Perhaps one of the more recent examples would be Marc Emery's US Federal Prison blog #10: Letter to Jodie including the comments by myself and others. I could give other examples from posts in this forum but don't see any point in that at this time ... i suppose people will see what they want to see. Well, at least so far you seem to understand the arrogant ... dickish asshole part.

If I recall correctly (and please correct me if I'm wrong) you like to think that the Bible is a stumbling block to humanity. Well, I think the religious bigotry of the CC community is a stumbling block to the cannabis legalization movement. However, humanity has managed to survive for a while and cannabis will eventual be legalized ... in spite of any stumbling blocks.

Re "Well, at least so far you seem to understand the arrogant ... dickish asshole part."

Yah, I hope you work that out, you seem to have so much trouble with that part of your personality, and it comes out in your petty off topic nittpicky posts. As for me, i've decided to embrace and incoporate that aspect of myself into my schtick and have some fun with it

Well the Bible, is Ceasar's Bible, but as the Doobie brothers said, Jesus is just alright by me. I totally reject most of the Bible, as I am a neo-Gnostic pagan, with strong Shaivite tendencies, not a follower of the bastardization of Ceasar's
Bible. Have you ever read my research into Jesus use of cannabis for healing?
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1301.html
http://hightimes.com/news/ht_admin/139

And a great article by Dr. andrew Weil which discusses the latest on the healing powers of god's tree of life.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/can-cannabis-treat-cancer_b_701005.html

I really can help you with that bad case of biblical indigegestion you have..... http://www.forbiddenfruitpublishing.com/SexDrugs/Book

OK! I think we are far enough from the original discussion that we can make a full loop and come back to it. Although I must admit, Gitche and Chris, that I very much enjoyed the self-indulgent intellectual digression.

But back to my original point. I believe what first set me off about Chris's comments was his referral to the use of cannabis for spiritual practices and the pursuit of enlightenment (I'm too lazy to go back and read what was actually said). I found his claims a little hasty and then several pages of argument ensued.

But nonetheless, I took chris's statements to - in a rather crude sense - mean that cannabis is "good" for you. I saw this as against my stance on the issue and we all know what happened.

So, anyway, I've heard in a lot of contexts people suggesting things almost to the point of implying that we have evolved to have a biochemistry which must be properly supplemented by cannabis use. Hence the justification for its use in enlightenment practices. I have a lot of points to make here but i will just start off candidly and leave things open:

The time frame of cannabis use in human history and the fraction of the population which would have been using it to their advantage in order to survive (i.e. a selective pressure to integrate cannabis use into our biochemistry much like food and nutrients) could never have existed based on any known records, largely because history only goes back a few thousand years which is so short a time frame there would of had to have been one hell of a selective pressure.

To add to that, the manual regulation of our biochemistry in any context is always going to be a very course and biased procedure. Biochemical balances are far too intricate and delicate for someone to think it practical to moderate one aspect of it themselves. It's just stupid to think that (sorry, but it is). The only case where it is remotely practical is if a person has some physical abnormality which requires manual intervention, much like a prosthetic limb. But should everyone get a peg leg cause it helped one guy?

...I feel like elaborating (as I always do) but I will just wait and see what people say...

Re"The time frame of cannabis use in human history and the fraction of the population which would have been using it to their advantage in order to survive (i.e. a selective pressure to integrate cannabis use into our biochemistry much like food and nutrients) could never have existed based on any known records, largely because history only goes back a few thousand years which is so short a time frame there would of had to have been one hell of a selective pressure."

Not true at all, from my new book, Cannabis and the Soma Solution:

As Europe has the oldest archaeological evidence of the use of cannabis for psychoactive purposes, it seems an appropriate place to begin our study. As explained by Israeli researcher Lumír Ond ej Hanu , in his discussion of humanity’s ancient relationship with cannabis and the development of the (endo)cannabinoid system in both plant and man, the time span for European man’s relationship with cannabis is considerably vast:

"Recent discoveries from Southern Moravia in the Czech Republic provide circumstantial evidence of the oldest use of hemp. The inhabitants of the two most famous eastern Gravettian settlements, the upper paleolithic sites of Pavlov and DolnıVstonice some 29,000 to 22,000 years ago were expert weavers. The Czech archeologist Klım unearthed clay fragments bearing a series of impressions from a zone that was radiocarbon dated to between 26,980 and 24,870 years ago."

"According to Adovasio, the impressions were almost certainly created from fabrics woven of fibers from wild plants, such as nettle or wild hemp, that were preserved by accident. "

“Because the impressions of the Pavlov and Vestonice fibers are not of the highest resolution, it is presently only possible to specify which plants they may represent. In this case, it seems that nettle or, more remotely, wild hemp are possible choices whose presence in the area is attested to by pollen. If we had better impressions, it might be possible to specify with greater precision which of these two plant sources or some other plant source might be represented.” It is tempting to assume that this site may have produced the world’s oldest archeological evidence of Cannabis use." (Hanu , 2008)

Hanu time frame fits in well with Elizabeth Wayland Barber’s, who is considered the foremost authority on ancient textiles and weaving, and believe that hemp was used “since 25,000 B.C. at least” (Barber, 1999). In relation to the time period suggested, it is interesting to note that other scientists (again like Hanu top researchers in the field of the study of cannibinoids), have postulated that plant based cannibinoids ingested by ancient Man, may have been responsible for pre-historic man’s “Great Leap Forward”.

The study of cannabis has led to all sorts of new medical and scientific discoveries through investigations into the psychoactive and medicinal properties of the plant, found in plant ligands, that resemble the indigenous (endo)cannibinoids in the human body. The reason cannabis makes us high is that certain molecules in cannabis resins are able to mimic similar shaped molecules in the human body, and attach themselves to receptors in man’s brain and body. How these similarities between cannibinoids found in hemp and those in man developed is a subject of much current speculation, and theories about some sort of coevoletionary development have become the topic of current scientific thought. Doctors John McPartland and Geoffery Guy, in their fascinating paper, THE EVOLUTION OF CANNABIS AND COEVOLUTION WITH THE CANNABIS RECEPTOR – A HYPOTHESIS, postulate that a plant ligand, such as the cannibinoids of the hemp plant, “may exert sufficient selection pressure to maintain the gene for a receptor in an animal. If the plant ligand improves the fitness of the receptor by serving as a ‘proto-medicine’ or a performance-enhancing substance, the ligand-receptor association could be evolutionarily conserved” (McPartland & Guy, 2004).

"In a hunter-gatherer society, the ability of phytocannabinoids to improve smell, night vision, discern edge and enhance perception of colour would improve evolutionary fitness of our species. Evolutionary fitness essentially mirrors reproductive success, and phytocannibinoids enhance the sensation of touch and the sense of rhythm, two sensual responses that may lead to increased replication rates."

"Some authors have proposed that cannabis was the catalyst that synergised the emergence of syntactic language in Neolithic humans (McKenna, 1992) . Language, in turn, probably caused what anthropologists call ‘the great leap forward’ in human behaviour, when humans suddenly crafted better tools out of new materials (e.g. fishhooks from bone, spear handles from wood, rope from hemp), developed art (e.g. painting, pottery, musical instruments), began using boats, and evolved intricate social (and religious) organizations. This rather abrupt transformation occurred about 50,000 years ago… this recent burst of human evolution has been described as epigenetic (beyond our genes) – could it be due to the effect of plant ligands [i.e. plant based cannibinoids]?" (McPartland & Guy, 2004)

Archaeological evidence indicating ancient man’s use of hemp 30,000 years ago fits within the time period for Man’s evolutionary ‘Great Leap Forward’. Considering that the location of the cannibinoid receptors are the greatest in the “cerebral cortex, striatum, basal ganglia, cerebellum and thalamus… humans ingesting phytocannibinoids” could have had a considerable evolutionary edge over non-cannabis using homo-sapiens.

"To add to that, the manual regulation of our biochemistry in any context is always going to be a very course and biased procedure. Biochemical balances are far too intricate and delicate for someone to think it practical to moderate one aspect of it themselves"

Some mammals, like man, need vitamin c, some, like see mammals, do not, its due to evolution.

You need to quote sources for, your claim that there have been recent studies discounting cannabis' cancer fighting ability, which you mentioned earlier, and still have failed to document, and for these recent statements, or stop asking me too, as this conversation with you and GG, have been more than a little one sided in both the requests for documentation, and the providing of it.

It should be noted that humanity's development of the endo-cannabinoid system, has little to do with my new book, and that is pretty much all I have on this relationship, the papers referred to can be found on line, and in my biblio posted earlier. but you may have to access them through your school if you don't want to pay.

And in regards to religion, cannabis has been used in religious rituals, according to archeological evidence, for at least 5500 years, which makes this spiritual practice, older than any exisitng religous tradition.

Are you familiar with the work of psychologist Julian Jaynes regarding the origins of religion?

Glad you enjoyed the show ... it was fun

I believe that it is possible to be Cannabis Deficient but I don't believe that cannabis is for everyone. Some people may actually naturally produce more of there own cannabinoids than what they really need. However, as far as I know there is no scientific test to measure this ... or even determine what a "normal" cannabinoid level should be. If there is more info on this then I would like to see it.

Perhaps sometime in the future those that are cannabis or cannabinoid deficient will use a meter to check there blood similar to the way a diabetic uses glucose meter.

Ahhhhh, that its the diction and citation I enjoy! Thank you Chris for the post, it gives me lots to chew on.

But things are beginning to get beyond me. The only humanities I have seriously studied over the past couple years are epistemological and existential philosophy. As far as history goes, well I am know the 19th century quite well, and the 20th, but that is my limit.

I like physics because often debates come down to the math. Unless you get too philosophical about it, in which place you get to where we are and the physics folk will write you off as dabbling with indeterminables.

initially, i was trying to put together a theory that there is a co-evolutionary relationship due to cannabis growing in our waste,(don't forget, cannabinoids pass through urine and can be tested) and even amongst the dead, for millennia, and that with our combined ingestion of cannabis, this somehow influenced both, in a sort of biological feedback loop, but there are so many different cannibinoids and endo-cannabibinoids, alongside other molecules profiles, and I have little knolwedge of biology, it just got to far beyond my understandings, to really lay it out, and decided to focus more on historical facts.

This is an idea I have been pondering on and off for about a decade or more, as this show from 2002 explains, great audio of Michael Pollon's theory on cannabis evolution.
http://pot.tv/archive/shows/pottvshowse-1171.html
stream works, not the torrent