Someone set me straight if I'm wrong, but wouldn't their logically be about 60 other plants that you could do all this stuff with that consequently aren't good for getting high?

I'm all for freedom, but pot is getting on my nerves. Tired of seeing good friends either baked or burned out all the time, who'd rather sit at home getting high while playing computer games than go outside and do something worthwhile. The thought of doing something sober besides work being alien to them, they're missing out on reality as it is.

Industrial hemp is a completely different thing from marijuana -- although they are the same species, you can't get high from smoking hemp; the THC levels are just too low.

And yes, there are other plants that have some of the usefulness of hemp (bamboo, sisal, flax), but it is by far THE most useful plant for many many different purposes, plus it's a very sustainable crop. It's almost a miracle plant, so it's great to see that it's starting to be allowed again for commercial use in some countries. I have some hemp clothes that I like very much.

As for your stoner friends, I feel your pain but I also think it's a healthy stage for a lot of people to go through to get to know something more about their own inner world. 97% of them will get over it in a year or three, though if they get stuck in it they might benefit from a good kick in the butt (and some therapy to get to the bottom of whatever they're avoiding facing by being permastoned).

Yes but the myriad of uses for hemp were discovered by people heavily funded by stoners who can't appreciate reality un-baked, and are desperate to get it legalized so they don't have to spend 50 bucks a week on their habits or get arrested for them.

If you could get high off bamboo they'd find a way to cure cataracts and make sweaters with them too I'd bet. Just seems too convenient that weed just happens to be a "miracle plant" too.

Hope you're right about my friends though.

>> ^Enzoblue:
they're missing out on reality as it is.

That would be your reality - not theirs. If they are truly your friends, you might ask yourself (and them) to what end does each of them indulge in a particular intoxicant, instead of lumping them together in the class of "stoner burnouts".

>> ^Enzoblue:
Yes but the myriad of uses for hemp were discovered by people heavily funded by stoners who can't appreciate reality un-baked

uh, no - most of the industrial uses of hemp were discovered thousands of years ago.

If its not weed its going to be alcohol or cigarettes.

Would you find that more socially acceptable?

jonny: That would be your reality - not theirs.

Not mine, the reality that an un-altered mind perceives. Slippery slope argument, but I've tried pot and I can't function as good. Apparently they can't either and they admit I'm right when I bring this up.

Farhad: If its not weed its going to be alcohol or cigarettes.

Would you find that more socially acceptable?

Good point. It's just that weed is turning them into sloths, they do it all day, they don't drink but maybe a couple times a week. Cig's are ineffectual.

Thanks for views on this guys, it does help.

Reality that an unaltered mind perceives? That can change with your heart rate. That statement also values one perceptual framework over another. You say you do not function as well, but at what? For instance, I can't run as fast when I'm high, but I'm definitely a better lover. I read much slower, but type faster.

Don't place the blame for their slothfulness on the drug. That's a mechanism for them to shirk responsibility. Habitual marijuana use can certainly exacerbate laziness, but it doesn't create it.

Upvote for the Whitehouse being burned down by Canadian soldiers.

does anyone even know Why hemp was banned and deemed bad in the 1st place? i'll give you a hint, someone in politics (mainly american) was bought out.

In the 1920's the Du Pont company developed and patented fuel additives such as tetraethyl lead, as well as the sulfate and sulfite processes for manufacture of pulp paper and numerous new synthetic products such as nylon, cellophane, and other plastics. At the same time other companies were developing synthetic products from renewable biomass resources--especially hemp. The hemp decorticator promised to eliminate much of the need for wood-pulp paper, thus threatening to drastically reduce the value of the vast timberlands still owned by Hearst. Ford and other companies were already promising to make every product from cannabis carbohydrates that was currently currently being made from petroleum hydrocarbons. In response, from 1935 to 1937, Du Pont lobbied the chief counsel of the Treasury Department, Herman Oliphant, for the prohibition of cannabis, assuring him that Du Pont's synthetic petrochemicals (such as urethane) could replace hemp seed oil in the marketplace.

William Randolf Hearst hated minorities, and he used his chain of newspapers to aggravate racial tensions at every opportunity. Hearst especially hated Mexicans. Hearst papers portrayed Mexicans as lazy, degenerate, and violent, and as marijuana smokers and job stealers. The real motive behind this prejudice may well have been that Hearst had lost 800,000 acres of prime timberland to the rebel Pancho Villa, suggesting that Hearst's racism was fueled by Mexican threat to his empire.


Just another FYI:
Peter Bensinger is a former head of the DEA. He and his partner Robert DuPont (former Director of NIDA) created Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, which profits from selling drug war related consulting and testing services.

*eco

Adding video to channels (Eco) - requested by fissionchips.

*history

Adding video to channels (History) - requested by notarobot.