Empirical evidence suggests that marijuana makes your Fritos brand corn chips mysteriously disappear.
Also, it can make chocolate pudding seem like an appropriate topping for nearly any snack item.
That's just what I am told, of course. Additional funding necessary for further research. Make grant check payable to "cash".
Why is pot villified so? I believe the main reason is the plain fact that keeping it illegal makes a lot of money for a lot of people; justification for illegality requires bullshit science since anyone who's seen both in action knows it's far less dangerous and damaging than alcohol. If it were legal, there'd be no way to control it for profit; folks could all too easily grow their own, and the millions generated by the burgeoning prison population would be lost. Alcohol and tobacco remain legal as neither are likely to be generated privately on any scale and hence can remain profitable. Given the dramatic relief cannabis can offer countless cancer patients as well as others who suffer a range of debilitating illnesses, keeping this benign plant out of their reach is an obscenity.
Neither side of the debate has a monopoly on hyperbole.
It's illegal because it is easy for anyone to grow almost anywhere, therefore corporations can't make a profit out of it, and the government can't tax it. It's also illegal because it would give the poor man and the black man money. Gotta keep the shirtless undesirables down. /tinfoil hat
It was originally made illegal in the US due to the lobbying by the wood chip industry, whose products are inferior to hemp (which is probably one of the most useful natural products available to man, it provides unsurpassed fibre, oil and animal feed, etc, not to mention the medical benefits) and who wanted to suppress hemp growing for these reasons in favour of their own industry. Hemp has been a mainstay of human technology for thousands of years. Blaming moral decay on 'reefer madness' and the godless effects of damnable wog hemp was a suitable propaganda tool to use in this campaign. Replacing wood chip industry with hemp would be vastly more environmentally friendly and produce superior products.
Also, pot makes you thoughtful, most of the time. Unlike alcohol, which makes you as dumb as an ape, marijuana has been associated with art & technological advance since the dawn of human civilization. My own theory is that cannabis is a symbiote with humans, which I've detailed elsewhere. THC only really works on the primate brain, and the plant makes itself desirable to human beings by these effects, which is beneficial to the plant's survival as humans spread the seed and grow it deliberately. It's interesting to note that early human societies that used cannabis for various things were the same groups that developed agriculture, the wheel, animal husbandry, urban dwelling and other high cultural pursuits. Cultures that did not have access to cannabis did not develop these advances.
You were high when you came up with that, weren't you?
If everyone could grow their own, how would letting everyone grow their own give the poor man and the black man money?
Also, pot makes you thoughtful, most of the time.
While I can't say with 100% certainty that this is 100% false for everybody, I can say with absolute certainty from personal opservation that it is not 100% true for everybody, either. Nowhere near.
All it did for me, if anything at all, was put me right to sleep.
"how would letting everyone grow their own give the poor man and the black man money?"
Because not everyone has the space or ability to grow it. The poor could easily earn money growing pot for those who didn't have the space, lived in apts, etc.
I labeled that /tinfoil hat for a reason: tongue in cheek.
But it is true that corporations and capitalist society in general is not in favour of allowing Joe Blogs to make money easily without cutting them in, in some way.
I am completely in favor of making marijuana legal.
However, I completely disagree with the economic argument as presented here. If it became legal, just watch how much money corportate America would make off it. Bud Buds would generate billions per year. People can make their own alcohol and grow their own tobacco. They don't. People grab what is convenient. It would be no different with marijuana. People would buy the pre-packaged corporate product.
I think your blame of corporations and capitalist society are misguided. Corporations don't care if someone else is makig a buck, they only care how many bucks *they* are making. In fact, corporations making/selling hydroponic lamps and supplies, fertilizers, bongs, pipes, and snack foods would all love to see pot decriminalized or legalized.
Pot is illegal because it makes people less likely to be mindless sheep and thus less easy to coerce and control. Religions hate it because it makes people think *their own* deep philosophical and spiritual thoughts and question the answers they've been fed. Employers hate it because it makes workers less productive. Insurers hate it because it makes people careless and more prone to injury. (Those last two apply to alcohol as well)
Not to mention, there'd be an attraction through corporate quality-control. You'd know exactly what you're getting with Bud Buds.
(In response to bernockle.)
Corporations have a long history of blocking competition. It is not legal for people to grow their own tobacco in many places, for instance, or there are heavy restrictions. Home brewing is not that good of an example either because, as those who have tried it know, it requires a great deal of trouble and equipment. Marijuana, you just throw seeds in the ground.
Corporations have spent untold millions in quashing small time competitors. I'm surprised anyone doesn't think this is the case. The example I gave of the wood chip industry lobbying for hemp to be made illegal is true.
Few would readily buy Budweiser Buds when Fred down the road would give them a garbage bag full of the stuff for a couple of twenties. I wouldn't. And the government can't tax something that is so easy to grow and hard to keep track of. They might be able to prevent you growing more than three plants in your yard, but not growing more at some other secret location. Cannabis grows wild without any effort at all. It is not like alcohol or tobacco which require stringent controls, equipment & conditions, which limit their feasibility on small scale.
On a final note, though cannabis has variable effects on people, artists have long sworn by it as a creative aid. For another example of someone in a different field who praised its positive mental effects, see Carl Sagan.
You don't need to convince me...I love the stuff.
I have no doubt that the wood chip industry lobbied against hemp, but most of what I've read and heard about the original criminalization of marijuana points more to baseless fears of reefer madness. I've also read that it had much to do with pot's status as drug of choice within the 'black community' and rumours that white women were socializing with blacks in order to get access to it. In that day and age, that was all it took to have it permanently blacklisted.
you just throw seeds in the ground.
But Teh Bibhul says that's verboten!
"Pot is illegal because it makes people less likely to be mindless sheep and thus less easy to coerce and control. "
Is this tongue-in-cheek?
Not really...in particular I was thinking of the army's stance on Pot during Vietnam because soldiers weren't following orders when they were high and were becoming pacifists. I think pot *can* make one question authority, if you do more with the effects than watch SpongeBob.
I thought that Pot did much to eliminate the questioning of authority, until the regime was overthrown in '79.
What?
...damn Random capitalization...
Not following orders because you're high doesn't seem to me the same thing as not following orders beceause you don't believe your CO has the moral right to give them.
It's interesting to note that early human societies that used cannabis for various things were the same groups that developed agriculture, the wheel, animal husbandry, urban dwelling and other high cultural pursuits. Cultures that did not have access to cannabis did not develop these advances.Hank, as much as I agree with you (and always have and always will) on the harmlessness and benefits of pot I have to point out a flaw in this path of thought: agriculture originates from fertile areas where plants grow. Cultivation of plants goes hand in hand with agriculture. The massive resource investment of agriculture (and yield) requires sedentism for cultivation, harvest, conflict resolution (by way of land ownership) and storage of surplus. Animal domestication is heavily reliant in many areas on hand feeding (esp. for non-grazing species, such as pig and chicken) and thus reliant on agricultural surplus. Agriculture gives the benefit of massive (albeit risky) yields of food and can benefit a much larger group than simple or complex hunter-gatherers, leading to much larger civilizations which spread out to reduce chances of collapse by crop failure (i.e. adaptive based trade relations) and often the arable lands were found in specific and restricted areas (such as the Levant, Huang Ho basin and Fertile Crescent) which caused higher population densities. As for the wheel, the need for such a device is completely lacking in highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers who have an incredibly small tool-kit and have other means of burden such as dogs (which are a pre-agricultural domesticate) and possibly hand sleds or travois. The usefulness of a wheel comes into play when large amounts of relatively inexpensive goods (such as grain) need to be transported - the need of which is usually a result of agricultural complexity. Agriculture is actually somewhat maladaptive: you tend to invest more energy into production than you are returned. This might explain why during the Mesolithic Linear Bandkeramik groups along the Danube practiced agriculture while hunter-gatherer groups which they traded with in the uplands area away from the river co-existed with them without the desire to adopt the same technology. The cultivation or use of marijuana leading to agriculture is sort of affirming the consequent when there are much more readily plausible reasons why agriculture arose rather than pipe dreaming.
It's a dangerous assertion to state that marijuana is a catalyst for human action. It's equally dangerous to look at technology or craft specialization (aka "high culture" - also a by-product of agriculture by way of sedentism) as a boon to all cultures, because frankly it isn't. Face it, we're opportunists - what works for some in certain circumstances just doesn't cut it for others.
Not to say that the sticky-icky doesn't inspire me to be creative.
These guys have quite a flourishing business over here. Somebody's growing more than just tomato plants in their back room.
Marijuana, you just throw seeds in the ground.
Err...you can do a lot more than that to manipulate the THC levels to get a more marketable plant.
I'm not saying it is the sole factor, InsolentChimp, I'm saying it is *perhaps* a contributing factor. Little research has been done into the influence of neurologic-stimulating chemicals on the rapid development of the human brain in prehistory, and the surge in size of that organ is unprecedented in time scale among mammals. There are really huge gaps in the science where early man leaps from hunter-gatherer to suddenly sedentary, technologically exploding groups all around the fertile crescent & up into central asia almost all at once. I'm not saying THC is the sole influence, or even a definite contributor, I'm just musing on how the cannabis plant seems to have pitched itself at the primate brain chemistry in particular, and how this plant has been favored by some cultures over others, and the differences between those cultures and others that didn't have that resource.
There are really huge gaps in the science where early man leaps from hunter-gatherer to suddenly sedentary, technologically exploding groups all around the fertile crescent & up into central asia almost all at once.
The gaps aren't as massive as you might think.
Take for example Pueblo cultures where seasonal occupations are suggested for certain sites due to low yield seasons. In some of these sites, those who did not own the land returned to h-g lifestyles when the land could not yield enough to sustain a large population.
Complex h-gs are the link between egalitarian h-gs and sedentary societies. Many people see this as black and white due to the terms "egalitarian" and "hierarchical". The problem is that these are just labels for ease of use when comparing apples and oranges. The truth is that all cultural change is a gradient of color, which may have a different frequency depending upon the ecological niche it has to fill.
For example: at Jericho, a Natufian base camp was established due to the location of an oasis. As time passed the same regularly used location became the site of a Neolithic village which subsisted on agriculture from the floodplain. The choice for sedentism here was likely influenced by its proximity to water for growing and its location as a trade hub which it was used for during the Natufian period.
There are many exceptions to the marijuana influence rule, as well. Tonga, for example, had no psychoactive plant use, but developed into large, agricultural Cheifly polities which were eventually united into a kingdom. Their knowledge of seafaring since the time of colonization might shame navies of today considering the technological limitations at the time.
South and Central American tribes like the Waika had many psychoactive plants at their disposal and many of them didn't even bother with agriculture.
Further, the Maya, an agricultural civilization within that region of the globe, had dense populations, advanced mathematics and knowledge of the wheel yet collapsed, possibly due to population pressures. Their poison was chocolate, which was associated with the god of fertility.
Tobacco was considered a psychoactive plant by Native Americans, who also practiced domestication and temporary sedentism in many areas. Tobacco may actually be linked to the onset of agriculture in North America. Tobacco, of course, no one will defend today because of the detrimental effects shown by medical studies.
Associating a single psychotropic plant to agriculture and "progress" is a bit of cherry picking. While it certainly may be that the desire for specific plants (especially the cultivation of psychoactives) caused agriculture, which then led to other agriculturally influenced phenomena, marijuana may have played a role only in one part of the world, the biggest part of the human world when considering raw numbers of non-isolated and diverse populations - Eurasia. That's why you might see a disproportionate role. As an anthrophillic plant it could easily be one of the earliest cultivars, but that's just favorable odds, luck and opportunism, what followed with its use was likely more of the same.
But I can agree that agriculture may have originated from the pursuit of cultivating pleasurable plants just as equally that it may have originated from economic competition at the complex h-g level. Maybe a bit of both. Just like this post was part masturbation and part agreeing with you while harping on the specifics of exactly where I agree.
I do find the "high cultural pursuits" joke hilarious tho'.
Oh, noez!! But it's the gateway drug!
Crap, but I get tired of the righteous idiots.
I don't think you're getting what I'm saying, Insolent. I'm not talking about it being an influence on agriculture in a direct sense. I'm talking about the THC molecule being an influence on human brain evolution.
It was my understanding that the Maya and other MesoAmerican peoples did not use the wheel (although pottery & other objects show they understood it).
Well, that's kind of moot when we're talking about the capacity to understand technology, which was my reason for mentioning.
I don't understand why you're talking about evolutionary brain development and the "gap" between h-g's and agriculture in the same thought because the former happened long before the latter. The rift btw. h-g's and hierarchies begins and ends in the last 5% of the time depth of this current species but in the last 25% of the same measure we're solidly evidenced to be cognitvely similar. Human evolution to modern H. sapiens either spread out from an area which did not have cannabis or evolved in separate areas of the Old World. Cannabis developed in Asia and likely spread by human interaction because of its anthrophillic nature.
No evidence for cannabis in Africa at the time of these evolutionary stages would mean that H. erectus (the only potential cannabinoid carrier at the time) would not have migrated from Asia back into Africa, meaning that the H. sapiens that did evolve into modern H. sapiens in Africa have "uncannabinized" brains (or whatever you like) and "stunted" by their lack of potential for technology (should "cannabinized" brains beget technological marvel).
Walking this line follows old cultural evolutionary theory which was founded on patently racist sentiments that underscored the zeitgeist. I'm not calling you a racist, by any means, I'm just pointing out the potential danger. Besides, we know that modern H. sapiens in Africa developed "civilized" cultures by the evidence found at Greater Zimbabwe which exhibited sedentism, hierarchical structures, domestication and sculpture. Although, of course, similar to the Moundbuilders, many people would like to discredit indigenous Africans with the development of such culture (esp. the British who tried to maintain occupation and land claim by right of "superior intellect" over the "dumb, uncivilized savages" of what was then called Rhodesia). The human DNA evidence does not support admixture from outside of Africa.
All this political bullshit aside, evolution needs to have selection in order to occur and the presence of an anthrophillic plant doesn't seem to have an adaptive advantage, unless its presence frightened predators which selected for the mutants which were more creative (maybe it kept aggressors peaceful due to good feelings during forest fires?). Even then, there's no reason that it shouldn't perpetuate a less creative or stupider breed instead by the same mechanisms. As far as I know, pot isn't a mutagen. Of course, our understanding of evolution may be flawed.
But I have to apologize for all of these posts. I believe I've been thread-jacking mostly as a knee-jerk reaction to what I saw as potential for misrepresentation of the archaeological record for agenda. I fear and loathe the potential for information to be used for justifications of activity. It's been the justification for WWII, genocide, theft, rape, goddess cults, wicca, biblical "reality", antiquity looting (aka collecting), UFO's (I already forgive you this one) and all manner of grand things under the sun. Personally, I think all action should stand on its own merit: if you want to smoke pot, do it - not because it's your ancestral symbiote, but because you want to get high or hungry or relief from bulgy eyes. If you want a goddess cult, go nuts, they might make you feel good or empower you, but don't forge fiction from the armchair that you will assert as fact and tarnish the heritage that we all share with misrepresentations, obfuscations or flat-out inventions.
Hank, I know what I just described isn't what you were doing. I know you were simply musing, but again, this is why I apologize. I really am a pedantic asshole.
No, I'm sorry, you used the word 'zeitgeist' which means I'm going to completely ignore what you said. :p
MonkeyFilter: Part masturbation and part agreeing with you
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