J-Day wtf?

Beal is interesting and a good dude I think, but really I'm an ardent anti-prohibitionist and it's kinda the first I heard of it in my 30 plus years of "knowledge".

www.leap.cc these guys git it exactly right

There is the Marijuana March which is during that day in May from the past...methinks they need a marketing campaign to push J-day but even the name is idiotic - vapourizers are the way to go, no J required (no I do not have a vaporizer)

Worse the the Tory plans to explode the prision population with more jail time for simple possession, etc and privatized, for-profit prisons.

They want to import the worst part of US without the best part - checks and balances in the US constitution.

http://tinyurl.com/2st6bx

#12 & 35: I Ching reference?

30+ years ago, I, a big Dylan fan then, was delighted when I thought I'd solved the puzzle of Rainy Day Women #12 & 35,
a song from Bob's '66 Blonde on Blonde, also released as a single.

I was convinced then it must be a reference to the ancient Chinese oracle book The I Ching. In '65 Bob had said in an interview:
"[The I Ching] is the only thing that's completely true, period. Anyone would know it. Anyone who ever walks would know it..."

Bob was also big on psychotropic drugs in the sixties, saying he was "pro-chemistry" and that he viewed certain drugs (particularly psychedelics) as "medicines".

Someone consulting the I Ching oracle sometimes receives just one (of 64) hexagrams as an answer, but frequently receives 2, where the first hexagram points to a transformation into a 2nd one.

So, I'm picturing Bob throwing his three I Ching coins six times and getting #12, P'i, Standstill/Stagnation with it's 5th line (of 6) ending up as a "moving" line, which changes from a yang, to a yin line, yielding a 2nd hexagram, #35, Chin, Progress.

#12 talks about "evil people" acting as a hindrance (rainy day women, and others? "They'll stone you", sings Bob!).It says "Standstill" is a state of difficulty, and disunity as "things cannot remain forever united", and that Standstill is the opposite of Peace.
#12 says the way to escape the difficult situation is to "fall back on [ones] inner worth".

The important moving line (the 5th)of #12 strikes an optimistic note: "Standstill is giving way, good fortune...". The line also mentions,in connection to this coming good fortune,"mulberry shoots", an important medicinal (if not specifically psychotropic) herb in ancient China, and it remains part of modern herbology's pharmacopeia. Also, the mulberry is a hardy plant, with strong roots. If lopped off,it typically grows back strongly with multiple new shoots.
Bob could easily have taken the mulberry reference as a symbol for his own favourite medicines of the time, herbal and otherwise, such as cannabis, peyote. LSD, etc.!

That moving line points to hexagram #35, Progress, with lots of positive implications. The unhappy state is changing
into a desirable state of "clarity", of "light rising over darkness", "expansion".
"The weak progresses and goes upward". One "brightens [ones] "bright virtue".

So, putting the oracle result together with the song, my theory goes like this:
Bob found he would find himself in states where people around him seemed to be getting him down, troubling his mind, leaving him temporarily out of touch with his "inner worth". But the right psychotropic medicine at the right time could help restore him to an improved state of inner and outer unity and clarity!
(cont.)...

#12 & 35 (cont.)

(cont.)....

Bob injects some humour into the song, with a comedic delivery, and with a "posse" in the background hooting and hollering, while Bob is heard occasionally laughing...They were likely all high for the occasion, in keeping with the song's message!

Rainy Day Woman # 12 & 35

Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone ya when you're walkin' 'long the street
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to keep your seat
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' on the floor
They'll stone ya when you're walkin' to the door
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

They'll stone ya when you're at the breakfast table
They'll stone ya when you are young and able
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to make a buck
They'll stone ya and then they'll say "good luck"
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, They'll stone you and say that it's the end
Then they'll stone you and then they'll come back again
They'll stone you when you're riding in your car
They'll stone you when you're playing your guitar
Yes, but I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

Well, they'll stone you when you walk all alone
They'll stone you when you are walking home
They'll stone you and then say you are brave
They'll stone you when you are set down in your grave
But I would not feel so all alone
Everybody must get stoned.

...Now back to my taxes...come to think of it, the taxman can "stone ya" too...gimme some opium tea. Cheers!

No Guts

If all the marijuana smokers in Canada had a smoke in of some kind the politicians would have to legalize it - just based on the number of pot smokers!

But unfortunately not enough are brave enough or willing to risk their social standing so ..........................

I also think that the politicians are afraid legal marijuan would mean a less 'productive' work force, or reduce people's need to consume consumer products.

May mean less violence and war though!

Smoke for thought! LOL!

But ...

There's nothing wrong with making an individual choice to use drugs. But, to suggest that drugs make a better world is ludicrous.

When I was in high school I chose to run track, play football, and study. There were many that smoked dope, hung out the corner store, and skipped class. Our lives followed very different paths after gaduation. Who is to stay who has a better life? However, in comparing, I certainly wouldn't want to change places.

I wouldn't want to take away people's right to celebrate their indulgences, but I'll make very certain that the children I interact with know what I consider to be a good choice.

Well, Chris H, what about

Well, Chris H, what about the kids who ran track, played football, studied, AND smoked pot? Sure, you can feel superior to the kids who hung out and the corner store and skipped class, but you're making a poor argument if you're saying that pot is the deciding factor in how your lives followed different paths.

"a better world with pharmaceuticals" not

Chris H says:

"There's nothing wrong with making an individual choice to use drugs. But, to suggest that drugs make a better world is ludicrous."

I'm wondering how Chris H feels about all those dilligent, "responsible", non pot smoking students who have gone on to take jobs in industries that destroy peoples lives and health such as: tobacco manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, implements of war and firearms and junk food including all processed food.

In anticipation of your protesting that pharmaceuticals save lives, I'll preempt that with some facts and figures. In both the US and Canada, ADEs (Adverse Drug Events) run at approx. 225,000 and 23,000 deaths respectively. The interesting thing about these numbers is that most honest medical researchers believe that these numbers only represent about 5% of actual deaths from the dangerous side effects from prescription drugs.

In Canada the maximum deaths from all illicit drugs combined is only 1700 per year. You strongly imply that pot smoking invariably leads to a wasted life when the fact remains that with an LD factor of 650, pot is the safest drug on the planet.
If you could pull your square head out of your round hole for a moment you would also start to notice that many of the worlds most creative shakers and movers in numerous fields of endeavour are tokers.

It's not the pot...it's the person. If pot didn't exist there would still be an equal number of disaffected under acheivers in this world. My theory is that kids are mostly pretty bright and all are quite perceptive. Many become overwhelmingly disillusioned with the world early on because of the mess that square headed, booze abusing, greedheads have made of it.
They look at the young reactionary, future alchoholic, redneck,junior neocon, frat boy jerks around them and lose all hope.

Quote:When I was in high

Chris H this is one of the most genius things i've read posted here. The problem is, no one values this sort of thing anymore. People don't value things like discipline for kids.

WTF ??????????????????

pot is ILLEGAL ???????????????

GEEEEEEEEEEEEZ !!! I guess the BIGPHARMACORPS do have INFLUENCE after all.

as an ex jock who did go to university(3 different hallowed halls in North America and England) and smoke the evil weed and dropped acid and tripped on everything in between...I can say,life is better when you have that outlook that only GOD can give you through the magic of your mind and whatever you ingest/inhale/etc...

I am,open to EVERYTHING,because the DOORS OF PERCEPTION...were opened for me .

not a closed minded moron who thinks you should go to jail for smoking a little GREEN...

and that big difference ...SCARES THE SH!T
OUT OF THE SIMPLE MINDS THAT RUN THIS PLANET INTO THE GROUND AND TURN EVERTHING GREEN ...INTO PARKING LOTS

I am also a sucessful photographer who has been in business longer than i care to mention(cause i am getting OLD) and looking around me at my peers they are all pot smoking old timers with the same mentality as me and many others out there.

LEGALIZE IT !!!!!!!!!!!!

and ban MORONS like STEVEN HARPER AND GEORGIE(YOSEMITE SAM)BUSH...WE WOULD HAVE AMUCH BETTER SOCIETY IN THE LONG RUN.

LIGHT UP !!!!!!!!!!!CIAO BABIES

GO!!!!!!!!!!!CANUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!GO!!!!!

reuben

"Well, Chris H, what about the kids who ran track, played football, studied, AND smoked pot?"

I didn't know any kids like that. There were some guys who smoked pot every now and then when it was being passed around at a party, but no one I knew who chose it as a "lifestyle" played sports. Those kids would be sucked away from any other activity when someone got a new "bag." I can only give you my personal experience. Perhaps there are individuals like that (super-student, super-athete, super- partier), but my guess is that they would be pretty remarkable individuals and outside the norm.

Some "successful" people smoke pot; I am not disputing that. There are many, however, that smoked to the exclusion of everything else. In my opinion, they missed out on a lot. I would say it is all about balance; and, what teenager can find that balance all by themselves? While the "lifestyle" pot smokers who believe that marijuana will lead to world peace will preach 4-20, I'll make sure my kids know what I think of the choice of hanging out at 7-11 smoking dope.

boris moris

"I'm wondering how Chris H feels about all those dilligent, "responsible", non pot smoking students who have gone on to take jobs in industries that destroy peoples lives and health such as: tobacco manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, implements of war and firearms and junk food including all processed food."

I don't think those things make the world better either. I would consider pot use pretty neutral overall. It certainly hasn't caused as much harm as tobacco or alcohol. Additionally, I would put myself in the Bruce K. Alexander school of drug reform in Canada. The war on drugs is not a sensible way to attack drug addiction.

However, the suggestion that pot smoking is a positive use of the average person's time (i.e. excluding those using it for medical purposes) is ridiculous. It ranks right up there with Freud declaring cocaine to be the universal panacea.

Cannabis: Both Good and Bad

Marijuana's been a hot topic in Britain especially, in the last year or two.
There's been lots of debate there over whether cannabis should, in British law, be removed from the same legal class as other drugs typically viewed as being more dangerous, and placed into another legal category ("Class C", I think) as a less harmful substance, that should perhaps be decriminalized.

But a new British study adds more, and reportedly compelling, evidence
that cannabis use increases the likelihood of schizophrenia developing, especially among young people.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2368994.ece

Some British medical experts (as well as politicians, and "The Independent" newspaper)who had been in favour of decriminalization, have reportedly changed their minds after reviewing the new evidence. It isn't the first study linking cannabis with schizophrenia,
but it's reportedly the most extensive and reliable. A Swedish study 20 years ago was
perhaps the first study suggesting a link.

I found it significant that Dr. Andrew Weil, the natural health/integrative medicine authority, whose early books were
sympathetic looks at psychoactive drugs,
believes the evidence is persuasive that
some psychoactive drugs, including cannabis, can trigger psychosis in a small percentage of users.

On the positive side, there is a definite place for medical marijuana. There's evidence it can help patients suffering from M.S., glaucoma, pain, nausea, and other symptoms, and conditions, and that it's more effective than alternatives, in many cases.

As a recreational drug, we know that some people react poorly to Cannabis (anxiety and "paranoia" being not uncommon), while other users find it relaxing, conducive to creativity, improves sex, etc.!
Cannabis is one of several substances traditionally used by many Sadhus, those wandering Hindu monks, as a meditation aid.
It's a spiritual herb to Rastafarians.
("Jah, Rastafari!")

Just because cannabis may have detrimental effects for some, is this reason enough to keep cannabis illegal? I just say no!

Our legal drugs, tobacco and alcohol,
have dangers, and cause mega deaths, yet they are not banned. By comparison,cannabis is pretty much non-lethal. It may have a negative side for some, but that's not justification enough to criminalize it. Criminalizing users, while tolerating users of deadlier legal drugs (including the often deadly prescription drugs, as someone else mentioned) is hypocritical and unjust.

Instead, drug policy should include education, early intervention where indicated(without infringing on rights), voluntary treatment, harm reduction, and drug maintenance for those who can't quit addictive drugs,
-NOT prosecution,conviction,fines,and jail!

I say, free psychoactive drug use from government tyranny and persecution!

FREUD/FRAUD

GEEZ!!! I forgot that FREUD was a COKEHEAD,of course FREUD was a FRAUD AS WELL.

only people that take him serious are the people he made into PHONY DOKTORS...

SOFT SCIENCE FOR SOFT MINDS...

Oh please, Chris H

Guess you've never met any of my friends... hard core mountain bikers and extreme snowboarders (a couple of them closer to 50 yrs old than my age), who have been smoking pot (which is a PLANT, let's not forget, people) pretty steadily for 30 some-odd yrs.

To lump marijuana or a plant like salvia divinorum in with acid and cocaine is ignorant... I'm with Thomas that it is just downright frightening that so many people so easily buy into this "marijuana is bad" bullshit- all the while drinking alcohol, eating junk food (which in my opinion includes most pre-packaged foods found in supermarkets), drinking coca cola... get my drift?

Humans get stupider every day.
By the way, I haven't smoked a joint in years and have no desire to right now in my life, but some of my best memories, most relaxing times and eye-opening experiences outdoors were had when I was trippin' on good ol' mushrooms or strong weed.

Chris H: disingenuous by half

Chris H says "However, the suggestion that pot smoking is a positive use of the average person's time (i.e. excluding those using it for medical purposes) is ridiculous."

You don't dispute that successful people also toke up but then you say it's a ridiculous use of the average person's time as if "average" people,who also toke, are sucking on blunts like a chain smoker with their cancer sticks. Only hardcore potheads are always baked. The "average" pot smoker is like a "social" drinker. They are certainly not constantly high unlike Chris who is permanently under the influence of self righteousness and delusions of superiority.

You're not making any sense there Chris buddy....better lay off the Prozac or bible or whatever other fairy dust you ingest.

Toking...

Personally, I'd rather spend time around potheads than boozers any day.

bore-us ...

"You don't dispute that successful people also toke up but then you say it's a ridiculous use of the average person's time..."

No, I didn't. I said, "the suggestion that pot smoking is a positive use of the average person's time (i.e. excluding those using it for medical purposes) is ridiculous." Like I said, I believe marijuana to mainly be neutral in its effect on society, but that marijuana is somehow a positive influence, and that everyone who smokes it somehow becomes enlightened and peace loving, is ridiculous. Somehow, I don't think it is the recreational user who marks 4-20 on their calendar, which is what the article was about. The great spokesman of marijuana use, Mark Emery, readily admits to driving around constantly "baked."

Perhaps I would make more sense if you took a course in reading comprehension, boris? You never know.

Chris H

maybe you need to smoke a little 420 and learn what is what - yeah and it sure as hell DOES create peaceful people.

"Too many days I've left unstoned"

Grace Slick.

I too decided to "clean up" my act a while ago - Let's see:
Pot made me think about awful stuff (like global warming and wretched wars) and acid produced so many "Boo Hoo/Ha Ha" fluctuations I had difficulty keeping track. I'm guessing 20 years ago for the last Lsd trip and two or three for the last (infrequent before that) toke. But I ain't happier for this!

For one thing: Booze and tobacco are probably more expensive than good acid and Pot. Who knows how well my body and whats left of my right brain would be functioning just now if I had gone ahead with the possible world I really hankered for?

Now I doubt I'll run out and find a dealer in my neighbourhood - if anything the world is just now busy throwing crap at the fan and any sensible stoner will keep their head down.

Maybe someday we can use what is the most amazing item in this world: Consciousness.

I sure miss it

there's more

Till Herself gets home I can ramble on:
Yes. Dabbling in any psychoactive (including the internet) does increase the risk of schizophrenia.
But so does simply leaving a person in the 21st century on planet Earth! (See "Five ways to kill a man")

Too true, doggone it!

The 21st century is likely to be hazardous to ones mental and/or physical health!

Can you imagine

we were actually concerned about cvlimate change 20 years ago?
Go figure

4-20 Van Sun - note police presence comment..peace

http://tinyurl.com/39by3h

Thousands light up at Vancouver pot-smoking day
By Chantal Eustace, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, April 20, 2007
Sam McKinnon, spent three days working on her international pot-smoking day costume: a green tutu and T-shirt printed with the words “THC Fairy.”

The annual event — known simply as “4/20” in reference to the date, April 20 — lured thousands of weed worshippers to the lawn of the Vancouver Art Gallery on Friday for a collective toke that lasted all afternoon.

You could smell it from at least two blocks away.
“It’s a big deal,” said McKinnon, 17, standing at the corner of Howe and Georgia just after 4:20 p.m., when organizers handed out about 400 free joints to the crowd.

Behind her, plumes of skunky smoke clouded the blue sky. Canned reggae music played over a sound system drowning out the traffic.

“We’re all about the same thing — pot,” said McKinnon, showing off her braces as she grinned. “We all share the love for the same thing.”

Love it they did.

Wherever you looked people were busily rolling joints, passing pipes, admiring each other’s bongs or passing out stems from marijuana plants. The crowd — made up of everyone from aging hippies and skateboarders to yuppies and goth brats — bubbled over onto the sidewalks along Georgia and Howe.

--snip--

The marijuana revellers don’t misbehave, Emery pointed out.

Apart from a few security guards, who patrol the 2010 Olympic countdown clock, there were no police officers on site.

“They didn’t even see a need to send any over,” Emery said. “It was very orderly.”

The masses of people, many of whom sported costumes or waved flags, caught the eye of tourist Yingke Wang, 22, who stopped to photograph the event.

“You wouldn’t see this elsewhere,” said Wang, of Cardiff, Whales. “I’d say it’s pot-smoking on a very big scale.”

---snip---

Amber Hamilton, 23, said she looks forward to pot day more than other holidays — even Christmas.

“It’s always nice on this day,” Hamilton said. “When it comes up I like to take the day off work.”

----snip----

And Grant Hatson, 15, a Grade 11 student from North Vancouver summed up the laws relating to pot in Vancouver: “It’s illegal but it’s not really illegal.”
Now the question is, did the city inhale?

ceustace@png.canwest.com

Response to last question: Yes.

It's like anything else...

People will choose to abuse anything. Personally, I think watching football on TV, when done to excess, is more harmful to individuals and to society than smoking a bit of pot now and then.

The difference is that professional sports is a legal drug. I think it's a gateway drug, however, that when combined with violent TV shows and movies, often leads to invading foreign countries or "passive-aggressive" subjugation of their populations via multinational corporations.

I think the strongest argument against pot is that it makes people passive. Perhaps we could use a bit more of that!

intellectual honesty

You don't have any of that Chris H. Right here in soon to be archived print you have contradicted yourself on the main premise/POV you offer....your assertion is that pot is basically for losers and your kids are going to be brainwashed as much as it takes to steer them off the bong trail.

Huge problem with that in this day and age. The infamous DARE program developed stateside is welcomed into schools where they categorically state that coke/crack/smack and pot are all equally baaadddd. As soon as those kids are exposed to pot and discovers DARE was bullsh*tting them there ends up being a significant number getting snagged in a hell hole. You risk doing that to one or more of your brood. That might mean my foundation ends up housing or feeding them while they wait to be processed through the system for a B&E or solicitation charge because they need upwards of 20 rocks a day.

The very least you can do to start with is to own what you say.I made distinct quotes and referenced your various statements including from responses you made to other posters. I also gave you a little verbal shot which prompted you to morph into a weasel. Your kids deserve better from you.
I told my kids when they were in middle school that I would rather they smoked pot than tobacco and hard drugs were shoit.
They are mid and late 20s now and both still in school. They're physically, cerebrally and socially magnificent.
My money would ride on a bet that you're a repressed and frustrated suburbanite who is not getting the kind of meaningful satisfaction from your career/material existance that your subconscious is screaming for. The ennui will set in and you'll become a full time cynic. There is a world of things to be cynical about for all of us. The trick for you is to avoid being such a stiff pr**k all the time.

It's going to be 4:20 again in 47 minutes

Moral Relativism Sucks

"I told my kids when they were in middle school that I would rather they smoked pot than tobacco and hard drugs were shoit."

Yeah, great attitude. Your attitude is actually common in our society today, which is why drug and prison culture is so popular among youth today. What you should have told your kids is that in order to be successful in this world, they should focus on school, work, saving money, learning about taking care of themselves, and perhaps joined them in activities so they wouldn't kill time behind the smoke shed after school. At 4:20 PM in my high school days I was too busy playing football, basketball and track. Often, when he got off work early my Dad would come sit in the bleachers and watch. Hard to smoke weed in that situation.
We don't stress discipline or dedication or abstention from the negative in our moral relativism laden snakepit of a socialist nation. Sad.
As Ward Cleaver said "If something is wrong, it's wrong no matter how many people say it's right. And if something is right, it's right no matter how many people say it's wrong."

Businessman didn't get the memo either

..that was the memo on intellectual honesty.

My attitude is doing quite well thank you. Businessman must have had a convenient bout of brain fade as he read "They are mid and late 20s now and both still in school. They're physically, cerebrally and socially magnificent." as I descibed how my children prospered from my sage advice.

Businessman didn't stop to ponder the possibility that I also would have needed to instill some important values in my children for them to have blossomed into extraordinary humans...nooooooo...he just jumped blindly at the opportunity to slag the herb and the fact that our society clings to the remnants of its social safety net. I suspect that if eugenics were legalized and privatised he would be loading his portfolio with shares in companies that would help shape the world into his perfect little Republican/CPC vision. The one where obscene amounts of Ritalin and Prozac rule the day and Ward Cleaver buys an UZI, with his bonus money from making widgets for the war machine, and keeps hidden until the day he needs to teach June a lesson she'll never forget.

Businessman’s future as Ward Cleaver

Ward Cleaver (shaking with impotent rage): Stop laughing at me June.

June Cleaver (barely controlling her contempt for Ward): Oh Ward..you’re always so hard on the Beaver, why can’t you be hard in the beaver?

Ward Cleaver storms out of the bedroom and returns seconds later clutching the Uzi. 4 days after he begins his life sentence he perishes from loss of blood after failing to endure the passions of his gargantuan cellmate. In a peculiar warp of the cosmos he reincarnates as a rotund 9 year old who hates hippies. Let’s join him as he waddles into a US military recruiting center and lasciviously eyes some syphilitic looking GIs:

Businessman (to GIs): Hey….soldier boy..me love you long time…10 dollah

…and so it goes

Rapacious capitalists and neocon, law and order clones everywhere place all their faith in those who would protect their right to plunder the planets resources which prompts said planet to rid itself of these moronic parasites permanently…..

But Businessman and his little buddy Chris H refuse to see any ironies whatsoever.
They comfort themselves with the “wisdom” of their favourite Leave it to Beaver sage:

Fred Rutherford: Have to keep a firm hand on boys nowadays, Ward. My Clarence answered me back the other day. I smacked him right in the mouth. None of this psychology for me.

May help fight lung cancer

Damn yeah, this shit is baaaaad:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/17/health/webmd/main2696726.shtml

Chris H. isn't the bad guy

Wow, dog pile on Chris H. Why? It appears that his calm opinion was simply based on his personal experiences. Reading the vehement response to his input tells me all I need to know: I'd rather hang out with someone like Chris who's not nearly as jumpy and paranoid as those who crucify the guy for merely telling what he experienced. Whatever happened to the peaceful pot smoker? And by the way, for all those skunking up the Art Gallery grounds, do you know if studies have been done about any effect those chemical clouds might have on the fetus of any pregnant woman who happens to be strolling past? Or living in the apartment above your joyous smoke-ins?

delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol

Everyone is missing an important point. Of all things ingested by humans, from heroin to water, cannabis is the ohly one to never have caused a human death.

Its opposition comes from the tobacco addicts and alcoholics who pass laws against others, smugly and self-righteously.

The reason for its innocous nature probably derives from the effect on the body.

After the introduction of foreign agents into the body, the liver starts to secrete substances to metabolize the substance. In this case, the primary intoxicant is the liver-produced metabolic agent.

This was all studied and reported in 1971, but we were in the hippie-hating mode, so it was ignored.

It is also the primary reason that cannabis has a reverse tolerance, in that the more you do, the less it takes for the effect, as the liver gets better at producing the metabolic stuff.

Don't tell the right-wingers. They still think drinkng themselves into cirrosis is good for the country. I'd hate to stop that.

Pot is Divinely Good!

...so saith many pot evangelists...An entirely Angelic plant!

I'm the first to say pot,and all other psychotropic drugs should be made legal, not 'cause they're all harmless, but because demonizing and criminalizing their use is counterproductive, and tyrranical.

BUT, like many other things our society accepts or tolerates, from cars to junk food,to alcohol, pot too has bad ..consequences for some users. For those who react to pot with anxiety and fear, it's more demonic than angelic.

I tend to accept the data linking pot and schizophrenia in certain susceptible users.
I can also say that when I was a dedicated pot head for a few teen years, my mental health definitely deteriorated, if not to the point of psychosis.
I've avoided pot for years. I have my own other favourite drugs of choice now.

Considering schizophrenics are much more likely to commit suicide than others,
and a much tinier % of schizos commit homicides due to delusions ("The next door
neighbor's an agent of Satan and must die!")

So, it's probably safe to assume some suicides, and possibly even a few murders can plausibly be linked back to pot use and subsequent psychosis. So, although deaths from toxicity cannot be attributed to cannabis, I'm not sure one can safely claim pot has never resulted in deaths.

But this is not sufficient reason to keep
pot illegal. Cars and McDonalds'food kill far more people.

on Fii's article that THC helps prevent lung cancer. Interesting! I'm not convinced chronic smoking of anything is harmless to lungs though. Cancer's not even the most common smoking related lung disease (Emphysema is).
...Space cookies are probably healthier than spliffs!

polishing t*rds

Scaremongering about the dangers of pot has eventually backfired every time the ploy is used. Given all the positive optimal health supporting properties of pot I think it is neglect not to instruct your children on the benefits of these positive attributes.Do it and this will score major cred with your junior peeps. They will be more inclined to honour your sincere request that they don't even try out the real dangerous drugs because there is absolutely nothing positive to be gained. Your motivation should be based partly on the belief that virtually no matter what you tell them and what their previous history is, 90 plus percent will try pot in school by grade 5 or 6. ( in the barrios of West Point Grey and Shaughnessy the future Howe Street Wunderkind are dealing kilos by the time they're eight)
If you have your children's unwavering full and undivided attention due to your authoritarian nature or their ears spasmed when you start yakking about drugs and try to give them the "all drugs are bad...okay" they will already be skeptical of your veracity and then they will get their first taste of pot and one of them, after discovering you lied about pot, might want to try some crack or goof balls or worse.

So a Harvard study states THC shrinks tumors and more.(so does laughing at satire and parody) What else aren't they telling us? What did they know when they shut down the hemp industry in the 1930's.
What have we been missing from our health care options?

another 4:20am comes and so it goes.....

boris moris

You sound more like an evangelist, or a lobbyist than an objective commentator on the topic.

Your starry-eyed take suggests that
pot is all good for all people all the time.

I'm on your side as far as legalization goes, but it's dishonest to suggest pot is absolutely harmless for all users.

THC is a powerful molecule affecting the brain. Different brains respond differently to it. You're lying if you try to claim you've never known people who hate the effect of pot 'cause it makes them completely neurotic with anxiety, a fairly common subgroup of people who've tried pot.

Others, like me, had positive effects early on, which turned negative with chronic use, around age 16 - 17. But that's just me. I'm not saying there aren't lots of regular recreational users (as well as medical pot users) who derive benefit. But you shouldn't claim just 'cause you find it beneficial that therefore it must be good for everyone!

Another not uncommon negative I'm very familiar with myself, is the effect of pot on memory function. This is a well known side effect for some users (I'm not saying for all) as you should well know, if you've been around lots of pot smokers.

There's also habituation. Two of my closest
friends like to sometimes binge on pot, or use regularly for a weeks at a time, and then stop for a while.When they stop they suffer definite mental withdrawal symptoms. They don't feel right
without pot, for some days. There's a craving to have it, to "put them right".

There's nothing wrong with habituation, mind you. It's a common physiological/psychological response to many substances. Coffee is quite addictive, as we know, but we don't outlaw it.
I have a cousin who is prone to having panic attacks if she drinks strong coffee.
I know of other cases where serious anxiety
problems were addressed by chronic caffeine
users weaning themselves off their drug.

So, coffee, though legal, isn't harmless to all people all the time.

Neither is pot, and you'd have more credibility (and maybe success)in your campaign to legalize if you were more honest about both the pros and cons. Your credibility suffers when you
come across as a missionary evangelist or
an advertiser with a marketing campaign.

There are some inaccurate myths about pot being circulated by the anti-drugs campaigners, as you suggest. Most notably, studies show the "gateway drug" argument is pure B.S.

Both the pro-pot and anti-pot campaigners would do well to drop their
mythologizing (demonizing vs. angelizing).
Then we might be able to start having an honest discussion of the issue, instead of having dueling B.S. artists.

Oh-oh, more bad news for Pot Evangelists

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2472150.ece
A new 10 year long study shows some definite health downsides to pot for some users.

The Independent is a U.K. paper which for some years adopted a "decriminalize pot" stance, but have changed their minds due to
new and apparently rigorous studies showing pot's sometimes detrimental effects.

I agree with the fact that detrimental effects exist for some users, but I disagree with the paper's conclusion that these effects justify criminalization.

I think I'd concur with this quote from the article from a U.K. pro-legalization group called "Transform" (depending on how strict their definition of "regulation" is.
And, I'd change "drugs are dangerous" to "can be" dangerous)

"...But drug reform organisation Transform says that legalisation of cannabis is the way forward. A spokesman said: 'It is precisely because drugs are dangerous that they need to be appropriately regulated rather than be left in the hands of criminal profiteers'."

You Canadian legalization campaigners would
be smart to take the honesty route this U.K. org. does in arguing for legalization,
instead of the B.S. denial strategy, which ultimately will backfire, 'cause you'll just lose credibility and moral high ground on your issue.

What about this article quote?
"More than 22,000 people needed treatment for cannabis use in Britain last year. The number of emergency hospital admissions due to cannabis has almost doubled in five years - from 581 in 2001 to nearly 1,000 last year. Britain's teenagers are most at risk as the drug acts on the developing brain, according to leading experts."

Personally, I can't just slough off an official stat like "22,000 needed treatment".A stat like that would have to come from the British NHS, the gov't health system.

Even if you assume for a moment
that the 22,000 number may possibly include some cases where pot was used together with other drugs, and therefore pot may not
necessarily be the "culprit" in every case,
still, it's hard to get around the fact that some young Brits are ending up in the psych ward after too much pot use.

A World full of Hazards to Kids!

Lots of bad news this week about hazards to young people's health!

Not only is pot smoking a threat, but so is electronic pollution from
computer Wi fi networks:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2472133.ece
and now there are renewed worries about power lines and childhood leukemia (according to a supressed U.K. gov't report)! http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=A1PB4A0QBW12FQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/04/21/nleuk21.xml

At least pot exposure is voluntary, while these other threats are rather more involuntary...and thus, in a sense, "worse"!

quirks and cranks

Mark of the Beast Bob999 says:

"You sound more like an evangelist, or a lobbyist than an objective commentator on the topic."

Do you ever read your own posts Bob?
If you did, and you had the ability to be self critical..and there is evidence of that, you would see what an evangelising, self hating wet blanket you are. All this twaddle from Uncle Sam's favourite beatch..the UK...where a pot demonization campaign is in full swing. Why don't you provide stats from a jurisdiction where there is high rates of usage of REALLY strong pot...some place like BC?

Bob999 states "Both the pro-pot and anti-pot campaigners would do well to drop their mythologizing (demonizing vs. angelizing)."
Holy hypocrisy Bob999...you've been doing nothing but demonizing and you go on to say
"Then we might be able to start having an honest discussion of the issue, instead of having dueling B.S. artists."

I'm curious Bob999....what substance is it that turns you into a into pot hating weasel?

Weasel Fest at the UK Corral

Does Bob999 remember when the Tyee did a couple of features on pot in the summer of 2005 (or is that asking too much of your tiny, pot ravaged memory banks?)?
In two different threads an ex Coasty by the name of Colin tried to posit that pot was hallucinatory and most Vancouver street pot was cut with poisons. Another poster called sleepswithangels not only skewered the integrity compromised colin but managed to provoke even more shoit out of Colin..revealing that his attempt to be "the Voice of Reason" was nothing but a typically short on truth right wing response to pot decriminalization/legalization.

Bob999 makes it crystal clear in all his posts that he thinks it should be decriminalized but spends all his limited intellectual capital on making a case that pot is dangerous.

I didn't know Colin had been selling you his bathwater Bob999....I guess it goes down easy if you just close your eyes and "think of England".

bomo

I see bomo the missionary evangelical must have wandered over to the Michael Moore thread. Someone there asked me more about the Great 23 Enigma (uncanny
coincidences connected with #23, frequently
pertaining to disaster news items).I'd touched on #23 there with regard to the Virginia murderer (who was 23, and who killed 32 [23 reversed]). Since someone asked me about #23, I mentioned I'd put together a blog all about the 23 Enigma, if they were curious:
http://blog.myspace.com/86201106

Apparently, bomo liked my blog so much, he
wanted to search for my profile too!

bomo apparently believes he sees a subtext there suggesting I must be gay (..."not that there's anything wrong with that", as the Seinfeld episode goes!).
Why, because I happen to be currently, contentedly single? Or is it that I "come out" there as a cat afficionado - are cats "gay" to bomo? Or is that #23 is gay in bomo's universe, 'cause William Burroughs wrote about it, and Burroughs happened to be gay?

For reasons best known only to himself, bomo's decided I must be lying when I selected "straight" in answer to the MySpace profile's question.

There's a psychological trait called "projection" where someone sees and/or imagines that other people have certain traits he has latently in himself,
but is non-accepting of.
With bomo now imagining fairies where they aren't, I'm wondering about his mental health.
...Maybe you should try laying off the pot
awhile there bomo.

I also notice along with your changing the subject to fairy fantasies,you offer no rational argument or presentation of alternate data to challenge the facts about the sometimes negative aspects of pot,
some of which are well known to just about anyone
with experience with pot and pot smokers, including no doubt you bomo
(anxiety, memory lapses,habituation/withdrawal symptoms), and others, such as mental illness, which a number of serious, non propaganda medical studies are finding evidence for.

You're apparently a propagandist,or a fundamentalist pot evangelical (pot's all good all the time for all!),or a lobbyist and advertiser/marketer. Why should you be taken seriously, when you can't even apply rationality and honesty to the subject?

If one of your goals is to legalize pot,
your dishonesty and obfuscation only serves to hurt your own "mission", IMO.

IAMC

Clearly pot is harmful.
I started smoking this weed in 1967. Forty tears ago. And it has clearly damaged my brain. It's turned me into a Libertarian Conservative that doesn't want Kyoto as part of my life.

weasel fest...redux

Oh dear..it seems I've offended our resident ubiquitous motor mouth..Bob999

In my previous post, which has been deleted, I referred readers to Bob999's blog and drew attention to some extraordinary contradictions in Bob999's profile in order to undermine any credibility he relys on to spread pot hating propaganda on this thread. If you click on the blog link he has thoughtfully provided in the preceeding post and then click on his name to see his profile you can draw your own conclusions. I just thought it was relevent to point out that the words of someone who wears lipstick and eyeshadow,and references almost exclusively gay or bi influences, and then tries to claim he is straight are not to be taken at face value.

Bob999 constantly uses a device known as "The Voice of Reason" to sell his POVs.
It's a pathetic attempt to con those who typically don't like harsh truths and tend to agree with those who seem "reasonable and balanced".

I also pointed out that nowhere in this thread have I discussed legalization or tried to promote the use of pot in general, except as a parent with your own children, as Bob999 has claimed. What I have done is challenged those who would use unsound tactics to scare children away from pot.
I've also attacked Bob999 for using biased information from the UK where there is an active campaign promoted by Bush loving imperialists to demonize pot use.

Bob999 is free to be an androgenous teetotaler but he should expect to be called on his duplicities and ill informed bias against pot use.

Bush loving imperialists?

You lose me when you resort to left wing liberals tactics that use poor George Bush as a point of argument.
It's so, so, so tired, that argument.
It is not up to the state to promote drug use.
I don't want the Government involved in the free market.
The quality of service will certainly decline.
Do you really expect George Bush to advocate Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out? Like Timothy Leary did?
This is wayyyyyy over the top.
Next thing is you will be expecting him to denounce " MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING " you nitwit.

yo!

everyone - chill the fuck out! straight up! It's 4-20 once an hour somewhere in the world every day.

IAMC - hell yeah, no probs with an agreement the whole world adheres to, but allowing china and india to install pollution-spewing infrastructure seems like a plan to ensure more and more jobs can be exported to these countries at no loss of profits to big money interests.

We have enough problems trying to change our own infrastructure, so why would we want to allow these other countries to install the wrong thing in the first place? - total nonsense on an empirical level.

Who the hell is Boris Moris?

I've never heard of you on any other thread here, now you're the boss of the place, lumping poor old Chris in with the neocons and who knows what else? All for having the quite plausible observation that in his high school days, he went the student/athlete route and while some others went the stoner route.

Self-righteous, aggrieved, militant potsmokers? WTF man. I thought the whole point was to be chilled out.

tokers and juicers ...........

seems every time this CONVERSATION is presented...it turns into...US VERSUS THEM !!!

OH!!!! WAIT !!! EVERY CONVERSATION/DEBATE IS AN US VERSUS THEM...

when people can prove points rather that JUST PROFER BULLSH!T,then the debate can adavance...

SO FAR...god's gift...cannabis has been used for as long as we have been on this planet.yet only when the AMERIKANZ wanted to somehow make life miserable for some and COMFORTABLE FOR THE WEALTHY ,has cannabis become the KILLER WEED...

drink this wine it is my blood,eat this wafer it is my body...WOW !!! IS THAT A HALLUCINEGENIC TRIP OR WHAT...WAS JESUS ON DRUGS?????????????

homophobe bomo rants on

Oh, so it's the picture (that is not of me, by the way) that brought out bomo's homophobic fag baiting rant!

The Tyee is pretty tolerant as far as posts
go. But grade school style, school yard level fag baiting as bomo was engaging in,
is rightly deemed inappropriate here.

All bomo's assumptions about my MySpace site are wrong. He seems about as sloppy in researching my site as he is in researching the effects of pot...i.e. he believes what he wants to believe, evidence be damned.

The picture that riles his homophobia happens to be a still from my favourite silent era film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, from 1919 Germany , with its cool movie set designs, and plot both influenced by the surrealist art movement of the time.

It's easy to find the pic via a google images search of the film's name, which is where I found it. bomo cites my MySpace profile, but apparently
didn't read it clearly before jumping to foolish conclusions. So he didn't notice I'd written on MySpace under "Movies", "...Dr.Caligari", adding there that "the movie is where "my" picture came from"
BTW, no one else who's visited my site has expressed a belief that the picture is actually of me, instead of it being the 88 year old movie still it in fact is. Only bomo has demonstrated such an error.

The picture is of Cesare, the somnamblist, who incidentally isn't a gay character.
Actually, I would think most people would look at that picture and not think "gay". They'd think "GOTH", a style that's been around for 25 years, for both males and females - but it's apparently "breaking news" to bomo.

Goth isn't gay. [and Goth isn't EMO - another cultural manifestation bomo's likely clueless about]. Style wise, goth is Robert Smith of the Cure, who is not generally considered effeminate in image or person - except perhaps among the bomo's of the world. Smith happens to look a bit like my Cesare pic.

I notice many other people on MySpace choose "their photo", from sundry photos of a million and one things, people or animals.

I chose mine just for fun, not 'cause it specifically represents me. I'm not a goth, nor have I aspired to be one.
But I am a big fan of Siouxsie, of Siouxsie and the Banshees.(She appears prominently in my MySpace site and blog). Siouxsie is often viewed as penultimate Queen of Goth.

So the pic is a reference to my fave film and to my appreciation for my fave female singer,in a way.
(cont.)...

(cont.)...

...bomo tosses the term "teatotler", as an apparent taunt. Is this 'cause bomo
knows "real men drink booze"? Or maybe it's 'cause he's jumping again to wrong conclusions...Perhaps bomo assumes that since I rarely drink [When MySpace asked "drinker or non-drinker?", I thought my 6 or 8 drinks a year make me more "non" than "drinker], and 'cause I don't use pot, that therefore I must be "straight" with regard to personal use of drugs.

Well, I'll confess here and now (for the 2nd time on this thread)that's one department where I definitely am not straight at all! I have my own psychoactive plant drugs of choice I use regularly, which I view as beneficial, and which are not yet viewed as quite legal under our current drug laws (these are in addition to the legal O.T.C. supplements I also use to regulate neurotransmitters).
I've written specifically on other Tyee threads about my fave drugs I use. I won't repeat myself here.

Yammer sums up bomo thusly:
"Self-righteous, aggrieved, militant potsmokers? WTF man. I thought the whole point was to be chilled out."

-No kidding...Is it conceivable bomo's an undeclared meth head too?

I'd add that bomo apparently has not yet graduated emotionally from an elementary school level mentality.
He's like the brattish, insecure schoolyard 12 year old, calling "f*gg*t! f*gg*t!" at any other kid with which he thinks he can get away with it.

Yes, bomo's a brave and manly man, fag-baiting from the safety of his computer keyboard in his private hidey-hole.

hmmm...

bobb999 - in the uk cannabis went to class c back in 2004.

fii - cocaine comes from a plant too. i guess cocaine is more like hash?

"Businessman’s future as Ward Cleaver" - rofl!

as for schizophrenia, i think a lot of those people are self medicating, ie they get more benefit out of it than the average person and so stick with it more.

as for the dope head loser skipping class and hanging out behind the shed in the alley, i think you'll find a lot of those are the addictive personalities who are missing something in their lives. they'll take whatever they can come across. they prolly mostly drink and smoke as much as they can too. and if they're in a place where crack and meth are as easily available as booze and smokes and joints are, they'll be using those too.

as for health risks. smoking a joint in the evening is prolly about as bad for you as standing by the side of the freeway during rush hour. and if you want to be healthy about it, try a vapourizer - eliminates some large chunk of the 400-500 chemicals entering your lungs. or just have brownies ;-) perfectly safe.

as for the benefits - yes thc has been shown to inhibit tumor growth. also has some neuroprotective properties - slows brain damage from head injuries. mind that's thc, not pot smoking tho. not like they'll take a trauma victim and stick a doob in his mouth - more like the options available for nicotine - like a patch, or since it's not toxic like nicotine prolly even an injection. makes you wonder about the amazing things we could have learned about it if we hadn't been living under prohibition for the last 80 yrs eh?

prohibition makes both the police state and the underground criminal element stronger at the same time. no wonder it's so hard to get out from underneath it.

as for 4/20 or j-day - my suggestion would be to skip the fight and invent your own international pot smoking day! i nominate tomorrow! feel free to make your own nominations! voting starts april 29, and ends someday :-)

as for the slagfest - snooze.

ps - salvia, heard a lot about it, but haven't built up the cajones for it yet myself. someday, right set & setting, maybe. prolly more likely to drop acid again tho, and thats been years - if i came across a trustworthy source.

anyway, just had to throw in my 2 cents on marijuana. too bad it took so long to get this far down the comments what with the kids going at it like that. oh well, it's the tyee, you do what you gotta do ;-)

pps

pps - robert smith is a little femme, in image and in music, dont know about person never met the dude. i do dig the cure in the right situation, but i think males are the minority in that club.

i always thought goth was more on the industrial side, with a bit of vampires thrown in. i wouldnt have put the cure in there, but am now enlightened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_rock

Woo

What a strangely heated thread. Between this and the damn Canucks game 7, I might have to have a little puff to calm down.

SALVIA -- sounds interesting but also a lot like going insane. I am curious about psychoactives, but have so little cognitive ability as it is.

may 420 be as newsworthy as happy hour one day

Jeepers, lay down your automatic opinions, silly nitwits, or the internet police may decide that flame wars are more destructive of community than THC!

Here's a page where former narcs say the drug war is futile:

http://www.reason.com/news/show/117956.html

"People ask how a former cop could say drugs should be legalized, but it's precisely because I love police and love police work that I'm saying it. The drug war stops real cops from doing real police work. It's corrupting. It's wasteful. And it has wrecked communities."

~former police chief of Seattle, Norm Stamper.

Maybe this is why there's a wee bit of sensible tolerance for a 420 party in Vancouver:

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition:
http://www.leap.cc/

"Acknowledging when we do not know something and being humble enough to admit ignorance is the virtue of intellectual honesty. At the best of times, this is terribly difficult for police officers to maintain; after all, when you're presumed to have all the answers, disguising personal opinions as fact is often irresistible. This drug war, however, is the worst of times, and I'm appalled at the frequency with which some of my colleagues defend enforcement practices with completely unsupportable commentary. Despite the plethora of self-anointed "drug experts" in policing, who seldom hesitate to publicly volunteer opinion, I've never observed a medical or pharmacological study being referenced. Considering this paucity of true expertise, subsequent law enforcement spin- doctoring reinforces the theory that truth is war's first casualty."

~quote from Constable Gil Puder in a presentation to The Fraser Institute in 1998. Unfortunately dead now, but Gil was a 16-year veteran of the Vancouver Police Department, who served in Patrol and Investigative assignments, the Emergency Response Team, and as an instructor at the British Columbia Police Academy.

~more info @ http://leap.cc/publications/puderroh.htm

A crutch

Pot's a crutch, like alcohol, like cigarettes, like coffee, like your favourite TV program, like religion, like that friend you can call up at midnight and pour out your heart to, like the blanket you curled your fingers around as a tot. Maybe a person's anti- or pro-drug use stance just comes down to whether a person 'approves' of others having a crutch instead of soldiering on through the pain of life.

PS

I wonder if the Vancouver "4-1" Canucks smoke dope.

Betty - why do you love pain?

are you perhaps wanting everyone else living in misery with you or perhaps you have a belief in a cruel god so you yourself are cruel as well?

I do not believe you're point of view is agreeable to free people - you have no credibility other than with torturers, slavers and sociopaths.

this is for you - Jesus ‘Love-Bombs’ You:
http://tinyurl.com/33afol

Miscellaneous

-Betty and MBIOF: I see you both have fine senses of irony (...I hope!)
-Mikev: I checked, and you're right about cannabis being now a "Class C" drug in the UK. I guess part of the debate there now is: should it remain there rather than be decriminalized as many have been pushing for.

I'm with you that smoking burned plant material of any kind is not likely to be healthy for lungs. Plant smoke contains a stew of substances. Vapourizers do sound preferable. As far as THC preventing lung cancer, as Fii posted,I don't doubt it, but I'm not sure smoking's the ideal way to ingest it. It may be counterproductive:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2411384.ece
I accept that THC has a number of indicated medical uses. Many M.S. sufferers find it indispensible, as just one example.

Oh, about Robert Smith. Yes, well, he is a bit more garish than your typical goth guy, if that's what strikes you as slightly "femme".
And I doubt most goth guys consider themselves effeminate at all.
Sixties hippies didn't think their long hair was effeminate either, though I'm sure
status quo coveting males made noise about it, even though their own great grand dads likely had long hair!

I cited Smith 'cause he's had that goth-oid look for 25 years, so I thought he'd be a recognizable example to name. You're right
he's got a devoted female following especially. I don't think the "Smith girls" view him as femme though. Instead, he's their ideal of a real man! Aside from his colourful demeanor, he comes across as a pretty regular kind of Englishman. I'm with you on the Cure though. They're alright, but not
a favourite.

The only goth music (or look)I dig a whole lot is Siouxsie Sioux's...the face that launched 500,000 goth girls(-to Siouxsie's chagrin)! Sublime voice (to me).

Yammer may appreciate it that the contentious tone appears to be calming, now that the unwarranted personal attacks have cooled.

23

Oh, I agree with you on the number 23, Bob... I still need to read your link. On Sunday I glanced at the time at exactly 23 minutes after the hour FOUR hours in a row. It's been happening on and off for years. It wasn't that I was looking at the time a lot, either. I'd be doing something and I seriously felt compelled to look at the time- all the while knowing it would be 23 minutes after. And it was. It's freakish.

Re. 23

Hey Fii, I see you too are a member in good standing in the "23 Club"! That's an interesting 23 experience you had...Once one is a member, it's not so easy to get out of the club again!
Because once someone starts noticing strange coincidences surrounding #23, such phenomena
seem to just keep on coming (for me, it's been for 30 years)!

There is a mystery there (beyond sheer chance), though I can't say I quite understand the nature of it.

"and it was freakish"...WOWWWW !!!

LIKE,WITH ME MAN...it is the number 6...

yes...it was six minutes since i had a sip from my SIXTH beer and looked at my watch for the SIXTH time since i had ny SIXTH sip of my SIXTH beer...

GEEZ...gotta stop tokin in da middle of the day,causer I WON'T LAST SIX MINUTES INTO TONIGHTS GAME...

WOWWWW!!! THAT NUMBER 6 SCARES THE SH!T OUTTA ME SOMETIMES...

23 - 6 leaves 17 lacking

thomas, 'fraid you're about 17 beers short of a 23 man. No wonder you're not a 23 club member!
Some get it, some don't.

Thomas not getting it

Exactly as you say, Bob. Eight?? What the heck?

It started popping up for me about 13 years ago... 30 yrs for you?? Whoa... I thought it was just me, too, until my friend told me about the movie (which I haven't seen), and I thought "What?? Other people have this weird 23 thing going on, too?" I remember telling a friend about it years ago (I probably WAS high at that time) while at a party and he looked at me like I was nuts, then I glanced at my digital watch and it was 23:23:20, so I flashed my watch at him and you should have seen the look on his face when it read triple 23. Actually, that was really whacked, that time.

Ah well, everyone is going to think we're pretty loony, aye? Ha- who cares.

um, I meant six, not eight

Ok, I'm off this thread now...

"Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 2007-04-19 17:23". (oh, and this was underneath the preview comment button when I typed this- I just copied and pasted it).
Note numbers.

Fii

Hey that's fascinating #23 tapped you on the shoulder, out of the blue! I think 23 phenomena manifest in different ways to different people. You seem to have your own unique manifestation relating to time, clocks, and watches.

In my case, I didn't stumble upon it on my own like you did. I read about it in Robert Anton Wilson's Cosmic Trigger. RAW had heard about it from William Burroughs.
Both associated #23 with uncanny coincidences.

RAW noticed both destructive and
positive manifestations. But as far as his own life was concerned, he felt 23 incidents helped him in his life's and his spiritual journey.

I discovered that Jim Carrey in his real life has been collecting odd 23 incidents for years. He too believes there's an enigma there.
I haven't seen his movie The Number 23 yet, although up on my blog I've posted articles about it plus Carrey interviews where he talks about 23 experiences.
(cont.)

23 (cont.)

Burroughs, on the other hand saw it differently (from my #23 Blog):
"In the early '60s in Tangier, Burroughs knew a certain Captain Clark who ran a ferry from Tangier to Spain. One day, Clark said to Burroughs that he'd been running the ferry for 23 years without an accident. That very day, the ferry sank , killing Clark and everybody aboard.
In the evening, Burroughs was thinking about this when he turned on the radio. The first newscast told about the crash of an Eastern Airlines plane on the New York-Miami route. The pilot was another Captain Clark and the flight was listed as Flight 23.
(Aha! Now you understand the line 'Captain Clark welcomes you aboard', which appears, always with sinister overtones, in various of Burroughs' surrealistic novels.)Burroughs began keeping keeping records of odd coincidences [Typically, disaster news items, which is why he called ii "Demolition #23"-B.] To his astonishment, 23s occurred in a lot of them. When he told me about this , I began keeping records - and 23s appeared in many of them. (Readers of Koestler's Challenge of Chance will find that there are a great many 23s in that encyclopedia of odd coincidences also)." -From "Cosmic Trigger"

Like Burroughs, my own experience of 23 has
mostly (but not exclusively)come in the form of noticing the number in disaster news items, beyond what sheer chance should allow for! They've kept coming for 30 years.

-As I say on my blog:
"May all your own personal 23s be positive ones!"

some get it ??????????

yes bobb999,some do get IT!

some of US even get people like you bobb with two b's and the british isle's EMERGENCY number 999...

AND THAT'S WHY YOUR ON THIS PAGE STONER...

yapping about numbers like someone who has stepped ...ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE,SWEET JESUS...

put on your aluminum hats kiddies,the whacko's are into the cookie jar again...

HEY,DON'T BOGART THAT JOINT...MY FRIEND...PASS IT OVER TO ME...

course... I ALWAYS WONDERED WHY THE CALLED A JOINT...A NUMBER ???

and why john lennon had a thing about NUMBER NINE...NUMBER NINE...NUMBER NINE...NUMBER NINE...NUMBER NINE...NUMBER NINE...

HUH??????????????

oh well...been a gas...gotta get back to work.

23 : a statistical study?

Well, we see some skeptics find the 23 discussion entertaining, at least, if unconvincing!

A few colourful "Demolition #23" news items fresh off the D23 assembly line from the past week:

-Apr.27: In 2006 [in Travis County, TX] three motor vehicle child fatalities (23 percent) were caused by alcohol-impaired adults.
http://keyetv.com/topstories/local_story_117134459.html
-Apr. 26: 23 more killed in Afghanistan violence. http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=145741&version=1&template_id=41&parent_id=23
-Apr. 26: Sheriff: [Kidnapped]Man Locked In Truck For 23 Hours Rescued
http://www.10news.com/news/13184114/detail.html
-Apr. 26: 23 years after Johanne Hatty was strangled at a Sydney lookout, DNA technology has helped convict her killer. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21623875-1702,00.html
-Apr. 25: 23-Year-Old Male Missing from Hurricane. http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=1146975
-Apr. 25: At least 23 killed in northwest Sri Lanka clashes, military says
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/25/asia/AS-GEN-Sri-Lanka-Fighting.php
-Apr. 24: Bombers kill 23 in Iraq - police
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/4/24/worldupdates/2007-04-24T024111Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-295368-1&sec=worldupdates
-Apr. 23:
Interfaith love sparks 23 deaths
After Muslim woman elopes with member of Yazidi sect, workers of sect are killed in Iraq http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070423/NATIONWORLD/704230408/-1/ZONES04
-Marine Corps honors 23 troops from Hawaii-based unit who lost their lives in Iraq http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20070420-1616-marinesremembered.html
***************************************
...Looks like it's been a busy week for Demolition #23!
Naturally, skeptics will say, "ah, but it's just that you are noticing the 23s, while ignoring other numbers".
But after 30 years of bystanding as 23s march on by, I remain convinced (by the apparent prevalence of the #) that something beyond mere chance is afoot. Some might call it Jungian Synchronicity (meaningful coincidence), a term and concept widely used and believed nowadays, coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. Exactly [i]why 23, I do not know.

I think I'd like to attempt a statistical analysis of 23s, to see if the simple bean-counter facts bear out my theory about 23. A way to do this would be to randomly select a newspaper archive and simply count the incidence of each specific
# (of 2 digits) appearing in news items associated with death or other unpleasant incidents, over a set period of time (the longer the time period, the better the sample). I'd post results on my 23 blog...A project to establish statistical evidence of the reality of the Great 23 Enigma (one aspect of it, at least - its dark side) beckons![/i]

Agreed

Thomas keeps checking back, now doesn't he? You'd think it would be just me and you at this point, but no...
That is really interesting, all those news items connected to #23. See that is something I hadn't noticed. Like you pointed out, Bob, mine is more connected to time and dates. I have noticed that it gets stronger and more prevalent for me at pivotal times in my life- times of change, whether good or bad. Transition changes, that kind of thing. I think I may need to go and fetch me some of Robert A Wilson's writings tomorrow...

holy smokes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is exactly 12:23...WOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

THAT 23 POPS UP EVERYWHERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jeez...i wuz such a doubting THOMAS wasn't I?

U has made a convert outta me guyz...frum now on...I will mark ,in my mind,every encounter with those two DIGITS...that should keep me OCCUPIED between the hockey playoffs and life in general...eh ???

GO !!!!!!!!!CANUCKS!!!!!!!!GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

PASS,DAT DOOBIE...BRO !!! i feel i iz coming down...HARD...

these playoffs are gonna finish off my liver this time...maybe i should be toking more and get my lungs to working overtime,eh???

WHAT !!! NO BEER !!! SORRY GUYS,GOTTA MAKE A BEER RUN...

ciao babies!

holy smokes !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it is exactly 12:23...WOWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

THAT 23 POPS UP EVERYWHERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jeez...i wuz such a doubting THOMAS wasn't I?

U has made a convert outta me guyz...frum now on...I will mark ,in my mind,every encounter with those two DIGITS...that should keep me OCCUPIED between the hockey playoffs and life in general...eh ???

GO !!!!!!!!!CANUCKS!!!!!!!!GO!!!!!!!!!!!!

PASS,DAT DOOBIE...BRO !!! i feel i iz coming down...HARD...

these playoffs are gonna finish off my liver this time...maybe i should be toking more and get my lungs to working overtime,eh???

WHAT !!! NO BEER !!! SORRY GUYS,GOTTA MAKE A BEER RUN...

ciao babies!

Fii

Yes, I think Thomas is getting more and more intrigued by our 23 discussion. I think he's on the cusp of joining the club!
All it should take is for him to receive a few particularly mind-blowing 23 coincidences,and he'll be a convert, with a new handle: "Thomas23"!

That's very interesting you've noticed more 23s around times of life transitions.

There's a scientific factoid that may possibly help explain some of 23's mysterious properties.
It's an important number as far as continuation of human life goes,
'cause each parent contributes 23 chromosomes to the fertilized egg.

Since 23's an important number to reproduction, and therefore to life, it's occurred to me that its death associations may flow naturally from that, as death is the inevitable flip side of life.

23 & The Drug War

To put another slant on #23 (and to revisit the original topic of the thread...), an initial search suggests #23 may possibly also be associated with dope busts! It looks like #23 nails unsuspecting pot users/sellers all too often...
-Apr. 12: In the last 16 months officers have uncovered a total of 23 cannabis factories in the Bradford District, with cannabis worth more than £2million. http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/section-item.asp?sid=12&iid=3354
-Apr. 24: 23Arrested at, Around Rap Concert
Police arrested or cited 23 people in and around a Bismarck concert Friday night. The four officers working at the concert...saw people smoking what appeared to be marijuana cigarettes...
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/articles/2007/04/24/news/local/132396.txt
-Apr. 26: Police Bust Cramahe Grow Op
...Drug enforcement officers located 371 grams of marijuana and 23 marijuana plants.
http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=503270&catname=Local%20News&classif=
-Apr. 20: Police raided Crown's house in February this year and found 23 tinnies of cannabis, with a street value of $460 and two grams of methamphetamine in five bags.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4032818a12855.html
-Apr. 13: London police raid 'Rastafarian temple', arrest 23
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10434047
-Mar. 21: 63 kg Cannabis Seized This Year – Major Drug Raids – NT
...(police) located a quantity of cannabis in eight vacuum bags and four clip seal bags and 23 cannabis cookies.
http://www.nt.gov.au/pfes/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewMediaRelease&pID=6500&y=2007&mo=3
*************************************
Conservatives for Legal Pot?

I just discovered something surprising about American economist and conservative icon Milton Friedman, who
gave the theoretical underpinnings to Reaganomics (& Thatcheromics), and is largely to blame for conservative myths about smaller gov't, freeer markets, and the neocon myth that says "free" a country's economy, and its political system will become "free" (democratic).
Well, I think he got it right on drugs at least:
Quote: "(Drug)illegality creates obscene profits that finance the murderous tactics of the drug lords; illegality leads to the corruption of law enforcement officials; illegality monopolises the efforts of honest law forces so that they are starved of resources to fight the simpler crimes of robbery, theft and assault." -M.F.

WELL ,LOOKEE,LOOKEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

them DANGEROUS POTHEADS has bored everyone off this thread...

i think they should be INCARCERATED for INFLUENCING the masses with their hard core politics...

c'mon gang!!! how are we gonna keep the WORLD SAFE?????????????

Pynchon?

In 1966 Thomas Pynchon published his first novel called "The Crying of Lot 49".
Just coincidence, or did Thomas49 take his handle from the novel?

Doth anywho have any reason?

i do not think having 2 days stretches the movement to thin. Thats like saying black history month is to long!

I have yet to hear one argument FOR criminalizing weed that cant be applied tenfold to tobacco and booze. Granted - no recreational substance is perfect weed comes far closer to the consept of HARM REDUCTION. (yay capitals!)

write to your local MP.

Exactly

I agree that if alcohol and tobacco remain legal, pot should be too. Tobacco alone kills 40,000+ Canadians each year. The number is so staggering, it goes right over many people's heads, not quite sinking in!

No other recreational drug will ever come close to killing as many people as tobacco does.

So it's sheer hypocrisy to demonize and criminalize one set of drug users, while
accepting and tolerating (even if there's some degree of active discouragement like "no smoking" zones) users of the most deadly ,though legal, drug in existence!

That pot may also have some detrimental effects for some users is insufficient justification for criminalizing its use.