Then as I aged I ended up having problems with pains and such.  One day I had smoked after many months of not smoking, I went to grunt and get up in pain as usual but when I stood up the pain wasnt there and it was THAT MOMENT I realized I had crossed over from seeing it as an illegal drug, and started seeing it for what it was, a healing medicine with a (false) bad reputation.
Elderly people in my family look at me like im insane and laugh for suggesting that ohhhh, Maybe their horrible Arthritis would stop causing them so much problems, or ohhh, maybe their wasting disorder could be helped by eating just a tiny amount.  Its a strange time we live in.   Everyone knows people with cancer, supposedly there isnt a cure (some who eat potent extracts may disagree), but in the majority of states it is illegal as hell to simply possess or ingest a life saving plant that has been documented as a healing drug for nearly 10,000 years. 

Eat your pills, dont eat plants!!!

All you’ll do is vomit and go to sleep and it usually only happens when you combine drugs (primarily alcohol).

I find that if I eat a healthy salad and then drink too much alcohol, the same thing can happen. Should I avoid healthy salads? ;D

I’ve never experienced a “green out” nor have I ever met anyone else who has claimed to experience such a thing from pot. But, it sounds like you folks in Australia smoke around 20 pounds of pot a day and everyone I know in the US is pretty much done after a few bong hits or tokes from a joint.

Rational consideration of why marijuana wasn’t more popular “when it was legal” is a funny idea. It was originally made illegal as a means of having a reason to deport them pesky Mexicans. Yes.. marijuana prohibition was basically the historical equivalent to modern ID laws in the redneck states. The only group to smoke it in sizable numbers at the time was Mexicans, as it was something their culture did to unwind at the end of the day. Plenty of medicinal marijuana preparations were available OTC and even Queen Victoria used to scoff weed-laden chocolates to address period pain (and I don’t mean the pain of living in the Victorian period).

When the Senate was listening to arguments over whether to make marijuana illegal the only “medical expert” the anti-marijuana lobby used as evidence was a veterinarian whose testimony was laughable and obviously unfounded in fact. Meanwhile a representative of the American Medical Association provided testimony that marijuana should not be made illegal as it closes the door on its potential health benefits and would make studying such benefits much harder. The only people to ever push for marijuana to be made illegal were not scientists or doctors. To add insult to injury the US Govenment holds the patent on use of canabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectors: http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6630507.html

The last line of your comment is a little worrying. You seem to be conflating marijuana’s pop culture image with its proven and unproven effects. The ‘universal fun’ aspect is driven by Hollywood, artists, musicians and authors… most of whom inadvertently glamourise its use through their art. The main subtext to the sensible discussion of legalisation is an argument about personal freedoms and choice versus the costs that the war on drugs imposes. Why should a segment of the population have to take such risks to partake in an activity that harms no one but themselves? Why should we spend taxpayers money on laws and programs which are proven to have no beneficial effects, merely to prop up a prohibition that has no basis in logic or rational decision making? Why fill prisons with people who did nothing but light something on fire and inhale? If Clinton, Dubya or Obama had been busted while enjoying a toke in their youth then they may never have become president. Our laws are supposed to be evidence based, not opinion based. Sadly, in the case of marijuana, that is not how they were formed and not how they are being perpetuated.

By what research?  There’s conflicting anecdotal evidence both ways, and neither “side” can honestly claim to be a disinterested party in how it is gathered / analyzed.  

But lets consider – if it is actually so great for so many people, why wasn’t it more popular when it was legal?  Seems like something a (sizable) minority enjoys, not something that’s the universal fun its portrayed as.  Which, lets face it, is a pretty strong subtext of most legalization discussion.

Really it needs to be more ‘legal like alcohol’. Even though I love the stuff it is most def not something you want children or young teenagers smoking. Even if it’s taxed and regulated you would still be able to grow your own supply. The regulation is about imposing age restrictions and the tax is about buying end product. Just like beer is taxed to pay for the health cost it imposes on society, even though you can brew your own.

There is *some* THC in the leaves though… you can make a small quantity of hash if you have enough leaf (and I mean garbage bags full).

In short: paradoxical reactions are a potential problem but not one that is terribly prevalent in the case of marijuana.

It’s also worth mentioning that you should only decide to have a second cookie or slice of cake after you’re entirely sure the first one’s effects have reached a plateau. It takes a long time to hit but when it does you’ll get hit harder than if you’d smoked an equivalent amount.

I’ve tried many techniques but the most absolute foolproof I’ve found is this:

1) Get a cake mix or make one from scratch but ensure it contains oil or butter (as most cakes do).
2) Chop the weed incredibly fine – as fine as you can get it. Do NOT use a coffee grinder or blender as those spin fast enough to burn the bud.
3) Make the cake like normal and throw the chop into the cake mix before you pour it into a cake tin – be sure to mix the herb in as evenly as possible because you want every piece to be a uniform strength for dosing purposes.
4) Cook cake like normal and leave to cool.
5) This is the most important and hardest to obey rule of all: Leave the cake for at least a week before consuming! Room temperature is best but put it in the fridge if it will go off out.

Basically what happens is that over a week the weed’s tasty goodness gets absorbed by the oily spongeness of the cake so it can more easily be absorbed by your body. The other advantage of leaving it a week is that the weed pieces won’t be as chewy as if you’d eaten it straight away.

I have previously had great success with heating the chop in oil to extract the THC but the main problem with this is that it’s impossible to know when all the THC has been extracted and it’s really easy to go too hot and burn the crap out of it. If the oil gets to a simmer you’ve stuffed it and you are burning away the THC.

The difference is the intensity. I’ve never quite needed to sleep next to a packed bong but I have been known to restlessly wake up earlier than I want to on a sleep-in day and I know that a quick journey outside to punch a cone (that’s Aussie for bowl) will send me right back to dreamyland. Maybe it is an Australian thing (we are the highest per capita users of marijuana) but I just cant imagine anyone going to bed with a double shot macchiato or a laptop on their bedside table.

@boingboing-66bd939ad7010829ab65a6aaf28c9a96:disqus : It’s been shown that people self regulate their intake – so if you have stronger weed you will smoke less of it than if you had bush weed as humans chase a certain level of high, not an amount of consumption. Yes there might be rules-of-thumb (such as 2 cones will get me rolling) but for the most part people don’t chase highs that are higher than they desire. Because of this (somewhat counter-intuitively) the strong stuff is actually less harmful to you as the most dangerous aspect of smoking weed is that you’re putting carcinogens in your lungs. Basically, the less plant matter you consume the better. This clearly doesn’t apply for people who vape or for bonghead stoners who smoke habitually.

If it weren’t for MDMA, amphetamines and marijuana I wouldn’t have completed (and aced) my essays at uni, but then I did go to art school. I’m not even joking. Obviously You can’t go overboard, but a nice baseline of buzz was the encouragement I needed to write that many words in a short time.

This is a key reason why marijuana should be carefully regulated and restricted in the same way alcohol is because psychosis-related illness tends to take hold more permanently in those who develop it during their teenage years. If young, vulnerable minds are given time to develop before consumption of marijuana there is a good chance the person will develop the emotional tools required to reduce or remove the dangers of serious mental illness taking hold.

The standard reply to my above comment is that regulation will make marijuana easier for teenagers to acquire but that is just idiotic. Growing up it was hard to get your hands on a serious amount of alcohol but almost trivial to score weed because the present law makes it as risky to sell drugs to kids as it is to sell to adults – the dealer is breaking the law to the same extent no matter who the customer is. If marijuana was regulated and there were insane penalties for people selling to minors (as there is presently with alcohol) then we could more effectively control it. Not to mention regulating it would take a huge slice of income away from organised crime and put it in the hands of government.

I’ve linked this book before on BB but that’s because it does a fantastic job of arming you with the necessary knowledge to argue the hell out of alco-zealots and blind weed haters who go to the standard talking points which have been endlessly debunked (even including ones that people are shocked and appalled by, such as the fact that two independent studies of crash stats concluded it’s much more dangerous driving a car under the influence of any amount of alcohol than if you’re stoned): http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Marijuana_Is_Safer.html?id=auatLlqO_AIC&redir_esc=y

I’m not disagreeing with you, but I’m curious as to whether you feel the same way about other ‘freaking plants’.

Personally I’ve always believed that the outlawing of virtually any drug only makes problems worse. All drugs would be far safer, and cause far less problems for individuals and society if they were legal and regulated. That said, I don’t believe regulation is necessary in the case of marijuana. Personally I’ve always found the most enjoyable stuff is the most basic. Grown outside, without too much obsessive attention. It mightn’t be as strong, but I certainly enjoy the high more than hydroponic or over fertilised stuff.

Of course it might be different for medical marijuana. Regulation probably wouldn’t hurt, even if its just the sort of regulation that attempts to ensure when you’re buying it you’re getting what you’re told your getting. If you’ve experimented and found a specific strain is by far the best, it could be quite frustrating finding one supplier disappear and then not be able to get the same strain again because labels aren’t being applied correctly.

Fine work Xeni. 

I’ve seen an awful lot of people that have struggled with addiction

Just keep in mind you could pretty much say the same of coffee, masturbation/sex, shopping, etc.. none of which are illegal (yet).

This is one of the things that bothers me about medical marijuana advocates – they almost universally tout the problems caused by mainstream drugs (which granted, might affect a larger segment of users), but ignore the fact the marijuana “high” is a very unpleasant thing for some people.  Paradoxical reactions are a potential problem with ANY psychoactive drug, and should be openly acknowledged regardless of source.

Problems as a general rule aren’t one sided. If people have problems with drugs, then drugs cause problems with people. They’re one in the same. 

You keep saying “you can” as if everyone reacts the same. This isn’t the case. My brother and I have both smoked pot for years, and as you said can function fine when there is a reasonable dosage. Our sister on the other hand has never reacted well to it. Either she throws up, or she quickly becomes too paranoid to interact with people. Perhaps if she smoked small doses, by herself she would eventually gain a tolerance. The question is why would she want to? Pot clearly doesn’t work for her (or alternatively, she doesn’t react well to pot).

At a reasonable dosage with a good tolerance you can function perfectly fine.

that said my drunk vs. high statement was a bit off. fair enough. 

“You can’t function drunk, you can function stoned.” 
Christopher Hitchens might have disagreed.

Personally, I smoke a joint and the chance of me working productively on an essay diminishes greatly. A bottle of red wine on the other hand can keep me going until 5am, even if I need to re-read and edit the thing a bit more in the morning.

That said, considering I was up until 7am working on an essay last night (with Scotch keeping me going) tonight I’ll get home, roll up and let myself relax. 

Additionally, when I play music its the opposite. Booze makes me sloppy and adds nothing to my creativity. A nice doobie or 10 and I write all my most interesting pieces.