Thread by @owenbroadcast

alright in this thread we are dropping anti-weed materials

basically just wanna riff on the role weed has played in my life and why im really sick of it

if you dont like it or want to cry about it, just keep scrolling or do whatever, i dont really care

lets kick it off right

this is the vibe we on in 2019

so, i actually didnt start smoking weed until after highschool. my parents smoke a ton of weed, and this was enough to turn me off from it until then. it was extremely embarrassing having them show up to pick me and friends up high or something, i had an intrinsic antipathy to it

however when i went to college i got really into it, probably for a variety of reasons ill explore here. one thing i noticed instantly was that it put a huge damper on my naturally buoyant and happy go lucky personality. the effect was immediate and manifested in many ways.

im not "goofy", you see from me posting here that im into many serious topics, but IRL (at the risk of sounding pretentious as hell) i think i have kind of a wise fool vibe going on where i do enjoy joking around, making people laugh, i enjoy being fun with people, basically.

when i started using weed regularly i could literally feel this aspect of me drain away. it was kind of like i became more self-conscious in a way, + combined with the naturally sedative effects of weed, i stopped joking around with certain people in the way that i previously had

this seems like a dumb example, but i used to dance w my friend in his car when we'd listen to music that we liked. like moshing in the car, or other stupid shit. this totally stopped when we started smoking. this isnt significant really but it indicates the effect im describing

i think most people that smoke a lot learn to write off these effects + ignore them, but they pile up + slowly begin to change your personality in ways that you dont think are significant, but they obviously are. you ignore these small changes, or attribute them to something else

intermission: dutch study of 2,000 teenagers finds "bidirectional" link between psychosis and marijuana, "for example, the study found pot use at age 16 was linked to psychotic symptoms at 19, while psychotic symptoms at 16 was linked to pot use at 19".

ibtimes.com/pot-psychosis-…

as i got older and had basically been smoking all the time for years, i found that i really needed weed to have fun. people that smoke a ton of weed that act like this effect never manifests or that you "cant be addicted to weed" are completely totally lying 100 fucking percent.

i smoked weed 24/7 for like ten years and basically all my friends did as well so its not like i have no idea what im talking about. i know exactly what its like. you become dependent on it to have a good time. you feel like you dont "need it" because its always around.

you develop a circle of friends who basically only hangout via smoking weed. its the only way you relate to each other. of course you have other real friends (hopefully...) but you also have friends where you KNOW if you couldnt smoke with them it would just be awkward, obviously

and in this way you slowly start to lean on weed where you tell yourself you dont "need" it but you know if you had something planned and you were going to smoke and suddenly the weed left the picture, the activity would be less fun for you, maybe you wouldnt even do it.

i had a friend who set out to hike the entire appalachian trail (georgia to maine). total stoner. brought a ton of weed. got like halfway through and ran out. called me and others trying to get us to mail him some. couldnt get it. so he bailed on the trail and came home. [...]

now when u ask him why he got off, "oh well it stopped being fun", "i just kind of wasnt sure why i was doing it anymore", "well i got what i needed from it", a ton of abstract reasons, OBVIOUSLY it stopped being cool because he couldnt smoke weed anymore + couldnt go without it

this is a perfect example of what its like. not smoking becomes a thing + not being high starts to have this "tinge" to it. if you took the average stoner to the most beautiful mediterranean island in the world the cloud of not being able to smoke would hang over them + dampen it

i lived this. i traveled with people, often to beautiful places. we'd get there and the stoners, including me, would set out to find weed. oh haha we dont need it or anything its not like we need it to have fun its just obviously our first priority to find some. pathetic

i even openly discussed this effect with people. i did ayahuasca a few times and one of the effects of that is it kind of resets you (not recommending it, just saying). people often say something like "i feel like myself for the first time in a long time" or something like that

when i talked to stoners about it, id say, "yeah, it makes me feel like i dont need to smoke 24/7. [my exact phrasing + words]: it takes the tinge away from not being high". everyone i ever told this to knew exactly what i was talking about. no one ever was clueless. they know.

intermission: study of 1000 people over 25 years shows cannabis permanently lowers IQ. made people "significantly more likely to have attention and memory problems in later life" and those who [...] quit as adults, did not regain their full mental powers"

telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ne…

so, i have some atypical ideas about time + how things appeal to or cling to the spirit (this is relevant, not a high detour, lol). basically i think there is a reason certain things make a big impression on the mind + sometimes those reasons are some future event or theme.

when i was super young, must have been like first or second grade, some teacher or caregiver showed us this video of different stories or fables and one of them stuck out so clearly in my mind. like it totally blew my mind wide open and i always remembered it clear as day.

even before i figured it out i thought this was weird. i mean i was so young i dont even remember where i was or who i was with or anything, but i could draw parts of this short video for you, it was instantly burned into my mind like a hot iron. now i understand why.

the story was, there was this guy who was always bored and always wanted to be other places. he was always impatient and always wanted to know how things would turn out, he could never wait for anything, he was never happy where he was.

the guy was young, like a teenager. so one day he meets this magical person who gives him a magic ball of string. in the video it looked like a glowing white ball of yarn. he tells him, when you pull this string, you can skip parts of your life.

pulling the string basically fast forwards his life slightly. so if hes waiting for something, he can pull the string and jump forward a few moments. or if he wants to know how an event can play out, he can pull the string and fast forward and see how things end up.

so he takes it, and starts doing that. hes waiting for the bus, he pulls the string a little and the bus is there. he has to take a long drive, he pulls the string and hes at the end of the journey. he wants to know how a fight his friends are having ends, he pulls the string.

eventually he starts pulling the string randomly, whenever he feels like it. hes bored, he pulls the string. hes talking to someone, he pulls the string. he just starts doing it just to see what will happen. he pulls it hard, hes in college, at his wedding, he just keeps doing it

eventually hes an old man and hes like "woah what the fuck. im old now... and ive like, completely fast forwarded through my whole life", and he has a panic attack. the person who gave him the string returns and says, "yeah, youre a fucking idiot, you fucked up", essentially.

he gives him another ball of string that will send him all the way back to the beginning, and he pulls it. of course he learns his lesson and gets to relive his life appreciating all the moments that he just saw as annoying obstacles.

thats exactly what weed is. u can use it to coast through parts of your life. i used to say smoking weed is like you're biking, and when you light up its like you start coasting downhill. it takes no effort and suddenly, when you were just peddling, you can just ride w no effort

u can just breeze through parts of ur life. my cousin once said something like "yeah if i have to pick through a dumpster of trash at work of course im gonna smoke beforehand". it can make bad things tolerable. but it does this by numbing you, by emptying you out. pull the string

everyone who has smoked a ton of weed knows the feeling of getting high as fuck and going somewhere or doing something and afterwards you're like "did i even do that? man i feel like i wasnt even there". well, you werent. people live huge chunks of their lives this way. i did.

i truly feel that the video i saw burned itself into my mind because that was going to be one of the main struggles of my life. my whole family abuses substances. the second i started using them i did also. im that kid that was pulling the string, i just got lucky that i stopped

people say its harmless but the reality is that [most] of the time the fact that it doesnt cause overt harm is the most dangerous part. you never hit rock bottom with weed, you just keep tapping into this void and you dont realize youre becoming this boring as hell empty person

"buuuuuuuuuh but my one friend smokes and has a hot model girlfriend and a mansion" "broooo i smoke and im totally fine" okay whatever. if you have stoner friends you know EXACTLY what im talking about and if you say you dont youre just kidding yourself full stop.

literally everyone that smokes weed a lot has that 1 friend where you see him "hey man whats going on", "nothing bro just chilling": does literally nothing w his life, is the same [exact] person he was when he started smoking, everyone knows it stunted him, its painfully obvious

part of the reason im going so in depth into this (aside from getting some stuff off my chest hey its my account whatever) is that i think people who dont do a lot of drugs or arent around them think this stuff is like a meme or exaggerated. its not. stoners lie about this stuff.

i enjoy ridiculous boomer anti-drug aesthetics as much as the next guy. most of the DARE ads are ridiculous. however somehow someone snuck this one im gonna post through and its so spot on that the first time i saw it it made me deeply uncomfortable. this person knew stoners:

if you smoke weed a ton you will absolutely know this is stone cold accurate as hell. you probably know this person, hopefully its not you:

oh also if ur isolated from stoners + drug culture, they all smoke while driving. cant think of one person i know who smokes weed that i havent seen w my own eyes smoke weed [while] driving.

habitual marijuana use strongly associated w car crash injury:

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15847617

more data on that, a meta-analysis of multiple studies estimates that the risk of a crash that results in serious injury or death doubles after marijuana use. guarantee if i called any of those people right now theyd tell me it doesnt affect their driving

verywellmind.com/how-does-marij…

video intermission

so... why do i care. well i care because essentially everyone i grew up around, and my parents, are lotus eaters. whats that? lets find out

basically (i know u just read it but roll with me here) odysseus finds this land populated by these people that just eat lotuses all day. the lotuses grow freely and induce a blissful state. when his men go ashore and try them, they want to stay there and become lotus eaters too

they just wanna stay there + be narced out all the time. they forget about home + whats important to them + just want to chill + eat these fuckin lotuses. he has to literally drag em back on the boat. in some versions i heard some men say fuck it. they stay, becoming lotus eaters

thats exactly how i feel about my family (sorry if ur reading this at some point in the future i gotta be real with the people though) and all my old friends where im from. its like this land that i step into and im just blasted with weed smoke and drink and i become one of them

this happened to me not too long ago. i live clean where im at now w my gf. i cant take total credit for this, i mean i moved and couldnt get weed, wasnt really sure if i wanted to bring that vibe to my new place but, being addicted, i probably would have if i had found it around

i went back home for about a month and the second i got there, bam, i was right back in it. it was like i had made no progress whatsoever. its like i feel the call to be a lotus eater deep in my blood. this makes sense as its my mythological and literal origin.

i was just blasting on that string man, pulling that shit so hard, like i never even gave it up. and after my month there i was like, wait, what just happened man. my plane ride home was like odysseus dragging me back to the boat, and i felt myself become a real human again.

this made me reflect on my life, and growing up, and my parents, + how im trying to eventually have a family with my girlfriend, + about how normalized all this was for me. once growing up, a friend told me he had never seen his parents drunk before. this completely blew my mind

he was not a lotus eater, obviously. and i got to thinking, you know, fuck this. i dont have to pass this garbage lifestyle onto my kids, i dont have to passively accept all this shit. i dont have to slavishly adhere to this lifestyle that was placed onto me like some sick cloak

so i decided im not going to be that person anymore. thinking about all my stoner friends stuff just makes me sad now. i cant drag them onto the boat unfortunately but at least i can show them the option is there, or at least i can set off and do my own thing.

oh, heres a bonus, essentially all of the friends you acquire via using substances turn out to be fake friends. i know, shocking right. this should be obvious but when it actually happens and people youve known for like 8 plus years just fall away, youre still surprised.

im talking to u, guy in his early 20s reading this right now. spoiler alert: theyre not ur real friends. the odds that ur just being a ghost in ur own life via weed is extremely high. thats why you feel like no one knows you. youre not there. theres no one to know. think about it

alright this got long as hell so gonna wrap this up but theres one or two more things i want to hit to make this comprehensive.

some people (like my old self) feel like weed has some "third eye" component, that it kind of accesses a more "spiritual" way of being or seeing things

probably sounds dumb but some people will know exactly what im talking about so now im talking to them

this is misplaced theological + spiritual energy. ur feeling a call to elevate your mind and change your spiritual state and ur giving yourself the illusion of doing something

basically, when u smoke weed, u are rolling up a fat blunt of what the orthodox call prelest. this is a great word, in my limited understanding it is basically spiritual delusion. its like being hopped up on spiritual delusion that aggrandizes u in some way. thats what ur feeling

spoiler alert: psychedelics do this also. its like fake theological energy. you feel like weed is giving you these deep thoughts and insight but when you look around, all the other people smoking weed obviously dont have some special insight or anything like that. hmmm.....

well thats because its not. its a total illusion. all the deep thought patterns u feel like weed gives u are illusory. thats why total idiots from any subculture and place can smoke a ton of weed and stay idiots. if it gave you deep thoughts, they would be having them. theyre not

one time someone said "yeah weed makes you sit around and enjoy feeling your beard grow". i thought this was a weird thing to say but it kind of ruined smoking for me because i realized i thought i was having deep ideas but really i was just clearing my brain and doing nothing

the other thing is that it lowers ur ability to resist other things. the stereotype is someone who is high will just like, eat a huge bag of chips or dive hard into a bowl of candy. if you smoke a lot you know its a lot harder to resist these things while high. seems innocuous..

but other temptations are like that also. a huge light went off in my head when i realized that i only watched porn after smoking. i noticed this last time i was back in lotus town. when i wasnt high, the idea of watching porn was disgusting and i never did it. [...]

i couldnt get over the hurdle of actually going to a porn site, navigating thru all that filth, turning myself on, getting into it, the whole process seemed ridiculous

but then if i smoked, it was so easy. it was so easy that it was almost difficult not to. the hurdle was gone

just being overly real here as other people will definitely know what im talking about here. this effect peaks when youre high as fuck but you slowly retrain your brain to break down these hurdles and it becomes easier and easier to give into temptations, high or not.

this is something else i noticed in me and in others. sometimes hanging with stoners (theyre always high but whether we just smoked or not) theres this mindset of indulging in doing things you "wouldnt normally do", but then in reality u start doing them all the time. less hurdle

this is kind of a subtle abstract process i cant really explain but some people will know what i mean. its this mindset of like, indulging in breaking your own rules, like eating excessive foods or binge watching stuff, or any temptation really. weed lifestyle makes it easier.

probably didnt nail explaining that last one but people that are experiencing it will know what i mean and can perhaps start to see the way in which weed is hooked into all these other seemingly unrelated aspects of your life, its really one big picture.

you get used to coasting and your brain starts to enjoy that mindset of "oh, right now isnt one of those times i have to play by the rules, i can eat this, do this, watch this".

a shaman says when you do a substance you're allying yourself with that substance. this is true.

they would say (im not an animist but its a good metaphor) that the spirit of that substance gets imparted to you and becomes part of your life. obviously a desert shaman isnt on peyote all the time but hes allied with it and the peyote spirit heavily informs his life.

well, thats kind of the perfect note to end on. this was way longer than expected but obviously its something i feel really strongly about and ive never really talked about this but just kind of felt like it was time to broach this topic.

both just to get it off my chest as its obviously something ive been thinking about but also so others who are in the spot i was in or who arent sure what to think about all this can hear a different perspective on it and see what path they want to take. dont eat the lotuses bro.

last caveat: lots of people posting about legalization stuff here, this isnt really about that. if there was a vote tomorrow about that i probably wouldnt vote to be totally honest. this is purely a cultural+ social issue and not really something I think of intersecting w the law

i just wouldnt want the philosophical and moral issue of like, should the cops be able to lock people in a cell for smoking weed to cloud all the actual points here that i do obviously feel strongly about. alright thats it

lots of responses, very cool. may continue to clarify a few things in case this thread blows up. didnt mean to exactly imply psychedelics are 100% prelest, i could have said prolonged or heavy use of them. im not really pro or anti psychedelics, they can be dangerous obviously.

sometimes the first time people take them it turns them on to religion or something, alright, i seen that, but prolonged use of them is essentially always prelest.

on that note weed defense squad has found this thread. can only speak to my own experience obviously so im just giving my field report. i can say that after 10+ weed years knowing all kinds of people i think the picture ive painted here is accurate. just my take of course.