Alright, I’m going to be civil with all of you and give this an update. Earlier today, I created a perspective piece on my experience with marijuana using friends and family that many readers have mistaken for an informative piece. With demand, I shall supply everyone an informative piece not about the plant itself but about today itself! The original piece stirred up a few emotions today. I intend to make all of my articles fun to read but if my experiences on the topic is offending people then I’m not making my posts fun anymore. (And if you still want the original piece, request. I still have it but don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Today, is 4/20. There are concerts, parties, hang out sessions, and public gatherings taking place just like any other day. 4/20, the date itself, means a handful of things ranging from it being the best day to plant flowers in your garden, to supposed police codes for marijuana, and even to the story about a group of California kids started in the 70s in California. You know, the one about a few kids that met at 4:20 pm to find an abandoned marijuana crop located nearby their school. Whether they ever found it or not, I have no clue.
The 420 I am referring to is it being the symbol of Cannabis, as in the marijuana plant. Nowadays, people refer to 4:20 as pot-smoking time or pot-smoking in general. So all along, perhaps in high school or middle school, when you didn’t know what the hell a few people were saying when they mentioned 420, they probably were referring to pot. And I don’t know about you, but is it coincidental that a lot of shows are playing today or have I just been out of the concert-going scene too long?
Fun facts about marijuana
- If you’ve ever seen those marijuana posters (my brother had one), you’ll know that it comes in a variety of colors, leaf shapes, and psychoactive effects.
- Don’t try to grow a marijuana plant if you live in an apartment complex (even if you live on the second level). Most neighbors have no idea what that strong smell is, but believe me, one of 100 does.
- It can’t really kill (through overdosing) you. In all its thousands of years of usage, nothing states that it has. There has been talk about it being able to physically affect a user if they smoke his or her body weight. Probably a rumor, but if you have, let me know because that’s a lot of money and weed to have considering the physical properties of marijuana itself (you can’t use the entire plant, it’s very light, and estimate how much an ounce costs already and consider how much you weigh yourself).
Napalm Kitty 
I never thought of it that way, well put!
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Sorry, one more thing.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me. I’m active everyday what with morning routines and a daily run. I eat healthy and I stay positive every day.
Not every stoner is a loser.
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I started off with intentions to write about 4/20 as a special day for many people. The article being what it is now, I can’t inform even if I do have knowledge on the marijuana plant itself since it’s become a perspective piece. I’m glad you’re living a healthy lifestyle and using marijuana responsibly. It’s just the reckless and self-destructive users I’ve come to know and care about that concern and irk me.
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That just kills me to see any person in that situation (the destructive path), but to avoid further comments from those that are educated about it, you should choose a related topic of the abuse of drugs. Opening it up with 420 (a celebration for others, not myself personally) is just misleading. Especially when your words portraying your experiences (inadvertently) puts a bad shine on it.
I’m glad you’re sober, happy, and leading a heathy life as well. It’s nice that you saw that it isn’t for you and handled it well.
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I understand your concern for irresponsible users of the plant… But you shouldn’t generalize it at all.
It’s a lot easier when you understand it in a different view.
There aren’t horrible side effects and it isn’t an escape because you aren’t psychologically going anywhere unlike LSD, Meth, and maybe Cocaine. It doesn’t kill brain cells and or rather force you to do stupid things. A lot more (maybe even all) deaths and ‘real’ incidents have resulted from irresponsible use of drugs other than weed.
In the end, it’s how you treat it but not how you judge it. If it’s your choice not to participate at all, then go ahead. But if you have an addictive personality then smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, even being on the internet is going to follow with stupid/harmful behavior. (Even withdrawal, THC is not addictive. It’s the person that is an addict that treats it as so.)
You know, what I’m really trying to say is blame the person not the plant. Especially since it itself (and not the way you consume it, unless you want to bring up boiling out THC for many/safer ways of consumption) is natural and not man made.
I’m not even sure if it should be called a culture… For I don’t really hang out with people I don’t like just to smoke with them. I’ll toke up by myself and not enter some other world or trip balls… that’s more acid rollers or shroom eaters. It’s just something like drinking a glass of wine. And it’s also proven to be a bronchial dilator… The education on it is lacking to say the least.
But before you, yourself, make an opinion about anything, you should do more research and not sponge up what people want you to believe.
I take it back about escaping. if you’re a teenager with angst and maybe (just shooting it out there) ADD this would be some sort of escape. I mean hell, It has medicinal purposes. But other than pain relief (rather than taking pills that ARE addictive) it’s a huigh that you could get from jumping out of a plane, going rock climbing or riding a bike… Just a little safer.
I’m really sorry. The misconception of the plant kills me. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to get you to try it. That’s never right. just some short facts to set things straight.
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It seems you have had problems with drugs in the past but what you need to remember is personal responsibility. You’d be surprised how many people smoke pot and are still successful in life. I’m not telling you, you should smoke pot but maybe to just be apathetic to the whole scene. You can’t blame pot for your friends ruining their lives. No one factor can be blamed for a less then satisfactory future, it’s a long list of issues.
Also I enjoy that you try to “seem non-biased” at the end but I mean let’s be honest… this is the most biased thing I’ve read all week. If you don’t like pot that’s fine but don’t pretend you don’t care when you obviously feel strongly about the subject.
If you couldn’t already tell all my friends and I smoke pot, they’re my best friends and we just do it because we enjoy it. Not all drugs are used for escape and that’s where pot shines, it’s just fun. You make a lot of generalizations about pot and most of them in my experience have little truth. All the kids I know who smoke, spare a few, have finished highschool and are well into finishing college. We’re not all junkies who “do it to escape out miserable lives”. We’re just people like you, We do the same stuff everyday, we have adult lives, we go to work/school and we just so happen to come home and smoke a little.
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I think you should’ve gotten my point and the direction I’m coming from in the first paragraph of this article. Like you, I’ve listed the events I’ve personally encountered through the “All the kids I know” perspective. I won’t try to change the mindsets and opinions of others who smoke, but you must remember and read into my words that I specifically made note of the lives of smokers who are abusing and are specifically trying to escape. I may not be the only one making generalizations when you only base your arguments on your own experiences without trying to at least take in my portrait of the subject. I acknowledge the bright and lighter side of the topic that you’ve mentioned where people function normally and well, but there’s no need to reject the darker side of it either. Thanks for keeping it collected.
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