I simply cannot believe that this city has officially turned into a big drug den community with all these vapour lounges popping up all over town. A lot of the younger people from all ethnicities in this city has now turned and openly accepted the (frequent) use of marijuana in their daily lives. A lot of these small shops tend to operate under the fake Medical pretense and not reporting income for tax evasions. Hard to say they are honest people those running these types of businesses (probably due to fact 90% of the owners have criminal related backgrounds?). My question is why isn't the city doing anything to prohibit theses weed shops? Weed is not safe, this is a fact. Yes, Natural substances such as herbs in this case can also be harmful to the mind and body. I just hope young people of this city can be aware and stay away from such bad influences. I'm not sure why we are not openly opposing grow ops and these grey area businesses.

brb, going to go my opiate den.

you make interesting point.

I'm going to say this. Marijuana is the 21st century Opiate.

History repeat itself. Remember the opium wars? Anglo-Saxons extracted mass amounts of opium from British India, purposely marketed and sold them to colonies, foreign nations, and even its own citizens. Like today's marijuana, Opium was also advertised as the cure for a whole bunch of illnesses/diseases (a cure for all -- sounds familiar?).

Lethargic, lazy, striped of ambitions, skinny weak, the user's sanity is lost, heard of the phrase "sick man of Asia". well this is exact same spin for marijuana game in the current day. perhaps, when decades later we realized the harm of marijuana. it would be too late, perhaps a "sick man and woman of Canada" would be adequate description to demography.

Gululu,

You know that the marijuana originates (or at the very least has the earliest written record) stemming from China, right?

Opiates work in a different mechanism as THC. I think that weed has a far less potential for abuse. There will always be a percentage of the population vulnerable to addiction.

There are horders, alcoholics, crackheads, and heroine addicts. Would you put someone addicted to weed in the same category as the above?

FYI, I don't smoke weed, but have friends that do. It's just not my poison.

I'm about 30 days clean from Marijuana after 12 years of use


Holy fuck, what a difference!


A huge reason why I'm moving, without the fog of marijuana, I have to look around and notice what a shithole Gastown has become in 2015. The homeless people are waaaaaaaaaaaay more fucked up and crazy than they were only a year ago.


Also, politically, I feel much more right wing off the devil's lettuce.

impossible i burnt out 5 years ago

Gululu, what about your beloved asian restaurants in Richmond:

-Cash only to avoid paying taxes
-Pay employees in cash, no record checks and can be convicted criminals
-Cash only = laundering money?
-Lots are unsanitary and unkept = not food safe = health risk

WHY DOESN'T HEALTH CANADA GO AROUND AND SHUT THESE PLACES DOWN?!

Please go crawl back under your rock, there's no need to bump a thread from 2011.

Gululu, you say a lot of stupid shit, and that's okay, but in this case..

DO NOT FUCK WITH MY MEDICINE.

So basically what your saying is you become less satisfied with things in your life and have started focusing on the bad side and trying to change it lol.

This is why I find myself always coming back to weed and dont try to cut it out completely, I become more like the person I used to be which was quick to criticize, not trying to understand everything, just wanting to get the job done, and overall less happiness. It really does change your perspective on life. Although with my vape I can use half a joints worth and get high 6 times from it, so Im not your typical user (and am strongly against smoking, not to mention how much more you end up using) . Only using at the end of the day now I never try to get into the retard state only enough to open the creativity, focus, and overall enjoyment of life on this spec of dust we call earth. Which to do this I use only until I begin to feel the high coming on then stop. Just like with drinking after your first drink or two you feel amazing and you keep going and it turns into a bad thing

Fuckin mainlanders bringing their poisonous THC over here and killing our children

The opposite is true... life on marijuana is too easy.


I need a challenge. Life's biggest rewards come from challenge, nothing worth having comes easy.


Looking around me at the culture we inhabit, if there is a chance I can make even a tiny impact in how men and women think about issues that are important to me, I will be greatly satisfied.


It is really easy to instantly gratify yourself when pounding some new young slut, party with some people and do some good drugs, play a round of a game and feel good when you win; all of these are sooooo petty. As petty as the satisfaction of collecting yellow Minion dolls.


Everyone knows it, whether they want to admit it or not, but things in our society are extremely fucked up. Like I said, it would be so humbling and so much of an accomplishment to feel that efforts I put towards the betterment of culture has had an impact, much, much greater than driving a Lambo after making a new porn site or writing some hit book about a topic I couldn't give a shit about inside of my heart.


Marijuana allows you to ignore the important, and focus on the trivial.

- Hey, if you have cancer, that might be a good thing.

lol it actually made me personally see the important, 6 months after starting using again I quit my job moved out of my downtown apartment, which my whole life revolved around clubbing, finding a mate, and video games. I began living a life of solitude and having this unquenchable thirst for knowledge(as I feel I knew nothing). Then trying to use that knowledge to help better the people around me and trying to understand and evolve my own existence. Which helping others is harder then you think as they are very stubborn to change. After a year of solitude (as in having around 1 real conversation week) I began to use my vape way to much (about a 1-2 joints worth a day) and my sentence forming had gone to shit, but with a benefit (so far) my ability to visually build concepts in my mind. You must always find a happy medium as with everything.

The biggest thing I have got into was how websites are made and potential to change all aspects of society, which I am almost at the level I need to be to make my vision a reality.

The perspective I now see the world in is nothing like what I used to. Partly due to being raised very religious which lead me to be narrow minded, stubborn, and in all just a person that should not exist in this day and age with the right teachings.

I find it comes down to the individual and their mental state. I have friends who when they started using they turned into those people you associate with "drug users", and there are others that have had it benefit their lives in literally countless ways.

These are all things which could be taught to everyone with the right drug counseling/ educational programs that would be paid for with the tax money from selling it

PS Im not trying to bring you back to the green side lol, as once you have seen the world from the other side it only helps you in your future. If anything I would suggest getting into some nootropics to help things in your brain like your neurotransmitters. These have helped me with some mental slowness and speed to access stored thoughts

Everything in moderation. Weed is not the devil or ruining our culture. Crack and meth do that pretty good on their own. Herb can open your mind, make you more tolerant, be relaxing, be inspiring, etc. It can also lead to being a huge video game playing, non-social, depressed burn out. It's all in the user and usage. Use it, don't abuse it.

I'm all for marijuana and it's benefits in today's society. From medicinal benefits to the plant being used for paper, rope, etc. That's a topic all in itself though. Blazing is kind of solitary for me nowadays. Like a glass of scotch after work. Feels good. Relaxing. Helps center my thoughts after a stressful day. Less damaging then most other crutches(like booze for example)

Gululu, I assume your stance on alcohol is the same as weed? If not, GTFO. You can say the same things about alcohol as you have said about weed. In fact you could almost replace any word you used for weed with alcohol and it would almost perfectly describe what it was like during prohabition. Alcohol can ruin your life, cause you to make stupid decisions etc. etc. It was illegal as well at one time. It was legalized and now it employees millions of people is a billion dollar business and governments collect a shit ton of tax on it.

Most people are able to drink alcohol and be responsible with it and it has zero negative effect on their lives or the ones around them. The same can be said for weed. I know many people that smoke as often as other people drink and they are very succesful. Obviously there will be idiots who will abuse it and let it ruin their lives and others; but that number will be unbelievably low compared to the ones that don't.

As far as your "weed shops" that the city doesn't close down. They probably don't exactly advertise "Get high here" in their front window so there is the small matter of getting proof that what you say goes on there actually goes on there. And if people are going there and getting high and not causing any problems then the city and the police probably aren't in too big of a hurry to look into it. There is far bigger issues going on than some "young people" smoking a little weed.

The opinion of those who have never tried pot are completely invalid to me.

When I hear comments like those from Guulluuugoogoo, I'm hearing the same rhetoric bullshit as of the "reefer madness" variety. Government brainwashing has done you well.

Don't blame POT because you turned into a lazy washout, blame yourself, chances are you are just a fucking lazy washout.

In my social circle I know a lot more people who smoke pot and lead productive, fullfilling lives than I know lazy washouts.

I've known a lot of smokers in my life, and one concurrent theme is that a lot of us do have one form of pain or another. Human beings function better under stress then they do under ease, for ease brings sloth into your life. Too much challenge is also bad, but a difficult life is more rewarding than one that lacks challenge. Marijuana puts people on autopilot. Everything is OK. There is little challenge. Life is on easy mode. Holy fuck, when I smoke pot, life is easy as fuck!

Pain is actually good for you. Marijuana might numb pain a little TOO much. Everyone goes through some shit or another in life, and like the famous quote in Rocky, it isn't how hard you can hit, but how hard you can get hit and keep going. There truly is a sweet spot in life where you can rise up to the challenges you face and excel as a human being. Not feeling challenged is actually something very bad for you, but not feeling challenged feels so damn good. A lot of people suffer from life that lacks challenge, perhaps not nearly as much as people who are overburdened with challenge, but perhaps not being challenged is actually a more dangerous thing for your mental being than being overly challenged. Being overly challenged, we have people and a society that will help you, while being under challenged and wealthy, you'll be surrounded by sycophantic parasites that will encourage your self-destruction for their own profits.

Holy shit, am I sounding like CiC up in this bitch or what?

It is a theory of mine that marijuana tends to harm ambition but heals emotional wounds. After years I finally was able to quit marijuana and recover from a personal tragedy that happened a few months before started smoking weed, I believe it is a medicine, however, it is a medicine that is abused thoroughly. Many people never recover from emotional, physical, and spiritual trauma, and instead bury their pain under various different forms of vice. I would love to see marijuana legalized, and the money go towards free therapy and counselling for people in need. Many of Vancouver, and I dare say, global ills could be mitigated if therapy were cheaper.

Fuck, $120 an hour to help you gain introspection is a LOT more expensive than just smoking dope and forgetting your pain!

Just googled what Colorado brought in for 2014 from taxing marijuana and they made 53 mil according to CNN. Their population is a bit higher than ours but 40 - 50 mil in taxes plus less spent in policing marijuana sounds like a good idea. I'm in favor of legalization but I do believe you should not be able to smoke weed in public areas. People should be free to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't impact others.

Personally, I smoked weed and had edibles a few times (less than 5 "sessions") in high school. I don't do it now and I am not inclined to do so. It's just not my thing.

That being said, marijuana is shown to be less damaging, both to oneself and the surrounding society, than alcohol or even tobacco. Last I checked, a joint has less carcinogens than your average cigarette. And I've never heard of anyone having too much marijuana and start beating their wife/kids in rage... like alcohol does.

IMO it should be legalized and regulated, which would put a stop to a lot of gang activity as well as ensure there are "safe" supplies of marijuana that are not laced with other more dangerous substances. Let's face it, everyone who wants to do marijuana already does it. And no cop in the Lower Mainland will charge someone who is carrying a personal amount on them. And people who choose to do it the legal way can get a Green Card to do so. And nearly everyone has a "friend" who knows where to get marijuana for a relatively low price. The list goes on...

So why not just start making money off it? Seems like a great way to fund Translink to me instead of continuously punishing car users...

multi: pretty much the perfect post. I agree with every word wholeheartedly. Like I said, everything in moderation. Not sounding like CiC at all.

Legalizing it would seemingly cure so many problems. Superb tax revenue; ensure unlaced, quality, safe product; eliminate the black market and remove the criminal element for a great natural product good for many things even outside the amazing medicinal benefits. Fuck Harper and his anti-drug retard views.

"Laced" weed is a myth, unless you're lacing it yourself.

I agree that the govt should probably move towards legalization just based on how much of a blind eye they turn to dispenceries. Dispenceries are all a joke, -anyone- with any sort of story can get a card and buy via dispenceries, it's almost impossible not to be approved.

With that said, if your somone who wants o debate it at a federal level and are willing to throw away your vote towards the liberals in hopes of legalization, you're an idiot. It's basically legal now, everyone smokes everywhere, everyone carries large amounts without fear of prosecution, no one has a second thought about the police as is. You don't need to elect a liberal government to feel safe about smoking.

^true. Laced was a poor choice of words. Unsure of quality when buying from an unknown source is more what I was going for. Not "whoops, there's coke in my doob". Ha!

Agreed that everyone is pretty lax about the rules and whatnot. Still though, it's only decriminalize, not completely legal. I mentioned Harper as he talks like weed is so bad and the epidemic needs to be stopped.

Fixed it for you

^

Best post of 2015 :)