I know a lot of people are going to disagree with me and I want people to challenge me on this. Just know beforehand that I don’t judge and I’m not personally calling anybody out at all through this. I’ve been thinking about how to put it for a few days now and coming up blank so I’m just going to ramble on and hope my point gets made.
The topic is the huge increase in weed smoking in the world and the toll it’s taking on people’s lives. I saw the High School Perspective on here and thought it was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen; actually, it was dumb in some ways but genius in others. I have a feeling the guy who made it knows the dangers of weed. But nonetheless no offense to Matt or anyone who was in it for calling it dumb. All it was about was weed. It amazed me how proud everyone seemed, and how in love with this drug they were. To the point where they said they had their own “weed life.” The video was showcase on how weed changes the mentality of people, and I personally don’t know how the people in it actually like that there are videos out like that.
Every bit of evidence I need to prove to you guys that weed is a complete negative in the community is right there in that video. People aren’t noticing the hold it has on people, the devotion people have towards a plant. They raise it up like the golden calf, but just like in the bible it’ll only cause their demise in the end. No one notices it either. I think deep down, anyone who smokes knows that it’s taking a negative toll on them. Especially when it gets to multiple times a week, but none of them want to stop. The most common answer for “you should stop” is “I don’t want to” and they continue to say it’s not addictive.
Personally, I haven’t met many people who’ve started smoking and effectively stopped and this is why I’ve concluded that it’s an addictive substance. Even though it may not be a drug that you become physically dependant on, people don’t want to stop doing it and that’s all it takes for me. Marijuana is an addictive substance. It s addictive and it drains, if not completely destroys someone’s potential.
The common trend that I’ve observed is that long time weed smokers tend to drop out of school more, not try as hard as they used to, and just plain not do as good as they can or should have. Not only that but a lot of them wind up never “getting out.” It truly is sad, because half of these kids are throwing away their dreams before they know it and yet they still have an unexplainable comfort about the future. As if some hand from God is going to pick them up and put them back on their feet again. I’m not saying hope is lost, I guess it’s just a cry to people saying that tomorrow starts today, and once tomorrow comes, you’re going to look back and say one of two things; thank God I did what I did or wow I really should’ve done something different.
Weed really is a worse drug than people think, I truly believe this and this is why I’m writing right now. More people than ever are smoking and it’s starting much younger. I don’t know maybe I’m the only one who sees it, but we need to change and we need to change fast.
I appreciate it if you took the time to read this, I really do. It’s become important to me recently and if you agree with me please let me know. Let me know if you don’t agree with me too and I really hope someone does. I don’t judge and if you still smoke after this, from a former pothead to fellow potheads, go ahead. I guess the main point is, just look to your future because you only get one chance and it’s not too late to change.
I have never respected you more than I do right now
Good stuff man, I really respect you for writing this with the knowledge that you could get a lot of haters from it. Keep it up, this is authentic.
ok cool post but 1 weed is addictive no matter what and yea we abuse it i myself smoke alot.. but it is within the individuals own mentality to hold up to their responsibility
2 alot of the lazy not caring attitude that you get from alot of pot head also has to do with discipline and most of these kids have none ergo they smoke pot, with parents that teach their children right they can still succeed no matter if they pick up pot or not.
3 i smoked pot since 14 through out my high school life i was an A and B student with the occasional C with the exception of algebra cuz i still dont get that till today.. but weed did not stop me from doing my homework or my classwork nor did it stop me from going to school.
im not trying to hate on this post but just point out that there are exceptions if the person seeks success by themselves but yea most of this is true drugs are bad and unhealthy and a bad habit unfortunately alot of people fall into it and will refuse to walk out.
I agree with this 100% on every point you made. If someone doesn’t agree with this, all I can tell you is don’t smoke for a month(if u can manage to even pull that off), read this and it will be all clear to you .. Anyways who wrote this?
I see where you are coming from but I do not agree.
First I don’t think it is the pot that makes people lazy, it is their attitude. I have been smoking pot regularly since I was in college. I was able to graduate college and I’m currently on my second job making over 50k per year, not to shabby. The issue is that because the drug is illegal and viewed as bad it tends to attract the lower hanging fruit, the ones that would be lazy and unsuccessful regardless of pot.
Second, pot is not addictive, I’ve known a number of people who have successfully stopped smoking. I have a few friends from college who I used to smoke with almost daily who simply don’t do it and have no interest in doing it anymore.
I think you would actually be surprised at the number of successful adults who either currently smoke pot regularly or used to smoke pot regularly. As I’ve grown older and started working more in the professional world I am constantly amazed at the numbers.
Finally, I am not trying to say that pot is a good thing; no drug is a good thing. I just think that it is the person that is at fault here not the drug. I think the reason you feel the way to do is that the majority of people who embrace the “pot culture” are the ones you see and associate with smoking. The lazy unmotivated people you are talking about, but there are plenty of successful people smoking, they just can’t and don’t advertise it because the drug is illegal and it could ruin their professional life!!
Yeah you’re right Bert I was gona put that in there but i felt like it might be counter-productive, I’m just saying I only smoked weed like not even half the time of most people, about a year and a half now, and I still managed to get into a pretty good college and what not, but I was really shooting for the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. And I had the grades to do it. Til i started smoking, and I’m not blaming weed completely but it’s just strange, for lack of a better word. I don’t know I just feel like it makes people fall just short of their goals, and what happens when they didn’t have goals to begin with? They fall into a rut, and the weed does what weeds do, it just grows on you, wrapping around every part of you and it suffocates you. I don’t know, I know it is possible to succeed and smoke don’t get me wrong, I feel like i could still do it but I just had to stop to make a statement and try to start something here. And Eldin it’s Ryan Pace
I know that your reference to the highschool perspective video wasn’t a call out but anyway this sounds like it was written by a 1960′s mom. Actually giving marijuana a persona saying it takes a hold of people is comical because it doesnt take much self control to say this is a plant I’m gonna live my life how I want while I smoke it. Also using the video which was filmed at a highschool party where everyone was drinking or drunk as support for your argument is again comical because I was in the video and although I’m not gonna say the things I said were faroff from how I feel, we have all used the excuse “I was drunk” which usually means the subject was exaggerated. But I do agree with you on the part where weed can cause you to achieve lower levels of “success” socially and economically and those things are valued by everyone I dont care what anyone says. But on a different note theres never a truth or right answer to anything and I believe that, thats exactly why this site exists in the first place.
I do agree marijuwana can bring self motivation down, i’ve seen it personally. But i believe it all depends on the personality of the smoker. I have noticed people, even freinds not care about anything else besides getting high, and not try to pursue a better future. Marijuwana is mentally addictive, not physically dependable. I have been smoking for a little over two years now and i still have the motivation to do well in school, play sports, be productive, and still want to go to college. Since i have started smoking it’s helped me think outside the box, which has helped my life in a positive way. I don’t know if i am going to continue smoking for the rest of my life. As of now I love weed and encourage others to try it at least once in your life.
Honestly in order for marijuana to affect something as important as you achieving one of your main “life goals” just proves that you are obviously a weak minded individual and the substance just isn’t for you. I’m not trying to call you weak minded Ryan but if you set a goal to be in the Air Force Academy and you sincerely desired to go no substance or anything else prevented you or held you back from achieving that but yourself. Some people just aren’t on the level of consciousness you should be at to really use marijuana to their advantages and help strengthen their mind among other things. This isn’t just directed towards you I’m just writing this in defense of the couple people I know who weed hasn’t affected negatively at all simple because of one thing; They understand ultimately they’re in control of their own lives and actions, sober or “under the influence.”
Nah yo I feel you, there’s deffinately people like that. You know the type of people this is directed towards. And not just Bellport, I meant everywhere
I believe that everyone has to understand that the video was all basically highschool students and in the town of bellport.. anyways the world is a lot bigger then the highschool and bellport. The fact of the matter is that everyone is affected by marijuana differently. My opinion about the effects of marijuana is that people replace marijuana with knowledge..I say that because i feel that way personally, When i smoke I just live in a world of laziness. When I dont smoke im ready for everything. It as simple as that.. peace bitches!
To where I understand your point of view, I cannot respect it. It is this type of biased ignorant opinion that keeps this plant illegal. You may have expressed your opinion rather politely, but it is still based on a negative correlative stereotype rooted in ignorance that keeps millions of Americans alienated, incarcerated and deemed outlaws. I implore you to change your point of view of this plant. Deducing such a premise as, “pot makes you lazy” is ridiculous. One could just as easily deduce that it is in fact lazy persons who create the stereotype of cannabis. After all, the successful persons who partake of cannabis haven’t lost their senses enough to forget that the plant is still illegal therefore they are not seen as much as those perceived lazy teenagers smoking it on the video.
I think the issue here is not the effect of weed, but the way people treat it. I personally have smoked weed every day of the past several months, and since I ran out of money I’ve just stopped, and I am most definitely not a strong person.
The only time I want to smoke it is when I’m bored, and since I’ve chosen to stay at my university over the holiday period, I have no-one else in my house and relatively few friends still around. I’m not suffering though. I don’t have the money so I’m not smoking, simple as. It’s been about 20 days since I last smoked weed, and the only current problems I’m having are due to my own lack of motivation to work and my superb talent for procrastination (assignment deadlines aren’t for a month, how can you expect me to work!)
In my opinion, the illegality of weed has a massive impact on the ways people will ‘use’ it. Simply enough, some people can’t get the balance right and they shouldn’t blame the drug. When I was smoking every day I was still doing my assignments and still getting the marks I felt I deserved for the relative amount of work done. I don’t blame the lack of work on smoking too much. I smoked because I didn’t want to work, but smoking didn’t cause me to not want to work. If not weed, I would have drunk more alcohol (and in fact smoking saved me from my developing alcohol habit which was bordering on 20 units a day).
One day I stayed up til 3 smoking with my flatmates when I had an essay due in the next day which I’d only got to the halfway mark on. I then went to my room and refused to go to bed until I banged out 400 words in under an hour, something which with my attention span is unheard of. I was absolutely blazed at the time.
Besides being an example, that’s really neither here nor there to be honest, but it does indicate that the problem is more with the person than the drug. Weed is not physically addictive, but mentally it is, like any other pleasurable habit, easy to fall into.
I could substitute any example provided where people have fucked up by smoking too much to anything that they engage in excessively, be it drinking or World of Warcraft. Especially in today’s social climate, where people are spoilt for choice in how to pass their time, weed seems to be used as a scapegoat when in fact it’s people’s own lack of restraint and their own greed which is damaging them. I could have lied to my parents and friends to get money to carry on smoking, but that’d be a most abhorrent thing to do, so it won’t be done. Even though I’m running low on food I’m trying to get by until I get my next student grant in without relying on others. I just think that people who can’t control themselves shouldn’t look to blame the drug for their own inadequacy.
The problem is clearly with the individual.
it comes down to the person….if you are a lazy asshole with no passions or goals, you will be a bum, and probably smoke weed…if you are smart, have values, and some drive to achieve, smoking weed will only be additional enjoyment to your enjoyable life
its all about the indivudual
“The common trend that I’ve observed is that long time weed smokers tend to drop out of school more, not try as hard as they used to, and just plain not do as good as they can or should have.”
I smoke weed all day, er’y day, am in college, and have never written a sentence that said “not do as good”
Perhaps the reason weed is viewed as a bad thing is that a person’s perceived value in society is based on success. If you don’t go to college and get a high-paying job, you aren’t viewed as a respectable person. What makes a person valuable? Is it success, or is it something else? I, personally, see value based on things like a person’s being true to his/herself, and being a good person, but it’s all subjective. I believe that for someone to say that marijuana robs someone of their ambition is one-sided, even if it were true all the time. Maybe, for some people, their ambitions change, or they want a more spiritual life, or they want to expand their mind (which it is actually very good for). I used to smoke quite often in high school, and yes, my grades did falter, but I found something more important. I found self-worth and confidence; I found the ability to live a meaningful life, regardless of whether I had good grades, and, later on, success.
If you really delve into the marijuana culture, you might find that people are often very good and respectful to each other. There are definitely plenty of people who simply will never be good to people, no matter what, but pot makes a lot of people want to be harmonious with the people around them. I’ve seen tough guys with guns melt into big softies talking about how much they love the world. I’ve seen cowards finally learn to stand up for themselves and find what they were missing deep down inside. But I’ve never seen a good person go bad while smoking it. Unless, of course, alcohol or other drugs were involved. I find this sort of behavior to be sorely lacking in our culture as a whole.
So maybe it’s a good thing, but for some people it just doesn’t meld with our success-driven culture. Certainly, we wouldn’t have the technology and knowledge we have today without our hardcore, nose-to-the-grindstone ambition, but maybe there are more important things in life. Don’t get me wrong. Hard work has its merits. But maybe there is more to life than working and moving up the ladder. When you think about it, is there really any point to that anyways?
Yes, it is psychologically addictive. But so are a lot of things, such as sex, eating, even writing. What if I asked you to stop writing in your blog? Would you say, “but I don’t want to?” It’s the same thing. The fact that they affect your brain chemistry in different ways doesn’t change the fact that they change your brain chemistry. If you get enjoyment from it, it’s going to be addicting in some way. You want to keep doing it!
I definitely respect that you are trying to get your point of view out there. And I respect that you were just writing to try to get it out. I know how that goes. But try to remember that there are many points of view in the world, and different things are important to different people. I know it’s hard for many people to understand that a life that gains happiness mainly through inner experience can be more important than one that gains it from success, but it is still a life worth living.
I wrote this some months ago and today I still smoke, and am right now researching and putting together a cultural project for my english class about the marijuana culture and the roll it plays in college culture and I can tell you that my point of view is very much changed. I do think that the bad effects from weed are mostly based on the user. I’m in college and yes I still smoke unlike I said previously and I’m doing good in my classes, there are extremely successful businessmen and athletes who smoke, so I’m not going to say that weed is a bad thing. It gets bad when the smoker let’s it pervade every single part of their life to the point of zero ambition and it seems to me that the younger a person starts to smoke the more likely they are to end up like this, but of course there are always the extremes with anything in this world. I think that weed is just a part of life, a part of growing and if treated right the effects can be amazing. It’s kind of cool to look back on this and see how I’ve grown over the past seven months. I still uphold my warning though, towards the ones who let weed affect their lives negatively, but I’m not hostile towards it anymore. I said before “the weed does what weeds do, it just grows on you, wrapping around every part of you and it suffocates you” but I guess what I didn’t realize was that weeds can be beautiful with a bit of trimming.. sorry for the gay metaphor. Smoke responsibly people haha
I think you have wonderful points. The problem you are going to run into, though, in making your argument (a good one) heard, is 1) your condescending tone 2) your lack of experience with the drug itself.
I was a HUGE stoner in high school. When I look back on that I realize I was kind of just that…a stone. My mom always let us smoke because she knew that the only way to come to a holistic understanding of why something is wrong is to figure it out yourself and have emotional, personal connections with the thing that is wrong. She would alway tell me and my sister, though, that pot makes your emotions numb…which is why I felt like a stone…and why it took me a good 3-4 years to get over my high school boyfriend.
The thing is that the potheads that are convinced their lives are un affected are the ones who have great will power and make a to do list and make sure they get it done when they’re high. This gives them a sense of accomplishment. However, they don’t know what they are missing. Our mind is such a HUGE part of our being and existence and even if you are getting your physical to do list done there is a creative part of your life that is being numbed. The ideas that bolster our future come from the cracks between our to do list items.
That is all. Thanks for sharing!
lesson learned = )
No comment on any of the other comments or the post in general.
However, I do agree with you a bit on your thoughts about the ‘high school perspective’ video… more so because of the drinking.
I saw some faces that I knew, very well too, and felt saddened and disappointed. It may just be because I a little bit older and knowing these people since their younger years… but it made me realize how influenced people can become and definitely made me change the way I precieved others and myself. Not saying I did not act the same (or worse) in high school (or even middle school), just saying. I just hope that they also saw a different side of themselves when they watched that video. I’m very happy I am passed this point, even while at college.
This is a bit later on after all these comments, but I thought I’d throw in my own two cents. I really respect your opinion on smoking and I’m glad you didn’t take the condescending high and mighty approach.
I’ve been smoking for about a year now. It’s not at all my life, just something I do generally once, twice, three times a week. I have mostly positive things to say about the drug. Not all people who smoke have the mentality “let’s get fucked up, man, mad bluntz all day,” and just because you smoke, does not mean that it’s your life. Getting high is fun, it’s inspirational, calming, relaxing… but living the “high” lifestyle, when you make getting stoned your life, well, I just find that rather silly. Bragging about smoking five blunts every night, getting so high you just sit on the couch and feel fucked up and eat and laugh at nothing… that’s not what it’s about for me.
For me, weed has helped in a number of ways. Flashback to junior year in high school; I was a wreck. I had panic attacks every week, nervous habits, anxiety, and I was stressed beyond belief. Everything seemed to be a big deal to me, and I was scared and stressed, and I didn’t understand why. It was after I started to smoke marijuana that I felt the tension ease. It helped open up my mind and allow me to realize that not every problem in life necessitates a breakdown. It definitely has influenced the person I am today, but that’s NOT a negative thing; my self-esteem back then was non-existant, and nowadays I can say that I’m comfortable with myself and I love the person I’ve grown into.
I graduated with a 95 average, I’m in an honors college, I’m doing well in school, I’m motivated more than ever, I love life more than ever… it truly depends on the smoker and what their mentality is.
Honestly weed really does lower your motivation. At least that’s how it was with me when i was younger. In 1st grade I had an opportunity to go to an excellent school in which i would be able to practically skip a grade and excel in academics (which I did go to) and I was very athletic at the time. But as I got older and got introduced to weed my grades went down the drain, I stopped all sports and all my allowance went to weed. Looking back at it now I really do regret it because I really had an excellent future and it all went away.
Life=Effort.
Marijuana is no more a drug than caffiene, have you met someone whom has consumed 3-4 cups a day for 10+ years and just stops?
Apply that logic to everything, and everything becomes a “drug”, people need proper education on this matter, not some stupid about.com or yahoo answers that are unaccurate with no evidence of shit all. Just some person crying that people smoke a substance that gets them fucked and they happen to like it to much, what a suprise.
Cigarettes give a head high for a split few seconds-minutes, as a user continualy smokes each day, this goes away, they aren’t even getting fucked up yet they consume 20 of these a day. I call that a drug. ( im not arguing cigarretes are worst than weed blah blah i dont give a shit, just a thesis on what a drug should really be labeled)
I almost dropped out of high school and never smoked weed until i graduated really, im about to acheive my goal of getting a diploma, my long term goal is to get a masters, i blaze 3-4 times/ DAY. I currently workout 4x/week on a strict routine/diet with a 10% bodyfat vs.lean mass ratio . All of this is because i WANT things, if you smoke weed and don’t accomplish anything, why don’t you look more at yourself from a 3rd perspective an ignore the fact your high, what makes you lazy? Why do you have no goals? Well you probably are lazy to begin with and sleep in everyweekend and haven’t set a goal in your life that you have acheived. Don’t attribute your failings to marijuana, attribute your fuck ups to your own mindset. You can use weed to even alter your mindset in a positive manner, use the anxiety you get when your high to motivate you. YOUR going to TRY, your going to give your REAL EFFORT, your not SELLING YOURSELF SHORT.
marijuana makes you lazy eh? sounds like your looking for an excuse, pussy.
ill smoke up right now, hitup my quiz get an B, pump some fucking weights, whats your excuse?