Yeah caron, I am exactly 7 years and 7 days younger than adg and was right in the thick of it but never partook myself. Many friends and aquaintences did. Pot LSD hash etc, was offered to me many times but even as a young teenager I was very careful of what I put into my body.
I did on several occassions give in to Tequila salt and lemon or a beer but I didn't like the way I felt the next day and also I have a thing about being fully aware of what I am doing at all times.

But no one held it against me and I still had plenty of fun, wore beads, my favourite clothes were Levis and T-Shirt (still are), I marched in anti-war Demos (still do) and then ,and still do, hope for peace and am a non-violent radical subversive and proud of it. I still get my serenity from nature, animals and family as I have all my life. And of course listening to entertaining Folkslingers!

P.S. I do admit to passive inhalation at certain concerts in Oregon and here in Aust. but Hey! what was I suppose to do.........leave or something?

I never did MJ or drugs, either. That was the one part of the hippie/antiwar movement that I found to be stupid. What the hell did getting high hafta do with protesting the war? It did much to discredit the antiwar movement, if anything, coz it gave folks like my parents the chance to say stuff like, "Why should I listen to these guys??? They're all high!!!"

Secondly, I never understood why the hippies would want their money to indirectly support murderous drug lords. (Recently in my old neighborhood, a car full of MJ, fleeing police, ran a red light & killed 2 innocent people.) Hippies who would boycott a certain product coz, say, the corporate manufacturer tested their product on rats didn't mind their money going to drug lords. It just makes no sense.

I mean Arlo is 10 years older than I am, but my drug of choice may becoming "Geritol". I may assume that Arlo got turned on to that stuff too.

joe, because for most hippies drugs got them more intune with music and nature and especially mind-expansion. Plus, it did a lot for peace, almost everyone is more peaceful when high. Also, you cant say that anyone who buys drugs is supporting a drug lord. Some people grow it, and distribute it, and thats it. In my opinion its only the cities where people buy in big bulk from "drug lords" then distribute it.

There's only one reason why drug lords exist in the first place - prohibition. During the early 60's the drug laws were nowhere near as severe as today in most places. It used to be like getting a parking ticket.

Now, we have tens of thousands of otherwise law-abiding people stored away for years at our expense; we support thousands of drug enforcement types, who would otherwise have something to do; and all this because politicians are too cowardly or too stupid to realize that people should be free to make their own mistakes, learn from their own experiences and move on.

Young people years ago realized that the same idiots who brought us the war, brought us laws that made about as much sense as when they told us to hide under our school desks when we saw the mushroom cloud. Some of us were opposed to such stupidity, some still are. It wasn't simply a time of being for or against one thing or another. It was a time to re-evaluate the circumstances that got us into the civil-rights movement, environmentalism, education, and a myriad of other concerns that have slowly evolved over time. A little re-evaluation of the drug laws would seem to be in order these days, as the policies of the last 30 years have at best failed miserably...

Don't get me started...

adg

Well said Arlo!!!!! ..Most already know how I feel about the legalization of mj, and how the"drug war" has been lost.How long is it going to take the governments to realize the same and maybe take a different approach!?!?!?! ...
What adg said,,,"don,t get me started"...LOL

You can't say that they're not, either. How many illegal-drug-buyers do you know who ask where their money is going or where the stuff came from before they make their purchase?

For the record, I have nothing against somebody growing their own & using it & sharing with friends. I have more important things to worry about. I'm not talking about them.

I agree with that in general. However, in the case of drugs, I have 3 old friends dead at young ages coz of drug overdoses. For them, it woulda been better had somebody stopped them from making mistakes.

We all have friends and family members who've died in car accidents, hurricanes, earthquakes, and all kinds of other disasters, and there are friends who have gone and died doing drugs. There are about 2% of people who become seriously addicted to drugs - all of this happens whether there are laws or not. The law didn't help your friends either, it can't. But, we can help each other and sometimes that works.

If we cashed in some of the money we spent of making drugs illegal and turned it into healthcare facilities where people could get help it would do someone some good. Maybe we'd still lose a few friends. But I'd risk that if I thought we could do away with an entire system of undercover cops, drug lords, gangs, and the like. Over 80% of crime in the US is connected with drugs.

It ain't a perfect world, and I'm sure my ideas aren't perfect either - but sometimes you have to choose between imperfect things. I'm also pissed off at helmet laws, no more riding in the back of pick-up trucks, and other laws that create big mother instead of personal freedom. What good is being in a free country where you're not free to make your own mistakes? Sometimes the mistakes you make can kill you, but should that mean that everyone must become a criminal when they do the same things and don't die?

See... you got me started. And it's hot! And we ain't got air conditioning...

And those intent on taking away OUR rights in the name of freedom win another battle. To quote our leader ...we are giving to homeland security the same tools that have worked so well in our war on drugs....

Laws do nothing to protect us. Wars win nothing.

It does seem to me that the war on people has killed more people than the war on drugs has or ever could save.

Arlo, you make sense & I don't necessarily disagree. You're looking at the bigger picture & I was talking (at least at first) about the choices that an individual person makes & how he should think of the consequences of his actions & particularly where his money goes.

Here in Pittsburgh, one of our newspapers is published by Richard Scaife, who finances a lot of radical right wing causes. I refuse to buy his paper & give him even a dime, & when his employees call to try to get me to subscribe, I scold them & run down my mental list of activities that I don't wanna support.

It's hot here, too, but my AC is on. C'mon over & bring your guitar!

I'm coming!

BTW, the drug thing with me isn't political at all as almost everyone from any major party has caved in and shut up even when they may personally have views contrary to the platform - and that pisses me off even more then....

Ah screw it. I'm just gonna head on over to the White House and see if someone there can hook me up. There's no way that anyone could be ruuning this country the way they are and not be smokin' something!

Amen, brother!

They know drugs at the White House. Bush might be the first president to have done any considerable amount of blow.

Joe, I understand what you're saying. I've known a few drug casualties, too. I think we all have. But now, at 55, I've known a lot more people damaged by alcohol than other drugs and we know how making that illegal turned out. I don't know a soul who has been truly damaged by pot. I don't do it no more, but that's just because I'm too fat and sleepy just naturally these days. If I ever have to have real chemo, I'm getting hooked up, though.

And I've known more people damaged by tobacco, which is probably worse than alcohol or pot, IMHO.

Before I mentioned my departed friends, my point wasn't necessarily about people using pot hurting themselves---lotsa people do stuff that's bad for them & can't be stopped---I was talking about the moral decision involved in purchasing anything illegal & how one should consider where their money is going & the innocent people hurt as a result. Arlo's ideas sound good to me, but the fact is that they haven't been implemented as of now. The individual should say, right now the world is this way & not that way, so who is gonna be hurt by my actions?

Admittedly, when we're younger, we don't think about that kinda stuff. When I was 20, I had a summer job delivering cigarettes for a wholesaler, but I'd never be connected with any such thing today