We are told by many of our elders and our wisers that our college experience should be filled with familiarizing ourselves with new things. But often, in the very same breath those people tell us that we should avoid things like marijuana and other drugs. It makes sense, there are a lot of illegal substances out there that will kill you quickly or completely dissemble your cognitive ability, and I wouldn’t advocate the use of any of them.
But cannabis isn’t one of them, and I say it’s about time our society recognizes this and no longer accepts all of those negative stereotypes and misinformation that seem to have our elders convinced that cannabis should be categorized with drugs like cocaine.
It makes sense that our elders would hold such a stigma against some drugs. Their generation was one of excess and instant gratification (we are talking about the baby boomers, remember), and they most likely want to steer the next generation away from the hedonism that was apparently so counter productive when they were practicing it.
But we live in the age of information; instant education across the lanes of the ‘information super highway’, and we really have no excuse for allowing false assumptions about drugs like cannabis to be perpetuated.
Government agencies like the DEA and people like Nancy Reagan have actually made getting accurate information about drugs difficult, but self-education is the first step to reversing that unfortunate trend. We’re told that we should question what we hear, so why should a statement like “all drugs are evil” be an exception to that rule?
Once you’ve embarked on your own journey of psychoactive self-discovery, it becomes increasingly more difficult to reconcile the cognitive dissonance the ‘drug double standard’ this country has ingrained in us. Drugs like cannabis are considered dangerous and reckless, while becoming dangerously drunk at one’s 21st birthday is considered a cultural norm.
Alcohol is a significantly more dangerous drug than cannabis (it kills a lot more people) and it truly doesn’t do as much for you. Think about it; if you’re at a party and someone is acting obnoxious and incredibly loud, are they drunk or high?
Meanwhile, THC can induce profoundly spiritual experiences, and has been associated with many ancient religious practices of the near and far east. It also has a reputation for being an artistic inspiration.
Its use is mentioned in one of the most famous stories to come out of the near east “The Thousand and One Nights,” and I’m sure at least one of Weezy’s oh-so-cutting verses was written while under the influence of something.
It boils down to a matter of what drugs like THC actually do for you. Legal drugs like cigarettes and alcohol merely fool the body into feeling better than it should. Cannabis on the other hand is an experience that changes one’s frame of perspective, and can actually be a surprisingly introspective experience.
Many intelligent people are attracted to cannabis because experiencing a change in one’s behavior or perspective makes the real world significantly more interesting. Some users report an increased appreciation for the arts or music while under its influence, and many of those erratic, highly syncopated jazz standards we admire now were written and performed under the influence of the infamous ‘reefers’.
People fear substances that alter their perception because of a simple human fear of the unknown. And it makes sense; we are all afraid or at least uncomfortable around people whose actions we don’t fully understand, and experiences produced by some drugs force us to realize that we may not fully understand ourselves. But there is a choice we, as individuals and as a society, must make.
We can choose to live comfortably, and completely willfully ignorant of the infinite possibilities of ourselves, or we can choose to venture into the unknown that is the immeasurable potential of our perception. It is a path which we all face with the shadow of fear hanging over us, but it is a road which will bring us out of our ‘comfort zones’ of reality, and propel us into a more mature, meditative society.