Green Healing Revisited

While capable of producing anxiolytic effects, this is certainly not marijuana’s sole medicinal function as it's known to have immunomodulatory and neuroprotective qualities among a  host of other healing potentialities; with synthetic pain killers comes the risk and unpleasantries of nausea, addiction, liver damage (esp. when mixed with acetaminophen), and overdosing.  As for similar studies, I’m sure you can find many; opiates have already been established by the medical community and are currently the choice par excellence of most physicians.

I've broken up your reply and responded below.

Believe me – you're preaching to the choir now. As someone who has gotten high countless times, I have the same thoughts. So it's not out of some sadistic enjoyment that I'm questioning you right now, rather it's a masochistic tendency in me that, after many many years of revisiting this state and telling myself the things you just told me, recognizes the ultimate insufficiency of what you aptly describe as "respect and attention to the immediate present" at cultivating the degree of subjective engagement and ethical efficacy that is going to be necessary to "save" the world.

I don’t think the worlds in danger, do you? We may be in danger of wiping ourselves out along with countless other species, but the world will ultimately be fine; global homeostatic processes will take place and, if need be, humans will be swept clean off the map. Although noble efforts have been made to “save” the world, how truly effective have these movements been? With time and as more people get involved the purity of the initial idea tends to exponentially disintegrate, the subversion of money and power takes hold, and a humanitarian gloss is pasted over - just look at religion. The best we can do is transform ourselves; how we think, behave, and relate with one another from a direct experiential wisdom; marijuana helps in that regard,  it opens ourselves up out of the little conditioned boxes we’ve permitted ourselves to be placed in allowing novelty to more readily entertained.

And, not just that, but I've begun to feel that marijuana may be becoming an ideological obstacle to those aims. Namely – people seem to literally be holding out on some day when marijuana is commonplace. As perverse as it sounds, these people seem to be awaiting the day when society, to an extent, becomes "perma-stoned". The idea, I guess, is that both ourselves and the people we interact with will be constantly enveloped in the "respect and attention for the immediate present" you describe. Of course, this won't be achieved simply by people chronically smoking marijuana all the time, rather, the idea is that repeated exposures will gradually transform society to the point where one doesn't necessarily have to be high to enjoy the benefits. Now, I don't think such a world would be all that bad, however, anyone with a little common sense can see that things won't play out in this way. If they were, we would already be seeing this, and let me know if you do, but I don't. We can't rely on a substance to dig out us out of the hole we're in. We have to do that ourselves.

You’re right, an entire population of perma-stoned people is not likely to ever happen and I’d agree with you even more that marijuana use will not magically solve the problems we face today. Inner work has to be done, and like you, I think of it as a tool; a tool in developing a constant state of ecstasy, in cultivating psychical apparatuses so that, even when things aren’t going our way, we know how to keep our cool. It isn’t a panacea, but I’d say it’s definitely a gateway drug to peace seeking behavior… and when the time comes that it’s no longer of individual or collective use, it’ll simply drop out of our lives.

With legalization, I think there’ll be, through the decades, a gradual cultural shift away from alcohol to marijuana, which has been shown to be safer and, in my opinion, has more of a benefit to us humans on every level – physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. I’m not sure where you live, but you keep stating that you think we’d be seeing this change already - why do you think so? Marijuana users, while substantial, are still a tiny minority in comparison to alcohol imbibers. Even when I lived in San Francisco for a year, the supposed hippy-haven of the US, marijuana, although certainly more accepted than in New England or the South, was still frowned upon by the majority of people – from the entire spectrum of holier-than-thou new agers to humorless hardboiled businessmen, the marijuana scene, although proliferating, was perceived by and large as an unwelcome guest in the area.

Now, that's definitely going to involve changing how we think about ourselves in relation to these things, marijuana included. I have often tried to "re-progam" my mind and think of marijuana as just another herb, no different than eating garlic with a meal, but, let's face it, it's not in the same class as garlic. You are under the influence of a substance when you take marijuana. You are not yourself. Of course, I think freedom of consciousness and freedom to alter consciousness may be *the* issue our society has to come to grips with, but it isn't as simple as just dogmatically asserting "freedom". I don't think our ultimate destiny as humans is this solipsistic universe imagined by the consciousness movement of people sitting around idly playing with their consciousness all day. Rather masturbatory, isn't it?

Not masturbatory, but absolutely necessary at this point. No matter how good our intentions, if we haven’t experienced the essence of our being, we'll always be selfishly acting out of the limited perspective of the ego with no spiritual goal in mind.

Of course, I know that I'm advocating an unpopular position. I'm keenly aware of how marijuana is celebrated today. Whenever I find myself in unfamiliar surroundings, often the first friends I make are those that share a penchant for the herb. It definitely is a universal experience. But that is precisely why I feel the need to call attention to it. You're right – it's not an either/or. People don't have to choose between "fighting the good fight" and relaxing and smoking some herb every now and then. But the horizon, if you will, of the way most people refer to the drug is of a society totally immersed in it, totally reliant on it, and I think this kind of talk is an opiate and a red herring. Marijuana can be a tool, yes, but the, at least in my experience, the line between using the tool and it using you is one that is easy to cross and that most people simply aren't prepared/mature enough to draw. That's all. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I don't see it as a red-herring, but an ancillary step in the right direction; I’m totally in accord with you that it can be abused, but that’s no different than anything else that brings us pleasure – whether it be money, TV, fast food, sex, or what-have-you, everything can be abused. Marijuana is no exception. Whatever it may be, it’s a matter of looking at your own weaknesses, determining what vices you use to quelch the insecurities within, and forging a responsible relationship with what makes you happy in life.

... With that in mind, if it weren’t for marijuana, I’d probably be another complacent drone in a fluorescent-lit cubicle with a head full of gray thoughts robotically going about a prescripted, hamster-like existence for the sake of paper ticket security. I hope everyone has the strength to realize that they need nothing from life, that they’re fully equipped to heed a fruitful happy existence with what they have, wherever they are, at this moment - marijuana experiences are what helped me discover this potential within myself and I think that that mentality should be propagated.