Sunday, January 5, 2014

Drugs and alcohol

Two things: This is a video of Bill Hicks comedically discussing drugs. He is speaking for humorous effect, to provoke laughter at a comedy club. His act is a mixture of truth and fiction.


This is a link to another 6.5 minute video of Birmingham characters and their commitment to cider. They are the real deal, real people. These characters are not in a comedy club paid to be funny. I am not clear what cider is but it sounds terrible. The video is not for the faint of heart. I had to turn away twice, I mean actually turn my head and stop looking. The same freaky old man, twice. Come to think of it, maybe that is his comedic act.

Jeeze, Louise.

Regarding recent Colorado marijuana legislation, some of the conservative sites on my regular circuit, yours too I betchya, put me in mind of the 1920-1933 era of control freaks descending upon the weary public apparently too tired to stand up for their own natural born rights, with their insistences and one-size-fits-everything moralizing legality, spurious claims and outright power moves to control the behavior of everybody else. Basically to have good solid piss all over the freedom of their fellow citizens. Back then, prohibition was a way of expressing through law, "I really do not like you, now change!" A forceful and aggressive indulgence on a national scale. I feel forced to remind today's conservative writers be sure to take an extra hatchet with you to the dispensaries, Carrie. I will not mention which old woman I have in mind specifically but the name sounds a little bit like Schmallah Schmundit. Prohibition did not make sense to me when I first heard of it at about ten years old, and prohibition of any sort never did make sense to me this whole time, and prohibition still does not make sense now. All arguments sound like worn out old ladies banging on the same discredited prejudices.

One commenter actually wrote the three latest mass killers had two things in common, madness and being exceedingly fond of marijuana. He thinks that is a winning argument and not a joke with its own copyrighted template -- "A man killed thirty people in a theater today after smoking a bowl of pot and from skipping his medication for psychosis, but mostly from skipping his meds for psychosis."

The reporting I've seen is deplorable. Photos of long lines suggesting that is the situation across the whole state. Presenting that as representative. I asked and was told that only twenty dispensaries went the recreational route. The law too dodgy, beta testing aversion, all the other dispensaries are sticking with the old rules for now until things are more fully sorted. Thus the long lines shown in photographs. Anyone claiming something so ridiculous as Colorado being one big choom gang is full of shit. And aggressively so.

Oddly, the owner of the dispensary a few blocks away is named Carrie. I just now gave her some candy. She is beautiful, gorgeous in fact, and not anything conservative caricature would have her. And her husband is an upstanding dude too. He is nothing that conservative imagination would have him to be.

Now, the characters in and out of the bottle shop downstairs on the other hand are a whole different story, along with the people that run it, an entirely different harsher more dangerous and darker little world down there. You never know what is going to happen and the whole place, front and back and all around invites vagrants and panhandlers and sidewalk pissers.

32 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Yeah, Prohibition was the feminist offensive of the early 19th century.

And, yes, people mostly smoke pot for fun.

I love alcohol, but it can and often does make people seriously stupid and mean.

Not so much with pot.

The Dude said...

Whoa, Chipster, put down the bong and back away from it slowly.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

The aesthetics are on their side, unfortunately, at least for the time being.

chickelit said...

Chip, this isn't Prohibition revisited -- it's the reverse: the relaxation of restrictive drug laws. I think we can do well without extolling the "virtues" of smoking pot. The harder questions we need to ask are whether which if any drug laws still make sense: meth? LSD?, "a little blow"?, heroin? The Sullivanists are busy trying them all out in order to better slice up square America.

Unknown said...

Cider combined with socialized healthcare (the NHS) = bloody hell.

The Dude said...

Bill Hicks looks like a cheap knock off of Sam Kinison in that clip. Sam was much funnier.

chickelit said...

Prediction: pot smokers will get all righteous about being made fun of, just like buggers are becoming so now. Drunks have been taunted since the dawn of time. It's part of being "legal."

Unknown said...

I like what Jonah G has to say about it.

Palladian said...

Buggers?

Did Andrew Sullivan piss in your Rice Crispies this morning, El Pollo?

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Drunks have been taunted since the dawn of time.

There's probably a marijuana-culture functional equivalent to Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin in a tuxedo with a cocktail, somewhere, but I have no idea just where it might be.

That said, were marijuana to become legal, I'd probably turn one of the spare bedrooms into a den, buy myself a BarcaLounger® with heat and vibro-action, and start listening to my old jazz collection.

chickelit said...

Palladian said...
Buggers?

Did Andrew Sullivan piss in your Rice Crispies this morning, El Pollo?


"Bugger" an anglicism, to be sure Palladian. But more clinical terminology makes GLAAD mad, so we have to speak euphemistically. Just looking for a middle ground.

bagoh20 said...

Here in California, recreational use of pot is essentially legal, if not on the books that way. Here on the west side, there are plenty of dispensaries, and I know a lot of people with the cards who have no real medical need, and everyone else gets it so easily that they don't bother getting a card. The effects on the society here are virtually nil compared to before legalization. All I see is less paranoia. There is still some stigma (often deserved) against users just like there was before. It didn't make getting high perfectly acceptable anytime you want. It just made it more openly tolerated at appropriate times and places. People notice it less, but nobody is anymore tolerant of people doing it when they shouldn't be. Society can be reasonable and intelligent on this stuff, when trusted to. People who can't control themselves, don't get much help by being arrested. They need something else - new friends, and not the ones you find in prison.

Chip Ahoy said...

A couple month ago I saw a woman and two men tuck into a downstairs half bath and I noted that to a woman next to me, by asking, "Who does that?"

She whispered, "Coke."

I asked, "People still do that?" She nodded 'yes'. I hadn't seen that in a very long time.

Chip Ahoy said...

Sixty Grit, I am offended as a Colorado citizen by the cheap shot. It the sort of thing I read on left-wing sites all the time, dismissing a whole state based on one's own pinched take. There is no pipe to step away from. Actually, I know very few people who smoke pot, those people are older boomer types, and I rarely do see people go in or out of that dispensary I mentioned. The businesses beside it appear more active. As far as customers go you couldn't tell one from another.

There was one incident contrary to all this. A 420 festival at Civic Park nearby. The park at the capitol two blocks north. Rival Mexican gangs appeared at opposite ends of the park, in cars, and shot at each other through the park causing immediate massive dispersion, people split in all directions. Two blocks away I did not notice it. Shop owners told me about it later, how people came running into their shops all shell shocked at their peaceful celebration disrupted by gang activity attracted to the celebration. So there's that. That would have been last April, obviously.

deborah said...

That comedian's pretty funny, meh. I used to love Kinison, but a few years later I checked back, and he didn't seem that funny. Now I'm going to look again. I'll be back in a few.

rcocean said...

EPR states the real issue. Where is the line now? If its all 'Just get off my cloud' then why not legal meth, heroin, cocaine, you name it.

Almost every argument used by the Pot users can used to advocate almost any now illegal narcotic.

But I'm sure everyone in Colorado is not a Pot head, and all the Pot sellers are fine people who don't have horns and a tail.

Michael Haz said...

I wonder how long it will be before one of the mom-and-pop weed shop owners is bumped out by those representing the CARTELCO franchise company interests.

deborah said...

Yeah, Kinison's funny, but a little goes a long way.

Haz ftw. I don't know that it was cartel related, but a couple months ago a CA pot clinic manager was castrated. That blew my mind.

bagoh20 said...

"
Almost every argument used by the Pot users can used to advocate almost any now illegal narcotic. "


The main argument which is that it's simply less dangerous and harmful than a lot of legal things, and freedom needs a damned good reason to be limited. It's also less dangerous and society damaging than alcohol, but almost every argument against pot can be used to outlaw alcohol, fatty foods, cigarettes, big gulps and TV. It's about balance and rationality, and pot seems to be a substance that is irrationally illegal out of balance with it's negatives.

Michael Haz said...

I prefer balance. Let's just legalize all recreational drug use. Every type, all kinds, no exceptions.

And let's also say that it is legal to shoot esomeone who is a recreational drug user if said drug user attempts to cause you harm, steal what belongs to you, break into your home, etc.

Balance.

ricpic said...

Hasn't it been established that habitual marijuana use does real damage to the brain, i.e. kills brain cells? It seems awfully irresponsible of the Colorado legislature to have legalized sale of the drug in light of that finding.

bagoh20 said...

Haz, I assume you do know the meaning of the word "balance". What you just wrote is the opposite of it, so what is your point?

Michael Haz said...

I'm suggesting (tongue in cheek) that all recreational drugs be made legal.

And to provide safety for those from whom money and goods will be taken by those who purchase the newly-legal drugs, they should be allowed to shoot anyone attempting to rob them.

Where do you think the money to buy drugs comes from? The heroin and crack users aren't usually job holders.

Michael Haz said...


"As the American Medical Association concluded in recommending against legalization in November, "Cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern.""

"The association added: "It is the most common illicit drug involved in drugged driving, particularly in drivers under the age of 21. Early cannabis use is related to later substance use disorders."


"And this point, for me, is the most convincing: "Heavy cannabis use in adolescence causes persistent impairments in neurocognitive performance and IQ, and use is associated with increased rates of anxiety, mood, and psychotic thought disorders.""


A 2012 study of more than 1,000 New Zealanders from birth to age 38 found that "persistent cannabis use was associated with neuropsychological decline broadly across domains of functioning, even after controlling for years of education." Long-term users saw an average decline of eight IQ points."

The Dude said...

Dude, you are totally harshing my buzz.

Whut?

Michael Haz said...

I think it should be absolutely illegal for anyone under the age of, say, 25 to use marijuana. I sat this for there reasons.

1. Having had children go through their teen-age years, I got to watch some of their friends who were nice normal kids in middle school become heavy weed users in high school. The diminished intellectual and social abilities were very pronounced, and continue to this day.

2. My wife was a HS teacher for 40 years and saw that same things happen to hundreds or kids, many of who wound up using crack, oxy, coke or heroin. And this is in a very green leafy suburban district.

3. I was a hippie in the 60s and 70s. I saw first hand how persistent marijuana use was a gateway drug, and how it robbed bright, creative young people of their intellectual abilities.

bagoh20 said...

In my youth, I tried most of the drugs available up till that time. During and since then I have known a lot of drug users both long-term and acute, so I'm pretty confident with all those data points up close and personal, including what amounts to long term studies of users and their lives. I just don't see much similarity between pot users and those who use other drugs. Pot smokers mostly live normal lives, as successful and meaningful as others. I can't say that for people who use most other illegal or even some legal drugs. Alcohol is a mixed case where some people are fine, but others are ruined by it.

Consequently, I put pot on the safer, should-be-legal side of the balance even more so than alcohol, which i'd give extra consideration for being a major part of every culture in human history.

As to studies, there are recent ones refuting the dangers too, so what are gonna believe? Besides there certainly more dangerous things that are legal, like motorcycle riding. Imagine the death toll and brain damage if everyone rode a motorcycle, with or without a helmet?

bagoh20 said...

The gateway drug is alcohol. It's the first thing most people use to alter their consciousness. Often other drugs are tried after a little alcohol has lowered inhibitions.

As to age limits, sure, but only because they make us feel better. They don't actually work. You may want teenagers to avoid trying dangerous things, but you can't legislate that without doing substantial damage to our principles of freedom and justice.

bagoh20 said...

Is my admission above gonna ruin my Presidential aspirations in 2016?

I'm gonna triangulate with the pot, alcohol, and motorcycle constituencies right into the Obamas' bedroom. "Pick your dirty gotchies, Michelle. There's a new sheriff in town.

ndspinelli said...

I saw Kinnison live. He had derision for his audience. He was actually a brilliant performer but would do the heap easy stuff, folks would roll in the aisles, and you could almost hear him laugh to himself, "Yeah you idiots, I knew you would love that."

Netflix has a great doc on Sunset Strip. It is the history of the Blvd. and has a segment about comedians, including Kinnison.

deborah said...

Funny you should say that, Nick. I caught a whiff of the Denis Leary meanness in him.

ndspinelli said...

Good analogy. That said, both were/are brilliant observational comedians.