Giving Up the Green Bitch

I'm impressed at his courage to speak personally about his abuse of cannabis. Unfortunate title of the talk, however.

first it shall piss thee off, but then it shall set thee free - of truth

Really enjoyed this talk. Big GH fan. Cannabis does seem to be a drug that you 'grow out of' but it is different for other people. I am most intrigued by his ideas on death and consciousness. Most of all, I'm excited by the science which is emerging and can begin to prove these types of experiences, such as in this article: Our Soul Consciousness: http://www.consciousconnectionmagazine.com/2013/01/our-soul-consciousnes...

Excellent talk. My personal feeling on the subject is that the lessons of Cannabis can sink in even more strongly when you stop using it. There's a subtle relationship between pleasure and pain, chasing gain and receiving loss in return, and you must see both sides of the coin to understand the full equation. While smoking cannabis, the pleasure can be so intense that "normal" consciousness pales in comparison. One feels always on the verge of something big, some great revelation. And on the way you can have many great revelations and creative breakthroughs. But after a while, the method of liberation, like all methods, itself becomes bondage. "If only everyone smoked", you think, "the world would miraculously transform." And perhaps that's true in some ways. But the hippies discovered that turning on in itself is not enough. Overdoing Cannabis can just as easily retard your growth of consciousness as expand it. Like you, I'm not knocking it at all. I feel it can be beneficial in many ways. But neither extreme quite has the full truth: Neither the "War on Drugs" people who want it stamped out, nor drug advocates who think being high all day is the answer. Certainly all adults should be free and unencumbered to pursue such states if they wish. But the issue of what you're actually gaining from the experience in comparison to what you give up is more complex than most of us might acknowledge. For every gain in one capacity(pleasure, sensuality, stream of consciousness creativity) there is an equivalent diminishment in another. Such is the subtle balance of the universe. In that sense perhaps the greatest lesson one can learn from cannabis comes only when you give it up and can fairly evaluate in the light of day the full extent of your loss and gain.

I would like to express dissatisfaction at the title of this talk as well. Calling cannabis "the green bitch" is insulting and demeaning. Would we call our mother a bitch? If we're trying to cultivate harmonious relations with nature and each other, we shouldn't be using this language towards plants, especially one which has healing and medicinal powers.

I'll take it a step further to the sovereignty of the individual human being.so many want to instruct others on how they should think,speak,and conduct themselves in a life which not one of us fully understands.

Great talk, but the title is demeaning and sexist and has nothing at all to do with the talk. In fact, the term is not used at all in the speech. Could the headline writers perhaps look to the content of the talk for some ideas for a headline?

"If every man is to forego his freedom of action because many make licentious use of it, I know not what is the value of any freedom." J. Risdon Bennet, MD., ca 1890 Quoted from "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers" Steven Harrod Buhner