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OK, here I go <br><br>I used to really enjoy pot, to the point where everybody assosiated me with pot and guitars. (During the disco generation, I looked like Jesus and I wanted to be Hendrix, so I stood out.)<br><br>I think part of it was I just enjoyed smoking. I smoked a lot of cigarettes then, too. <br><br>Pot shut down a lot of negative critical shit in my head and made me feel relaxed and happy. Also, without it, I never would have graduated high school (which I found so unstimulating that I had to get stoned just to physically sit in the classrooms for the alloted time. I much prefered to skip and go play guitar and choose my readings from the library instead of the textbooks, which I often did during my junior year. I had a system that worked, but that's another story.)<br><br>By the time I hit my early 20's, something changed. Pot quit being fun. It started making me really uptight and nervous. I guess paranoid, too. It used to be the cure, so it took me a while to figure out it was actually making my life tougher and not better. "Pot is causing this?.....Naaaaaaah." When I finally figured out I only felt that way when I smoked, it was a tough decision to quit because it had become part of my identity. <br><br>I finally realized "This used to be fun and made me feel good, but it doesn't do that anymore. It's gotta go." When I quit, I lost most of my "friends." <br><br>One of the amazing things about pot is its social aspect; if you live in a town where you don't fit in, pot immediately finds you a bunch of people to hang out with, but you find yourself hanging out with [s]dirtbag losers[/s] [sup]people[/sup] you would normally never associate with and that you have absolutely nothing in common with other than pot! I'm talking about straight-up criminals and all kinds of "colorful characters". heh heh. So when you quit, the more paranoid ones actually think you've become a "narc." LOL! ;D <br><br>I don't know if the effects changed because the pot got stronger, or I got older, or I had more pressures now that I was out of the womb of High School and in the "real world", or a combination of all that shit, or something else. I just know it became the reverse of what it used to be. Pretty strange phenomenon, whatever the reason. I find I can still flip on "the stoner mindset" like a light switch any time I want to. I don't need to smoke anymore to do it. <br><br>I still wonder if my fucked-up memory is because of pot when I was younger or if it's just "absent-minded professor syndrome" i.e. too much shit on my mind all the time to keep it all straight. <br><br>One good thing about pot is it helped me learn to really listen to music; hear all the individual parts and hear the whole simultaneously. Of course, it made me play like shit-- I would get behind the beat because I enjoyed the sound of each note so much I would hold them too long. ;D Especially when played through a really big amp that was cranked up so you could actually physically feel the note as you hit a string and it comes blasting at you through the speakers, which is still a great experience any time.

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

Well, bat, that was a mouthful. <br><br>I see your point-- the amount of attention one pays to their memory can exagerate their perception of what is actually going on. Sorry to hear about your friend! Damn! I guess I'm doing great! ;D<br><br>The "dirtbag losers" weren't actually my friends, they were merely "pot associates." There were actual friends I smoked with, then there were all of the others I came in contact with.  And when I said criminals, I mean REAL criminals! People that did hard time for REALLY bad shit, and when they got out they continued doing REALLY bad shit. Real live dangerous people, OK? I'm not going to elaborate any more on that. But that's where we sometimes had to go to score, and after a while you get to know a wide range. I get the feeling you might have misinterpreted some of the things I said and took it as some kind of social elitism or something. Not at all! Sorry if that unintentionally struck a nerve. I don't pick my friends based on their income. I've never been like that. But I bust my ass to improve myself all the time (musically, physically, financially, interpersonally, intellectually, creatively), and these fuckers (the previously mentioned dirtbag losers) didn't do shit that was worthwhile. "They can all kiss my ass but because it's so grand they best just stay away." Scumbags. Everybody that smokes pot isn't "cool", despite the propeganda from the 60's and 70's that tried to make us all believe otherwise. (Prior to the 80's attempt to reverse it and say that nobody who smokes is "cool.")<br><br>Personally, I think pot should be decriminalized and regulated the same way alcohol is. If you can do it and enjoy it and not impose any bullshit on somebody else while you're doing it, then why should it be a crime? If you DO impose your bullshit on somebody else, then you are held accountable. Pretty simple. Generally, "stoners" are too lethargic to cause the kind of problems that "tequilla guy" causes; I'm much more concerned about drunks than stoners. <br><br>I know many people who still smoke. I don't care. It doesn't affect my opinion of them as long as they take care of themselves. It just quit being fun for me, so I stopped doing it. It used to be fun, then it wasn't. <br><br>Blah blah blah<br>woof woof woof<br>yadda yadda yadda<br><br>Time for more coffee.........

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

[quote author=Batchain115 link=board=tv-film;num=1041291151;start=30#30 date=08/29/04 at 18:42:12]You must have found yourself at one time or another suddenly hit with the realization that you were in the company of people you had not expected ever to be within miles of and wanted get well away from immediately. [/quote]<br>At the time did I realize that? Nah. <br>Well, yeah...but the voice of reason in my head lost out to the influence of everybody assuring me that everything was OK because the dangerous dirtbags were "cool," and of course since they were "cool" then everything must be OK. <br>Since they're "cool." <br><br>And since I didn't act concerned, the dangerous dirtbags knew that I was "cool." <br><br> ::)  <br><br>Dumbshit crazy stoner logic!  :P :-/ ;D<br>Ha! I haven't thought about the people in those circles in years. I guess my memory isn't blown out...I can still see it all in full visual details. That was over 20 years ago.<br><br>Now where did I just put my pencil?........

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa

Yeah, we're really not connecting at all on this one. I'm done.

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“The person who stands up and says, 'This is stupid,' either is asked to behave or, worse, is greeted with a cheerful 'Yes, we know! Isn't it terrific!" -Frank Zappa