Give Me Nonsense!

Hey!! I'm Jessica and this just so happens to be my first contest. I'm excited so help me make this amazing. :]


Now about the contest --

My favoritist book in the whole wide world is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. (If you haven't read it, I'm ordering you to. The movie doesn't count. It edits so much out and takes away from its original beauty. You can only appriciate it fully in its original form.)I love how utterly ridiculous the book is. Alice meets some of the most random creatures and some of the most bizarre things happen to her. It's so unreal that you just can't help but be enthralled by it. Lewis Carroll was a freaking genius. Tell me he was high when he wrote the book or on acid or whatever and I'll curse your children and your children's children and I might have mercy so your children's children won't be able to have children. Just read it and you'll see how well planned and thought-out the story is.

[Done ranting.]

With this in mind, I want all of you to write me some totally nonsensical stories. I want nothing to make sense.

The best one will be original and totally lacking in logic and intelligence. Any subject goes!

[*hint: Make me laugh and you'll probably have a better chance of winning. Have a well constructed deeper hidden meaning or purpose and I'll think of you as a genius until the day I die. Make it controversial if you want. Bash me and the rest of the world. As long as you do it well, I'll commend you for it.]



Rules:

1] Like I said: originality.
2] Type like God intended us to do, please children.
3] I'm not a big OCD grammer freak. Neither am I an English teacher. As long as I'm able to understand it, we're good.
4] Write as much or as little as you want as long as it's complete. As far as I'm concerned, writing is art and it annoys me when people stifle it with limitations and whatever.
5] Swear, have raunchy sex, Timmy's guts are falling out of his anus, whatever. If your story calls for that, I'm not stopping you.
6] For the extra-inspired -- write as many as you want. I'll allow pre-writes but I'll prefer to have a fresh and brand new story all to myself.
7] I notice a lot of people on here are into anime. I'm not and usually have no clue what you're talking about. So, for my sake, no reference about anime and its abundance of wonderful characters. Unlikely, but sorry if I killed your story just now. :/
8] The most important rule: just have fun and keep me interested. Don't bore yourself and especially don't bore me.


I'm spending all my points on you. I don't know the purpose of those things so they are therefore fairly meaningless to me. Still, don't make me waste them.

Have any questions, just ask!


PS. Read my stuff!! Yes, I'm advertising. I need comments. They make me feel less lame.

Contest is Over

  • Contest was judged on August 8
  • Rewards: Gold: 100, Silver: 50, Bronze: 15
  • Final notes:
    Thank you everyone for participating in my contest!! I really enjoyed everyone's stories! I could tell that some of you really put a lot of effort into your work and did a truly fantastic job. Some of you, however, seemed to focus too much on the term "random" and put no thought into your work. I don't think many realize that just because something is random and nonsensical doesn't mean you shouldn't properly plan it out to make it good. Some of these, despite lack of thought and planning, I commend you on your creativity. Still others joined this contest with nothing nonsensical about your stories in the least, but you did have good stories nonetheless. If perhaps this contest dealt with that particular subject matter, I would put you in the preliminaries.

    Again, though. Thank you for your stories, participation, and overall excellent ideas. I loved them, every one. Hopefully I can come up with more ideas for a contest and we can do this all over again!

Contest Winners

  1. Something
    Once upon a time long, long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there once was a nothingman who went on a journey to discover his long lost som
    by Oblivion Kitty God 7000 words, 8 comments, on Apr 19 4:50 PM 2007. In Random
    Gold trophy winner
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  2. Arthur's Bad Day
    Arthur P. Fenswique (with a silent "i") can't stop transforming things, and its about to get him into trouble.
    by WritersEffigy 2600 words, 12 comments, on Jun 9 4:54 AM. In Fantasy, Humor
    Silver trophy winner
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  3. a Silly Tale
    Reading this...with a dictionary...should increase your vocabulary...by at least two dozen words!
    by Gary Alexander 300 words, 80 comments, on Jun 6 10:40 PM. In Fiction, Humor
    Bronze trophy winner
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  4. Smoredom
    I should check to see is smoredom is actually a word, because if it isn't I am totally copywriting it. That way, I can bank more money tha
    by Smell Before Rain 500 words, 5 comments, on Nov 29 3:31 PM 2007
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  5. A Letter To The Editor
    by Dove 500 words, 2 comments, on Aug 17 5:16 PM 2006
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  6. Why Sponges Are Dangerous
    It all started with a sponge. 1 / It was very wrong of the sponge to have started all of this, which, while totally unfair to the sponge, was nonetheless true. Fortunately, the sponge was not awa
    by Armaan 1500 words, 3 comments, on Jul 10 4:09 PM. In Disorientation, Fantasy, Humour
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  7. The Most Random Story You'll Ever Read
    It all started when our antagonizing protagonist, Billy, woke up in a fanstic pumpkin patch. It was the first time it had happened. Feeling
    by TheMorpher 1200 words, 6 comments, on May 5 6:03 AM
    • Commented on by judge. Prewrite [remove]
  8. Angie's Story (In emoctions too!)
    This is a stupid thinger!
    by StarSavior 200 words, 1 comment, on Aug 2 10:36 AM
    • Commented on by judge. [remove]

Entries [21]

1 - 21 of 21

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1 - 16 of 16

  • Lion-Serpent
    July 20
    Edit | Reply
    Just FYI, being on drugs and being capable of producing a well-thought-out story are far from mutually exclusive. Whether you like it or not, drugs and art have gone hand and hand for a very, very, very long time. Longer than history. (Though, FWIW, he couldn't have been on acid because it didn't exist yet.)


    • jessicakristine
      July 20
      Edit | Reply
      yes I am perfectly aware of both. acid wasn't invented until almost a hundred years after carroll wrote the book. That's why it couldn't possibly be true that he was on it. It was only a rumor I was trying to disprove. I am also aware of drugs and their place in art, culture, and history. Like I was saying, I was just trying to disprove a urban myth that I disagree with. In my opinion, Carroll was too meticulous with his story for it to be merely a drug experience. As a human being, however, I am very capable of being wrong. It could have been inspired by a drug experience. No one could possibly know.

      Excuse me if you mistook my writing for ignorance. I sincerely apologize. Thank you though. :]


      • Lion-Serpent
        July 20
        Edit | Reply
        Well, no, the whole "too meticulous" and "merely" things are exactly my point. Some drugs may have potential for serious harm when used ignorantly and/or recklessly (not unlike a car) but those same drugs and many others have the potential to take the responsible, purposeful user vast distances (again, not unlike a car.) Using drugs doesn't make one inherently incapable of creating meticulous work any more than getting behind the wheel automatically dooms one to fiery Interstate death.

        Many drugs have as much potential for healing as they do for harm, and others have vast potential for healing with little to no capacity for permanent harm. It just takes knowing what you're doing and maintaining respect for the substance at all times.


        • jessicakristine
          July 21
          Edit | Reply
          Drugs are just something I don't agree with. I don't see them as responsible. I've grown up around people on drugs and I see its affects. What may start out controllable almost never ends that way. Drugs tampers with a person's brain which inhibits their actions. You can't control your body's reactions to a substance. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland feels too well thought out to me, something which takes a very alert mind. I never said that using drugs would make a person incapable but you can't argue that a person is less sharp when intoxicated.


          • Lion-Serpent
            July 21
            Edit | Reply

            Drugs: A different case for them

            When you talk about drugs, you have to have the capacity to look outside the boundaries of the societal conceptions of them.

            Interestingly enough, in the center of your head, and mine too, and everyone's rests a gland called the pineal gland. This gland produces melatonin, the hormone of darkness; but it, too, also creates dimethyltryptamine. Otherwise known as DMT, it is a schedule I substance. It is a psychedelic that was dubbed "the spirit molecule" by Rick Strassman, a scientist who studied it and its relation to near-death experiences, death, and mystical states.

            Logically, since we all produce this substance within our pineal glands, we should all be in jail! But of course. . .here we are.

            If you look at the brain, it is in one sense a storehouse of chemicals, and a system that produces them. The question, then is, how did the brain evolve to the current state it's at? One thing which is obviously, apparently one of the causes was the ingestion of various mind-altering substances.

            When we talk of the endorphin system, we talk of a system which creates biochemicals much like those found in the poppy plant. When we speak of the endocannibinol system, we speak of a system which creates biochemicals much like those found in cannabis.

            It's easy to see then that this evolution happened through the consumption of these substances in part.

            In some ways, I think altercation of consciousness is something as inherent as the desire for procreation. It's part of what we are, which, for whatever reason (among many other things) love to deny. We've basically consumed substances which would kill other animals, yet still lived, and evolved, in part, due to these substances, making it something very innate to us.

            The cannabis plant to the Hindus is a sacred plant created by the God Shiva. As far as here in the West, it's easy to look at the cannabis plant and see that it was given to us as a gift. No matter what you believe, it was put here, and it's natural.

            It's less addictive than nicotine and less harsh on the body than alcohol. Logically, it should thus be legal (since it is less harmful than both of those drugs, which are legal). Yet it still remains. . .mostly illegal.

            People remain ignorant of its true capacities to be a healer and a teacher.

            It has an awareness just like any other creature. . .and it's been with man since so long, that it's a part of us, and we're a part of it.

            In 1972, there was a study done which showed that cannabis could thwart tumor growth in rats. This study, however, was never published, because the DEA and our government feared it. So for years and years cancer patients who could have benefited from cannabis's cancer-fighting properties. . .didn't.

            Because of blatant ignorance.

            Not until 2003 was the study finally published.

            Not until now has the medicinal cannabis movement had so much force. . .

            The DEA repeatedly keeps raiding medicinal growers. Recently a letter was sent to them for these injustices against a country's own people.

            George Washington grew cannabis, and there is evidence that he used. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper. . .Cannabis, for many centuries, was a valuable trade commodity. . .It's not just useful for its psychoactive properties. . .but it's good for making paper, textiles, oil, and all manner of other things--but big oil and all the capitalistic corporations don't want people to know that. . .

            The CIA has smuggled cocaine into this country. Do you know what that means? It means they want there to be a supply so that they can keep doing this useless war on drugs. . .We make ourselves take drug tests for our "jobs," isn't a politician's job just as much a job? Why don't we drug test them?

            Here's a fact. Since the inception of the War on Drugs, drug usage has increased in all areas. That means, bar none, that this war is failing. Period.

            Do you know how many minor drug offenders are in jail? Do you know how much we spend on our prisons each year? Let alone for this war on drugs?

            This is a government fighting its own people and the freedom they were supposed to have. They teach us abstinence-only education in school. They teach us nothing.

            Everyone drinks alcohol, smokes nicotine, drinks caffeine. The holy trinity of drugs. There's a few who truly think; who see the value in things like psychedelics. Who know the bonds of the plants to us. Who see the great sickness our society is becoming. We are becoming. Seek to change it, dance to a higher rhythmic and play in the synchronicity machine.

            I've got more. One is they brainwash us to not see any value in drugs at all. Because drugs are a very spiritual matter. Because we should have the freedom to put whatever we'd like into our bodies. We have the necessity to not teach ignorance to ourselves.

            I'm not saying all drugs are good, nor am I telling you to use them. I am saying that I've chosen to be educated and to have better intentions than getting "high" in mind when I use drugs. Yeah, the fun aspect is a nice aspect; but all the more, it's about something spiritual. I'm saying that I have benefited from my use, and that I would never go back and never use them. That I'm a stronger person from the experiences I've had (which have varied from heaven to hell, but always something that taught me).

            You're only 16, so I can understand what you're saying. I was 16 once, and in fact I was heavily anti-drugs at one point, too. In fact, I quit caffeine for 2 whole years. But my perspective has changed a lot, and I feel that when used as tools and in an educated, intentioned manner--drugs can be very good things.


            • jessicakristine
              July 21
              Edit | Reply
              before I respond, i want to compliment you at presenting an argument so effectively. Most people shoot down everything another person says without any substancial evidence.

              However, drugs are not completely a matter of willpower. Most people use drugs in times of stress to relieve them. In response, your brain begins to become reliant on the substance, thus addiction. It becomes reliant because your body interprets stress as a threat to survival and will take any route necessary to ensure survival first and foremost. A person cannot control his or her body's tendency to attempt at all costs to live and be healthy. Yes, not all drugs can hurt you but even still most people lack the self control you speak of in which they hurt others to feed their habit and other desires.

              Ok, pot is natural but I can name many other poisonous things populating our earth that make us not in our right mind or even harms us. When your not in your right mind but in the right situation, harm comes out of that as well.

              Logically, yes, if alcohol and tobacco is legal, pot should be the same but that doesn't make it necessarily right.

              You could bring medicine into this. As a remedy, ok, I could deal with that. Medicine is a drug - it alters your body, the way you feel, maybe even your mind but that still doesn't mean we take it just whenever we feel like it.

              For it's use in other products, that's not bad. People obsess over it though and that's when it gets a little ridiculous. It's ridiculous the people craving it obsessively and its even more ridiculous our authorities hiding information from the public.

              Don't make the mistake that I don't think about these things. I'm sure just about everything we know is lie, only a small sliver of the truth. Everyone's afraid of the truth and that's why our world is so messed up. If what you say is true about the fake war on drugs, it's only feeding the lie they created to scare the living hell out of people and then make them feel safe again. Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, blah, blah, blah. It's crazy.

              Yes, we have the freedom to do what we want but the government is constantly afraid and feels the need to save everyone, which that's their job anyway. Unfortunately, most of the world cannot handle drugs "responisbly", thus the cause of many a disaster. The goverments just trying to bring disaster under control.

              Legal or not has no meaning to me. Personally, I've thought this through a some time ago, and I don't like the idea of dependency on anything to make me happy. I was made and came into this world happily without all these recreational drugs. I'm still happy. I don't need anything else to make me happier. I'm not reliant on anything but the food i eat, the air i breathe, and the love from my family and friends. I'm content that way. That's the choice I made and I stand firmly next to it.


              • Lion-Serpent
                July 21
                Edit | Reply
                I never said drugs were a matter of willpower at all. I beckon you over to intoothandclaw's most recent reply to yours, where he explains why drugs have nothing to do with "willpower" when not misused.

                As far as the "dependency" and "addiction" and "self-control" nonsense, I again beckon you to intoothandclaw's most recent reply, where he explains why this is not, again, true.

                As far as cannabis. Have you ever used it? Has anyone you lived around ever used it? Cannabis has honestly been one of the only things that has helped me continue to exist. It's a gift. It's only rather recently that it was ever put under a bad, negative light; and it was in fact mostly for racial reasons. As intoothinclaw touches on a bit in his post to you, it was at first banned because a movement of propaganda was ushered. A very racial one, which condemned mexicans as mere criminals.

                Cannabis is protective to the lungs when smoked. There have been valid scientific studies that have shown that it can cause nerve cell growth. As I said prior, it also has cancer-fighting properties.

                It has incredibly potential for use as an anxiety medication. I know intoothandclaw IRL, and he uses it as well; I have seen him degenerate back into his old psychotic state from just one day of not using cannabis. This is how much it helps him. This is how much it helps us.

                In fact, it does not even have withdrawals (and if there are any, they are very, very, very vague). Nor does it give a true "addiction." On the other hand, "medicines" like benzos do have withdrawals (which are hell and can in fact be fatal!) yet we would rather market those out to ourselves than cannabis, which has shown the capacities to do the same thing without the addiction nor withdrawal?

                Cannabis does not "cloud" the mind. Actually, what it does is allows the mind to go to a different state than it is used to. There is nothing "unormal" about this state other than the fact that we call it such and are used to our usual level of functioning.

                Cannabis is in part a meditative tool. The state it invokes is one that readily opens the mind to meditative states. It has been used in this manner for a long time, which predates the War on Drugs propaganda (the Hindus used it, which I mentioned earlier).

                Cannabis is, as I have said before, a teacher and a healer.

                You speak without the experience to back up what you are saying at all. All scientific evidence points to the fact that cannabis is a very useful substance as a medicine, in fact of greater use due to it having no withdrawals. I suppose I can't back up why it is exactly a spiritual thing to me, but the prehistory of use of cannabis proves this just as well for me--that being, as I've said before that the hindus used it for such purposes. Also that it is an organism which has a unique awareness like all creatures on this plant and afar in the cosmos; and that it happily gives its awareness to us when we inhale its dying breaths of smoke. . .

                Like intoothinclaw, I ask you to go and research cannabis. Look at scientific articles which show its potentials as a healer, as medicine. Also look for its historic usage and what it was before the War on Drugs came along and programmed people like you to not even look at cannabis, and other substances, for what they truly are.

                Um. . .as far as "feeding the lie" of the War on Drugs. . .I seriously don't know what you're saying there. I am in no way feeding the lie that is the WoD and if you think I am, you are not reading the words I wrote in my post prior. In fact, I'm debunking the lie that is the WoD so that young people like you can look at drugs in a real, valid manner, rather than to not even look at them at all and follow the bland WoD propaganda.

                Honey, as far as your stuff about how the WoD is instated to "save" people and to keep "control." Again, that's bullshit. If you look at the history of drug use beyond just your country's use, and into the past of it all, you will see that many nations and many civilizations and many tribes all lived and used drugs and that it never, ever stopped "control" from existing nor did people get "lost" and need "saving. The WoD propaganda is a relatively new formulation and perspective on drugs which has been put into place for racial, corrupt reasons. Before the WoD, drugs didn't have the "addiction" stamp on them, nor were simple plants like cannabis dubbed "menaces" and such. . .

                As far as what you're on about "recreational use." The thing is that my drug use has been far from "recreational." The fact is that as you own a mind, it's your perspective and your choice as to how you wish to approach the drug. For me, it has never be a "recreational" matter. It has at the core been a spiritual matter; it has been about altered states of consciousness which challenge my own self-concepts and my own existence and to learn and grow and to come and understand some aspects and true natures of the ultimate reality of this existence.

                It's all about your set and setting. You choose your mindset, what you are using the drug for. You don't just approach it without considering such things. Also it is often a good idea to have someone who has used the drug and knows its effect on the mind and body. . .as it will help with the entire experience and in aiding it for being a revealing and positive one rather than a negative and useless one.

                I'm speaking from experience here. I've had some of the most powerful, interesting revelations from my use of psychedelics. I've been able to get to entirely new states of consciousness that I would otherwise have never felt. . .I've come to terms with some issues within my own psyche which I relegated to my subconscious and hid away. They have helped me a lot.

                I didn't always have a nice supporting family like you. Mine broke apart when I was younger. I was physically and verbally abused by my father. I left here for California about 6 months ago. . .because I know that drugs have a use beyond just our usual conceptions of them.

                I don't drink alcohol and I don't smoke cigarettes. Alcohol is a very dangerous drug because of its wide-spread availability, as well as its utter and complete acceptance into our society. It can have near-fatal withdrawals if one doesn't come off of it right. Nicotine is addictive as well as its smoke is much harsher than cannabis smoke.

                In fact, before we found nicotine here in the Americas, it was used in a very spiritual and sacred context by many tribes and nations. The entire strain of nicotine which we smoke in our mass-produced, arsenic-laced and other-chemical-laced cigarettes is not even the same strain that was used in this spiritual context.

                Yet you're sitting here telling me that cannabis doesn't deserve to be legal because its use is still not "right". . .

                Again, you speak heavily from a lack of experience and a lack of true research. To put it frankly, not to be insulting, but you know next to nothing about what you are talking about. Maybe research for a while, looking for actual facts concerning drugs, and then come back to me. Until then, there's a lot you have to learn about drugs, sorry to say--but it's true.

                I find it sad that there's such wide-spread ignorance concerning drugs. I feel that it's part of what I owe to younger people like you to try and expand their minds while your minds are still open.

                I thought the exact same things when I was 16. I'm 21 now, and I have a completely different perspective on drugs. You can just idly read over and not really consider all that my friend and I have said. . .and that's your call. But I do want you to know that each step of the way, in this exchange, I've only been meaning to expand your mind and educate you on a topic which is often never revealed in true in our society.


                • jessicakristine
                  July 21
                  Edit | Reply
                  I apologize if I offended you. I never meant to. We were just sharing ideas and I never meant it to get a little touchy. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking I don’t question things. I am constantly. All these things I’ve said were merely based on observations of close friends and family members. I know several who have or have had drug abuse problems and the issues they have in their lives are severe and honestly scare me a little. I’ve never tried drugs myself but I just don’t have any interest in it. It was very interesting to see another point of view on a subject like that. I’ll definitely take all of this to mind and am very interested in looking at that site you showed me. I have just felt that perhaps my observations of the people I know were enough but I may be wrong. Having never experienced drugs I may never have the understanding of it that you have.

                  I think you misunderstood what I was saying about “feeding the lies” or whatever. I wasn’t referring to you. Sorry if I didn’t make that clear. And as for the government, I was just stating what they probably believe they’re doing which I’m saying is understandable. I’m saying it’s understandable because you hear the horror stories all the time of a drug trip gone wrong in which a person panics and ends up dead. With that kind of publicity, the fear becomes very reasonable to an outsider.

                  Another thing, please do not assume that I have lived a pampered life without any prior knowledge of me. Really it is none of your business but I have come from a divorced family in which I was neglected by my father, my mother was physically and verbally abused, and I was sexually abused. I grew up around a lot of hatred. Thankfully, that is all in the past now and I am very happy and have let all of that go. I was just offended that you should think you know me.

                  Thank you for sharing your insight with me. Despite what you may believe, I have considered every word you have written very carefully. I do respect your opinions and consider myself very open minded to the facts presented.


                  • Lion-Serpent
                    July 21
                    Edit | Reply
                    I wasn't offended at all. I was also writing with other "lurkers" in mind and tried to make my point as clearly and powerfully as was possible. I'm sorry for seeming snippy; it's just that this is a very important subject to me.


                  • intoothandclaw
                    July 21
                    Edit | Reply
                    Incidentally, you're talking to both Lion-Serpent *and* me now. Just in case that wasn't clear. Sorry.

                    Most of those horror stories you hear about trips gone bad are either misinterpreted, exaggerated, or just plain false. I've heard a few that are just laughably ridiculous. For example, most of the stories you hear about what people do on LSD are flat impossible, because LSD is only a pseudo-hallucinogen. The hallucinations produced are distinguishable from reality in all cases unless the ingestor of the drug is already psychotic and suffering from independent non-distinguishable hallucinations. This has been firmly established by scientific study, and yet they still try to push junk science claiming the opposite.

                    See, the thing is, Lion-Serpent and I are both fundamentally scientific people. We believe that the scientific method, when honestly and rigorously applied, is a valid method of trying to understand the world. And if you look at the "science" behind all the anti-drug warriors' "studies", you'll discover that it's terrible.

                    The most egregious example is that one study that claimed that MDMA/ecstasy causes pin-sized holes to form in the brain. If you look at the methodology of that study, you'll discover that they fed normal human-sized doses to lab rats. Not *proportionate* doses, but the same exact amount of drug that a human would take to get high.

                    No wonder the rats' brains developed pin-sized holes when they were fed 100,000 times the active dose of the drug for their body weight!

                    So that's where it started -- I realized I couldn't trust anything coming from the WoD side because they were willing and glad to publish false science to prove their point. Which meant their point must be false. So I did some digging and discovered good research done by good scientists, all of which seems to show that, while some drugs do indeed have potentially dangerous properties, they also have many potential benefits. It all depends on how you use.

                    And that's also why you can't form a realistic working opinion about drugs from observing the people around you. They're suffering from exactly the same ignorance that you are, and yet they're using anyway. That's precisely why they're suffering and dying -- because they have no idea what they're doing! If we taught people how to use safely in school, rather than just saying "don't ever look at it or use it because it's BAD", the problem would be a lot smaller.

                    The simple fact of the matter is that animals use drugs. Non-human animals use drugs all the time, and so do humans. We have always used drugs and we always will. The drive to change one's consciousness is as fundamental as the drive to eat or mate. Why? Who knows? But so it is. Therefore, the best thing to do is to learn as much about the topic as one can and make the best-educated choices possible.

                    You'd be surprised how many drugs you've ingested, by the way. Even if you don't take prescription or OTC drugs, you probably still consume sugar, caffeine, saccharine, xylitol, or other mind-altering substances in your food unawares. Ever eaten a poppy-seed bagel or muffin? Then you've eaten morphine and codeine, too. If you've ever worn anything made of hemp, you've worn cannabis. It's all the same stuff.

                    The biggest lie of the drug war is that they're working to "eradicate" these drugs. They can't. Morphine is still the most effective painkiller in existence. They wouldn't dare get rid of it, and to make morphine, they have to have opium poppies. You need opium poppies for poppy seeds, too -- it's the only Papaver species with edible seeds. And you need Cannabis for hemp. In fact, one reason cannabis is illegal is due to fear on the part of the lumber and oil industries that the cannabis industry was going to replace them.

                    All we ask is that you maintain an open mind and don't condemn drugs or their users out of hand. Thank you.


          • intoothandclaw
            July 21
            Edit | Reply
            You don't have to "see" them as responsible. They are not, in fact, inherently responsible. If you had been reading what I said, you would have noticed I never once referred to "willpower". Willpower has nothing to do with it. The whole reason people get caught up in destructive relationships with drugs is that they know absolutely nothing about them or how to use them safely. The only paradigm they have is negative, therefore they fall into it automatically. But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, it only has been that way since the War on Drugs. If you don't believe me, do some research on your own. Not at places with names like "AntiDrug.com", but in actual newspapers and encyclopedias and the like. You'll discover that "addiction" as we know the term /did not exist/ until very recently, and that it is largely perpetuated by the very War on Drugs that's supposedly intended to cure it. Quite frankly, there's more corruption and scammery involved in the WoD than any one person can cover in a single comment. But I know you won't believe it from me anyway, so go look it up yourself if you care to learn the truth.

            I used to be like you, is the thing. I believed *precisely* what you do -- that it's better to "not be dependent on anything to be happy", that I "didn't want to lose control," that "drugs only harm you in the end," that "you can't argue that a person is less sharp when intoxicated." Every single one of those things has turned out to be totally false.

            Dependency is not inevitable. There are many, many people, far more than you know, who use drugs, including "hard" drugs like methamphetamine and heroin. Most of those, contrary to Drug War propaganda, are *not* "addicts". They're what are called "chippers" on the street -- casual, usually infrequent users. They may use as often as once a week, but that's it, and they're known for taking unannounced vacations from the drugs whenever whim strikes them. Most educated drug users, in fact, use this way. They might have one favorite drug that gets used a lot, even to the point of dependency, but the others will get picked up and dropped again at random with no effort because the whole paradigm is different. There's never "willpower" involved because it just doesn't apply. The situation is never one of dependency to begin with, because the people involved know what they're getting into and what they're doing.

            Let me put it this way. If you took a 16-year-old kid who's seen cars, but never ridden in or driven one before, who knows absolutely nothing about how cars work except that they're very dangerous, and you put him behind the wheel of a Corvette and set him loose on the Interstate, what do you think would happen?

            More importantly, would anybody be blaming Chevrolet for the inevitable destruction? Of course not. Yet precisely the same situation is what's going on when some kid gets hooked on crack, and everyone blames crack.

            It is fundamentally illogical to blame an inanimate object for what a free-willed human being chooses to do with it, but let's say for the sake of argument that you sometimes can logically cite an inanimate object as the fundamental cause of the problem in this context. It still isn't the car's fault, or the drug's, because if the person behind the wheel had simply known how to drive, the collision would not have happened. (In theory. In reality, chaos theory suggests that it's still possible to have a collision due to the influence of *other* drivers, but for simplicity we're ignoring that.) Ergo, the fault must lie in the driver, not the object.

            The point is that abstinence education does not work. I would never say that all drugs are good for all people, or that some drugs are not extremely dangerous even for the intelligent and topically educated, or even that all people who get good things from drugs should necessarily use them all the time or for their whole lives. What I am saying is that whether you get good or bad results from a substance rests not on your "willpower" or the substance itself, but on your knowledge about the substance and how to use it safely.

            I started out straight-edge, and now I'm a polydrug user. I use mainly for spiritual and medical reasons. The one and only drug that has ever given me a problem was alcohol, back before I ever considered using anything else, and even then, as soon as I realized what was going on, I stopped using it with relative ease. I can even drink now, when I want to, without having cravings or other such issues. And willpower, again, has nothing to do with it. I'm far from strong-willed. If you present me with serious temptation, five times out of seven I'll succumb to it. The thing is, I never *had* temptation, because I understood exactly what was going on and how to handle it effectively.

            It's no surprise at all that people who know nothing about a drug except "it'll make me feel good" and "it's dangerous but who cares?" will hurt themselves with drugs. (Incidentally, only a very small percentage of drug users steal or rob, and that minority is *loathed* by all the others. Most of us have pride, or at least standards.) Those of us who take the time to educate ourselves about the topic, to learn what exactly each drug will do in our brain and body (what it will *really* do, mind, not what the anti-drug warriors want you to think it will do -- ecstasy, for example, will not cause holes in your brain) and how to use it safely and responsibly (yes, it's possible and pretty easy, generally much easier than misusing) do not end up broke, miserable slaves to chemicals. Frankly, most of the people who seem to have other problems to begin with - those being the reason they began using, and those being the main things keeping them down, not the drugs. Drug abuse, when it does exist, is almost always a symptom of a greater problem rather than the problem itself.

            In short, I truly mean no insult, but the vast majority of what you think you know about drugs is nothing less or more than propaganda. If you want to learn more about the topic, erowid.com is a great place to start. Its purpose is reliable, unbiased information about drugs. Unbiased in either direction, that is. Or hit Google and wander around. You may not believe me when I tell you that the War on Drugs has deeper roots in institutional racism than in any interest in public warfare, but if you dig up all those articles about "cocaine-crazed negroes raping our white women" and "Chinese opium dens infesting our fine cities" and "marihuana-smoking wetbacks" and read them for yourself, you might have a chance to form your own opinions about what was really going on back then.

            That's not even going into Nixon's chicanery and the fact that heroin is a Bayer brand name, and the spiritual heritage of drug use that goes back further than recorded history...


            • WritersEffigy gold member
              July 24
              Edit | Reply
              Acid may not have existed, but other forms of the drug may have. Morning Glories for instance.


              • intoothandclaw
                July 24
                Edit | Reply
                True indeed, although I wonder if the method for washing them to get rid of the vomitous aspect was known then? Honestly, if I were to finger one drug, it wouldn't be a lysergic acid amide. Having used LSD, LSA, and many opiates and opioids, I'm far more inclined to suspect something like laudanum.

                ... Not that that's all I've used, just that those are the relevant categories at the moment.


      • intoothandclaw
        July 20
        Edit | Reply
        That was also actually me both times. I failed to notice he was logged in on my computer when I sat down. x.x


  • intoothandclaw
    July 24
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    I'm sure you're sick of me, but I ran into an idea in a library book today that I've never heard before, and it made me think of you. It intersects your topic of fascinating as well as mine so well I can't not ask you what you think of it. I'm very curious as to your opinion.

    Specifically -- have you ever heard this idea that Lewis Carroll might have been Jack the Ripper, that there are supposedly clues hidden in the verse in either Looking-Glass or Alice itself?

    Personally I find the idea extremely silly, as Carroll's evident personality isn't consistent with the Ripper's murder style, but I'm still curious about these supposed "clues" hidden in the verse. Do you know anything about it?


  • Kaori-Chan
    July 31
    Edit | Reply

    ...

    Can I post the prologue of my really stupid Death Note Fanfic?

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