I apologize that I did not respond to this before, and I should have been more clear: I have never done any illicit/illegal drugs.
So when your state relegalizes mariojuana you'll be ready?
Yes, I've had caffeine (and in fact only recently finished a rather unfun detox period to get myself off of my caffeine addiction)
I've been trying to do that for 55 years. I think the problem is that I'm not really trying, especially as I get older. It sharpens my waning cognitive skills (especially short-term memory, the bane of all us elders) and also boosts my flagging energy in addition to a welcome improvement in physical strength and coordination. Unfortunately it ruins my sleep and doesn't do much for my personality.
For me, it isn't about the legality of it... I just don't like not being aware of what is going on around me.
I've been hanging out with users of all the (then) popular recreational drugs for 40 years and no one's ever complained about not being aware of what's going on around him. They don't burn dinner, they don't leave the dog outside or forget to feed him, they don't miss any TV shows or forget they have concert tickets, they keep their appointments including the mundane ones such as trips to the supermarket. In other words, they are
far more responsible than the average alcohol abuser!
I've had a few things (such as Ambien) that left me so whacked-out and doozey that I couldn't remember anything from after I took it till I actually went to bed... we're talking an hour or two of my memory just blank. My reflexes while under that? Lets just say I've seen better reflexes on a corpse! It was horrid... I can't stand that feeling, so I stay away from anything that could cause it.
Well yeah. I guess you're too young to have had the slogan drummed into your head: Stick with the street drugs; the ones the government approves will destroy your life.
I took valium for several years for insomnia, then switched to dalmane, and eventually I realized that I was not at my best during my waking hours. Being a former math-major, I looked up the half-life of the benzodiazepines in the PDR and resolved the infinite-series. If you take 10 mg once a day, after a few days you will have about 35mg coursing through your veins 24/7!
Other drugs though, such as Meth or Coke... they can have some serious side effects... and that includes things like death.
As I noted earlier, meth was prescribed to millions of women (and a few men) for years, and there was no crisis, certainly no plague of meth-related deaths. Once again, virtually all of the harm attributed to drugs is actually the second-order effect of
drug prohibition. Street drugs have inconsistent strength and purity, the providers are happy to sell you as much as you want as often as you want, and if a user finds himself in trouble he's reluctant to seek help from the legitimate authorities. My parents lived through Prohibition and assured me that exactly the same thing happened with alcohol. You had no idea how strong bootleg booze might be, and in many cases it was contaminated with wood alcohol, which causes blindness or even death.
As for cocaine, my grandfather sold it in his pharmacy 100 years ago and he had no problem with customers abusing it. The pharmacists in his area of Chicago kept in touch with each other to make sure none of their customers were double-dipping. In addition, if he suspected one of his customers had a problem, next time the guy's wife or mother came into the store he shared the info with her, and that was the last time he ever saw the guy. He also sold Heroin (with a capital H because it was in fact a trademark of Bayer A.G. until we seized all German patents and trademarks in the unnecessarily punitive Treaty of Versailles) and had the same experience with that "dangerous drug."
While I would never partake of Marijuana for recreational purposes myself, I won't judge those that do - what they do is their deal... all I ask is that they respect me and not smoke around me, which I also ask of Tobacco users.
These days many potheads have switched to vaporizers. Contrary to popular belief, lung cancer is not a common side-effect of smoking pot, nonetheless coughing and sore throat are. (It really is the nicotine in cigarettes that kills people, not the smoke.)
Just for the record Fraggle... that was a bit harsh, and presumptuous, of you, especially the "drug warrior" bit. I have actually studied up on various drugs and their effects, mostly because I was intrigued by their effect on the human psyche, but I do understand your point - much like with guns, homosexuality, religion/atheism, and a host of other things, there is always "that crowd" that shouts loud as hell even though they are dumb as fuck to the facts.
And the source of the misinformation is often the government. How many little kids were scared to death by those fraudulent D.A.R.E. lectures, or the scrambled-egg "this is your brain on drugs" TV ads?
and regarding marijuana being safer than alcohol when it comes to driving... yes, this is true. Alcohol has a far higher impact on your ability to react and judge things such as distance, speed, and direction than Marijuana... but you shouldn't be driving under the influence of either, because both affect your ability to be aware of what is going on around you, no matter how slightly.
Pot induces a healthy sense of paranoia. This doesn't do much for teenagers, but then I insist that teenagers shouldn't be taking drugs anyway because their brains are still developing. Caffeine: 18 (why the hell should
children need a stimulant? What will they do when life gets
really tough?); Alcohol: 21 (with a breathalyzer ignition interlock until you're 30), Marijuana: 25, I'm less certain about the cutoff for other drugs, except tobacco which should be around 50 when your body starts to break down and you might have a legitimate need for a mood-leveler.
Anyway back on topic, the stoned drivers are the ones in the right-hand lane, going 5mph under the speed limit, leaving twice the recommended distance from the car in front, checking their mirrors religiously. Probably safer than the average motorist.