How I did it: Fact is, cannabis is not addicting. Sure there's some anxiety if you're without it for a few days. There's a song: "Every year along about this time it all goes dry. Nothing 'round for love or money there to get you high. Henry got pissed off and said he'd run to Mexico, see if he could come back holding 20 keys of gold." In other words, the way to deal with dry spells, was to put it down for a while. I lived in a little town where cannabis grew wild. Nobody knew how to cure it properly and the notion was, it was just harsh ditch weed, an inferior strain. It was said that it wasn't worth getting busted for. It took me a few years, but I found the way to cure cannabis; and this so called ditch, was pretty good! Smoke is a carcinogen. Smoke contains tars that can cause cancer and emphysema regardless of where it comes from. Coal miners, who might be inhaling coal dust, which is carcinogenic, have long been plagued by lung diseases. Yet coal dust is not addicting. The key here, is the word addiction, which tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in cannabis is not addictive, neither is it toxic. There has never been a documented human fatality from cannabis, other than by way of misjudgement due to it's psychoactive properties and the carcinogenic nature of smoke.

Lessons & tips: By way of comparison, nicotine, the active ingredient in tobacco is one of the most addictive substances known. If it were not for nicotine in tobacco as a substance and the abuse thereof, you probably wouldn't do it. The "reward" you feel from nicotine is in no way euphoric, it is poison. Nicotine is the tobacco plant's natural defense mechinism, to keep critters from eating it. Nicotine is used as an insecticide. This poisonous compound, affects the neuromuscular system causing insects to go into convulsions and die. Nicotine can be deadly to most insects and humans. When you use tobacco, you are absorbing nicotine in micro doses. The "reward" is simply satiating your addiction to a compound. When you absorb nicotine from tobacco products and quitting devices, you are satisfying an addiction to a substance. Quitting devices such as the patch and gum are intended to wean you off that substance so you are not having to endure withdrawl symptoms such as intense cravings associated with addictive drugs. If you believe Cannabis is addicting, ask yourself why there are no withdrawl symptoms like the DT's associated with alcohol and tranquilizers or intense cravings and irritability associated with cigarettes and tobacco; there is no "cannabis patch" or "cannabis gum" and would be a controlled substance and illegal anyway. (I'm doing some internet research as I'm writing this, and all I have to say is, "marijuana withdrawl" is a bunch of hogwash. I'm reading stuff like: "marijuana addiction is characterized as compulsive, often uncontrollable marijuana craving". Yeah, right. See the 1930's movie "REEFER MADNESS". There's your "uncontrollable marijuana craving".) I was beginning to think we were over that kind of ignorant fear mongering. I recall Webster's definition of marihuana (yup that's the way they spelled it) was "a weed smoked by addicts." I've never seen anything near the kind of use that might match the number of hits and inhales of a typical cigarette smoker, applied to marijuana use. That kind of constant day to day "cigarette break" use would be "chronic" indeed. If it were to occur. Chronic is the typical cigarette smoker who concentrates and inhales nicotine hundreds of times a day. Using cigarettes in this way, is addictive behavior and is the FDA's definition of the use of a drug and a device.

Resources: Lookit. I'm single. I've been married. I've had a lot of sex and no sex. I've had to give up a lot of things in my life. I quit tobacco when I was 30 and nicotine was the hardest thing in my life to quit. The cravings persisted for over a year. Sex has been extremely difficult to live without, but I won't pay for sex. I feel comfortable with sex in a relation and hope sex returns in my life. Pot, cannabis, weed, marijuana, all the same thing, is something I've had a lot of. Way more than sex. There were times in my life however, when I had both sex and cannabis, and due to the psychoactive and physicological properties of cannabis, sex is greatly enhanced. Cannabis is said to be the ultimate aphrodisiac and I know it's true. I grew a small patch in my back yard years ago. I know how to grow it, how to cut the plant so it grows into a big fat oily smelly bush, (yum!) how to cure it. How to smoke it and cook it. However, to get along in today's society and hold a job you'll need to be drug tested. Indeed, social views are convoluted - to demonize a nontoxic plant that enhances sex, while promoting the use of a toxic plant - and find that acceptable in society. Something's really wrong. Perhaps the day will come when both sex and cannabis will return in my life, but until then, I'll just have to put it down for a while.

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Dec 25, 2008, 08:37AM PST | 1 comment | 2 cheers