Currently, I'm observing a joint. A spliff, to be accurate. 1/25 of a joint to be concise and to further the precision let me add that some 0.2 to 0.3 grams of crystalline white widow splendor was utilized in its making. For me, that's good. I'm a casual smoker, digging into the box 'o' weed some 2 or 3 times a month. I let go of the alcohol, with a couple of exceptions, some years ago.
I want a soothing, relaxing buzz that doesn't spontaneously make me nonsensically paranoid about having to move for no apparent reason. Not sparking an excess of thought barely fit for reality.
Every time I inhale and begin to alter my perception, hearing and sensing the elements around me a bit more eidetically, a certain sporadic and counter-directional freezing, if you will, always kicks in.
Something in me demands attention, a sense of somebody waiting for me, carrying on, progressing carelessly, whilst I've temporarily tabbed out on a level of reality they might never experience. A burdening series of thoughts concerning some random collective of local jurors, frivolously shaming me with an antagonist, very semantically dissimilar and generally counter-linguistic choice of phonetics.
In the EU some 22 million regular weed smokers self-registered in a survey some years ago. The odds of that number actually being higher is rather likely though. I might have it wrong, in my defense I'm high so..
When these people, myself included, reached the teen years or early 20's, we made a fundamentally life altering decision. To consciously deviate from the social standards of the majority, by preferring a different kind of soft drug then them. I imagine the choice between alcohol and weed as having a very long genealogical thread to them.
They're timeless, universal. Fixed. One group purely opts for alcohol and another purely opt for weed, the rest are hybrids or sober. One group prefer loosing control, going wild and forgetting, another kind prefers to be a bit more conscious, reflective and thoughtful of their control, possibly leading to a more appropriate level of self-control. It always has for me at least. A herbal mirror.
The majority in the EU, in this case the approximately 425 million non-smokers, who more than likely do drink or will drink regularly in the future, shows that Europeans have a clear preference for consuming alcohol rather than weed. Their majority status means they, in principal, are the decisive organ when it comes to the popular opinion concerning recreational intoxicants. The word, 'recreational', by the way, if you add a bit of literality to it, almost insinuates that one group prefers to temporarily self-destruct through an increase in the pace of their social interaction, eventually obliterating themselves to then be rebirthed, as hungover. While the other prefer to decrease the pace, recreating themselves by prolonging and attempting to sustain what they already got. In terms of the sheer pace of the drugs, weed will famously get you geared down to a place of, at least partial, recluse and introspection. Alcohol will get you up, make you unpredictable, risk more and exhibit extroverted behavior on a continuous loop.
The first two distinctions to apply here, are the obvious and ageing introvert/extrovert personality types. Extrovert behavior as a consequence of weed consumption and introvert behavior as a consequence of alcohol consumption, are mostly logical fallacies. The generalizable truth is that most introverts prefer weed and more extroverts prefer alcohol, the third group, ambiverts, would most likely prefer something of a mix. And then, there is the sober. Forget them.
So the extroverts and ambiverts are the ruling, socio-ethical class in Europe. Although it obviously is a somewhat broad categorization, it seems to correspond with observations of urban phenomena, such as bars. Of which there are quite a few, where as public weed-spots, not so much. So being a counter conformist entity, an introvert, in a sea of ambiverts and extroverts means you're impeded or at least behaviorally altered, early on, by not adhering to, and thriving under their implicit governance.
Social dynamics in bars are different then those in apartments facilitating weed consumption. So from a somewhat early age the three personality type based social groups will generally begin to think and behave differently, due to the intoxicants behaving as a form of intermediate link between them and their social interactions.
Behavior will, intra-socially (within the specific social system), be homogenized relative to the participants. In other words, they become socialized relative to a set of standards revolving around alcohol or weed. The social groups then drifts apart. The smokers, at least in most EU-states, will be forced to interact discreetly and privately where as the drinkers will be allowed to congregate and be as rambunctious as they are hilarious, almost everywhere. They become extra-extroverted. Where as the smokers become extra-introverted.
Their language and the way it's expressed emotionally and logically then becomes different and when the majority of people are alcohol consumers rather than weed consumers, that rubs off everywhere in society. Meaning there's a cultural imbalance in the form of generally differentiated sociolects, birthed and integrated through soft drug preferences. And yes, getting drunk and high is integrated well enough in humanity's social codes to be defined as culture. Maybe excluded the Muslim world that seemingly tend to use recreational religion, more than anything. Although I have met quite a few, westernized Muslim weed-smokers and dealers in my time.
I believe the social division of the 'soft drug preference'-groups to be the first mentioned sense I usually experience when lighting up my pathetic little spliffs. The sense of others carrying on, progressing in a different way, with a different pace.
Sometimes it makes me feel guilty. Like my preferred choice of soft drug indulgence made me a deviant. Or at least, deviator.
It definitely made me an individualist and a liberal, believe. I became accustomed to grabbing hold of a bit more freedom than available. It was necessary for me to thrive. It's essentially a creative and existential driver to me, like it is for a lot of nature's mathematicians, the musicians. The weed makes me run a sequence of similar ideas repeatedly, until they appear clear and orderly, becoming ever more present, almost invasive, and then I need to work it out, by initiating some creative process. A LOT of professional, creative culture is powered by weed.
Drinkers are known to be less patient and predictable during the inebriation. Exhibits exorbitantly less control of all general functions. Less patience and predictability. Had people exhibited drunk behavior when not inebriated, they would surely be considered very dangerous, mentally ill and fundamentally retarded. A severe threat to the stability of a society. A smoker would most likely be dismissed as a withdrawn, awkward slob if caught and probed in public during the inebriation.
Smokers, becomes more predictable and patient during the inebriation, as the brain is simply forced to focus heavier, as sensory input appears to take up more of your attention. All the way from maintaining a stabile level of dialogue, to gaming, to actually doing something creative, like music. It instigates simple social or socially pending, behavioral schemes whose chances of being repeated, depends on how successful and pleasurable, time appears to have been spent. In my experience.
For some of us, alcohol culture is terrifying due to that discrepancy. Clubbing, pub-crawling, after-parties and pre-parties. Loud places, dumb people. Just thinking about it feels thievish, like I'm robbed something of the desired comfort and practicality of my everyday livelihood. Something rings false, a sneaking empirical authenticity whose truth is deemed correct by others than myself.
The cultural divide created between people like me and the majority of humans will ultimately, without any group interrelations end with a segmentation of cultures, on more than one level. Behaviorally, linguistically, creatively and professionally. Which is why the EU, rather expediently, ought to legalize weed everywhere. The actual weed.
The sense of being deprived of my right to live in accordance with the behavior I've adopted as most feasible for the person I am: an introvert bordering on slight ambiversion, is the sense of institutionalized ethics. It's a sense of deprivation from participation in a collective, comprised of common faithful, congregating to form righteous or pragmatic, social behavior. Tacitly affecting me to wander amongst thoughts of betrayal, inauthenticity and estimates of pros and cons considering cancellation of my recreational downtime.
It unnerves me, because I like smoking and the rituals that comes with it. I dislike drinking and the rituals that comes with it. But it hits me every time and I always end up rediscovering the righteousness of my own choices as relative to the ones offered up by the ethical collective of institutionalized drinkers.
Unfortunately, I think some people are capable of tricking themselves. Believing the course they've set, however successful, should still correspond with loud and brutish, beer brawls, in some way. They believe that being drunk is the solution to mastery of social dynamics, and substituting rewarding behavior, for potentially rewarding alcohol based group behavior can create personal damage if you're an introvert.
Because the potential rewards stemming from that participation are less useful, due to the constant adaptive efforts required to correspond with a fundamentally dissimilar behavioral mode then the one you're primarily operating with, as an introvert. You'd have to sacrifice the authenticity of social relationships to essentially become a human adapter. Converting two different outlets into one.
In my personal experience, loss of control rather than mastering of control, if you will, never becomes a real choice. No FOMO here. Extensive loss of control ought to be perceived of as a highly punitive and severely crippling event in a person's life. It is odd that we seek it out repeatedly, one can only wonder how it caught on. If it occurred in reality, without having consumed alcohol, we'd essentially be fully incapacitated forever. If the cognitive functions regarding self-control didn't kick back in, you'd be done for.
So in a sense, I can't follow the socio-ethical guidelines of the majority of people in Europe. Which means I am and has always been an impaired minority.
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