A Synthetic Solution for a Legal 4:20

Synthetic? are you JOKING me???
the whole purpose of Cannabis is to enjoy a NATURAL, GOD-GIVEN HIGH. not some f*cking artificial bullshit...

GO ORGANIC!!!

ONE LOVE

If you want a natural, God-given, high, then please, go run through a forest. The clean air, exercise, adreneline, and endorphens will make you feel good, feel better about yourself, connect you to nature, and support the use of our outdoor spaces. If all you want to do is burn a toxic plant derivitive to inhale smoke, ruin your health, put extra CO2 in the air, and become the great looser that lies within you when you lie around doing nothing, then might I suggest you smoke some all natural rubber. Or maybe some coal? Tar? Or if you are really tied to a leaf, some of those three leafed ones growing around my woods.

Just because it is in nature, does mean you are meant to smoke it retard.

Yeah I doubt its a really reasonable alternative to the real stuff... who knows what it could do to you.
And to the person above me, yes there are all natural ways to give yourself euphoric effects, the craziest way is probably just depriving yourself of sleep for long enough, also intense versions of meditation. Still it can't have as many of the wide variety of effects provided by the wide range of drugs available.

As per ruining health CO2 and adding smoke to your lungs and the atmosphere, people would be a lot more aware of the other alternatives available to smoking for getting high such as eating baked goods which has none of the effects you're so afraid of. I dare you to release the child within yourself and explore something instead of just repeating what you hear.

Hmm, Alcohol makes me laugh, eat, and pass out. It is also intended for human consumption, not to mention the fact, if I had weed, I wouldn't need alcohol. It seems to me like alcohol, not spice, is the wannabe. Anyone who has ever tried salvia knows for whatever reason marijuana is illegal, it is not because of its effects to the person.

Salvia's legality is coming to an end too, but yea if you want some effects that cannot be attained by being a hippy running through the forest try some salvia divinorum - effects include radical perspective shifting, increase in sensual and aesthetic appreciation, creative dreamlike experience, insight into personal issues, powerful open and closed eye visuals, general change in consciousness (as with most psychoactives), altered perceptions, sensation of physical push, pressure, or wind, sensation of entering or perceiving other dimensions, alternate realities, feeling of 'presence' or entity contact, dissociation at high doses, walking or standing.

For more information go to http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia_effects.shtml

If your gonna be stupid and ruin your lungs, that's fine with me. I won't stand in your way. I agree with oakspar77777, you might as well smoke your cars tires.

Thats a fine argument against smoking! Not against the use of Marijuana - and to suggest smoking poison instead thats what really sounds stupid.

Oakspar77777

So, if a person uses marijuana, that automatically makes them a loser?

Well, I guess you're not aware of the many different types of people who enjoy smoking pot. There are many people who I'm sure you would consider to be respected members of the community. People like doctors, teachers, judges, and police officers.

When you claim that someone who smokes marijuana is a loser (correct spelling, by the way;)), you tread on some shaky ground. You are listening to the stereotypes and propaganda. I was like that once, always shooting off about how pot is bad and dangerous. Then I tried it and found that everything "they" say was not absolutely correct.

There is also another pro to legalizing marijuana. The stalk of the plant could be used to make many different things, such as clothing, paper, and certain foods. That's right, hemp is a very useful product that could lessen our dependence on other natural resources like trees.

Also, to anyone who may think that legalizing marijuana will cause an influx of new pot smokers, I say you are mistaken. What will happen is, the closet smokers will come forth, and it will seem like many new smokers. Of course there will be new smokers, just not as many as one would think.

its funny that most people who have never smoked think that you are a waste of life if you smoke weed. i am not a loser, don't think of myself as a loser. i have a BAS from a Big Ten school, work a full time job, enjoy every aspect of the outdoors, but i guess there is your typical sterotypes and people who feel what they believe is the golden rule. live your own life and i'll live mine.

80s_Dud(e) the fact that you've got to get high means you already have a problem. The fact that you've got to itemize how it hasn't affected you means you are a loser. Cheers ... marijuana can make nothing happen for you too!

Davek getting high is one of the oldest traditions in human culture. To say having to get a high is a problem is just plain wrong, and there's nowhere that 80s dude said marijuana doesn't affect him. Marijuana is so popular because of how effective it truly is, if it weren't effective, people wouldn't be using it.

Don't take your high and mighty road calling people losers just because they can enjoy themselves in ways that you can't imagine.

And the best part about weed is that you don't have to smoke it - you can eat and drink it too! with no toxic effects at all!!

I recommend butternut soup with (1/4 pumkin added), add sprinkles of dried hurb every 5 minutes or so, so you don't ruin the taste - cook with your nose :-) - It will buzz like jack and warm you like only mary can - just don't sneak any to your mother - cause that was really freaky ok - in all fairness she did have two bowls :-))

Its just that the criminalization and resulting black-market makes it near impossible to afford the quantities and quality neccessary for cooking... which is why we got to smoke it k :-( bad world... its got to change, and change fast!!

One Love

I don't smoke pot, or anything for that matter, and I have no problem with those that do. I have many intelligent ambitious friends who partake and lead highly successful lives. It makes me angry that in this age of enlightenment people still venomously regurgitate propaganda that is over a half century old. Please stop being sheep and do some research. I think everyone knows that, when not used in moderation, pot is bad for the human body. So is exercise... and we don't call someone with runner's knee a loser.

dbhoro87 - "getting high is one of the oldest traditions in human culture" LOL so isn't murder - I seem to remember someone pulled a body out of a peat bog and it had a rope around it's neck I don't think he had a bong in his pocket but I guess he could have. Look - I'm an old guy - I don't need to read books and articles written by dopers telling me how wonderful grass is. I've SEEN IT and it's not wonderful. I have known dozens of people whose lives were cut short or put on the back burner because they used marijuana and subsequently treated other drugs similarly.

Don't worry marijuana is going to be legalized or decriminalized. The country is hell bent on following the European socialist model, decriminalized drugs, plenty of sex and a dumber more manageable populous. After all the president thinks our best days are behind us and is doing his very best to make it so.

But smoking marijuana IS bad for your lungs, 3 joints do as much damage as a pack of cigarettes. I knew a guy RAY who started his day off smoking two joints - a total loser - worked as a electronics salesman at one of those discount stores. Ray liked to mix grass and coke, but coke can leave you awfully jittery and paranoid, so in the process of coming down he blew his girlfriend's head of with a 45. He's still in prison and his girlfiend is still dead.

Like I said - The fact that you've got to itemize how it hasn't affected you means you are a loser. Cheers ... marijuana can make nothing happen for you too!

Ya know i'm sorry about your friend, but a few sensationalized stories about how drugs have hurt a few people is not a legitimate reason for it to be illegal.
Marijuana is a widely used drug and helps many people in a multitude of ways. Some people have mental disorders and drug use may help trigger that, but it sounds like your friend Ray had some prior mental issues - you make it sound so black and white (he used drugs and killed his girlfriend) and you're missing all of the important details.

Non drug users also go mentally insane and kill people, and i'd bet that if there is a difference in percentage of user's vs. non-users going insane its likely very slight and triggers a predisposition for this behavior.

The fact is keeping these drugs illegal is what makes them dangerous, maybe if they were legal your friend Ray could have had some better education about its effects on mental health and could have prevented his situation.

Again nobody has said anything about marijuana not affecting them - it is so popular because of its effectiveness.

You're anti-drug arguments are hackneyed, thats why drugs are going to get legalized or decriminalized.

bdhoro87 - Well I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. I suggest you watch a program on Fox called COPS. You will see that one of the underlying themes is Chemical Addiction - It's devistating. It ruins families and individual ambition. I see more of it every day. People who can't make it out of bed on a regular basis to take care of their families. You will deny it - that's your right but you are wrong. The wealthy like the Hollywood elite can keep going because their wealth props them up, but a lot of them screw up too. Ask John Belushi or Joey Heatherton or any of dozens of others. These are people with millions to cover up their bad choices and their lives become devistated too.

This will be my last comment on this issue. The only reason I commented in the first place was because I couldn't believe Popular Science would print an article on "A Synthetic Solution for a legal 4:20". I think they should be ashamed of themselves. I subscribed or purchased PS for most of the last fifty years. I have to re-evaluate my decision.

Haha COPS is the most sensationalized and biased program out there - its not a show that has any objective material, they make money specifically by showing outrageous stories. Stories about people on drugs are more entertaining without being overly violent or gruesome than other crimes, thats why they're on TV. Not only that but the people they spend so much time and money arresting on COPS are usually illegal drug dealers - a profession that would completely disappear if drugs were legalized.

You've really got a thing for the sensational, talking about COPS and celebrities. You're talking about people who took their habits to excess(always dangerous). I'm not denying anything about the possible negative effects of drugs. A few high profile deaths shouldn't ruin it for the rest of us, especially when many of these deaths are a result of drugs being illegal. I bet if you ask most of those people they'd do it all over again without a changing a thing.

It seems there's a lot of re-evaluation you should be doing. POPSCI should be commended for taking the right side on a controversial issue - believe it.

Cheers to bdhoro87!

"Synthetic" sounds a lot worse than real weed.

A few small facts that everyone always forgets to mention.

They still have not found any chemical within marijuana that actually causes a physical addiction to the substance. The addiction is purely mental like wanting to eat another ice cream cone.

There are absolutely no physical withdrawals one suffers after one quits using marijuana. (which is also one of the reason it has never been scientifically proven to actually be a gateway drug)

The whole gateway drug claim has and always will be propaganda since it can not be proven through science.

and one last interesting fact for now. Over the last few years there has not been one case of murder or violence where the suspect was high only on marijuana. Like your friend they were on some other stimulant at the same time.

Now lets take a look at something that is legal. Alchohol.

40% of crim every year is commited by someone who is heavily intoxicated.

Alchohol can be physically addictive if one uses in excess (unlike marijuana) A person can actually die from withdrawals from alchohol. Its calld Delirium Tremens http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000766.htm

oh yea and 87% of all domestic crimes are commited while under the influence of alchohol. I work in law. I've been to conventions and no law enforcement actually think Marijuana is worse then alchohol. So you tell me which should really be the illegal drug.

I think most people miss the big picture here. If marijuana was legal, the small farmer could make a living growing industrial hemp for oil, clothing, paper, etc.,
but the corporations don't want inexpensive alternatives to their "products" that they rape the land for.

The americans used to pay taxes with hemp. It was how sails and uniforms were made. Everyone wont smoke it, and some should. Our laws can ban anything that we feel is dangerous to ourselves, but this plant was not created by man. Legal weed might make some folks have to work for a living! Maybe the jails will not be so crowded, and the states afford to put some real criminals behind bars. CO2 is bad for the earth, but the plants need it to survive. Its seems like alot because we as a race make to much of it, and destroy to much plant life with our life styles. Grow your own.

Ok, listen up. This is for all of you who have made comments on this issue. You have to ask yourself, How many people have killed someone on being high on pot?? and now, How many people have killed someone being drunk on alcohol?? Ok, if you were doing research and discovered, that there were more deaths on Alcohol then on pot, which would you pick to be the substance you would legalize?? I'm not one for pot to be made legal, but if you needed to legalize anything, which would you pick?? Then go talk to someone who has lost a love one in an accident with a drunk driver.

Like I said, I'm not one for pot, but if I had to decide, between the two, I would have to say no, to alcohol, just for that reason. And, as far as other drugs, legal or illegal, you are given a choice to except it or not. God gave us all the freedom of choice, what you do with your life, totally depends on the decisions you make, and how well you handle them. Life is precious, life is sweet, like the earth beneath my feet. It's up to you to make the difference. There is no hope in dope, and with booze, you lose.