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Intoxicant: Cannabis


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Intoxication is Only for Self-Sufficient Adults

If you are under the age of 18 (21 in some temperaments), you should absolutely not be smoking or drinking or injecting or swallowing anything psychoactive. I am sympathetic to the desire of existential beings to alter their consciousness (in the parlance of our times, I know the people wanna get fucked up), but it is very important that you save it until you’re older.

Please, I am dead serious about this. Your mind is still developing, and I’m not giving you a load of anti-drug propaganda. Stay up all night, dance like a maniac, make out with people (I mean a lot of people, not just one), gamble with your parent’s money–just don’t use drugs. Even nicotine and alcohol can permanently modify your maturing brain chemistry, and you can give yourself a bad case of ADD with too much caffeine and high-fructose corn syrup. It is ultrareasonable to not use any recreational drug for the entirety of your adolescence and much of your adult life. Take it slow. Remember, there’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called “college.” You’ll thank yourself later.

Of course it should go without saying, that regardless of age or experience, you should absolutely never operate heavy machinery or care for children under the influence of any drug, which includes alcohol and some prescription medications. Also, anyone involved with drug law enforcement or extreme drug intolerance is legally required to stop reading this document now.

On to the reasonable intoxicant.


Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; the best of life is but intoxication.
– Lord Byron

Today, you went in to work at 7am because you wanted to go home at 3pm, but then everything went wrong and you want to throttle your co-worker for “accidentally” ruining hours of your hard work, and by the time you got home it was already 8pm. A sandwich for dinner, only a few hours before bedtime. You don’t always feel this way, but tonight you want to get a little messed, maybe invite your neighbor over to watch a movie or play a game.

Occasional moderate intoxication is reasonable for most people, though it’s definitely not for everyone. The most reasonable intoxicant is marijuana, a ferocious weed whose buds happen to contain a high concentration of psychoactive cannabinoids. Marijuana is widely used (4% worldwide, 20% in the U.S. annually), it’s not addictive, and it won’t kill you–there are no discernible long-term health effects from casual use. You won’t become violent, it doesn’t interact negatively with either prescription or recreational drugs, and there is no toxic dose. At worst you’ll pass out or mumble something really really really stupid. Under the influence of marijuana, you can expect mood elevation, aphasia, laziness, and the munchies. If you overdo it–which, well, sometimes you will–you’ll have a little harder time waking up tomorrow, and you’ll definitely need some caffeine before lunch.

Marijuana is not actually a completely harmless panacea, though compared to other intoxicants, it’s pretty close. Some people will find it unreasonable for a few reasons. First, it’s usually smoked, and smoking anything regularly is not healthy, and this includes marijuana. If you’re allergic to smoke, you can use a vaporizer, or make it into a tea, or bake some brownies. If you’re really worried about it, you should ask your doctor about the health effects of occasional marijuana smoking; she’ll probably laugh.

Second and most unreasonably, cannabis is prohibited in many countries, including the U.S., which makes it more difficult to procure than alcohol (though not by much), and prevents the government from collecting any taxes on it. Simple possession is being decriminalized in many places (Seattle, Denver, Canada, Belgium, the U.K., to name a few), but unfortunately the penalties for selling marijuana are still outrageous and unreasonable, and therefore no reasonable vendor exists on the web. I’ve linked to some other items that you may find interesting, either in lieu of or in conjunction with any weed you may somehow procure. It is quite reasonable to support local legislation (NORML subscription, $35) that stops the incarceration of responsible citizens for growing and selling a harmless plant.

Finally, you can use any intoxicant too much. Always take care to tend to your soul:

The truth is marijuana probably isn’t gonna make you kill people, and… it most likely isn’t gonna fund terrorism, but… Well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored and… It’s when you’re bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or… being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren’t good at anything.

Ethyl alcohol, also known as beer, gets an honorable mention for being ubiquitous and legal in most countries. However, too much alcohol can lead to the emergency room or even death, and an alcohol hangover is basically your internal organs getting together in your brain for a little afterparty and barfing all over the place. Also, an equivalent amount of intoxication with alcohol is usually several times more expensive than marijuana. So despite alcohol’s legality and availability, marijuana is still a more reasonable intoxicant.

One Response to “Intoxicant: Cannabis”

  1. on 01 Jul 2009 at 6:10 pmVapor brother vaporizer

    marijuana is safer to use than cigarette smoking. we can take components that our body needs in our everyday lives. Marijuana contains anti-cancer that helps us to fight those kinds of diseases. And that it can also use for some other diseases.

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