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

Jazz musician! Joy. (Lots of Js, too.) Some people do find that certain drugs enhance their abilities, although it's probably subjective (The secret of the universe is: 'A strong smell of petroleum prevails throughout' etc). However, a few might find that some drugs release their inhibitions about their work, or improve their confidence i.e. to perform one of their previously secret compositions. I used to have a lot of trouble showing anyone something I'd written- drugs were not the reason for the change, however. With improved self-esteem, the work would naturally become better. Drugs properly used can have this effect on the personality.
However, you've got to specify which drugs were instrumental in either improving or ruining someone's talent. Obviously, alcoholism or being a junkie doesn't do your career any good; neither does any sort of addiction, as your dependence on the drug would take priority over personal expression. Cannabis, however, is not addictive in that sense as its effects soon disappear with heavy use. Anyone who starts doing it purely out of habit probably doesn't have enough to occupy their time.

I have a newspaper clipping from a couple of years ago, about archeologists finding hemp seeds and magic mushroom spores at ancient cave art sites in france and spain back to 16000 BC.

I think that people have enjoyed altering their moods and mind for a very long time, and like almost anything, moderation is the issue.

purplejenny

With things like cannabis, which can be used safely, we should be left to our own devices. This way it can be easily and reliably controlled.
People have always altered their consciousnesses with whatever's available and they always will. It certainly knocks on the head the theory that cannabis makes you apathetic- if that's the case, how did civilisation arise from a group of good-for-nothing stoners?
Hah.

I don't believe that stoners are necessarily lazy and apathetic. I think it more likey that it was stoned individual all those years ago, who first experimented with rubbing sticks or banging stones together.

Yes- (I was being sarcastic). It may have been the drugs which led them to consider the sticks just that little more closely.

What did our cave-dwelling forbears eat when they got the munchies?

"I'm hungry... let's eat sand."

Maybe they turned on the ones who were standing round going "No, you mustn't do that, you'll never get anything done, layabouts, etc." and ate them. And a new era was born!

Well, you see thats why smoking has was such an aid to humanity. Once they developed the munchies they *had* to invent biscuits.

pj

...and whoever came up with chocolate biscuits must have had their head in a bong for a week.

We should honour these people and their contributions; a series of small decorated pipes, perhaps, and an annual feast.

Well, well, well...what have we here?

H2g2 is 100 times more addictive than cannabis. Official.

Good night you lovely people.

What do you mean, "well well well...what have we here?" (Sudden attack of nervous glancing round the room for spies.) Next you'll be saying "My little droogies" and scare us all away.
Sleep well.

I was wondering when the paranoia would kick in...

I get it hourly- it keeps me refreshed.

OK everybody, just want to add a few comments.

1) I won't comment about stronger chemicals here, but I think that cannabis use should not be illegal.
2) I still won't recommend that people do it.

My perspective: I am a schizophrenic. Because of this I can do without drugs what other people need drugs for. I also believe that nobody needs drugs to do these things - I think schizophrenia can be learned. Now the question is, would that be a good thing? I enjoy my own insanity a lot, but I'm still not sure whether it is very beneficial to me.

Hendrix,Joplin,Jim Morrison... it's a long list and that's just the rock stars. The jazz musician list is even longer and a lot of them are anonymous from the pre-sixties era when drugs were a secret.
But again let's not confuse 'pot' with the killer drugs, please.

Coleridge's Kubla Khan was probably written under the influence of morphine, a very sensual drug. If he had been smoking pot he mighta spelled Canada correctly.

The issue that rankles is that legalising it- despite its obvious benefits- is avoided because, it seems, it would not be a good example to set. Also, the anti-drug establishement would have to admit that they were wrong.

In 1980, the throne speech for the Canadian government, included a proposal to legalise marijuana. The government cited all the reasons given here, non-addicting, more pleasant and less debillitating or violent than alcohol abuse, a waste of police resources to enforce (we'd just had 15 years of flower power and nobody got hurt by it - other drugs and criminal activity excluded) and it was still considered hip and cool in a disco world. Even our Prime Minister, Trudeau, seemed like an aging hippy, his wife had run off with the Rolling Stones...

Then the new president of the US, Ronald Regan and his lovely wife Nancy, invited our PM to lunch and announced their War on Drugs. Yes, they understood the argument pro marijuana, but didn't want to confuse the issue. While it is wrongfully included in the list of narcotics, it too must be warred against and wiped out. Fat bloody chance of that Mister Ronnie Raygun.

Today, 2o years onward, now that the flower power generation is sitting in the House, there is a new move afoot. Just wait till the Americans get wind of that. The hypocrisy of course is that 'fighting drugs' has become as big an industry as drugs themselves. Aircraft, ships, surveillance gear, sniffers, nightvision (at $900 a pop) etc etc... And it gives the NORAD radar system guys something to do besides monitoring space junk now that we aren't constantly expecting a Soviet missile strike.
so, hey, smoke 'em if ya got 'em
peace
~jwf~

Hurrah for Canada- it seems to have a lot of good things going for it. Perhaps we should all move there, find some way of sawing it off the rest of the continent and become a jolly, free-floating island.
There was this program i saw (how our lives are enriched by channel-surfing) which showed a shop in Vancouver where people can go and smoke dope. It sells related products also. They interviewed a 'Local Law Enforcement' type, who said something to the effect that, "As long as they're not harming anyone- which they are'nt- we leave 'em alone."
It then showed the opposite attitude, in the USA; big vicious dogs towing other Law Enforcement types through the undergrowth on one misguided quest or another. And lo, I did point and laugh.
Today's quote from The Onion: 'Drugs Win Drugs War'.