Pay-per-minute confessional booth?
Eh, I don’t need to get high for that… even without a kid involved.
Maybe that’s why The Nephew runs for the blocks and the box of colored pencils when I’m babysitting, but barely looks at them when his mom is in charge. She insists on making him play by The Rules (i.e., in a single and extremely boring way).
I can honestly say the same thing about caffeine, and yet people are encouraged (by their employment, via coffee pots no less) to consume as much as possible on a daily basis.
But what are a few PVC’s when you need to get the job done, eh?
Takes a sip of Dr. Pepper
Ok, point taken. I should have said, I’ve never personally seen pot enhance creativity. Anyway, I would hazard a guess that the folks you mention would probably have produced musical hits with or without pot (or other drugs). They were good at what they did, either because of or despite (I don’t know which) their use of drugs.
Heh, I love caffeine. It does me plenty of good - makes me productive rather than falling asleep at my desk, which is probably why employers endorse it. I never drink the office coffee, though. That’s just gross. 
For me, the negative issues are two-fold, and neither of them has anything to do with the morality of smoking pot.
First, I personally find it tough to live a dishonest life, where I am hiding a prinicipal activity or hobby from people who know, love, or respect me out of fear of their disapproval. It’s just not worth it to me. I realize there’s a line between “privacy,” where you are simply choosing not to discuss things you do at home, and “dishonesty,” where you are actively hiding things you do at home (which feels like dishonesty to me), and not everyone draws it in the same place. But I personally would have a difficult time with a primary form of recreation that was disapproved of by my friends and family, not to mention my pastor. I realize this is not everyone’s POV, that some people think it’s a bit of a giggle to be “naughty,” or genuinely don’t give a rat’s ass for the opinions of others, but those are not my POV. I would feel I would have to hide something like regular toking up, and I’m not much for hiding stuff.
Second, and more importantly IMO, smoking a couple of bowls after work, and more on the weekend, sounds like wasted time to me. I’m not much of a fan of any activity that renders a person passive and inert – and that includes sitting on your ass watching TV without the addition of any mood altering substances whatsoever. My experience in a relationship with a dedicated pot smoker was that he was was consistently too relaxed. I couldn’t get to excited about a social activity where the high point of the evening was a run to 7-11 for more Fritos.
Like Nawth Chucka, I had a bad experience with a guy who valued getting high on “only pot” more than he valued being present, straight, in a relationship with me and who retreated into dishonesty when confronted about it. (If a gratuitous snarky comment about how mind alteration is needed to date me crosses your mind, feel free to insert it here.) And like pbbth says, I found him a very bad judge of the negative impact of his “hobby,” not just on me but on his family, friends, and colleagues. People who walk around baked are not as fun as they think they are, and they don’t pass for straight nearly as well as they think they do – witness your pastor, presumably rather drug-naive, and his recognition of your condition.
But if for you smoking on the down low is is truly a harmless activity, having no negative impact on your life, and if your girlfriend doesn’t care, then ISTM that other people’s problem with it is just that – their problem.
I thought the joke was kind of famous, but I only found this version online after an exhastive 15-second search. It’s the first joke that Elijah Wood is struggling to tell.
It just sounded like the OP has done all this wonderful stuff but now will only be known for being a pothead.
Sure, they all had raw talent and a dedication to their art which would have ensured successful music careers for all of them. But the difference between the world’s best studio musician and a musical legend is that the legend creates beautiful art that speaks to people. Jimi Hendrix would have been a guitar virtuoso with or without drugs. Charlie Parker would have been a sax virtuoso with or without drugs (although the question of whether he would have regularly spent 12-16 hours at a time practicing relentlessly without amphetamines is open to debate). Those people had passion for their art and their instruments and they could blow people away on technical proficiency alone. But the true genius of Hendrix and Parker was not that they were virtuosos; that was just the necessary foundation. No, their true genius was in venturing into the depths of their minds, finding artifacts that were wondrous and beautiful in their alien splendor and richly expressive in their complexity, and bringing them back to this world. Did they have a completely non-drug-related gift for translating those artifacts into music that humans could understand? Absolutely. But, from my own knowledge and experience with psychedelics, I will insist until my dying day that the artifacts themselves would have never been found if those performers hadn’t taken that journey into their own minds, and that the world would today be a poorer place for it.
Even if you focus just on jazz, the difference is clear. There are probably great, even legendary, jazz performers out there who didn’t/don’t do drugs–Wynton and Branford Marsalis come to mind as people who seem like they would say no, although I’m not sure–but the soaring brilliance of the world’s most expressive jazz music is absolutely due to the performer’s ability to communicate his/her own drug visions, the way I see it. The biggest point in this argument’s favor is that the music of the greatest jazz musicians who were also heroin users sounds like heroin feels. If you’ve never been on heroin, you’ll just have to take my word for it, but believe you me, the resemblance is immediately and blatantly obvious to anyone who has. For an example of the opposite phenomenon, take my music history teachers: great jazz players, very proficient on their instruments, and one has an incredible voice, and they’re clean as a whistle. Their solos run to the mundane and their most stable income opportunities are as college faculty. Take the contrast between Gilbert Castellanos, king of the Southern California jazz scene, recognized as one of the world’s top five trumpeters, who plays around the world to critical acclaim and spends just under half the year playing in San Diego solely because he feels like it; and Derek Cannon, one of the aforementioned teachers who’s universally recognized as a great trumpeter in the local scene: in a room full of people who have seen Derek play, you can say “Derek’s awesome; it’s impossible not to love his work” and everyone will agree, yet most jazz critics outside of the region have probably never heard of him, he plays in San Diego mostly because that’s where he can get gigs, and his most stable work is teaching college students and playing in house bands. Derek, great guy and great player that he is, will probably tell you that the difference is in technical ability. I know them both as people and musicians and I think the bigger difference is that while Derek can play a great solo with feeling and with technical ability, Gilbert can use his trumpet to play something that plugs right into your brain and blows your mind. Now, I don’t know either of them well enough to say that Gilbert takes drugs and Derek doesn’t, but that’s the vibe I get from them and their styles (and musical success levels) are reminiscent of where I’ve seen that line fall more often than not.
My point, basically, is this: the tragedy of Charlie Parker was not that heroin destroyed an otherwise amazing mind and career, but that his delivery of an incredible/essential/earth-shaking musical and artistic message to the world would not have been possible without the drugs that also destroyed him.
:smack: I didn’t know I had a different choice for my morning commute. That’s it, I’m moving to Virginia.
The idea that creative genius must be fueled by, or even generally is fueled by, drug use sounds like utter bullshit to me.
Getting back to the post title - be careful of defining yourself with the “bad person/good person” dichotomy. In my experience, the personal accounting used in this determination can become a slippery slope. At the risk of godwin-izing this thread, some people engage in all sorts of bad behavior, but because they call their mothers every week and pet the dog, they feel justified in calling themselves a “good person”. My recommendation is that a better strategy is to abandon the notion altogether.
That said - regarding the pot use: Would you feel comfortable being operated on by a surgeon who you know is a frequent recreational pot user (FRPU)? How about riding on an airplane piloted by someone you know is a FRPU? Would you want your children regularly left in the care of a FRPU?
Now, as for yourself - Do you feel there are things you would like to do that you know you can’t / shouldn’t because you are a FRPU? Like become a surgeon or airline pilot, or run for elected office some day? In other words, are you in any way tailoring your life choices around your usage? If this is the case, does that make you feel good, or not so good?
Just some things to think about.
Why don’t you try reading my post again, and come back when you find me claiming that, or even arguing for any majority correlation between drug use and genius-level expressiveness/creativity in any field outside of rock and jazz music?
FTR, anyone who thinks that young drug users are shut out from elected office in later life should probably pay more attention to American politics.
You can limit my opinion to rock and jazz music if you like; it still stands. I have no idea how you (general you, anyone) would go about diffferentiating between drug-addled genius and plain ol’ genius. Sounds like junkie logic to me.
I should clarify that I’m not calling you or anyone else a junkie. This just sounds like the sort of logic a junkie would use.
To answer in order:
Yes. (BTW- Doctors always have the best weed)
Yes.
Possibly- Only because some people are not responsible enough to know when work begins and playtime ends. If my children were cared for in a private home, I would be a bit skeptical unless I really knew the person. (Of course, I would hope I wouldn’t leave my kids with someone I didn’t trust- whether it be drug use or anything else) In a more public setting- no problems.
I’m pretty sure that without caffeine, you could be productive as well. I’m certain that if Mother Nature had thought we needed to be wired 24/7, she would have made us like that in the first place.
As Jodi said: Sounds like junkie logic to me. 
This is the kind of ignorance-infected handwaving that gets us nowhere. Your “opinion” doesn’t “stand” on anything other than your fear of “junkies”.
Well, I’ll sure sleep better now that I have your carefully-worded backhanded approval. Thanks.
I, for one, am much more productive–especially in the morning–since I gave up caffeine.
Well, you probably aren’t a bad person because you smoke pot. Unless you happen to be Black and it’s making you lust after white women. I heard it can do that.
I guess the question you might want to ask yourself is why you want to get high every day. I mean I like drinking, but I just can’t drink every day.
And pot can have an effect on you if you keep using it that much over a long period of time. Those dopie burn-out types didn’t start out that way.
I’m not saying you should stop. You just shouldn’t make a lifestyle of it.
Because you are now responsible for those who can’t be responsible for themselves.
Other than that toke for life!
<ZZZZZ#~~~
“Yes” it “does,” because “you” are not the arbiter of the validity of my point of view, not even with your “extraneous” use of “quotation marks.” Your thesis is stupid. No surprise you disagree but that doesn’t make me wrong, much less ignorant or fearful.
Ah, a master of debate. Your argument has won me over. Of course, I never expected you to simply deny being ignorant and fearful; now that you have, we know for a fact that your position is sound. Well played.