I still smoke weed 4-5 times a week. Definitely not where I want to be at when my kids are older/aware, I also only smoke when everyone's asleep, but I have no problem with casual smokers if they can do what they need to do in life. I have some friends who become like Tim the tool man Taylor and just get very productive, that's not me which is why I really only do it later at night and don't need to be productive.
I haven’t smoked in almost 5 years now after smoking pretty much every night for a decade. I was the same type of smoker as you though. I wanted to be away from most people barring a friend or two to play video games with and just chill. I had friends that used to smoke and go out and party all night or smoke and study and stuff. I’m fine with it being federally decriminalized and legalized for the most part, but I do acknowledge that there is an entry drug pathway to it. Some people just need to find things that get them more and more fucked up which gets them down the opioid/heroine path but tons of people also don’t desire anything more. That leaves the open debate as to if it’s societies burden to stop them from destroying themselves and I tend to side on the no side. Because addicts are fully capable of fixing themselves if they want to. No amount of laws or regulations are going to stop someone from scoring.
I basically agree. Addiction is crazy and it's impossible to explain it to someone who has never experienced it, but at the same time if you really commit to overcoming addiction it's possible. What doesn't help is throwing addicts in jail. I remember getting caught with weed many years back, and I was able to go through diversion but there were states I would have went to jail. That's asinine. I remember the counselors making jokes that I was there for weed, I was the only one who took it serious because if I failed I would have went to jail. I'm not sure making heroin available is the answer, but rehabilitation makes more sense on every level as oppressed to just throwing addicts in jail.
We need to figure out the productivity side of weed. If we can do that then all the pinhead number pushers will get behind legalizing it and we'll be all good. I was prescribed Adderall awhile back for some reason that escapes me now (probably why I was prescribed it in the first place). So I took a 5mg dose twice a day and man life felt speedy and I was getting things done. But then I adjusted and back to the normal snooze. So my doctor upped the dose to 10mg twice a day and man life felt speedy and I was getting things done. But then I adjusted and back to the normal snooze. So my doctor upped the dose to 15mg twice a day and man life felt speedy and I was getting things done. But... So about two months into the process I'm back at the docs and he says "well, you know you're still at very low therapeutic levels of the drug. I'd like to up the dose to 20mg twice a day." And I said "but doc, my body adjusts to the new dosage within a couple of weeks tops and then another week later it's like normal and no therapeutic effect. Are we ever going to get to a point where my body gets tired of adjusting and the same dosage remains therapeutic?" And he said "I don't know we'll just have to play along and see if we get there." And I said "no thanks." And he broke up with me. But when I was on that stuff man I was blowing the teenagers out of the water in the FPSers. Only time in my life I could compete at those things. My nephews were pissed because they were used to blowing me up and instead I'd come around a corner and knock them down instead. And I just talked myself out of going back to him and asking if we could give the Adderall another try because it'd be the same old routine.
A lot of this resonated with me. Personally I think society overcorrected a little too much going from "weed is the devil" to "weed is medicine and totally harmless". It's absolutely addictive, if not physically then at the very least psychologically. And not only is it a gateway drug but the negative effects are insidious because there's no built in mechanism that stops you from doing it temporarily like there is with other drugs. Alcohol makes you hungover. Coke is expensive. It's very easy to smoke weed almost constantly and feel like there are no apparent downsides. Meanwhile I would argue it absolutely has a negative impact on productivity and desire to be social. I say this as someone who smoked weed consistently for a very long time.
The thing about addiction is that so much of it is a physiological response to repetitive stimulation. We're very near the point of realizing exactly how harmful handheld digital devices are. Not because the devices themselves are harmful but because they promote a dopaminergic release every time they are used and the number of interactions that the average user has with them per hour has become extreme. Rat-pellet is a real thing when it comes to iPhones and similar devices.
