I have asked the question: “Why do you smoke weed?” many times, and as some can imagine I have gotten a variety of off the wall answers. I have also received replies as simple as “I don’t know” (which always baffle me). The most intriguing answer though implies that marijuana tranquilizes your emotions.
I’m no scientist and I can’t provide a list of chemicals to explain why or how the brain is affected by marijuana. But I have received enough details from weed smokers to make me believe that marijuana leaves an impact on the brain’s functions. An old teammate described being high as a supernatural experience. She explains how she doesn’t feel her body or feel like herself by saying, “I don’t feel anything”. This suggests that she doesn’t remember her feelings either.
To some people it may seem sad that people choose to smoke a blunt to run away from their internal problems. Other critics view those who smoke weed to avoid pain as weak and afraid to face challenges that lead to unperceived growth. Still, others sympathize with the human beings that feel the need to smoke pot in order to comfortably deal with life.
Honestly, I believe that many of those who frown upon people that smoke weed to pacify raving emotions would themselves smoke it if it were legalized. I’m talking parents, teachers, doctors, lawyers, counselors, congress men and women, even grandma and grandpa. Who genuinely enjoys enduring pain? Even optimistic people that see pain as an opportunity for personal growth become weary and look for a way out. Can we really criticize people for wanting to experience peace? I can’t. I am certain though, that there is One excellent way to achieve internal peace and Mary Jane is not it.
Marijuana may succeed in calming a person’s emotions, but smoking it to do so can become so second nature that a small habit turns into a hidden addiction without notice. It’s one thing to control your emotions; it is something totally different to be controlled due to a lack of self-control.
Speaking of a time that she wasn’t saved, a First Lady of a Christian church describes that the reason she smoked marijuana was to prevent from feeling hurt that was caused by people. She points out, “I could have rolled a blunt”, which suggests that a blunt would have helped to alleviate the pain she felt.
After realizing that many people smoke marijuana illegally because they feel that it is the most convenient way to cope with life’s problems, I stopped asking the question: “Why do you smoke weed?” I understand that some use marijuana for medical reasons, but I do not agree with people smoking weed to “calm their nerves” when for most people that can be done by taking control of your mind.
I totally understand where you’re coming from with this blog post. I agree with what you are saying about how you have asked people “why, do you smoke?” and getting that tired ole’ answer “I don’t know” would really aggravate me. I would think to myself “you do know” and just change the conversation. However, I never understood why people would use marijuana, in middle school all the “cool kids” did it, I see why they would do it, “too be cool” because it’s not like they had all of these great huge problems that they were stressed about and had to calm down with a blunt. It was strictly “to be cool”. However, as we got older, I started to hear about how “it would help the pain go away” as they would say. My opinion is, we all have problems, we all get stressed out, but you don’t see me, or the next person taking out a blunt to “calm the stress”. I agree with what you wrote as your last paragraph that people should just take control. I mean they’re not the only one’s stressed out, but you don’t see everybody out here with problems smoking.
I would agree that people shouldn’t use pot as a way to escape because then they would just fall back on it every time they have a problem in their life and that’s just as bad as abusing alcohol. Although I would agree to legalize marijuana, that doesn’t mean I’m okay with the thought of seeing people taking advantage of the substance just to feel good every time they feel bad.
I fully agree with this comment. Also, this reminds me of cigarettes because people can say, “Oh, I need to smoke a pack a day to calm my nerves,” okay this is great and all, but get to the real problem. You smoke because you are addicted to the feeling it gives you, but its not good for you in the end. People from all over tend to rely on unnecessary, harming things to try to come up with an excuse to “mediate” their problems. “Oh, smoking helps me because… *insert excuse here*.” I think if we all real got to the root of our problems and stopped looking for distractions, we would better not hurt ourselves. (: