The times I've interacted with people in serious pain (as in, "Waiting on the Reaper - who is standing in the corner - to finish his coffee break.") have shown me that they can often suck down levels of opiates that'd poleax the uninitiated... and simply get on with their day. Both because of their experience and, hey, they have some extreme pain - so these things aren't recreational, they're
working. Or something. Maybe there's something like that where cannabis is concerned? Our bodies/brains actually find a
use for the substance - and "put it to work" when we consume regularly, IDK.
Besides the whole partying thing, I grew up on racing sims and other games that required maximum hand-eye coordination. The better ones required maximum hand-eye-
brain coordination. (Shooting through that door is not
always a good idea, lol.) No one (locally, I mean) could touch my performance, my initials were at the top of all the coin-operated games' scoring screens, and I could entertain myself all afternoon at the arcade with only a couple quarters for the video and/or pinball game. I could snatch that five-dollar bill out of the air every time the person dropped it, and people stopped playing "slap hands" with me by the time I was 12.
Was high all the time. That's the state I
learned in. I showed up in high school once in a non-orbiting state - and the first two teachers accused me of being on something (I corrected the problem after that and back to normal I was
) .
Now that speaks to my physical... something. As to the mental aspect, well... I don't know. Half of you already think I'm an @sshole. Why don't I just confirm that for everyone, lol?
In the mid- to late-'90s, I worked at a shop dealing with vehicles. So we all had some sort of hot ride. Even the beaters had extremely lumpy idles (for the old-school types) or custom programming, bigger turbos, an
extra turbo, et cetera. Located about 40' from the busiest intersection on the busiest road in the entire region. Drag racing? Yeah... Fun - but kind of boring.
I started up the "Race out of town." At lest twice a week, four or more of us would take out of the lot for all we were worth. Whip-whip-whip through traffic that ranged from half the 40mph speed limit to, IDK, 60? They looked like they were sitting there, lol. We actually managed a few months of this. Cops? Just another on-track challenge
. So... Warm Friday just after Thanksgiving (traffic was insane as we were - or nearly, I guess?). Dry roads and that's a GO.
In the lead from go, my buddy right on my tail, his big block against my turbo V6 Buick. No one else counted that day, he'd just switched for a bigger and better nitrous system and I was in "high 10 second" tune. No idea how fast we were going; at the time, my digital dash was still set from the factory to just flash "85" repeatedly at higher speeds. But... moving. Through traffic. Was kind of a friendly affair, so whoever was in the lead would have the extra work of making gestures for the follower, and so on down the line. (Our idiot version of "being safe and watching out for non-participants.")
Buzzing on something or other, of course...
Whip-whip-whip...
Some woman pulled out into traffic, having turned right on red (legal here). Presumably, she looked at us, assumed we were at least acquainted with the speed limit - and that she'd have plenty of time to get up to speed.
Yeah, oops. And OH SH!T whip-whip-whip, left three lanes, right one, and
CRASH behind me. My buddy had rear-ended to woman. He might have touched his brake pedal, but that's questionable since he was close to me and I'd barely gotten out of the way.
I circled back - took a few minutes - parked, ran across the lot/grass/sidewalk, and approached the wreck. My buddy saw me coming and met me a little away from ground zero. He'd already beaten his way out of his mangled car and helped the lady out of hers. Surprisingly, she was just a little shocky and a bit banged up. He was like "She's fine, I'm not bleeding too bad... Get out of here, FFS!" So, after making sure he wasn't lying about the other person's condition, I did.
Last after-work race, BtW. Wake up call and all that.
Would I have been racing if I wasn't well-lit most of the time? Would the rest of the crew? IDK.
A.K.A. "buzz-kill." Which reminds me about the joke, "What do you get when you give coffee to a drunk?" (Just a wide-awake drunk
.) You panic a drunk, all he really does is stumble around slightly quicker, lol.
Sure,
but.... Run through a crowded mall food court, smacking random people on the back of the head, grabbing handfuls of french fries, and generally being an arse - and the cops will get 75 different descriptions of you. Many of the people giving them will be absolutely positive of what they saw.
You might (IDK?) be a trained researcher/etc., someone who has been taught to pay attention and give accurate reports of their observations. Nonetheless, how objective can any of us really be when the subject in question... is ourself?
Level of knowledge is one factor. Objectivity is another. Who is in a better position to monitor the lab rat, the trained observer who is measuring everything... or the lab rat, lol?
Lol, yeah. "Is that
dope I smell???" "
I thought it was pretty good, actually." "WHAT?!?" "I said, 'I cannot speculate on what you smell, sir. But the only dope in this car
right now... is me." (What, lol? It's not like I got pulled over for sh!ts and giggles - I deserved it, every time.)
Yeah,
again. On the other hand, have you ever done anything... a bit stupid while high? Not at <COUGH> my level of stupidity, perhaps - but ill-advised? For years, everything was a laugh for me. Later on I was mostly getting annoyed at other people being stupid, which has tempered me somewhat. But I did all kinds of dumchit back in the day. Skill got me out of most of it - but
something got me into ALL of it.
Could have been just being an immature hothead with no "off" button. Yeah, probably that.
BtW, I always figured Sanje to be a Head. I figure heavy couchlock indicas...
. No, it's not legal here, recreationally, and it's only recently been legalized for medicinal purposes. But cops, they're people, not robots. That means that they were all once... you know... teenagers. Some LEO know from personal experience just how much less harmful cannabis is than alcohol or other drugs. (Of course, it also means that some of them are gold-plated @ssholes - but you'll have that.) Maybe this is a lot of the reason that I've always kind of looked at getting busted for cannabis as equating to failing a practical IQ test? IDK...
420Folks!
