Bill Hicks Debunks The Whole "Pot Smoking Liberal" Spin

[KingOfLostSouls]

"Pot is a better drug than alcohol. Fact! … I'll prove it to you. If you're at a ball game or a concert and someone's really violent and aggressive and obnoxious, are they drunk or are they smoking pot? Wow! We all know the truth."





pretty sure the only thing you think about when you're smoking pot is ordering pizza and watching three's company reruns. political assassination isn't exactly something that pops into the mind of the average liberal pot smoker. or any pot smoker. in fact, the only thing that pops into mind is, "HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE FUNNIEST SHOW EVER!!!! I NEED MORE FUNYONS!!!!"

[Liquorice]

1. Well that mostly true, but pot can make symptoms of mental illness, like schizophrenia, worse. Pot

can cause paranoia even in people who aren't normally paranoid, and it can become particularly bad for someone who is a paranoid schizophrenic. It can also make other states of psychosis worse. But for someone who isn't suffering from mental illness, yeah, it can be a lot of fun.

[Name removed]

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[FloridaJudy]

3. Correlation is not causation.

There are a number of pot smokers who are mentally ill. There are a whole lot more who aren't, but I expect the percentage of the mentally ill who smoke marijuana is slightly more than that of the sane who do so.

Did pot smoking drive them crazy? No more than smoking cigarettes did. Anyone who's ever worked or lived in a psychiatric setting can tell you the percentage of patients who smoke tobacco is horrendous: much higher than is prevalent in the general population. The truth is that the mentally disturbed tend to self-medicate a lot. They'll try anything to help relieve their symptoms: caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, prescription drugs. Since both alcohol and nicotine are highly addictive, their use can continue even if the poor users aren't getting a whole lot of benefit - and a hell of a lot of problems - from using them.

On the other hand, I suspect pot might actually work, to a limited extent. Its pain-killing and anxiety-relieving properties have been known to many civilizations: it's been found in stone age tombs. Certainly, it's not nearly as destructive as alcohol or tobacco.

It would be nice to test this hypothesis, but in the present climate of anti-drug hysteria, I see little chance of this.

[the other one]

5. You expect more pot-smokers are mentally ill then not?

Like, wow.

Approximately 80 million Americans might disagree, but they are all probably self-medicating.

[FloridaJudy]

7. Read that carefully!

I said "there are a whole lot more that aren't mentally ill"! I merely suggested that I wouldn't be surprised if a higher percentage of mental patients used marijuana than does in the general population. God knows they use more of just about everything else from coffee to heroin, and I think that marijuana is probably one of the least harmful substances they could turn to in an attempt to feel better.

In short, I think the average pot smoker is about as likely to be crazy as anyone slurping down his or her double latte at Starbucks. Probably even less so, since you're probably nuts to pay those kind of prices for coffee.

[Swamp Rat]

4. or a huge bowl cereal and Futurama/Ren and Stimpy reruns

:9

[starroute]

6. But Loughner apparent got weirder after he gave up pot

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/01/jared-lee-loughner-friend-voicemail-phone-message?page=2

In October 2008, Tierney was living in Phoenix, and Loughner came to visit. They went to see a Mars Volta concert with friends, and Tierney was surprised when Loughner said he had quit partying "completely." Loughner, according to Tierney, said, "I'm going to lead a more healthy lifestyle, not smoke cigarettes or pot anymore, and I'm going to start working out." Tierney was happy for his friend: "I said, 'Dude, that's awesome.' And the next time I saw him he was 10 pounds lighter." Tierney never saw Loughner smoke marijuana again, and he was surprised at media reports that Loughner had been rejected from the military in 2009 for failing a drug test: "He was clean, clean. I saw him after that continuously. He would not do it."

After Loughner apparently gave up drugs and booze, "his theories got worse," Tierney says. "After he quit, he was just off the wall." And Loughner started to drift away from his group of friends about a year ago.