h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

the life decisions part you are talking about is deciding whether to take everything seriously and accept everything that is told to you or to go out and make your own decisions in life.
the life decision is whether to be born, get an IRD number, live, work, eat, sleep, die. obviously you can do more than this without breaking the law, but when it comes to drugs the decision is: do I accept what they're telling me or find out for myself and make an informed decision.
obviously you take a number of risks when you take drugs so it's a decision that has to be balanced. the key to this mess is having some common sense, and employing it because you can bet whoever made it illegal in the first place didn't.

PS welcome back johnny!

Sorry, can't help it! And I spent a large part of my youth ingesting the pesky little mites until one day I nearly bought a Gong album by accident. Let that be a warning to us all.
I've been reading all your messages and I think the debate is very interesting, but I do still have this nagging doubt at the back of my mind about some stances taken by some of you, a few thoughts from some others, and just about everything said by one person, but I think that we have probably arrived at what I see as being the heart of the "legalise/criminalise" debate. And here it comes;
Number One; I just don't personally associate with most of the thinking associated with drug consumption, the life attitude styles, music tastes, etc expressed by those of you who are obstensibly with me on the pro side of this debate, and I find that this, possibly like most of the rest of the population, alienates me from the thought processes behind those statements. Some of you just seem bloody irresponsible, quite frankly, and further more, think this is a good thing. I don't. Call me a sad old Trostkyist if you like, but I find your version of the world a sad and depressing place, full of people who cannot cope, who rely on others to take responsibility for their actions and mistakes and refuse to learn from them, because, well, there's nothing worth learning because it's all so pointless "man". I don't understand why, if that is the case, you feel they should legalise your chosen substances anyway. Reality doesn't matter. Ergo, I don't understand why you are in the debate. Unless it's to try and persuade us that drugs do you no harm, which is patently not true, because you are all talking in such a downbeat fashion about the world and life that they have quite obviously affected your ability to cope with reality. So, in other words, you are losing the debate for the rest of us by demonstrating that our opinions must be wrong by buying so many Pink Floyd albums and spending eight hours scrabbling around for Mushrooms. I know you won't agree with this, but you ARE the stereotypes that stop the legalisation.
Number Two; A lot of you are quite happy to apply your arguments about legalisation UP TO A POINT, but it's no use banging on about personal freedom and then raising your eyebrows and harrumphing about Heroin and Cocaine as being "drugs too far" or taking some sort of distorted moralistic stance about Alcohol. Who is making the decisions about what's "good" or "bad"? You? The person next to you? Freedom WITH responsibilty is the only option, and until you wish to take responsibilty, I do not see how you can expect the freedom. Cor, I shouldn't take holidays, it makes my brain go into hyperdrive.

Mr. Guitar, i agree with most
of what you said and i will
not call you a sad old trotskyist,
(somewhat of a sacrifise on my part
'cause i've been waiting for years
to use that expression) but i disagree
with the taking-a-moral-stance-against
alcohole-& harder-drugs portion of it.
a part of this debate is about the
difference between what are legitimat
claims for legalisation and what is
irelevent hippie crap. the fact that
marijuana is a hell of a lot less
damaging to body and soul than any
of those substances (some of which are
legal) seems to be a legitimat claim.

there is a slight problem with your arguement there friend (comparison of driving
drunk and driving "stoned") in that alcohol impairs motor function and balance
(both essential to driving) while marijuana does not. I'll agree, marijuana does slow reaction time in most
cases, but one of the inherent properties of the drug is that the user know his/her
reaction time is slower than normal, hence people who are stoned (just on marijuana
mind you, mixing drugs produces unpredictable effects) drive a little slower, and
much more cautiously than normal. Basically, as it relates to operating a motor vehicle,
the effects of pot are about the same as the effects of old age.

Agreed, but who is deciding? I have a large number of friends who regularly take Coke with no damage to their well being, except a crap bank balance, whatsoever. If it's about personal choice and harmful effects, and many people believe that you cannot trust the government on statisitics and must use our own eyes, then basically this should be legal too. Or not? I have a feeling that some people in this debate will now say "but Cocaine is addictive, I read it in the paper" and that's just one of the things that bothers me.

Obviously it is a line that must be drawn and I believe that it is up to the government to draw this line.
What bothers me is the inconsistency with which they make these decisions. If alcohol is going to be legal then basically anything less harmful should be legal, and they have been unable to show marijuana to be more harmful than alcohol in any way.
Although I am quite liberal in most things I personally think it would be harmful to society as a whole to make a lot of the more hard core drugs legal, even LSD which is my personal fave.

Well, I've been waiting, but only Ac-id wants to take me up on this one. Either you are all dazzled by my frightening diplay of coherent logic or you are just listening to the end of that guitar solo......

dear mr. guitar, not every single
pot head in the world devotes his (or her)
life to listening to back 2 back 90 minutes
long pink floyd songs, i here by
officially resent the stereotype!
that aside, as for your dazzling comments,
i am not a big fan of the conspiracy theory.
i don't belive that the government
(well, my government anyway) distortes
these statistics and that we are all just
unaware players in some viscious mind game
played by heads of state. this kind of
paranoia is a typical british-american
type of thing and it is yet another reason
why the calls for legalisation are not
taken seriosley.besides, if you don't
trust your government just ask any doctor
about the damaging affects of "hard"
drugs as compared to marijuana.
(unless the medical proffession is
a part of the conspiracy. you better
sleep with your lights on tonight..)

It's not a conspiracy, it's just that the Status Quo amongst the decision makers of most nations is an uneducated standpoint against marijuana. This permeates thru the up-and-coming political wannabes, who tend to steer clear of doing things that might accidentally give them an informed opinion (even to the point of 'not inhaling'), lest they tarnish their reputation for responsibility.
That's how I think it works and I think it makes me madder that it's not a malicious conspiracy but just a vicious cycle of ignorance that keeps marijuana illegal.

No pot 4 days. Thinking clearer already.

There's sort of a chicken and egg argument in there, too. I think I was feeling pretty alienated well before I started taking drugs.
Although they did make me feel more alienated at first (around the time I dropped out of law to switch to philosophy and then dropped out of Uni altogether); I now feel that they have helped me come full circle and allowed me to deal with things a lot more strongly and creatively.
I think that it's a question of attitude, and I think that while drugs may amplify or belittle the extent to which you feel/express these attitudes, they don't fundamentally change them.

Who are Gong? they sound bad... I only have the Symphonic Pink Floyd album but I do like "dark side of the moon". Mostly I like stuff a bit more upbeat (Jazz, Psychedelic Folk Rock, Punk, or Psychedelic Trance). . .

4 days clear, I'm impressed. Sister makes a good point, but I wasn't saying that I necessarily agree that the facts are being distorted by governments, only that a lot of "heads" do. I think my contention is that everybody should be allowed to do everything whenever they feel like it provided that it doesn't hurt anybody else, and provided they are going to take responsibility for it afterwards. This should not only include drugs, but also lifestyle choices, dress sense etc. As an example, I am getting quite belligerent towards the kind of numbed mind thinking that cannot see the relationship between eating McDonalds and being an obese individual. Apparently these days people have "body image issues". Sounds like I've wandered off the subject, but here's my idea: I'll take whatever it is I want to take and carry a card saying that's what I've chosen to do. When they find me lying in a gutter staring at the stars, they can leave me there because that was my choice. People who want to eat lard would be allowed to eat as much as they want, but they wouldn't be entitled to heart treatment and appearing on Oprah. Who's with me?

i second that motion, plus, i just
thought of something.
it's been known for a long damn while
that smoking (cigarettes, that is) is
related to cancer and other fatal
illnesses. still, people (including
yours truley, i'm afraid) choose to take
that risk. so far, so good. well, not good,
but at least everything is out in the open.
and yet people have won obscene amounts
of money from class action suits against
tobacco giants. those people didn't take
responsibility over their nasty little
habbit and were rewarded for it.
imagine the next scenario, if you will.
it takes place 20 years from now,
marijuana is legal in most of the
westwern world, young people visit
the amsterdam national museum of
cannabis were the moto is "this is
where it all began" and can't belive
that the former generation lived in
a world where smoking pot was a crime.
mean while, in New-York, one of the
largest law firms in the global village
had just won a $ 2,000,000,000 settelment
from their law suit against "marijuana inc."
you see, their client thought "it's legal, then
it could't possibley harm me. i think
i'll go get completley stoned and then
drive my mack truck over the white white
cliffs of dover".
don't get me wrong, i still support
legalisation, i'm just saying, people
will always try to avoid taking
responsibility for their actions.
they will blame society or their parents
or Disneyland or marijuana, and they will
get handsomley rewarded by those whom they
blamed ("we better pay him, jhonson. what
if the stock holders get wind of this?!)
and then hollywood will be fighting
over who gets to portray them in spielberg's
next self-rightseuos block buster.
that's life in the modern world, baby!

(i do apologyse for the length of
my rentings)

...I thought I was the only one who thought this way anymore. Please accept my heartfelt thanks for restoring my faith in free thinking. I am going to go and get quietly off my face without bothering anybody else in celebration!

Well I'm on the same bandwagon there. My entire complaint, when it comes to marijuana's illegality is that the choice is taken out of our hands. I want the government to make informed, researched decisions based on individual safety and blah blah blah
oh I have gotten bored I will write more tomorrow

thanks johny, nice to know
i'm not alone out there.
i'll spark up a doobie in
celebratory joy tonight.
by the way, my national
team defeated Austria
5-0 last night (the run up
to euro 2000 and all) not that
i'm a soccer efficionado but
it brought up the patriot in me
so your welcome to join me in
celebration.
(unless your austriane, in which
case i suppose you'll want to
stay in and lick your wounds)

Sorry about the above interruption to my ranting - it was getting very late.

I thought what you said about pot-heads not wanting to take responsibility was a bit odd, Johnny boy... I mean surely the point is that the govt. is forcing us to take criminal responsibility for what we do, which is unfair. I break the law when I toke up and I take full responsibility when I do so, as do all other pot smokers (except in Amsterdam). If you end up getting dragged away by the pigs then you take full responsibility.
Is it any wonder some people take an apathetic nature to a society that brands them criminals because they choose to smoke pot, while the same society gives free health care and benefits to all sorts of people who are victims of their own unwise choices.
I don't want the government to pay for my decision to smoke pot, or anyone elses. But they don't. So what is the basis of their argument from keeping dack illegal?
Answer: Untruths and misinformation. Which appears to bring me back full circle to what I've been blathering about all along. If the governments stopped treating pot smokers (and all other people who choose their bad habits) like responsible adults, capable of making their own decisions, then maybe people would stop acting like victimised children.

I mean, of course, if they started treating us like adults. . . (8 days and my brain is still not working!)

Somebody said chicken and egg.....that's the nub of your problem. To me, an awful lot of drug takers do sound like victimised children, and I can't remember a campaign to give five year olds the vote. The basis of everything you are saying about legality, illegality etc is correct, but your passion for speech patterns from the sixties makes you sound unreasonable. Until everybody learns to talk like John Major when discussing drugs you can expect that it will stay illegal. I think we might be near the end of this one....what shall we put right next?

Hi Johnny, You're on this week, the film on UK TV, that is, I've not seen it before, I may get round to it.
Bananas - never could get them to light!