot of the early 1970's. It is a genetically designed drug that does affect some people disastrously and leads to poor brain functioning especially in teenagers.(My wife is a high school teacher.)

I've seen people who seem not to be affected by marijuana BUT I have also seen kids in high school who fall into the drug scene very quickly after their first exposure to marijuana.

[A. Pole]

Thanks. I knew a lot of pot-heads in high school and college. The ones who outgrew it went on to good lives. The ones (my sister included) who never could, were and are losers to this day--those who are still alive.

This is tricky since it might be that losers might smoke pot to comfort themselves. Same way as with alcohol. I know one guy who started to drink AFTER his wife left him. Maybe people with good lives need pot less?

[bluefish]

Thanks. I knew a lot of pot-heads in high school and college. The ones who outgrew it went on to good lives. The ones (my sister included) who never could, were and are losers to this day--those who are still alive.

This stuff is monstrous, and those who try to belittle efforts to curb its use and to continue criminal penalties for dealing it are ostriches.

If so monstrous and controlling, how did some of them outgrow it? I would contend that those who didn't, probably would have been screwed up with or without the pot. Everybody has anecdotes. I had about 10 people working for me in my division. The most productive, hardworking and dependable one of them smoked a lot of pot. I had to fire two people because of problems with alcohol that were affecting their work performance.

In all of the cases, it was the people, not the substance, that caused their success or failure. You may find it easy to focus on the plant, because that is the simple way to look at it. However, you fail to even recognize your own contradictory examples (i.e. the people you knew in high school that "outgrew" pot).

You ignore the examples of people who lead productive lives while smoking pot and simply counter with stories of people who destroyed their lives with it. You can't reconcile the examples you are ignoring, so you simply engage in the counter example game. Your counter-examples in no way proves anything. It certainly doesn't refute or disprove the stories offered by others that are evidence against your draconian belief regarding pot.

The ancecdotes provided by others offer proof that it is possible to lead a productive life and smoke pot. If that is the case, then your belief that it is the pot in and of itself that causes problems, and that it will cause problems for anybody who smokes it, has been refuted.

Now, how about countering my thoughts by calling me a pothead or a druggie? I will save you the trouble, I don't smoke it. I tried it a few times more than a decade ago and didn't really care that much for it. I don't drink either, so legalizing pot isn't going to change my personal opinion of it. If I had to choose between the two? I'd take the pot. If I had to choose between one or the other with regards to its legality based on how I believe it would impact society, I would choose pot.