My Thoughts on Marijuana

I had to write a short speech concerning a debatable topic recently, and I wanted to share it with you guys. So there.

Inscribed on the stone of the temple of Apollo in the city of Delphi are the words “nothing in excess” and “know thyself.” While being applicable to pretty much anyone in any situation, I think in the modern world, with currently 15 states having legalized marijuana, it is suited perfectly for the growing availability of addictive drugs.

Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders calls for it's legilazation on CNN, saying "It's not a toxic substance." She wasn't necessarily saying that it has no side-effects, but that the ones that do exist aren't typically life threatening. It's nearly impossible to overdose on marijuana. It would take over 8000 joints (marijuana cigarettes) to overdose on marijuana, and even if someone was trying, they would pass out before they got there. According to a study done by the U.S. Government, a grand total of zero people died from marijuana in 2007. The CDC has reported that marijuana, as an underlying cause, caused 26 deaths between 1999 and 2007.

According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, approximately 400,000 people die annualy from their own smoking, with another 50,000 from second hand smoke. That's over 1000 deaths daily, related directly to smoking tobacco.

The reason there is such a drastic difference between the death toll for tobacco and marijuana is actually due to chemicals used to grow the plants. Both are natural substances, but while tobacco is typically grown with pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals to help with crop production, high quality marijuana is typically grown chemical free. After harvesting, tobacco is mixed with even more harmful substances such as tar and other fillers that cause cancer when burned and inhaled. Marijuana is left in it's natural state after being picked and smoked as is.

Marijuana is also known to have medicinal properties. It is used to treat chronic illnesses, arthritis, headaches and migraines, etc. throughout the United States and many countries world wide.

I believe that due to the aforementioned reasons and statistics, marijuana should be legalized in all States for medicinal purposes.

Because I Can

Do you ever notice random stuff? I do. It's what I do best really. The manager who's worked at my work for like, three years didn't notice that one of the signs was upside down, but I did in like, a week.

But anyways, Mac Miller totally re-used this beat made by The Blow in their song "True Affection."

The house in Disney/Pixar's UP totally reminds me of the house in this video, because of it's crazy colors and because of it's surroundings (she's even being kicked out 'cause they're trying to build stuff there. Story stealers much?).

I'm also pretty sure Riot Games stole this character for their MMO "League of Legends" from the movie Return of the Living Dead, a B-rated 80's horror film. I'm not including a link for the other picture 'cause she's all naked and stuff, but if you really want to go Google "naked blue girl from Return of the Living Dead," go right ahead. And by the way, for an 80's horror film, it had some crazy good animatronics, and it's totally one of my favorites now.

Please tell me you notice this crap too.

Society's Got Me Shaking My Head Once Again.

Please, before reading further, click on this link.

With that being said, let me tell you why.

At a conference in Baltimore last week, a group of psychologists and mental health professionals decided that "that "minor-attracted" individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized."

"Minor-attracted" is code for "nasty old pedophile."

That's right folks, society has made yet another leap downwards.

The psychologists and mental health professionals that are saying this, or as I'll be referring to them from now on, the psychos and mental people, think that pedophiles should have their say in how society views them, and should be able to change how pedophilia is defined in the DSM, or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psych Association.

In my mind, that sounds a little bit like saying "hey, crazy menace to society, why don't you change around how we define "menace to society" so that you and your pedophile friends can run around freely.

Are we going to let murderers define murder now? "I know I stabbed him in the head eight times, but he was homeless, and section 6 of the Psychotic Murderer Handbook Pocket Edition says it's okay to kill hobo's and bums, so it doesn't really matter." This, of course, is an equivocation, but you get my point.

Individuals at the conference who were using their brains were like, "you know, this kind of seems like a sham to make kids accessible to adults." One Professor even said "Oh, they're very clear about that. Their goal is to take all shame out of the lust for children."

If anything, I think society should listen to Jerry LaVigne Jr.

So there you have it;

Pictures: a How-Not-To

Sometimes when I'm carousing through the frivolity and stupidity of Facebook, soaking it all in until I become inebriated with enough disgust to stop, I find myself browsing through some girls photo album devoted to pictures of themselves and stuff they've done, named something like "summerrrrrr :))) <3" or maybe some snippet of obscure lyricism. Most of the pictures don't phase me. I've seen the duck face, and I've seen the pretty girl "lets hold each-others hips and lean out while tilting our heads way too much," and I've seen the mirror self portrait with the "I'm trying to make it seem like I'm displeased with my appearance by making a distorted face" twist, and even more numerous so I've seen the reassuring train of "cute! :)" and "hot dang!"

I'm an observant person. Don't judge me.

But something that always catches me off guard is this picture that some third party took of girl one (and perhaps her sassy counterpart, girl two, and boy-crazy girl three) from behind with their necks straining to even make eye contact with the camera.

Lets be honest here girls. Why are you taking pictures of your bootays?

When I see this I think to myself the dialogue that might have been going on that night while you and your friends were taking these pictures.

Girl 1: "Hey, wanna take like, two hundred pictures of ourselves, upload the twenty that we decide we don't like ugly in, post them on Facebook with captions like "Oh God, we're so ugly!" and comment "plzz delete this!" even though we totally agreed to upload them?

Girl 2: "Hay gurl hay fo sho you know that's how we DOOOOO!"

Girl 3: "Only if I get to stick my tongue out in half of them! Guys love tongues!"

*all three* "Woo hoo!"

Girl 2: "Hecks to the yes! What kind you wanna take first girlfrans?"

Girl 1: "I think we should like, all stand in a row and like, lean in and like, make duck faces."
Girl 3: "I bet the guys are gonna love our duck faces!"

Girl 1: "This is fun! Next lets all turn around and make crazy faces even though the purpose of the picture is to show off our totally hawt jeans!"

Girl 3: "Guys do love hawt jeans! Especially on us!"

*all three giggle*

Girl 2: "Oooh girls I hope you brought you low cut shirts, I'm mo' def' feelin' some pictures of us laying on the ground so we can show the world our cleavage! Mmhmm!"

Girl 1: "Deal, but like, lets finish these pictures of our butts first, I wanna get these pants off, they're like, four sizes too small!"

Girl 3: "Guys love small pants!"

This is a dramaticized re-telling, of course. For the sake of the reader I made it painfully obvious what was going on. Even in my wildest, saddest dreams nobody says this stuff (out loud (I hope)).

What I'm trying to say is you look ridiculous. Stop it. I could probably just totally ignore all the stuff in the world that bugs me, and I'm sure there's some girl out there going "Oh em gee, if he doesn't like it he can just not look at it." Lets be honest here. I'm trying to help you. These pictures are like a giant cliffhanger creeping out of the nostril of your existence. I'd be a bad person not to inform you. There's a better way to show off your body, and it doesn't involve the internet in any way. Go out to a party. Wear trashy shorts. I don't care. At least you can tell when some creepsack scumtrash nastybag old man is checking you out IRL.

Yeah, think about that one for awhile. I'm just trying to keep you safe.

And one last thing. Any girl I see doing a duck-face automatically triggers a subconscious reaction that replaces their lovely little head with this:

I hope you all know that in my mind, you're Steven Tyler.

Good day to you all.