Why Are Stoners Typically Depicted as Stupid?

[bad rider]

If you disagree with a law isn't the best course of action to publicly break it?

Um, no. Or people would beat each other just for being alive. Or shoot them. Or steal from them. Or evade paying their taxes. Wait...

-Edit, please ignore this. My reply was written while I felt a little bit erked. Sorry folks. Heres some anti depressants.

Spoiler: Anti depressants

The hate is gone, all you feel now is kittens

 

[s0denone]

I realise I had quite an argument with Susan Arendt there, so I'd like to contribute to the thread on a lighter and more positive note.

Enjoy the very on-topic
THE STREETS - THE IRONY OF IT ALL

Brilliant "song" by an equally brilliant "band". Fucking awesome vid, too.

 

[NOT WILL]

All the stoners I know are stupid
If you smoke weed don`t it kill your brain cells

 

[Wolfram23]

Meh while high you generally act odd, but not necessarily stupid unless you're going to be so patronizing that you think being unable to think of the name of a show you watched the night before that was really funny makes you stupid.

I think a lot of stupid people are stoners tho, so it somewhat makes sense. But you can smoke pot and not be retarded. I was a stoner for several years, smoking after school every day and on weekends, at it's worst I did in fact wake and bake before school a handful of times but usually felt bad for doing that so I mostly kept it to the after school special. Anyway, graduated from Mechanical Engineering Technology that way.

However, I've since quit (it's been... oh... half a year maybe more) and I feel good. I wouldn't say I feel like I'm any smarter or better at recollecting things. It's easy to say "you just think you're smart, you're really dumb" but at least I can say that while not a greatly accurate source I did score 135 on an online IQ test which was tied with one friend (has a BSc and is doing a Pharmacy degree) and beat some other friends who are colledge graduates and such.

I find in most depictions of stoners, it's really just sad. They're completely fucked. Probably the best depiction of stoners I've seen is Grandma's Boy. Great movie. Only that one guy, the dealer, is truely a retarded pot head the rest of them are all pretty normal guys/girls.

 

[Blue_vision]

That is one incredibly weak argument against drugs. They hurt you so they are bad? Therefore any contact sport like rugby, football, boxing, ultimate fighting competition etc should be banned as well yeah? Weak-minded fools playing a sport that could potentially injure them for life, possibly kill them, just for the sheer pleasure of playing their preferred sport. Why is there no choice? If people were allowed to smoke pot there would be nothing forcing you to start smoking it, so why are you so against others getting high?

Not speaking for the last poster, but I'm against other people getting high because there's a lot more useful and/or fulfilling things that people can do than getting high. If someone wants to spend their days slouched on the couch and not doing shit because they're stoned, I think that's a pretty fucking big waste of your life. I consider those things harmful to your health actually living life. I don't consider turning your brain off to really be living it.
By doing drugs, you're skipping the real point in living. Sure, boxing or playing football might release those same chemicals into your brain, but when you're just sticking them into yourself, life becomes utterly meaningless.

 

[TheBaron87]

It's all about perspective. If you're an idiot, the people around you will seem smart. If you're smart, the people around you seem like idiots.

You're 16 years old and have nearly twenty thousand posts on a single forum... somehow it doesn't surprise me that you would be confused about this.

 

[Wolfram23]

All the stoners I know are stupid
If you smoke weed don`t it kill your brain cells

Not exactly. Alcohol is significantly worse for brain damage. Weed releases dopamine in excess, which is what makes it so addictive to people. Eventually the brain is used to it tho and it sort of mellows out the effect. The dopamine usage downside is that afterwards you don't have as much and that can lead to feelings of depression, which makes a person want to smoke again to get that high/dopamine release.

 

[Rakkana]

All the ones I know are pretty stupid.

 

[Necrofudge]

Uhm, I have no never done drugs myself so correct me if I am wrong but..
Doesn't being high etc generally make you unable/make it harder to think properly? Would seem fairly normal to me in that case.

Yeah... While you're high. As far as I know, marijuana has no long term affects on IQ.
Other drugs might, like cocaine, heroin, and LCD, but they're more concentrated and harder to find on a student's budget.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

All stoners I know ARE really that weakminded....


I guess it takes a non-stoner to know one.

Pretty much that. Some are stupid and a few are I guess average... They aren't really stupid, but they aren't exactly smart either...

 

[Yoshemo]

Because succumbing to the temptation of drugs is a sure sign of a weak mind and will.

And because people aren't exactly in their most clever state when they are high:

This.
Can't people just be happy without shoving poison in their blood 24/7?

Why is it weak minded to challenge the moral barriers created by goverments?
IMO, its weaker just to accept what you're told.

Its not weak minded to challenge the standards of society. I'm a gay rights activist, a Libertarian, and an Atheist myself.
Drugs are for weak minded fools because most people do them to be more popular, to be rebellious, or to escape reality. Drugs, including Pot, have serious side effects and damage your health and/or mental capacity. Pot causes cancer, kills many brain cells, and is addicting.
Drugs hurt you so they are bad

That is one incredibly weak argument against drugs. They hurt you so they are bad? Therefore any contact sport like rugby, football, boxing, ultimate fighting competition etc should be banned as well yeah? Weak-minded fools playing a sport that could potentially injure them for life, possibly kill them, just for the sheer pleasure of playing their preferred sport. Why is there no choice? If people were allowed to smoke pot there would be nothing forcing you to start smoking it, so why are you so against others getting high?

Cutting yourself also has its uses. But its bad because it hurts you. Same with suicide and seeing how long you can hold your hand on a hot stove

Yes and i'm saying I see no difference in playing sport or cutting yourself. Not that i'm going to run off and start cutting myself, i'm fairly certain I wouldn't enjoy that. But others might, who knows? There are some strange people in the world. I find it slightly ridiculous though that just because you don't enjoy something that's bad for you, it somehow gives you an imaginary right to tell people that they are not allowed to do it.

You also misunderstand the concept of "bad". It's not specifically things that hurt you but things that hurt you when you don't intend them to hurt you. In that sense, being run over when you don't notice the car coming, yes that's bad. Pumping drugs into your system when fully aware of the concequences, that's fine by me.

Because you don't try to get hurt in sports. Thats why we have shoulder pads and helmets for football, helmets for baseball, and gloves and tooth guards for boxing. With drugs and cutting yourself, there's no way to avoid physical damage.
Drugs can and will hurt people when they use them. Thats why its bad.

 

[bad rider]

If you disagree with a law isn't the best course of action to publicly break it?

Um, no. Or people would beat each other just for being alive. Or shoot them. Or steal from them. Or evade paying their taxes. Wait...

Edit: Sorry about the earlier post, just felt a button get pressed is all. Note I call this an edit, really it's a, incase you don't read the post I just edited.

 

[kaizen2468]

LOL, have you ever hung around stoners? Like hard stoners? They are stupid, maybe not always, but when they're blitzed yeah they're fucking stupid.

 

[garfoldsomeoneelse]

Because associating negative traits with the effects of drugs is the easiest way to keep people from questioning the validity of the laws that prohibit them. As more and more disinformation is dissolved in front of the public's eyes (thanks to living in the information age, and having the internet, which is an unregulated medium where what you're allowed to say is not limited to what a government organization gives the green-light to), people begin to realize just how ridiculous these scare-tactic assertions are.

As a result, we have proposition 19 in California, which is a November ballot allowing the citizens of California to vote on whether or not to fully legalize recreational use of marijuana, and the sale thereof. I hope to god we've come far enough as a society to pass it.

Edit: This is the sort of disinformation that I'm talking about.

Drugs, including Pot, have serious side effects and damage your health and/or mental capacity. Pot causes cancer, kills many brain cells, and is addicting.
Drugs hurt you so they are bad

Every non-biased, serious study of the effects of marijuana has concluded that those are bogus.

See this for reference: http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

 

[Fwee]

Because people on any substance that makes them feel good are walking around with a brain saturated with all the "feel good" chemicals that a brain can produce. Imagine the first time you made out with someone for an hour straight, and how well your brain worked afterward. Anyone with a modicum of honesty will tell you they stumbled around grinning like a moron for the rest of the day. It's basically the same effect. So the real problem is that when people are really happy, they get dumb.
I've had a ten-year off/on relationship with cannabis, and I must say that I know my limitations and the times when it's appropriate for me to enjoy a high. It takes practice to become responsible.

 

[NeutralMunchHotel]

Publicly admitting to committing a crime really isn't in your best interests.

Did I say that I smoke weed?

Because I don't, I'm merely asking if anyone here does and it didn't seem like that much of a problem before. I've seen people here admit it.

And yet that doesn't change the fact that it's not a wise move.

No, I can agree that it isn't smart to come out and admit that you do illegal substances but back on that last thing you said something along the lines of "You act stupid when you smoke pot" (excuse my paraphrasing there). This is not always the case.

Some people actually use pot as a creative and intellectual stimulate and if it works for them, it's not hurting anybody, I say let them do it.

This isn't about my personal opinion about whether or not someone smokes pot. This is about whether or not it's smart to publicly admit committing a crime. Which, whether it should be or not, smoking weed is.

But, why should it matter?

It's not like the rest of the Internet follows this rule, and if the Escapist wants to ban people for a crime completely outside their bounds then that's just laughable.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

I think the problem is people are confusing the idea of stupid.
Was John Lennon stupid?
Were Bob Dylan or Jimmi Hendrix?

Hendrix took 9 of a sleeping pill that you typically take a half of one, I love the guy...but that's less than smart if you don't want to die.

OT: Exaggeration is the easiest way to flesh out a character, especially for comedic purposes.

Last I checked, spending your money on addictive, illegal substances isn't a sign of intelligence.

Well, first of all, pot isn't addictive. You may develop a psychological craving for the drug, but it is not addictive. As for the second bit of that (illegal substance), there are other substances out there that are even more addictive and worse for you (see tobacco and alcohol). If anything, it would make more sense to waste your money on the non-addictive, mind-altering illegal substance, rather than spending money on actually addictive substances that will give you many more problems quicker.

weed kills your brains cells which has for consequence the effect of making you stupid, simple as.

Source? Because I would love to see the proof that pot kills braincells (kinda like alcohol does - but wait, that doesn't count because it's ok since it is legal), especially since they have done studies that say that pot can slow the advance of Alzheimer's (that's the funky disease that kills your brain cells, and destroys your memory)

Neither directly kill brain cells, but that's not to say that they both can't lead to problems.

 

[Tsaba]

it's that Butthead (Beavis and Butthead) laugh they get when you know where baked for 3 years of their lives, you'll know it when you hear it.

 

[Red Right Hand]

That is one incredibly weak argument against drugs. They hurt you so they are bad? Therefore any contact sport like rugby, football, boxing, ultimate fighting competition etc should be banned as well yeah? Weak-minded fools playing a sport that could potentially injure them for life, possibly kill them, just for the sheer pleasure of playing their preferred sport. Why is there no choice? If people were allowed to smoke pot there would be nothing forcing you to start smoking it, so why are you so against others getting high?

Not speaking for the last poster, but I'm against other people getting high because there's a lot more useful and/or fulfilling things that people can do than getting high. If someone wants to spend their days slouched on the couch and not doing shit because they're stoned, I think that's a pretty fucking big waste of your life. I consider those things harmful to your health actually living life. I don't consider turning your brain off to really be living it.
By doing drugs, you're skipping the real point in living. Sure, boxing or playing football might release those same chemicals into your brain, but when you're just sticking them into yourself, life becomes utterly meaningless.

I'm sorry but that's bullshit. I'm not going to make the assumption that youy have or have not smoked weed before, so i'll say this: I am so glad I started smoking weed because since then i've become a lot more mellow and happier. I used to be fairly aggressive and tense all of the time but weed, plus a tiny bit of acid, has made me realise that I don't have to be like that. Granted, not everyone is going to be the same as me, however, your point that you would spend all day doing nothing is totally invalid as you can still function when you're high. I've spent about 2 years smoking weed and i'm going to study a science degree at a good university. I'm still gonna smoke weed when i'm there. I'm determined to succeed. So smoking pot is ruined for me by all of the other lazy stoners? Hmmmm, that seems fair to me.......

Also, all of the friends that I know smoke weed are also going off the university and are very likely to succeed. Unlike most of the crowd who go out every Saturday night drinking and in my opinion becoming the real fools.