My Glass of Wine

It really bothers me when I am sitting across the table from someone having a glass of wine, and I have to hear how terrible marijuana is.

I have taken a couple of classes here at American University regarding marijuana including the most interesting one yet: Drugs, Consciousness, and Human Fulfillment. In this course we looked at why people want to use drugs (anything from marijuana to alcohol to tobacco to cocaine), what it does to/for them, why they continue to use it, and how to reach those states naturally.

It was a very interesting class with an amazing professor. She was the best professor I have had because she always stirred up debates in her class. She always wanted us to educate each other through arguments. What better way to learn than to be told you are wrong, or proving yourself right?

One day the conversation was focused on mind alteration. I was sitting in class that day and I was truly offended by an ignorant student who was discussing how if you decide to smoke a joint in order to relax after work you are an addict, you are doing something bad, and should be stopped because we are altering our state of mind (I think she said we should reevaluate our lives) but it is acceptable to open a bottle of wine every night and have a couple of glasses to unwind. This got me riled up and ready to argue.

Something you should know about me, I love to argue. I grew up wanting to be a lawyer and arguing every thought I had. I wanted everyone to see my point of view and I would argue until my face is blue. I love thinking logically and trying to work through different scenarios.

If you want to argue that marijuana alters your state of mind, I will agree slightly, but to argue that marijuana is bad and alcohol is acceptable....no

My family has a history of alcoholics, granted none of them are in my immediate family, but addiction unfortunately runs in our blood. That's a serious thing that I take into consideration on a daily basis. Although most of my family doesn't struggle with it, I know I have addiction problems. No, I am not addicted to drugs or alcohol or anything bad...I just get addicted easily. I will go periods of time where I will be addicted to a certain type of food or music, tv show or even game. I get hooked on things easily and want to repeat it until I am sick of it, it is a personality flaw that I have accepted in myself and I have to manage daily and that's alright with me. But because of this, I have always shied away from anything that is bad for me that I might become addicted to including alcohol. Because of this, I choose marijuana where I won't get addicted and I won't have withdraw if I go without.

To tell someone like me, that marijuana is bad and alcohol isn't, it bothers me greatly. I absolutely hate that alcohol is widely accepted and marijuana isn't. You can go overboard with alcohol, not with marijuana. You can find countless stories of someone drinking too much and beating their loved ones...with marijuana the only stories you will hear is someone smoking so much that they fell asleep. You can drink yourself to death in extreme cases, with marijuana it is simply impossible to accidentally OD. When people drive drunk they run through stop signs and cause terrible accidents, when people drive stoned the worse you can expect is sitting at the stop sign forever waiting for it to turn green. I know it sounds silly but marijuana makes people cautious and alcohol makes people reckless. Which do you prefer?

When someone tells me that marijuana alters my state of mind I respond with, so? Honestly if you want to look at psychology, taking a hot bath at the end of a long day in order to relax is altering your state of mind. The act of relaxing is an alteration of your state of mind. With that being true, is it logical to say marijuana is bad for altering your state of mind? Don't a lot of things alter our state of mind on a daily basis? It isn't making people act irrationally, it is simply making them think more and relax. I can't argue with that.

I don't think a large part of society understands that marijuana has many different benefits. If you talk to the average person on the street they probably wouldn't be able to tell you that there are different strains that yield different benefits. They couldn't tell you the difference between Green Crack and Blue Dream. There is such a science surrounding marijuana to be explored and I would love to explore it. I want to understand how one strain can make you happy and productive and how another can make you sleepy and hungry.

For me, I smoke marijuana for so many reasons that people would honestly think I made them up simply because the plant is illegal. They jump to conclusions without trying to understand.

It really bothers me that people question marijuana as a medicine although our country pops pain pills like tylenol and advil on a daily basis. Are we forgetting that those are drugs? In fact those pills can ruin your life after using them for some time, it can literally eat away your stomach if you aren't careful. Marijuana is a plant that causes no harm! It is wrong for anyone to look at someone and tell them that they don't need marijuana. We have no right to judge how much pain someone is, physically or mentally, and to tell them that they are a "druggie" for trying to better their life is simply wrong.

When I have a free night, I would much rather smoke marijuana than to drink alcohol and when I have kids I want them to be the same way. We live in a society where young people take pride in drinking until they are sick or can't remember the night before. That sickens me honestly. I feel like if marijuana was legal the culture would change greatly. I feel like loud house parties will turn into calm smoke sessions. Not all of them obviously, but the culture would begin to shift. That's when things will start getting better. When we decide that we are done fighting and hating and instead just share the love.

I hate that I sit with my parents and comments are made about how kids can't know about marijuana when they are growing up, and when I have kids one day (far away) I have to give it up...I simply don't agree. I feel like having kids grow up in a household where marijuana isn't taboo or evil, would be a magical thing. Honestly I couldn't imagine the kindness those kids would have. Besides, it isn't like past generations gave up their glass of wine at dinner when their kids were young, we were just told that was an adult thing. Why treat marijuana any differently? You don't have to openly smoke around them, I can understand how people would argue against parents smoking a joint next to a toddler because of second hand smoke but I don't think you should have to hide it either.

Once marijuana is legalized, I have a lot of faith in the generations to come. I feel like as we legalize marijuana we will have more respect for our earth and the people around us rather than being so disconnected all the time. By changing the view on marijuana we will allow people to revert back to using hemp rather than cutting down our beautiful trees. That shift, alone, will have such a large impact on this earth.

That's what being a stoner is about. It isn't just smoking a lot of marijuana, and it definitely isn't a contest for who can smoke more. It's all about loving and supporting one another. It's about loving our earth and trying to preserve it rather than killing it. It is understanding that everyone around you is dealing with something that is just as difficult to them as you are. It is lending a helping hand to that person in need.

I have learned so much about the stoner community in the past 5 weeks and I have absolutely fallen in love. This is home.

A glass of wine a day is widely accepted in our country. For me, I would rather a nice glass of ice water and a bong to end my day. It's healthier too.