Don't we all?

i don't even remember how we got home. after Gravel lit that blunt, it all just gets swimmy.

He does have a point. Other than their addictive potential (of which many have said tobacco is the worst) drugs are bad mainly from their being cut with noxious things. Making them a criminal offense just clutters up jails. Don't we have enough people in jails already?

I like this guy. He needs to teach Congressional classes on growing balls. ;)

lol. He has my vote.

Give 'em Hell, Gravel!

Since you are the Unapologetic Mexican, you might appreciate this tidbit:

The Spanish started regulating the Mexican pulque trade in the 1580s, not because the locals were getting shit-faced on booze (and pulque is pretty low alcohol) but because they were adding "secret herbs and spices" to the recipe. Their thinking... and ours... seems to be "my way of getting trashed is normal and proper. YOUR way is bad."

jaja!....ah. humans.

That sounds like a very fun trip...to bad mj makes me paranoid!

Not just a public health problem, a social problem. Legalize the drugs, then you have to face the question, What makes all these people SOOOO unhappy?

And totally off topic, do you take book recommendations/ I just found this one tonight, not like I've read it. Yet. But it looks real good, specially if you like movies. Or postcards. William Anthony Nericcio. 2007. Tex[t]-Mex. Austin: University of Texas Press. Bill describes the book in the first chapter, as "this book-length peripatetic (sorry, he said it) sampling of defamatory "Mexican"/Latina/o portraitures," and he explains that the book grew out of "a vendetta I had for an animated Mexican mouse by the name of Speedy Gonzales."

And it talks about and shows Rita Hayworth a lot, and watching her movies fascinates me, trying to think her Mexicaness through and against those extravagant productions and the racial order of southern California.

at least you had the good grace to be ashamed of "peripatetic."

and i'm not sure all people who alter their consciousness necessarily do it because they are "unhappy." might be an oversimplified view. but what do i know?

and...do i take book recommends for what? to read? sure. suggestion noted. thanks!

pat, sure, some drugs become dangerous because dealer see fit to step on the purity and up the profit, but i think either way, i see "drugs" as neutral, pretty much. like a rock. sure, it can break bones, and even kill a person. but does it have to? or does that happen when a muderous person gets a hold of one?

some drugs have very negative consequences (i think of perhaps alcohol, which kills over 100,000 people a year, or tobacco, which kills over 400,000 people a year) but then gravel talks about lighting up a doobie, and well—i'll quote an older post I wrote:

[Marijuana] promotes brain cell growth (neurogenesis), inhibits cancer cell growth, decreases the occurrence of "neuronal cell death" associated with Alzheimers as well as tumor growth.

And yet, since 1937 (?) or so, this plant has been classified as a Schedule 1 Narcotic...right along with Heroin! Part of the criteria for a drug to be a Schedule 1 drug is for it to have "no medicinal value"...yet Marijuana has already been legalized in various 11? states for its medicinal properties (a few listed and linked above). And right...about...there is where the logic of a "war against drugs" completely falls apart for me. It is not a War on Drugs. It is a class war and a race war by another name.

What is the discussion really about when America talks "drugs"? Because it seems to me that many, many, people in America—between aspirin, caffeine, pain reliever, Zoloft, Prozac, Codiene, Albuteral, Ritalin, Zyrtec, Alcohol, Xanax, Ambien, Viagra, Nicotine, and the myriad other drugs that the law sees fit to approve—most people are on "drugs." But those are drugs that send money to Uncle Sam. So perhaps we are missing a few words, were we to make the slogan "War Against Drugs" an honest one. I don't know what that honest slogan would be. But it ain't the one we're using.

And, on a final note, I do heartily agree with the Ball-growing classes that Gravel could teach.

There should be a heavy grassroots effort to elect Gravel. lol

hey. is that some kind of a drug joke? what kind of place do you think i'm running here?

A funky one?

that's the password, you can cut the line.

Nez, I'm *eyes to eyes* with you on all this. You know it, 'mano.

Incidentally I have a lot of doctors in my family and most of them find the prohibition on weed ludicrous. Sure there may be some risks; but riding in a car is a far bigger risk than any crazy-ass killa-kind chronic blunt. And denying terminally-ill patients a medicine that would be uncontroversially helpful to their condition? That's just cruel and immoral.

Actually I posted on this subject almost 3 years ago.

*holding breath* Here--

Password....speak easy and carry a big blunt!

Hijole! where has this vato been at? He's got my vote!

*takes Kai's pass*

Órale!

and kai, that's some wild nomenclature, using "ananda" in science. brings me back to my youth. not la mota. well, a little. mostly i mean the word "ananda." interesante... you've had that blog a while, i see.

oh and my rock analogy only works, above, if some rocks have healing properties hmmm but you know, in so far as the "danger" element and it only makes sense to make a rock metaphor in a post about gravel O SHNAP

Part of the criteria for a drug to be a Schedule 1 drug is for it to have "no medicinal value"...yet Marijuana has already been legalized in various 11? states for its medicinal properties (a few listed and linked above).

Doesn't the history of it show that the tabacco industry profited because marijuana (and hemp) growth was discouraged? Never mind the AIDS and cancer patients which would suffer less smoking marijuana - THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA NEED THEIR MONEYS!!!

Ironically, even heroin has medicinal value when you start talking about palative care for terminal patients. Yeah, it's Hella addictive, but when you have a year left on your life and the pain will be there any way around it, addictive ain't so bad. One of the areas that I really grieve for in terms of the "war on drugs" (war on our own citizens, you mean) is palative care; so many doctors have been investigated/stripped of lisenture because of pain killer abuse that they're not meeting the minimum standard of comfort for those in intense pain.

The more I hear about Gravel, the more I like him.

Oh, and alcohol is a sacred drink in my religion. ^^ We drink it and offer it to the gods in our religious rites. Yay alcohol!

yes, exactly. heroin is a very strong opiate with some of the most effective pain-killing properties that exist. or rather, the opiate family does. a pain-killer from the opiate family does not have to be cut and made so poisonously. we have demerol for one thing, codeine, morphine. unless my memory fails me, these are all the same family of drug. heroin is where pat's assertion comes in. it becomes so dangerous because it is unregulated for one thing, so the strength can vary from one bag to the next, kids die not knowing they are banging poisonous cut, or suddenly using Afghanistan's purer batches instead of the Mexican ones that normally make their way here, but you know Afghanistan is poppin these days! lots of freedom marching into our cities from there even since the poppy trade began getting a boom from our "activities" over there.

and as far as addictive, we can't count that in the legal/illegal critique, because nicotine takes the cake, i agree with pat, and i'm not guessing.

and it's not about "being unhappy" as someone said above because mostly what is being talked about with marijuana are its amazing medicinal properties. only in a backward country would we be banishing such a promising plant that would bring relief to ill people, and yet pushing, justifying, and still waging a preemptive war that is dividing clans and taking hundreds of thousands of lives.

talk to me about laws, please!

anyway, even if its true that gravel smokes weed because he's "unhappy," well, aren't we supposed to be able to pursue, life, liberty, and happiness in America? I guess only if the doctor sez you're getting the happiness from the prozac stone.

The heroin trade is proof positive that Afghanistan is an unmitigated SUCCESS! Capitalism at work, Afghanis now produce 92% of the world's poppy harvest. Shrubco should be touting this exported laissez faire win-win.

Cannabis is illegal because it was too useful and too easy to grow. My doctor said the only thing dangerous about it is that you might get arrested for having some.

May I just add, the prison industry has lobbyists, they want lots of laws to make it easy to create criminals out of the populace. So as well as the 'reefer madness' hysteria there is the profit motive to keep drug laws draconian. And I do think the case is proven the 'war on drugs' is a racist control program.
And then there's the Bill Hicks angle, are all these moral majority types saying God is fallible? He left weed all over the planet.
And if you are having problems how does being made a criminal on top of that help anything?

yes, america and her happy and burgeoning prison economy.

Good point, Rick. Especially if part of the "problems" one might be having is that they live under unjust laws to begin with. It's sort of a cycle, eh? It's sort of intended to be, at least. As you say, a racist control program. With selective and varying enforcement and punishments to keep it so.

Heh, the "unhappy" thing always seemed to me as much an indictment of its illegality as the actual drug use. People who need things so badly they are willing to break the law (and deal with the type of people who break the law) are often unhappy, yes. But decriminalization and regulation would see more use by people who are not that desperate, and give the ones who are both better options and a higher chance of getting something less harmful.

Drugs are everywhere (the prescriptions mentioned above ... plus nicotine, alcohol, and caffiene ... and since the actual scientific classification of what makes something a "drug" and not a "chemical" or "substance" is pretty unclear, a lot of people are tempted to put sugar and similar products on that list as well). We only criminalize certain ones, and those largely for political reasons.

More importantly though, to me... addiction is a psychological issue, not a phsycial one. (Yes, of course, it has physical implications, and the actual subtance abused can have detrimental effects all on its own... but the thing that changes "habit" into "addiction" is largely psychological, even in the presence of a physical dependency, such as with nicotine). People get addicted to gambling, video games, golf, sex, food ... you can get addicted to anything, if it pushes the right buttons. That drugs do so is partially because of what they are and how they work (the things people get addicted to are things that make them feel good, and drugs are pretty good at that), but a lot of it is just that, well, that's how we understand things to be ("oh, he's not addicted to golf, he just likes to play a lot. So what if he's never home?") and it's really hard to get treatment, not least because you know you're likely to be treated like a criminal for admitting it.

Grr. Social structure and mental health issues, not "objective" science.

We're in agreement, Nez. ;)

Several countries use heroin as a medication similar to the use of morphine (another derivative of the poppy). Cocaine is used in nasal surgery as an anesthetic. Amphetamines are used to treat ADD. I don't see much use for PCP in humans, so I could see that one being illegal, but that seems to have gone out of favor.

My training is in family medicine, and I worked in county hospitals for most of the time I did all that. What I saw is people who do ugly things to get their drugs (like steal, shoot each other, neglect their kids while they run their meth labs, etc.), who get infections because of unclean conditions in injecting the drugs (aka cut with weird stuff and dirty needles), and who get criminalized. Most of that isn't necessary, and wouldn't happen if drugs were legal.

I don't see a big difference between prescription drug addiction and 'illegal' drug addiction. Both could use addiction treatment, which they don't get in jail.

"Doesn't the history of it show that the tabacco industry profited because marijuana (and hemp) growth was discouraged? Never mind the AIDS and cancer patients which would suffer less smoking marijuana - THE PEOPLE OF VIRGINIA NEED THEIR MONEYS!!!"

Well, yeah, tobacco is one of the worst, least useful (other than treating depression) drug around.

Personally, I'm surprised they don't legalize drugs. Think of the sales tax revenue!

i have to begin by answering that many, many, many people I've known in my life—from a wide demographic—break laws. we break different ones depending on class and race and geography, perhaps, but i think the majority of people i've known are not uncomfortable in the actual principle of "breaking laws," just that those with more comfortable, less-weathered lives are more afraid of getting caught, or facing social consequences.

so are they all "needing things so badly" that this makes them willing to break a law? or is it just that the human being doesn't like being arbitrarily ruled?

for myself, i do not generally see the etiology of addiction as a "psychological" issue, but a spiritual one that spreads its fingers and symptomology throughout all spheres of a human's existence—psychological, physical, social,etc. plus, we must agree that many users use for different reasons. even if one hundred self-medicators use the same substances, it cannot be said they are all self-medicating for the same reasons. however, when i say "spiritual" it is not impossible that i mean much as you do with your choice of "psychological," as i would also use other examples of addiction, such as you have. don't forget internet! i just don't see the issue as beginning in the psychological sphere, and neither do i see the "cure" there.

i did include nicotine as well as caffeine in my list. they certainly are drugs. nicotine is one of the most destructive and widespread drugs we know. and personally, i consider sugar a drug. it's a longer story/idea than i want to type here, but there's not even the slightest hesitance in my mind to classify it as such.

yeah, pat maybe PCP fell out of use because it makes people absolutely insane. man. let me tell you, i used to know a cat who dug open graves and got "addicted" to the smell when he'd crack a fresh one open. he'd take home rings and jewelry. he'd collect animal skulls. he'd crawl across the highway because he was so stoned on PCP he couldn't walk. this poor boy...to look in his eyes.

my training is in substance abuse counseling, among other things. i've had caseloads of kids who were being wrecked and retaliated upon by their parents and the system for their own reactions to those parents and the system.

american philsophy does not know how to teach a person to parse a problem's roots.

"(other than treating depression) drug around."

uh-oh. are we gonna have another Cruise/Shields throwdown?

May I stress Pat that is an honest enquiry and not a snarky challenge, whatever certain mischievous blog proprietors may be trying to incite...
Now I have to get back to my e-meter or Xenu will be furious.

see what happens when you try to rile up someone loaded up on Perphenazine? look how smoothly he handled that.

Pherfenoferfenzfenzplanzoferferfiene? That's easy for you to say.
Holy shit my gravatar works, aha! Shows deleting your account then signing up again actually is more effective than waiting for them to sort it out!
PhenoblowPat Benatar?
Persephone Magazine?
Nurse! Gimme some more red pilzzs!

Oh, I didn't mean to disagree with you, Nezua. I was just trying to point out that the people I percieve to be most (societally) problematic are the ones that don't have the money/resources to find more 'respectable' things to get addicted to, and who thus do (blatantly) illegal/dangerous/visible things to get access to the things they do get addicted to. Those are the TV junkies, who'll steal from their children's mouths and fly screaming at the police in rage. I don't think they're as common as we make it sound at all. If anything, I think the're the least common subtype. What I was trying to point out was that the unhappiness spoken of, that desperate longing for drugs/oblivion/solace, is as much effect as cause in those cases.

I do think that we meant mostly the same thing with "spiritual" and "psychological." My classification of it as such was meant to mean "not just in the body" ... and encompasses the mind and spirit and feelings, rather than just brains and electricity and Freud. Not proper usage, I know... but less likely to send people into rants than saying "spiritual." (Perhaps I've just been hanging around the Big Blogs too much. The mere mention of the metaphysical is enough to get people's knickers in a twist, elsewhere.)

Mm, I think that there is treatment to be found in the psychological realm. Not cure, no. That is firmly in the hands of structure and spirit. Until we get right with ourselves, and make this a world in which was can live without distorting our spirits and our selves to get through it, we won't find any such "cures." But I do think more attention paid to the psychology of addiction would help us with our misguided attempts to regulate the physiology of addiction, and the way we treat addicts. If we look to treatment rather than prison, and work hard to understand the stupid things that make us so unbalanced that we get stuck... then we would be stepping in the right direction toward fixing things.

The same idiocy that sent some of the people I studied for my thesis into drop-out-of-school-lose-your-job-stop-eating computer gaming sends other people into gambling frenzies or nicotine highs or long nights of rolling at a rave. And they're all equally addicted. Addictions to certain things (golf, stamp collecting, sex) are less likely to kill you by themselves than others (drugs, booze, food), but just as likely to destroy your life. And while crimes committed in the thrall of addiction should be punished (embezzlement, drunk driving, theft...), the addiction itself should be treated like the disease it is. I just wish it wasn't so hard for people to see that.

they are orange.

and thinking on it now, that was probably such a wrong joke for me to make. i was betting that nobody here is on anti-psychotics. but some people may have relatives on them and not that i think i would, but they may take that as an insult. so the unapologetic mexican now sincerely apologizes to the room.

and RickB.

please feel free to use whatever words work best for you here. my blog may not be "A-list," but we iz very large in heart and style. and i'd like to think we can try to get original once in a while.

well, there's a lot to say about addiction. i could talk on it for a while. but i think mister gravel wants to take a ride to the corner store, so i'll be brief and say that the same things that keep america stupid on chasing symptoms are the same things that make it so hard for us to treat crime, illness, addictions...

and i do think prisons are not helpful. in fact, i know they are not. and i know the types of things they teach. prisons are good if you want the nation to, in time, need more and more and more of them. so...i'd say they are being used according to plan.

LOLZ @ room ...

Yeah, Rick, it's not an official treatment or anything, but here's an article about smoking and depression. The use of Wellbutrin and its analogues in smoking cessation programs, especially for women, has been around for a while. Turns out that particular anti-depressant hits the same receptor sites in the brain as nicotine does.

It was funny -and respect to anyone suffering and needing to use drugs of any sort from one who knows.

Thanks Pat, interesting even if it means big tobacco are going to start marketting 'Marlboro Happys'. I will pass the links on to a neurology savvy friend who will be overjoyed he gets another reason not to quit smoking. Reminds me of the Lloyd Bridges character in 'Airplane'- guess I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue-

okay, i just wasnt sure how it would resound.

"another reason not to quit smoking"

Seriously, though, it's better to get the depression treated another way. Tar and particulates play hell with your lungs.

No argument here, my lungs staged a rebellion quite some years ago and made it clear they would only accept clean air.

"it's better to get the depression treated another way"

I dunno. Actually, I rather boldly disagree if "another way" is exclusively referring to all of the prescription anti-depressants. I have entirely too many people who aren't around any more--mentally or, in some cases, physically--because the state approved medications they were given had a much more profound and long-term effect on the way their brain functions than the effect on the cardio-vascular system from using cigarettes for the same length of time.

(Note: I am not defending my own use of nicotine here. Filthy habit. Bad for your health. My argument here is that even this is better than the pharmacopoeia considered acceptable and good by the mainstream if treatment of a specific life condition is being sought.)