MyDoorsAreOpen
Bluelight Crew
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2003
- Messages
- 8,542
This is a question I've been pondering for a while, even since before the local legalizations in 2 US states, but I've been thinking about it more and more since then. I've always known that the enjoyment I take in marijuana is intrinsic. That is to say, I enjoy it for the effect itself, not for any external benefit that being a user brings. Specifically, it has no social cache for me; I don't use it just because I seek approval of or membership in crowds that smoke it. Smoking marijuana for me has no ideological component. It has nothing to do with rebellion, disobedience, or assertion of my right to do as I wish with my body. I'm not trying to come off as either chill or badass (and will readily admit I am neither. 
) Even when I've not been in touch with any other people who've smoked it, and living in places where it's not welcome or popular, I've still smoked it. I'm a spiritual person, but my marijuana use is only peripheral to my spiritual musings; I'm no rastaman or anything similar.
In 2001 I once read a very well written college textbook about the epidemiology of recreational drug use -- I forget the title but many of the facts it presented have stuck with me. If I can find it on Amazon, I'll post the link. One of the more interesting points it made about marijuana is that the pattern of use among Westerners is markedly different from most other cultures with a native tradition of marijuana use. In most nonwestern cultures that condone marijuana, its use -- often frequent, heavy, and lifelong -- is/was confined to a specific class / guild / caste / order / station-in-life, and is largely absent (and not nearly as tolerated) outside this specific subgroup of people. Moreover, membership in these groups was often hereditary or via early training or induction; people did not join these groups in order to have access to marijuana. In the West, by contrast, marijuana use is open to all, and is largely a feature of youth subcultures. According to this textbook, Westerners who begin toking after age 25, continue toking after 35, or toke regularly for more than 10 years are relatively rare. Most stop after most of their friends have stopped, and realize at that point that without the social culture of youthful rebellion surrounding the drug, they could really take it or leave it.
As someone who clearly doesn't fit this pattern, I wonder just how much marijuana's appeal would change if its legality were to become widespread in the Western world. The text I read also stated that no known animals besides humans will self-administer marijuana. I surmise that most humans, also, are not capable of defining the effect of marijuana as intrinsically pleasurable, in and of itself. I have a hunch that many (not nearly all) satisfied tokers' pleasure comes as much from the associations they've formed with that headspace, as from the headspace itself.
If my theory is correct, then I predict in a world of legal marijuana, it will become something of a small niche interest, kind of like the S&M scene -- small and largely secluded from the view of the majority who "just don't get it", something you're either very into or very much not, something you go to special clubs to partake in.
I also predict that some other still-illegal substance will largely take the place of marijuana among rebellious youth subcultures.
Thoughts?
) Even when I've not been in touch with any other people who've smoked it, and living in places where it's not welcome or popular, I've still smoked it. I'm a spiritual person, but my marijuana use is only peripheral to my spiritual musings; I'm no rastaman or anything similar.In 2001 I once read a very well written college textbook about the epidemiology of recreational drug use -- I forget the title but many of the facts it presented have stuck with me. If I can find it on Amazon, I'll post the link. One of the more interesting points it made about marijuana is that the pattern of use among Westerners is markedly different from most other cultures with a native tradition of marijuana use. In most nonwestern cultures that condone marijuana, its use -- often frequent, heavy, and lifelong -- is/was confined to a specific class / guild / caste / order / station-in-life, and is largely absent (and not nearly as tolerated) outside this specific subgroup of people. Moreover, membership in these groups was often hereditary or via early training or induction; people did not join these groups in order to have access to marijuana. In the West, by contrast, marijuana use is open to all, and is largely a feature of youth subcultures. According to this textbook, Westerners who begin toking after age 25, continue toking after 35, or toke regularly for more than 10 years are relatively rare. Most stop after most of their friends have stopped, and realize at that point that without the social culture of youthful rebellion surrounding the drug, they could really take it or leave it.
As someone who clearly doesn't fit this pattern, I wonder just how much marijuana's appeal would change if its legality were to become widespread in the Western world. The text I read also stated that no known animals besides humans will self-administer marijuana. I surmise that most humans, also, are not capable of defining the effect of marijuana as intrinsically pleasurable, in and of itself. I have a hunch that many (not nearly all) satisfied tokers' pleasure comes as much from the associations they've formed with that headspace, as from the headspace itself.
If my theory is correct, then I predict in a world of legal marijuana, it will become something of a small niche interest, kind of like the S&M scene -- small and largely secluded from the view of the majority who "just don't get it", something you're either very into or very much not, something you go to special clubs to partake in.
I also predict that some other still-illegal substance will largely take the place of marijuana among rebellious youth subcultures.
Thoughts?
