Ghandi and Weed

Hey everyone we started talking about Ghandi is theology class. I learned his philosophy and all the great things he did. It started to get me thinking. So i got this crazy Idea to get MILLIONS of people...holding hands in this HUGEEEE circle and lighting up huge dubbies and watching the smoke rise up getting ready for marijuana legalization.

Anyway, it prolly wouldn't work...

peace,
toph

 

To the best of my knowledge, Ghandi never encouraged or condoned people using chemicals to alter/dampen their states of conciousness?

In fact, its safe to say he is baffled that independant civilians are actually requesting that government step in and become involved in Weed!?

Do you know what will be different after weed is legalised?

Absolutely nothing except that government will regulate and profit from weed.
(which will quadruple in price like it did in Amsterdam)

Meanwhile, while everyone was .....LOL.... 'fighting' for the right to smoke government taxed weed (LOL!) and feels they have 'done something' - the governments have been happily taking more and more control over YOUR life, over international corporations and giving themselves more perks and glory.

Wow.

Im sure Ghandi is simply spinning in the Ghanges somewhere!

 

at least when it's legal, they won't beat you with billy clubs for being high. And i think the huge circle thing could work, maybe. Ever heard of a black bloc? it could be like that!

 

somewere in the bible it says jesus gave somebody some medcine which was basicly weed to somebody, which was used alot then ^_^ it must be the drug of the lord.

 

Yes...i'd like to call that "the fall of modern society"... or "back to zero".... all ya'll hippies would be so happy to go back to seed agriculture....

 

I know Ghandi didn't do anything with any substance that alters the mind and that jazz. Im saying Ghandi was a GREAT man, the messiah of India where he delivered his country freedom from the British with no guns or swords and not one violent attack...

All i was thinking was that if millions of people believe that weed is not bad and is actually good, including myself, then a million of people can get high together fighting for what we believe in just as ghandi did.

How are they going to arrest millions of people at one time??

 

No sorry, that didnt happen.

Someone did mercifully try to give Jesus some painkilling vinegar wine type of drug when he was on the cross.
He turned it down.

I guess he felt that world peace and victory over injustice was more sincere when not hazed with mind altering chemicals.

(p.s. Ghandi was from South Africa I believe. ALthough Indian by ethnicity)

 

If u think about it, everything we do or ingest: food, drink, medicine; they are all mind altering chemicals...

I never heard the it was a drug they gave to Jesus on the Cross...i thought it was just wine...on a sponge...

 

We will never know for certain but a lot of historians believe it was a certain kind of vinegar and gall wine beverage, which Romans soldiers had been known to use as a pain-killing drug.

As for Weed being no different than foods.. well, ok.

Really by this logic nothing means anything and there is no reason to even create words or descriptions of anything.

In the common sense world, nothing you would ever eat from nature would blast your brain with a massive dose of THC like smoking a Doobie can.

Im all for you doing that, but please, dont confuse it to being something indistinct from spirituality or social justice.

And lets face it - the vast majority of weed smokers are doing it to avoid pain, stress and reality. Escapism.
Also according to my old roommate "It totally makes the Playstation fucking hilarious".

 

alcohol is socially acceptable in diplomatic communities, why isn't weed?

 

I dont know where you have been for the last 5 years but weed is not just socially acceptable - its expected to be accepted.

People long since stopped asking 'Do you smoke weed?' and now say "what? why dont you smoke weed?'

 

the point should not be what effect a drug has on individuals, but why it is any government body assumes the right to incarcerate or otherwise punish an individual for the choices they make with their own life and body. prohibition of any substance is a subversion of individual freedom under the pretense of social betterment.

don't get me wrong, i've seen the negative effects coke, heroin, meth and other hardcore drugs have on certain people. but i've seen people do those things recreationally in such a way that it doesn't interfere with their life and responsibilities as well.

the point is, we can't blame substances for choices that people make, and as long as we perpetuate the idea that this is acceptable, people will certainly not stop making those choices. and the government would not benefit from taxing any drug nearly as much as they do by confiscating it and recirculating it in cognito on the streets. the most avid drug dealers are d.e.a. agents, dig? and why not? and what do you think happens to the massive amounts of money that is confiscated from drug busts?

i don't know, but i'm sure that very little of it is recirculated back to the community. this is plainly evidenced by the state of disrepair of my streets, the lack of funding for education, the lack of a universal system of health care(to treat all these supposed derelict junkies no less), and all extensions for unemployment have been refused due to insufficient funds in my part of the world.

the government definitely has more to gain, off the books, from prohibition. and if you think that "off the books" isn't what really drives any government, you have not scrutinized your government very closely, let alone the human capacity for corruptiona and greed.

and i had a friend that went to amsterdam recently. he said for less than a hundred american dollars a day, he got fed, laid, high on numerous things and a place to sleep and shower. hm. i'm not so sure your facts are straight there, juiceman, cuz here in america motherfuckers(not myself, mind you) blow thousands a day to afford those luxuries. but i've never been to amsterdam. have you?

much love

 

Yes I have.

Its disgusting.
Of course, this isnt what they show to the American tourists who just cant believe they are actually smoking weed while a cop walks by.

They dont allow you into the back of the park, where each morning a 'clean up' crew shows up in protective body suits and prods the bushes to find the dead junkies.

While you might think it 'progressive' to buy sex with some lady - I can tell you the guy I worked with was not happy to know the government of his people was not only condoning but profitting from HIS daughter whoring herself out to stoned tourists all night.

Well after all.. she needed money to keep herself from 'getting sick' (as in drug withdrawals)

That is why he moved to Canada .. because its one thing when it happens and you cant stop it - its another when your society officially condones and profits from it.

As for the weed, it depends on what you buy of course. I recall it was approx 40 USD for what would be roughly two fair but quality sized joints.

Im not sure what year your friend visited Amsterdam or what 'bargain' shopping he knew about but I find it unbelievable to imagine he found a B&B, weed, a prostitute and two meals for anything less than 300USD?

Airfare is really cheap from the UK though.. I paid only about 100USD (if not less) from Manchester to Amsterdam!! Not bad at all!

 

i didn't say i think it is progressive. but i do think that all those people, regardless of how disgusting they may be to you(or myself), chose to be that way, chose to do those things. and they should have that freedom. take it from someone who has been around junkies all his life- you can't save them by punishing them, by trying to restrict their ability to do those things. as a matter of fact, you can't save them at all. only they can save themselves. you can be there for them when they need you, but that's about it, and even that can just be another thing they abuse, like the drugs. there's only so much you can do, and overcrowding the prison systems with junkies doesn;t make very much room for child molesters, rapists, and murderers, now does it? and you know what, here people get more time for possessing certain amounts of coke, a crime of which they are the only real victim, than they do for molesting a child. think about it.

living here, i can tell you prohibition is counterproductive to its supposed goal. i see it every.. fucking... day.

and that's what he told me, a hundred bucks. i don't see why he would fabricate that estimate. and the argument that maybe he was so high he didn't really know what he spent is not so, because he went with only a certain amount. shrug.

much love

 

Remember China's solution back in the first revolution - They went to all the opium dens, gathered up the junkies, put them in a field and blew their brains out.

Sent the parent a bill for the bullet too.

It certainly was an effective way to 'solve' the problem.



I guess I see it differently. To me, we are our brothers keeper. IF we know that a certain segment of each generation has some bizarre weakness and/or problem where they become addicts - then maybe we are obligated to eliminate that temptation whenever possible.

The main problem I have is not when the junkies are killing their own braincells with their own free will.

Its when they start loitering the streets with their unpredictable and sometimes dangerous selves.

So in that sense - Yes, we have every right to put them away (or back in their houses) or anywhere where they are not infringing on my freedoms and safety.

One thing for certain - its bloody sad to see people killing themselves that way. Very sad indeed.

 

i agree, it is sad.

and i dig your danger angle. i once knew some people who killed a man to rob him cuz they were jonesing for heroin. they got twelve bucks and a bag o chips. but is it the drug we hold accountable? as long as we do, people will never learn their lesson, and they certainly won't change their ways. do they arrest you for being on drugs, or for killing a man? should they excuse you because of your impaired judgement, your temporary insanity? no. it was still a choice you made. the psychology of it is just all wrong. start telling people that they will be punished not for doing drugs but for doing stupid shit on drugs and you'll start to see a trend where people on drugs do a lot less stupid shit. educate them openly about the effects of drugs instead of saying "just say no" and maybe they won;t be so curious as to what all the fuss is about.

and in the chinese example, they killed those people because they were useless to the government, not because they were harmful to other members of society. this can quite plainly be seen by the fact that they had to be dragged out of the opium dens.

and it is our responsibility to help our brothers and sisters. but what, when they won't utilize the help we offer?

and it is also a valid point the most successful drug dealers make all their best connections

in prison.

much love

 

Well I agree there is no point in sending the users to regular prisons.
Its not the same as if they were actively choosing to harm other people like most criminals.

I dont know what the US laws are like but in Canada, Europe they pretty much will never send a user/possesor to prison.
Its going to be a drug-rehab if anything.

Dealers can get jail-time though. Usually it will have to be in conjunction with something else, ie Assaults, conspiracy, organised crime etc etc.

Weed is effectively non-criminal now in Canada so there isnt much chance of anyone getting jail time for any weed-related activities.

I had to laugh / cry watching 'Cops' because they pull this guy over and find a bag of pot on him.. and SHHIIT.. Guns come out - the guy is pounded face-down in the pavement - Cops are freaking out and just hysterical like they just busted Bin Lauden or something... wow.

Calm down America.. its just a bag of weed - not grenades!

 

"dealers get jail time though"

which leads me to a further point. if it is not a crime to do drugs, than there is no black market for said drugs, and therefore no basis from which the syndicates of cuthroats and drug overlords who engage in open warfare amongst themselves with no regards to innocent bystanders may operate. the propaganda machine here releases commercials they sneakily refer to as "public service anouncements", decrying anyone who buys illegal drugs as supporting terrorism, when in fact, it is the prohibition of drugs that create the basis for the networks from which terrorists may operate. from which does more deaths result, junkies killing themselves, or drug overlords givng the orders that result in the killing of anyone they see as standing in the way of the building of their empire?

do you see where at least a case could be made that prohibition is counter-productive to its goal? in american history, the time when the government attempted to prohibit alcohol was the time when the mafia flourished most openly, with their speakeasies and whatnot. when the government tries to take away the basic freedom for people to choose what they do with their own bodies there will always be someone willing to step in and make a profit at anyone's expense in order to supply that which is denied, and there will be no shortage, if not an increase, of people wanting to be supplied.

this is just my take, looking out my window, at the neighborhood in which i live, as well as reading between the lines of the euphemisms perpetuated by an obviously government sanctioned media. shrug.

i think we can meet halfway here and come up with some pretty solid solutions.

or maybe we too are just wasting our time, even discussing it.

remains to be seen.

much love

 

mahatma mohandas ghandi did use small chunks of "indian snakeroot" (Rauwolfia serpentina) as a method of "inducing a state of mind conducive to meditation" ...

(snakeroot is the source of reserpine, one of the first antipsychotic tranquilizers; the reserpine chemicals are related to yohimbine, ajmalicine, & similar alkaloid ...)

 

another point that occured to me was how we as a society tend to take the extreme of things and put it on a pedastool as "the way things are". for every "helplessly" addicted junkie i've known, i've known at least three individuals that did the same drugs and decided "fuck this" and just stopped, with no intervention from outside sources. according to the propaganda being vomited all over us from various sources, this should not be possible, people should not be able to just quit so-called "addictive" substances. but i refuse to believe that a substance is stronger than the human will. it's about choices, not substances. another thing i see evidence of every day.

just a furthering of the thought process.

much love