21 minutes ago, PATCO LCH said:

When I was a kid in the fifties and sixties, any man that didn't smoke was considered a sissy or preacher and half the preachers lit up. I was weaned on second hand smoke. Most of the teachers had stained fingers and teeth and smelled like soot. In old romance movies you know it's love when they exhale a cloud directly in each other's faces.

Yeah, I’d have to agree with that. My dad wasn’t a smoker until he joined the Navy back in those days. He said everyone smoked, drank black coffee and hard liquor, and had some type of Navy tatoo. 😂😂

He died when he was 50 from a heart attack. I didn’t grow up around him as my parents divorced when I was around 3 years old, but when I was older I used to warn him all the time about his smoking, diet and lack of exercise.

Remember the old news room clips? Walter Cronkite or others in that generation doing the news with an ashtray on the desk and a faint stream of smoke coming up. Seemed like every office had a layer of smoke under the ceiling. 

When I was a kid I was so disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke and is probably why I never even had the urge to try it, not to mention the health effects.

1 hour ago, cmpbellsjc said:

When I was a kid I was so disgusted by the smell of cigarette smoke and is probably why I never even had the urge to try it, not to mention the health effects.

So now, this generation is killing themselves with mind games.

23 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

So now, this generation is killing themselves with mind games.

What are you referring to as mind games?

Your personal observations and apparently conflicting data nonwithstanding, I think arguing a point that drugs in general have a more glorified image now than they did some decades ago is going to be extremely tough. And that's the thing with personal observations - I don't know what music you listen to, but pop culture references to weed were certainly there aplenty before Rap became a mainstream genre. I mean, Shakespeare liked to get high. When and where I grew up, adults thought absolutely nothing of offering children a sip of their beer. Or heck, a glass of it. I was among the many kids whom their parents occasionally sent to the store to get them a pack of cigs and the clerks thought absolutely nothing of handing an eight-year-old a pack of them.

My personal view is that sensitivity to these kinds of topics as a whole has grown steadily in our society over the past decades and there seems to be a lot of data out there that shows the effects of this. Smoking is widely considered plain disgusting among teenagers and is nowhere near as common as when I was in school, where we'd meet our teachers in the "smoker's corner" and neither side batted an eye. Public advertisements for tobacco are banned completely where I live - compare this to the ads that you mentioned from the olden days. Could you imagine someone actually trying to make a positive health claim when trying to sell you a legal drug these days?

Again I don't mistrust  you when you tell your observations but I'm not sure you're inferring all the right conclusions from them. There is less stigma on weed as there was at the height of the (hilariously unsuccessful) war on drugs days, that's true for sure, but there is certainly not less stigma on it than there was in times before that. Whole generations before us used it as tobacco substitute. The fact that it's now practiced more openly again does not neccessarily mean it is practiced more accross the population.

 

35 minutes ago, lostrealist said:

I was among the many kids whom their parents occasionally sent to the store to get them a pack of cigs and the clerks thought absolutely nothing of handing an eight-year-old a pack of them

In a similar fashion I could go to the toy store and buy a tube of Airfix glue - no problem at all. Not that I was sent to buy ciggies as my parents are non-smokers.

Anyway - I believe one doesn't need to smoke weed, one can use it when baking cakes etc.. 

3 hours ago, HighBypass said:

Anyway - I believe one doesn't need to smoke weed, one can use it when baking cakes etc..

Ah yes, the famous Alice B. Toklas' "Hashish Fudge," an epicurian delight sure to enliven any party.

Made from spices, nuts, fruit, and cannabis, Hashish Fudge quickly became a sensation in its own right. In the recipe, Toklas says it is called "the food of paradise" and goes on to suggest places where the cook might find the cannabis. She adds that the fudge can liven up any gathering and is "easy to whip up on a rainy day." She cautions two pieces are quite enough and that one should be prepared for hysterical fits of laughter and wild floods of thoughts on "many simultaneous planes."

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Alice_B._Toklas_Cook_Book

9 hours ago, lostrealist said:

I don't know what music you listen to, but pop culture references to weed were certainly there aplenty before Rap became a mainstream genre. 

Frankly I don’t listen to much of the music that is out these days, mostly just talk radio, news or political related stuff. When I do listen to music it’s usually stuff from the 70’s to 2000. I like a wide variety from country to pop, hip hop, some rap (the fun stuff, not ghetto or overtly sexual like Easy E or Two Live Crew) and some rock. 

Obviously county music never touches on weed, and most of the stuff I listen to from that era, didn’t refer to it much unless you count Snoop Dog and Dr Dre 😂. These days it seems like it’s mentioned a lot. Here’s a snip from a study on it.

“The number of hit songs that feature lyrics referencing marijuana has increased dramatically over the last 30 years, according to a new study. And researchers believe that growing public acceptance of cannabis is fueling a trend that has resulted in more than three out of four top 40 songs in the U.S. now containing shout-outs to weed.

The study, published last week in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, sought to identify a link between popular music and drug trends in the U.S., with a main focus on opioids. Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Wayne State University examined the lyrics of Billboard’s top 40 songs for each year from 1986 to 2016, filtering for songs that reference marijuana, alcohol, opioids and tobacco.

During the time period under review, references for all categories except tobacco increased.

The first mentions of cannabis appeared in 1989, for example, with fewer than five references in that year’s top 40 chart, as ranked by Billboard. But by 2016, there were more than 30 marijuana references, more than for any other substance tracked in study.”

9 hours ago, lostrealist said:

Again I don't mistrust  you when you tell your observations but I'm not sure you're inferring all the right conclusions from them.

I can only base my observations from the sales data I see on stuff used to smoke it (which is rising), the more common occurrences I see it or smell it being used in public and the more frequent mention of it that I see in movies or hear in music. Plus the other three articles I linked before that show a rise in usage.

9 hours ago, lostrealist said:

There is less stigma on weed as there was at the height of the (hilariously unsuccessful) war on drugs days

Yes, I agree that there is less stigma towards its recreational use, which in my opinion is a bad thing. What I that it think is bad is when we as a society start taking things that are considered bad/illegal/criminal and normalize them to make it seem like it’s ok. I think it was either California, Oregon or Washington state, or maybe two of those states, that recently started making a push to decriminalize all illegal drugs. I know we’ll never get rid of drugs but rather than normalize them, I’d rather we push back and try to crack down on it further or try to educate people out of using them to start with.

Of course it’s all personal preference. I don’t want live in a run down neighborhood with crack/meth houses, drug dens, and people sitting around shooting up. I suppose that’s why cities have good areas and bad areas. People like me live it gated communities to help keep that environment out while others don’t seem to mind it and live in areas where that stuff is common.

Anyway, I suppose we can agree to disagree on pot and drugs. Difference in opinion are what make the world go around as they say. For me it’s hard to understand why people want to alter their natural state. I like being aware, awake, nimble and having good reflexes, and can’t see why someone would want to feel the opposite.

Ya, ain't it cool.