| Non-motoring > Health food, etc. | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: Armel Coussine | Replies: 23 |
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New Sun 23 Feb 14 23:41
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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Bear with me a moment. Falafels aren't everyone's cup of tea, but they can be just the thing when you've got up a bit earlier than usual, eaten a banana and a slice of cake with your coffee, and driven the undemanding 50 miles to Notting Hill for reasons of Herself's. With time to kill and a gnawing feeling in the inner man one might easily go to the falafel place 300 yards from one's old gaff, on the junction of Portobello Road and Tavistock Road, just where the overhead Westway crosses the quarter. It's run by a grizzled character, Israeli I think but he could come from anywhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, who could be any age between 50 and my age. The falafels are great, not too expensive but a bit messy to eat in the car if you aren't careful. Today though he had two heartbreakingly beautiful little delicate Thai or similar girls working in the place. London is always an aesthetic orgy but they made my day, no kidding. I asked where a wicked old geezer like him had found them and he thanked me politely. No one I wanted to see was at home. Had I been younger and more of a sensemilla addic I might then have phoned a spade street dealer of my fairly recent acquaintance, described my car and where I was and waited for him to turn up with some dodgy looking but not-too-bad Jamaican grass, not of course the world's best deal but just the thing, along with a pint at a pub down on the A24 to accompany Herself's massive glass of French red, to ensure a relaxed and competent smooth drive back. But I'm far too grown-up to have done anything like that. Nevertheless we got home safely. The jalopy's going nicely but it could do with an oil and oil filter change and a dose of red stuff. |
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New Sun 23 Feb 14 23:44
Health food, etc. - Lygonos
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| Whatever grass you buy from your 'spade' it has likely been grown in a UK flat by some Viet/Chinese gangsters. |
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New Sun 23 Feb 14 23:57
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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Frankly Lygonos I don't think you always know what you're talking about. Were I still buying grass from spade street dealers (and I hope you noticed I said I was now too grown-up to do anything like that), I would certainly be able to tell the difference between imported weed, which these days is partly spoilt by being treated, compressed and sealed to prevent it from smelling like cannabis in transit and being discovered, and fresh skunk which has a reek all of its own. And by the way, even that doesn't all come from 'Viet/Chinese gangsters'. We have our own gangsters, and people who aren't gangsters, producing weed. It's popular stuff, and I'm not surprised. Does as much good as harm if you ask me. But then I'm biased, or used to be when I liked drugs. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 00:35
Health food, etc. - Lygonos
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A small amount (total volume that is, not number of growers which is probably in the 100s of thousands) as you say,is grown by 'non-gangsters' - purportedly for their own use, but a portion is often sold for profit. Have had a couple of patients busted for growing small amounts (a dozen or so plants) in their attics, neither of whom went to jail. Legalise it and tax it. Does a lot less social harm than alcohol, and less physical harm than tobacco. I wouldn't, however, suggest it does as much good as harm. I like the chart reported here: www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/drugs_cause_most_harm Prof Nutt appears to be a reliable kind of academic so I've no reason to dispute his findings. Last edited by: Lygonos on Mon 24 Feb 14 at 00:38
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 01:07
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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Nutt's great. He's had a lot of stick from halfwit wimp politicos over the years. I'm not convinced by the graph though. Some of it is rubbish. You have to know this stuff from personal experience. These things are complex. When I was 19 or 20 I was tipping whisky down my throat in harmful quantities. My eyesight has never wholly recovered. Cannabis saved my soul, if not my life. Of course I'm older and more or less stable now. Of course times have changed and now depressive adolescents are harming themselves by smoking too much dope and not thinking enough, poor little devils. That's the market for you. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 01:40
Health food, etc. - Lygonos
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>>You have to know this stuff from personal experience It helps if you also have real insight into your substance use and its effects upon your behaviour/mental state. Unfortunately too many bozos seem to think that by escalating their use of mind-altering substances they will somehow get back to the state they enjoyed in the early days, where getting drunk/high/stoned was a laugh rather than the sad escapism/habituation/addiction it can become. Some people seem to be able to take or leave mind-altering substances but not everyone enjoys that freedom. As I generally say to my patients "Drink/drugs sometimes make a good time better, but they'll always make a bad time worse" or words to that effect. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 02:10
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> too many bozos seem to think that by escalating their use of mind-altering substances they will somehow get back to the state they enjoyed in the early days, Heh heh... alas, yes, one gets used to anything in time, too soon really, but you have to be quite thick not to notice that simply upping the dose doesn't just not work, it's toxic and extravagant... Some drugs are worse than others as any fule kno. Some even encourage reflection, in those capable of it. Others though - alcohol for example, or amphetamine (very gently treated in the graph you linked to) can do a lot of physical harm when people go overcentre and start really poisoning themselves. Drinkers can die of sudden huge stomach bleeding crises, speedheads can do all kinds of crazy stuff that strains the heart. Back in the day - half a century ago - everyone I knew took lots of speed. You could buy Preludin over the counter, and there were all sorts of useful pills easily obtained, 'Purple hearts' (actually blue and roundedly triangular), black bombers (large black capsules with a very big dose in them) and so on. There was even a nasal inhaler called Nasotone (the more superficially tempting Benzedrex was no good) that you could break open, then swallow the horrible evil bit of paper inside which had a huge hit but didn't do your stomach, nose or throat any favours. A very posh friend of mine had to be treated for amphetamine addiction or poisoning in the Atkinson Morley, he now tells me. Women used to take Preludin as a slimmer. Some gave it to their daughters. I was there comrade. It was quite amusing, but it was best to have your wits about you, knowImean? |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:44
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> everyone I knew took lots of speed. Of course it had been widely propagated and used during WW2 by the armed forces who often needed to stay alert when they should have been asleep. One of its effects is to suppress appetite, so later it was thoughtlessly sold to women as a slimmer until it was realised a lot were getting hooked and damaging their health. French intellectuals are a right bunch of speedheads. Quite apart from Jean-Paul Sartre who practically lived on the stuff, I can think of two fairly prominent intellos alive today who have done a lot of it in their time. The problem with it really is that it works very well, better and more reliably than any other substance I've tried. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 13:17
Health food, etc. - Alanovich
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>> Benzedrex Street name, "The Embalmer", according to Danny the pusher in Whithnail and I. Is that true, AC, or is it artistic licence? Favourite film of mine, that. No that I ever was tempted to try anything other than cannabis once, in Amsterdam, and it gave me a horrible dose of "the fear". I'll stick to my moderate consumption of booze and the odd ski trip. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 13:40
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> Street name, "The Embalmer", according to Danny the pusher in Whithnail and I. Is that true, AC, or is it artistic licence? It's true. Benzedrex didn't work, Nasotone really really did... but it was disgusting to take and you kept burping up this ghastly pong of stuff from your burned stomach. Sorry if it causes offence, but I didn't much like the Withnail movie. The characters were annoying and they were nasty and stupid in their treatment of their perfectly good Jaguar. I thought it a bit silly, but those a generation younger often seem to like it. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 13:52
Health food, etc. - Alanovich
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>> Sorry if it causes offence, but I didn't much like the Withnail movie. Blimey, I wouldn't be offended by someone disliking a film I like. I can't stand Pulp Fiction or any of Tarantino's childish guff, but it seems I'm in a minority on that one. That opinion did manage to offend someone once, but it wasn't anyone I was particularly fond of anyway. Seems to me that the Jag in Withnail was probably well and truly rogered before they got their hands on it, although it has always struck me that, with the film being set in 1969, the Jag was far too young to be in that advanced a state of decay. When did they start making that model? P.S. Don't threaten me with a dead fish. :-) |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 13:51
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> cannabis once, in Amsterdam, and it gave me a horrible dose of "the fear". Heh heh... like many another Alanović. I think it highly probable that the fear was already present before you even tasted the dope though: you were probably among strangers you thought of as professional semi-criminals, enough to make anyone feel a bit anxious. Under different circumstances you might have taken to it and become a dope bore like me. Think of that! :o} |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 13:59
Health food, etc. - Alanovich
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I was amongst fellow first year University students on a post-exam road trip. In a beige 1.6 Montego which one of the lads had bagged from his Nan. She didn't know we were taking it to the Dam until she got a phone call asking her to courier the spare keys over to our hostel. The keys had gone missing along with their owner's trousers overnight when our dorm was robbed - I was the only one left with any trousers as I'd slept in them due to my dose of "the fear" rendering me almost paralysed. Which also meant I was the only one left with a wallet and had to support the rest of the mob for several days whilst we waited for the keys - Dutch customs kept the parcel for several days as it contained some cash from the kindly and forgiving Nan, which had to be checked and authorised before being delivered in those days. Days before the customs union, days which so many seem to have forgotten about and wish us to return to................ :-) ETA - we got sniffer dogged by Belgian customs on the way back too, the wee daggies prompting a full and fairly intimate body search for all of us by some pretty big and ugly Customs geezers with moustaches. Grim. Last edited by: Alanović on Mon 24 Feb 14 at 14:03
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 14:17
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> fellow first year University students on a post-exam road trip. In a beige 1.6 Montego which one of the lads had bagged from his Nan. She didn't know we were taking it to the Dam until she got a phone call asking her to courier the spare keys over to our hostel. >> I was the only one left with any trousers as I'd slept in them due to my dose of "the fear" rendering me almost paralysed. That's hilarious Alanović. No wonder you liked Withnail... you'd already lived through a version of it in real life. Background anxiety and tension aren't always entirely logical. Although four or five fellow-students would certainly feel less scared among Amsterdam dope racketeers than one on his own, a couple of days in stressed proximity with one's own friends can render one quite wired and tense, I have found... Cannabis is good for reflexion, artistic vision and appreciation, but pretty useless for fighting and hustling. Peace and love man... |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 15:06
Health food, etc. - Alanovich
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>> Peace and love man... Those commodities were in short supply as I tried to find enough readies to buy three stoned idiots a pair of trousers each, keep them fed, try to talk them out of spending what little I had on hash cakes and keep the hostel manager sweet for a few nights whilst we waited for the Nan's cash to arrive. Sheesh. Oh, and the Montego was parked in a street space with a parking meter, so we had to have someone on constant "Chips" duty explaining to every passing traffic warden what had happened and waving the police report regarding the stolen trousers to prove it. I needed a drink after all that............. :-) |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 15:23
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> I needed a drink after all that............. Tsk. Multiple addiction, the curse of the incautious classes. :o} |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 08:01
Health food, etc. - Meldrew
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| Cannabis is thought to cause mental/psychiatric harm though and I have a son who appears to be proof of that. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 08:23
Health food, etc. - Runfer D'Hills
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As the years advance I become increasingly disinterested in what others do with reference to substances which alter their minds or health. It's up to them by and large. When I was younger though, it amused me and my close friends to observe how many of those who took drugs or drank to excess saw themselves as the "cool" ones. Those of us who didn't, and were a "a bit sporty" saw them as complete and utter twonks at the time. We used to believe we got high on our own adrenalin. I think I probably still do, but I really couldn't care less if others want to injest or otherwise intake drugs. I'd probably still prefer they didn't do it when around me in truth, but what they choose to do is their affair. I would be devastated if my son decided at some point it was for him but I'm not naive enough to believe I could stop him if he was determined to do it. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:14
Health food, etc. - J Bonington Jagworth
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'Everything in moderation' seems a sensible rule, but not everyone seems to grasp it, or perhaps know when moderation has been reached. I get cross when Carlsberg Special (a very pleasant tipple, IMO) is removed from the shelves to satisfy the nanny tendency who want to save us all from ourselves. I was amused to hear an oblique reference to cannabis growing in Gardeners' Question Time on R4 yesterday, as someone had asked about LED growing lights. These use a lot less electricity than the old incandescents and generate proportionately less heat, making converted attics much harder to spot from the air with IR cameras. Progress, eh? :-) |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:27
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> increasingly disinterested in what others do with reference to substances which alter their minds or health. It's up to them by and large. Reading between the lines Humph, you seem to be saying that substance habits are boring. I can only agree. Like virtually all habits they are petty and repetitive. As sometimes in the past, I rather wish I hadn't started this thread. It's just that a visit to my old manor and youthful stamping ground makes sentimental memories well up. But I should really have kept them to myself. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:18
Health food, etc. - Armel Coussine
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>> Cannabis is thought to cause mental/psychiatric harm though Who thinks this, and what is the thought process? Enormous effort has been devoted to the attempt to establish that in the public mind, with a large measure of success. The main social effect has been to scramble public perception to such an extent that adventurous and curious youngsters, deprived of sound information, hurl themselves into experimentation with all sorts of substances some of which really are harmful. On cannabis, I said times had changed and depressive adolescents were now harming themselves by smoking too much (easily obtained from the 'market') skunk and not thinking enough. If you prefer a bit of medical authority, Lygonos says above that drink and drugs may make a good occasion better, but is likely to make a bad one worse. That is certainly so in my experience. No one should panic about their offspring trying cannabis. It's so widespread that few over 20 have never tasted it. It isn't everyone's cup of tea and most don't take to it. Other substances, booze, crack and heroin in particular (but who in their right mind would get high on ketamine, a horse tranquillizer I ask you, as many young do these days) are a different matter. But parents wishing to advise their children will only exacerbate the situation if they haven't a clue what they are talking about. Adolescents are often resistant to good advice, but they can tell the difference between serious information and hysterical superstitious faffing. They really can. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:27
Health food, etc. - bathtub tom
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>> Cannabis is thought to cause mental/psychiatric harm though Or are people who are susceptible to mental/psychiatric harm more likely to try the stuff? Never been tempted myself. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 12:41
Health food, etc. - Fursty Ferret
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>> >> Cannabis is thought to cause mental/psychiatric harm though >> >> Or are people who are susceptible to mental/psychiatric harm more likely to try the stuff? >> >> Never been tempted myself. >> Suspect that any semi-addictive substance would lead to irrational behaviour and self harm. Look at the number of people in town centres clutching a can of Tennants and shouting at the walls and you'll see the only difference between alcohol and cannabis is that one is legalised and a useful tax revenue for the government, and one isn't. I suspect it'll be legalised within 10 years. |
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New Mon 24 Feb 14 14:48
Health food, etc. - J Bonington Jagworth
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"I suspect it'll be legalised within 10 years." Or alcohol won't be! (cf. smoking) |
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