Intelligence: The Gateway Drug

CNN

The “Just Say No” generation was often told by parents and teachers that intelligent people didn’t use drugs. Turns out, the adults may have been wrong. […]

Researchers discovered men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158. An average IQ is 100. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

This is not a surprise to me. And no, of course, it doesn’t in any way prove causation. It’s the prohibitionists that like to latch on to any correlation and claim causation.

Of course, Jennifer Bixler at CNN still finds a way to completely mess up the story. I’m not sure, for example, why she uses “men” and “girls” in the paragraph above.

And then, rather than looking at the “use” of drugs as the study refers (it asked participants whether they had used drugs such as marijuana, cocaine, or heroin in the past year), she focuses on a completely anecdotal “abuse” of drugs.

That seems to ring true for one of my childhood classmates. Tracey Helton Mitchell was one of the smartest kids in my middle school. But, by the time she was in her early 20’s, Tracey was a heroin addict.

The comments are… entertaining.

[Thanks, Francis]
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63 Responses to Intelligence: The Gateway Drug

  1. Ain’t never been no reason to believe us stoners is any more dumber than the rest of them.

  2. claygooding says:

    I have always thought tokers were smarter than str8s,,because we were inquisitive enough to look past the garbage spewed by our government.

  3. Scott says:

    Hopefully in tune with intelligence is the comment I posted in WSJ’s most popular article “Supreme Test for Health Law” fwiw:

    The likely outcome is you will be forced to buy health insurance, since our Supreme Court in 2005 ruled (in a Liberal dominated decision) that the mere possession of marijuana can be banned by way of the Commerce Clause.

    Americans sold their Constitution out a long time ago, and the mainstream media is mainly to blame for failing to report what Americans seriously needed to know (yet such media outlets unethically sell themselves as that reliable source of needed information).

    The Commerce Clause is not sexy, so its abuse has flown under the radar of the American mainstream for decades. But the unauthorized continuing degradation of our rights by public servants via this clause may someday become inescapable from mass attention.

    Hopefully, it will not be too late, necessitating a violent reaction against our public servants who have clearly revolted against the true government of our nation, “We the people”.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      The MSM sold out the Constitution? Is that why when the Feds threatened to “crackdown” on newspapers that accepted ads from medicinal cannabis vendors not a blessed one even mentioned the 1st Amendment? It’s one thing when it’s the civil rights of someone else, but this threat involved a direct violation of their own. First Amendment? What’s a First Amendment?

      Oh that’s right, the media gives urine tests to keep out the druggies, don’t they. That makes it make sense.

  4. Dante says:

    Gee, is anyone on this board surprised?

    I’ve suspected, for 3 decades now, that stoners had more common sense than drug warriors. Now, it appears that stoners are just smarter, period. That’s gonna require a lie-filled rebuttal from the Drug Czar, don’t you think?

    Important Note! If high-IQ types are the anti-prohibitionists, it follows then that low-IQ types are the drug warriors. I knew it!

    Repeat after me: The prohibitionists are the stupid ones!

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      Repeat after you? I’ve been saying that immediately subsequent to reading anything written by a prohibitionist for at least 2 decades now.

  5. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    The prohibitionist responds, “This study is cut and dried evidence that we need to implement a program of pre-frontal lobotomies for children with abnormally high IQs in order to keep them off of drugs. Preferably the intelligencectomies will be performed before the children enter first grade although more studies are needed to ascertain the earliest possible moment that they can be performed safely.”
    ———-
    Doctor, doctor, my brain hurts!

    Well, it will have to come out.

  6. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    The comments sections are certainly supporting evidence of the assertion that prohibitionists and straight people have significantly lower intelligence. It’s why I’ve invested in a factory in China that manufactures loafers, sandals, and flip flops. With so many unable to master the art of tying shoelaces demand will be steady to up. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t thank god for Chinese slave labor.

    • darkcycle says:

      I’m inclined to think that some of those comments are attempts at irony. There are a couple of obvious trolls, but there are some that are really too stupid not to be contrived.
      I’m inclined to think that more intelligent types see through the obvious bullshit easier. And that intelligence and inquisitiveness go hand in hand.

    • kant says:

      Actually if you think about it, support for legalization is rising. Which means the population as a whole is becoming more intelligent. Therefore there will be a decreasing level of demand for laceless footwear. 😉

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Not really, they’re just sick and tired of hearing us ask “are we there yet?*” We can break the planet in two if we keep it up. Prohibitionists are a snap next to the efforts required to initiate intra-planetary division. Place your bets if it’s going to split between the northern/southern or the eastern/western hemispheres but there’s no doubt in my mind that we could do it. The dumb money is on a 3 way split, sheesh. You may as well bet “sides” in a coin toss.

        * http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNM0UvR_Bo

  7. Unperson says:

    Just look at the late Carl Sagan compared to Ted Nugent. Or The Beatles and Pink Floyd compared to militant “straight edge” punk. I rest my case.

  8. claygooding says:

    I agree that smart people do drugs but no reference was made that drugs make you smart.

    I think putting too much confidence in your IQ is similar to believing in reincarnation,,,no one was ever Joe Blow,,we were all Alexander the Great or Cleopatra.

    • darkcycle says:

      …don’t be silly. How could we all be Alexander the Great? Especially since my “past life reading”, purchased at great expense revealed that I was Alexander the Great? ($12.95 off a late night T.V. commercial…and they even threw in an actual ancient Hindu good luck amulet…who knew they had their religious artifacts manufactured in China?)

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      ??? I was an incestuous goat in my previous life. Haven’t you ever read about my recurring dream? In my dream I’m a goat grazing in a grassy field on the top of a cliff overlooking a beautiful seascape. The weather and temp couldn’t be better and I’m there with my family. Two female goats and me, mother, son, father and daughter, and we simply couldn’t be more content.

      Either that or I’m a really a goat having a recurring dream that I’m a man which makes you the figment of a goat’s imagination.

      It’s really not much of a dream all things considered. I’ve been having this dream for decades. DC thinks it means I’m a lunatic and that Sigmund Freud wasn’t. But I think he’s just not able to see things from the perspective of a goat. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

      • darkcycle says:

        I am NOT going to interpret your dreams. Besides, Freud himself said “Sometimes a Cigar is just a dream” (or was that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”? Never mind, doesn’t matter.). I’m an adherant of the current theory of dreams. They are a period of increased activity in the frontal cortex coupled with paralysis of the motor cortex. It’s nonsense information and your concoius mind is trying to make sense of it.
        Also that dreams have predictable topics and contents, and a definite structure that has nothing to do with the subconcious (whatever that is)and more to do with static wiring and brain maturity. :
        “Discoveries in three distinct areas of dream research make it possible to suggest the outlines of a new neurocognitive theory of dreaming. The first relevant findings come from assessments of patients with brain injuries, which show that lesions in different areas have differential effects on dreaming and thereby imply the contours of the neural network necessary for dreaming. The second set of results comes from work with children ages 3-15 in the sleep laboratory, which reveals that only 20-30% of REM period awakenings lead to dream reports up to age 9 and that the dreams of children under age 5 are bland and static in content. The third set of findings comes from a rigorous system of content analysis, which demonstrates the repetitive nature of much dream content and that dream content in general is continuous with waking conceptions and emotional preoccupations. Based on these findings, dreaming is best understood as a developmental cognitive achievement that depends upon the maturation and maintenance of a specific network of forebrain structures. The output of this neural network for dreaming is guided by a “continuity principle” linked to current personal concerns on the one hand and a “repetition principle” rooted in past emotional preoccupations on the other.”
        http://www2.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/domhoff_2001a.html

        • darkcycle says:

          …maybe you have a lesion on the Goatal Cortex.

        • darkcycle says:

          Boy, is it easy to lead me O/T, or what?

        • darkcycle says:

          …and just WHY is it I always misspell “subconscious”, hmmm? What’s up with THAT? I’m open to interpretation…

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .
          Dr. Freud also wrote this to his lady friend:

          I will kiss you quite red and feed you till you are plump. And if you are forward you shall see who is the stronger, a little girl who doesn’t eat enough or a big strong man with cocaine in his body. In my last serious depression I took cocaine again and a small dose lifted me to the heights in a wonderful fashion. I am just now collecting the literature for a song of praise to this magical substance.

          http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/cocaine/

          But who doesn’t know that cocaine’s existence in the Western world was all his fault?

    • Maria says:

      I was an H. pylori in Alexander the Great’s stomach. I swear I saw some of y’all there as well. Then I was a chipmunk. It’s been a fairly low key turn on the ol’ wheel.

      • darkcycle says:

        Was that you that gave me the trots so bad during my North Africa campaign? (it was a very detailed reading…)

    • Windy says:

      Actually, that is not quite true. I went thru regression hypnotherapy (just for fun) and the two lives I “experienced” I was a tribal youth (no clue about location, could have been anywhere there are grassy plains, rivers and brown skins — I “looked” at my feet and legs) in one and a clerk in Dublin in the other (both male). No one I know who has experienced regression (and there are quite a few of them) has ever experienced being a famous historical person.

      I think that bit about all who believe in reincarnation having been famous in a past life is claptrap, and is repeated throughout Christianity in order to discredit reincarnation and, in today’s world, discredit past life regression. I’m not religious (one might actually call me anti-religious) but I have studied the Bible (and compared the variations, plus I did some investigation into other religions, too many long years ago; lost the faith I had as a child, long story)some parts of the Bible did teach reincarnation, even Jesus taught it. The church, once it was entrenched, wanted to bury that belief system because they couldn’t control (and rob) people who knew there were more lives to be lived (also the reason the stole the holy days of other religions — to get more people under their thumb); so it was necessary to make the people believe there was only this one life and that how one lived it would determine whether one ended up in heaven or hell.

      • darkcycle says:

        Jes’ havin’ some fun. I don’t believe in past life regression, but I don’t DISBELIEVE in it either. Don’t have any personal experience, haven’t explored the topic. And too many corporeal concerns right now.

  9. jhelion says:

    One thing that is frustrating is that folks with the higher IQs comprise ~1% of the population, which means that ~99% of voters have a lower IQ than us.

  10. Servetus says:

    I’m concerned when an article begins by discussing marijuana use and concludes with heroin and physical addiction. The two drug taking behaviors boast a huge cultural divide between them, not to mention the different effects and biochemistries for each drug.

    The piece notes that intelligent people are more likely to experiment with drugs, not that drug taking behavior is the exclusive domain of the intelligent. Drug seeking behavior is more likely to be practiced by all those suffering from depression, PTSD or other problems. It’s also likely to be practiced by the curious. Again, intelligence wouldn’t necessarily be a factor, although it helps. I think culture should be more heavily weighted in drug taking behavior when considering all the variables. Measured distinctions in drug taking behavior fall heavily into specific cultural categories that include political and religious outlooks.

    What is a factor is that risk taking and creativity is wired into the youthful brain as an adaptive evolutionary response. Survival by way of the old solutions to life’s problems would not lead to new and better means for a more efficient survival of the species. It’s analogous to some ancient humanoid that discovers a snake in the grass: dangerous, maybe; but for those with a little more courage, a mighty fine meal as well. Adding a little snake or frog venom to arrow-tips makes for better hunting skills, and so forth.

    Youthful courage and curiosity is likely to make quick work of something as marvelous as changing one’s perceptions and emotional responses via chemistry. To deny these faculties and their benefits, drug induced or not, is to deny an option made available by human evolution, which through experimental trial and error has given us the largest pharmacopeia the species has ever known.

    (cross posted in part at CNN)

    • darkcycle says:

      Disturbing and disturbed. At the very same time.

    • claygooding says:

      In 1995 I was eating lunch in a Chinese buffet restaraunt in Wichita Falls,Tx.

      A DEA team and local narcotics officers squad came in for lunch just after we were seated and several of the DEA were wearing black t-shirts with “What you seize is what you get” on the back,,,that t-shirt is what woke me up to the fact that prohibition was not going to go away by ignoring it and it ended up re-activating me.

      I hope that t-shirt does the same for a lot of people to fight our police becoming search and seize or enforcing laws for profit.

  11. claygooding says:

    Jonathan Zupkus Gets 10 Days In Jail For 10 Pounds Of Marijuana

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/15/jonathan-zupkus-illinois-_n_1095010.html

    Kerli will be after that Judges job.

    • Peter says:

      “Zupkus must also complete obtain (sic) a sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous, complete a chemical dependency evaluation and submit to random drug testing.”

      NA should tell the legal system to fuck off and refuse to sign any more court slips. If Zupkus is an addict (and there’s no suggestion that he is) he’d be best going to NA of his own volition. If he isn’t, the court is abusing NA by ordering him to go, and wasting the time of a sponsor who no doubt has issues of his own to deal with, without going through the sham of working with a court ordered “addict.” The sooner NA distances itself from drug warriors and concentrates on its primary purpose, i.e. to help the addict who still suffers, the better. At the moment they’re being used to give a fig-leaf of respectability to the wosd.

      • claygooding says:

        Even yet Peter,,ten days for 10 pounds is history in itself,,,we will see the day when it won’t even be a headline.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Peter, I’ve been saying that for 20 years. Not just N.A. but A.A. and (anyletter).A. as well.

        All that having people that don’t give a fig about 12 stepping to the point of “go take your 12 steps on an 11 step pier” accomplishes is denigrate the program for those who are finding it a benefit and a couple of extra bucks in the collection plate. They sure abandon their “take what you need and leave the rest” platitude when it comes to the collection plate. What the hell do they think “help yourself” means anyway?

        As well as denigrate the proceedings it violates their own rules, specifically Traditions #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12, particularly T6 & T12.

        By the way there are only 12 Traditions so violating 8 of 12 for a few extra bucks in the collection plate makes them ethically bereft. All IMHO of course.

        http://www.aa.org/bigbookonline/en_appendicei.cfm
        The Traditions are all the same everywhere in the alphabet soup so it doesn’t matter that my link goes to the A.A. website.

        12 Step requirements have at least 3 Federal Court of Appeals’ circuits and New York State Supreme Court decisions saying they violate the 1st Amendment’s Establishment clause. There’s no rational way to claim that 12 step programs aren’t a religion.
        ———-

        I learned a few weeks ago that Virginia has codified the requirement that anyone convicted of a drug law violation and subject to P&P supervision is required to complete a drug rehabilitation program, not just “be evaluated.” It’s not impossible or even unlikely that the Judge has no discretion in those conditions of release. Lawmakers don’t give a flip if they pass unconstitutional laws.

        I wonder if anyone sent by the Court for an “evaluation” has ever been given a clean bill of health and sent on their way? Not even one person? I had a friend who had quit getting high for years before he got popped and they made him complete a program. But that was the Commonwealth of Virginia so it may have just been the law and impossible to avoid.

        • Peter says:

          Duncan….just to add to what’s been said, 12 step groups signing court papers is largely a US thing….it doesn’t happen in my experience in the UK. If you try and change it from within there will usually be a couple of committee members who were court ordered and did get the message, who will oppose changing what worked for them. This ignores the thousands who show up every week across the country just to get their papers signed and leave as soon as possible, creating the opposite of an atmosphere of recovery…. I’m glad my early days in recovery were spent in england where everyone present at meetings was there because they wanted to be, and weren’t going through the farce of court ordered attendance.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .
          I quit smoking cocaine in May of 1989. I used a simple two cheek program. I sat on my hands. Literally. At least 12 hours per day the first week. Oh right, the cannabis really helped too.

  12. MalcsSantaArrangement says:

    There’s a few guys over here who are most definitely in need of some of those mind expanding drugs: http://tinyurl.com/bpwvnzk

  13. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .
    So people like this are really just potheads dressed in Know Nothing prohibitionist drag?

    duster said on: November 15, 2011, 2:03 pm:

    Illegal aliens, illegal drugs, both fit into the same category as being illegal. Do you think armed robbery should go unpunished as long as “its not hurting anyone”? The old song and dance that “its not hurting anyone does not hold water in this case. What part of illegal don’t people understand? Illegal means it’s against the law.”

    http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/two-brothers-grandmother-among-six-accused-of-marijuana-trafficking/article_5fc700a2-0f1c-11e1-8357-001cc4c03286.html?mode=comments

    So I just wasted my virtual breath? I’ll admit I could have better worded the last sentence. But I’m not sure the Know Nothings get that far before they start vomiting hysterical rhetoric.

    I really hate websites that won’t let you format. Oh well, I’ve got another poster over there to beat up. I banged him up this afternoon and he’s come back for more.

    You guys just don’t understand that no one is buying that argument.
    But hey, I could use a good belly laugh, ‘splain to me how someone commits an armed robbery without hurting someone. In the meantime I’m going to cross post your hilarious nonsense at some of my favorite websites so my friends can share a laugh at your expense.
    What part of “the law is wrong and we’re not going to kowtow just because you get blue in the face and squeal “the LAW is the LAW is the LAW , blah, blah, blah?” Chest beating just isn’t going anywhere, mmm-kay?

    • Pete says:

      Hey, you guys are in my home town newspaper! Good for you. I stop in there now and then but get frustrated with how slow it loads to spend too much time there.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .
        Wow, Pete, I feel compelled to say that you’re surprisingly well adjusted considering all the banjo music you must have endured there. I think yesterday I suffered the purest “the law is the law” argument I’ve ever encountered in that column. They probably have it load slowly so as to not overly confuse the locals.

        Speaking of banjo music, it seems that every classic movie ever made has been updated with a modern version except for Deliverance. After being shown the door next year, I think if they’re going to update that Mr. Obama would be great if cast as “Toothless Man.”

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVDN8yR3ig0
        clip duration: 0:04

    • darkcycle says:

      Hafta jump in tomorrow, buddy.
      Mental meltdown @ 7:25pm Pacific Standard time. darkcycle is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
      Server not available, Please retry your request later.
      *bing-bing-POP!* Tilt.
      Error 404, file not found
      To avoid auto-shutdown, connect to a power source immediately….
      commencing auto-shutdown.
      *boop-beep!*

    • Windy says:

      Duncan, when someone posts “but it’s the LAW”, this is how I respond:
      The laws which criminalized some drugs are not Constitutional laws because they violate the unalienable right to self ownership. No Constitutional Amendment was passed and ratified to allow the government to regulate what one may ingest for whatever reason, therefore these laws violate the Constitution, and since they violate the Constitution they are NOT legally enforceable.
      quoting:
      http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2010/12/do-we-have-to-follow-unconstitutional.html
      “Consider this opinion of the Supreme Court:”
      “An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law.
      Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
      No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
      – Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 177. (late 2nd Ed. Section 256)”

      To my knowledge this ruling has never been overturned so it stands in spite of what ruling have followed it. Correct? Is this not a rather direct and Constitutional route to restoring Constitutional governance in these united States of America?

    • Windy says:

      Oh, I am so sorry. So much for “not going after dispensaries that are following State law”.

    • darkcycle says:

      Don’t bother with the comments there, I left one last night, and it hasn’t been allowed up.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      $5000 a lb wholesale is just around the corner. Sigh, this shit is just so wrong.

      Have I ever told you guys how I sat down one long, long night and crunched the numbers, and determined that the anti-cigarette zealots would have done better financially and accomplished their goal much sooner had they simply bought the 4 largest cigarette companies and used the advertising budgets to their own ends? Changed the brand names to RattPoison®, used pictures of spontaneously aborted fetuses for brand logos, replaced the Marlboro Man with The Grim Reaper, Scenes from Night of The Living Dead in video ads (sure they could have gotten the FCC to approve that, no problem), donated the leftover profits (if any) to anti-smoking groups? But to them making the tobacco companies say uncle was the most important thing, not their stated goal of wiping out tobacco addiction. So instead now we have Philip Morris Altria Corporation web sites with how to quit smoking tips only 2 hard drives over from the save $1 on a pack of Marlboros coupons and an argument over whether making menthol flavoring illegal is racist. The funny thing about owning 50% + 1 stub of a publicly traded company is that you can make it do whatever you want, even roll over and say uncle. Of course you have to be willing to watch your dollars curl up and die because the rest of the shareholders will do their rats on a sinking ship impression.

      Say, would anyone want to chip in and buy controlling interest in a pharmaceutical company? I just happen to know a little one that specializes in organic cannabinoid medicinal derivatives that’s still dirt cheap, we could probably get done for around $200 million. No? OK, I really didn’t think so. Just me pipe dreaming again.

      • darkcycle says:

        Don’t want to tell you what I’m down already starting this business, and now I’m just sitting on my hands playing the waiting game. And with the economic atmosphere in Europe currently what it is, waiting will be what I’m doing for a while.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      I think we have to admit that the strategy of telling people that they were only going to bust the dealers in drag, giving people a year or so to establish and then busting them was pure PR genius. Now we get to deal with the people that “know” that if anyone gets busted that they were dealers in drag, the facts be damned. Who cares if the local Sheriff states on camera that the collective was 100% in compliance with State and local law and regs, and that he said it on camera? The DEA only busts those not in compliance so those guys must have totally fooled the Sheriff and his deputies that made regular inspections and made certain that the collective was in compliance. Sheer and utter genius.

  14. Windy says:

    Mine is 164 and my brother’s is 158, no wonder we both became connoisseurs of psychedelics and cannabis as adults.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      I’ve been ashamed of the fact that I cheated on my IQ test since shortly after it was administered.

  15. Windy says:

    when someone posts “but it’s the LAW”, this is how I respond:
    The laws which criminalized some drugs are not Constitutional laws because they violate the unalienable right to self ownership. No Constitutional Amendment was passed and ratified to allow the government to regulate what one may ingest for whatever reason, therefore these laws violate the Constitution, and since they violate the Constitution they are NOT legally enforceable.
    quoting:
    http://soundofcannons.blogspot.com/2010/12/do-we-have-to-follow-unconstitutional.html
    “Consider this opinion of the Supreme Court:”
    “An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law.
    Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
    No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it.
    – Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 177. (late 2nd Ed. Section 256)”

    To my knowledge this ruling has never been overturned so it stands in spite of what ruling have followed it. Correct? Is this not a rather direct and Constitutional route to restoring Constitutional governance in these united States of America?

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .
      You have to get the SCOTUS to agree with your position. Precedent can most certainly be overturned. It wasn’t until Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) that the SCOTUS decided that “the law” had no place in the bedrooms of consenting adults. That was 30 years after the SCOTUS had ruled the very same laws were Constitutional. I don’t recall a Constitutional Amendment protecting people’s right to enjoy oral sex being passed in the meantime. As of this moment the precedent in Wickard v Filburn 317 US 111 (1942) makes the war on (some) drugs Constitutional. While there’s no doubt that ruling from FDR’s hand picked SCOTUS is Constitutionally goofy, it’s the governing legal authority that we have to live with until we can get them to strike it down, if that’s even possible.

      Say, you did know that 9 of 9 Justices that voted 9-0 to overturn the lower Court’s ruling in favor of Mr. Filburn in 1942 were Democratic stooges appointed by FDR, right? Perhaps not, it sure seems like everybody “knows” that FDR was foiled in his attempt to stack the SCOTUS. He was, but only temporarily.
      ———-

      Windy, the problem is that your very sensible argument would be gibberish to the intended audience. IMO of course. I’m fully cognizant of the fact that I treat these people like assholes. It’s intentional and I’m not offering any apologies for that today. I just don’t have any nice in me for these particular jackasses, not even an itty bitty bit. 34 1/2 years of being treated as sub-human has just left me totally unable to be any more civil than required than needed to avoid being banned by the websites which offer me a forum. I may be wrong, but you can call me Popeye, Iyam what Iyam, and Iyam pixxed off, no doubt. More than 40 years of being reasonable has gotten us nowhere. IMO it’s time to tell the Know Nothings to pound sand and crawl back into their slimy hidey-holes so that our society can start to heal from the damage which they have inflicted on us.

      Maybe I’m wrong. If you really think I am don’t hesitate to keep arguing. The only people with the ability to influence me to change my mind or to modify my views are well represented on this website. Often wrong but never in doubt, that’s me. But consider too that “good cop, bad cop” is such a well known strategy because it works. Regards.

      • Windy says:

        You did that to me on a Seattle Times article, Duncan, because I do not support I-502. I have good reasons to not support that stupid proposed law which actually makes it LESS good for medical cannabis patients (reduces the amount they can legally have in possession at any one time from 28 ounces to 23 grams, and also denies them the right to grow it, which they have under the current law, currently they may have 15 plants growing) in addition to the per se drugged driving proposal. I hope you read my responses.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .
          While I didn’t realize it was you Windy I most certainly find people on this side of the table

          I-502 oveturns the Medical Use of Cannabis Act? The medical people in California used the same hysterical rhetoric to defeat Prop 19. Sure, let’s pile up a string of referenda defeats so the Know Nothings can have a pile with which to rhetorically diminish our position. What they’ve done with the Prop 19 defeat isn’t enough for you. Never let the facts get in the way of disseminating an effective piece of hysterical rhetoric. The motto of the Know Nothing prohibitionist and the Know Nothing pothead alike. Heads you win, tails I lose.

          Windy, what you’re doing is called betrayal. I’ve been one of the most vocal supporters of medicinal cannabis patient protection laws. When it came time to have the favor returned the “patients” decided that their perceived self interest was more important than the non-patients who’s support was instrumental in getting you the things that you incorrectly fear losing. As a result all I see anymore is a bunch of black market dealers and potheads in caregiver and patient drag, respectively.

          At least the prohibitionists have never betrayed me in order to promote their particular stripe of insanity as the poseurs of medicinal cannabis have done. The prohibitionists never pretended that they wouldn’t cut my throat given the opportunity.
          ———-
          http://www.newapproachwa.org/sites/newapproachwa.org/files/I-502%20Factsheet%20-%20Medical%20Marijuana.pdf

          Can you point out the parts for me which repeal or limit the Medical Use of Cannabis Act? No you can’t because that nonsense is either just in your head or you’re knowingly perpetrating a scam. It really doesn’t matter which one to me.

          Please don’t bother arguing your right to drive while impaired. You better believe I’m lobbying to add a requirement that patients be required to surrender their driver’s licenses. The truly sick are the important ones, and they are either too sick to drive or qualify for transportation. But as I so enjoy saying to the Know Nothing prohibitionists,

          Toodles!

        • darkcycle says:

          Unless I’m mistaken, Windy, that doesn’t affect the MMJ laws. That’s established and court tested. 502 isn’t supposed to change the MMJ statutes which will still be on the books.

        • darkcycle says:

          “Please don’t bother arguing your right to drive while impaired. You better believe I’m lobbying to add a requirement that patients be required to surrender their driver’s licenses. The truly sick are the important ones, and they are either too sick to drive or qualify for transportation. But as I so enjoy saying to the Know Nothing prohibitionists”
          Duncan, you know as well as anyone that there is NO reason people with MS, early stage cancer, rhuematiod arthritis, etc, etc should surrender their drivers licenses. That’s garbage and you know it. I have chronic wasting, IBD and PTSD, NONE of those conditions restrict my being able to drive in any way at all. If I’m taking Donnatal for my IBD (that’s belladonna and phenobarbitol, so theres no need to look it up) they don’t make me surrender my license, fer gawds sake.
          The people pushing to defeat those referendums ARE the drug dealers in drag. They are manipulative assholes who don’t care about anything as long as nobody comes near their cash cow. They didn’t care about legalization BEFORE MMJ. They’ve scared the patients who ARE vulnerable and know it. That’s not a difficult thing to do, but it is self serving and cynical.
          Focus your rage on the perpetrators of this fraud, not the victims who don’t realize they are victims yet.

        • darkcycle says:

          P.S. You have never been truly f**ked up until you’ve accidentally taken an overdose of donnatal. I did once and it is a transcendentally messed up experience. I was at the ER with a bad bout of IBS and they gave me a shot, they always give me a shot, but not usually of donnatal. I got home and took two instead of my ususal 1.
          I was tripping, and drooling on myself at the same time. I couldn’t even tell my wife what was happening. I just layed there on the couch for four hours wishing I was dead. I don’t mess with that stuff anymore, even though they keep prescribing it, I just trash the scripts.

  16. darkcycle says:

    Have at ’em Duncan. Just try and remember, everybody reading the commentary has not made up his/her mind. Those undecided fence sitters are the people I am trying to reach. The ball busting types that will argue just to get the last word aren’t worth my time (unless one succeeds in peeing me off). Those people are the hardened opposition, and I’ve yet to see one give up and change his/her mind. And, since they’re not reachable they cease to count. I try to get my comment in the first hundred or so, keep it short (initially) and make a general argument in reference to the piece upon which I am commenting. If someone has the balls to try to argue with me, well, it all depends on how focused I am on the above goal at the time. But occasionaly, I do like to rip someone’s head off an sh*t down the hole in their neck. So, go for it.

  17. rita says:

    In a sane society, drugs would be treated like any other commodity — produced and sold by duly licensed, regulated and taxed businesses. And the only people who would give a rat’s ass about other people’s drug habits would be the producers and purveyors of said drugs. Only in a society ruled by urine-sniffing madmen would this discussion even be relevant.

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