How do drugs affect songwriting?

Oh I wouldn't touch heroin either only things I'd take are shrooms, lsd, cannabis and I'd consider ecstasy but I'm iffy on it.

Everything else is no except for legal highs which I would consider a lot of.

@Dm Gotta keep it natural man. I know btimm said not everything
natural is safe,But id still prefer ingesting A natural high
over a synthetic one.IMHO

Ive never heard of somebody dying from excessive cannabis use.

Shrooms Are probably not good for you,but they come from the earth
and are probably not the worst drug for you. I mean you could get
a bad trip,or OD,but thats the risk you take,so its personal choice and responsibility if something bad happens.

Pills are always a no-no,unless prescribed.

Lsd,Im kinda in the middle,donnt know alot about
acid.Ive heard alot of great minds(albert einstein i think)
have fried,correct me if im wrong.

I have heard (I have not researched this to know if it is factual) that supposedly smoking a normal-sized joint is the equivalent damage to your lungs as smoking a pack of cigarettes. You could make a strong argument then that habitual marijuana use would directly lead to the destruction of your lungs and could very easily kill you. The problem in any research there is that in recent years of data, say the last 50 years, a huge percentage of people who smoked marijuana also smoked cigarettes, so it would be nearly impossible to tell the effects of smoking marijuana on your lungs. I would really need to see more evidence to make any reasonable conclusion. But to blindly assume smoking marijuana does not harm a user is just not true. You are intentionally inhaling smoking for crying out loud, how on earth is that not harmful???

Lung damage comes from inhaling. The reason why cigarettes are so bad is because of all the additives. I don't think I see straight weed doing that to your lungs.

What I could see is a depletion of the ability to carry oxygen to your extremities, due to a lack of oxygen during the smoking process. Since basically you are starving your brain of oxygen, as well as the ability of your red blood cells to carry that oxygen around.

Though I'm not 100% sure, since I have not avidly researched this topic. I smoke hookah about once ever other week, and will sit for hour long sessions each time. This could practically be connected to smoking a pack, but who knows.

@btimm I wasnt arguing long,LONG Term effects.
I meant overdose and addiction.

You can get addicted to weed. Psychologically. But that goes for anything really. I'd rather have someone be high on weed next to me than a drunk.

I have come to a conclusion.

Everyone has their way to writing and enjoying music. Weed is one thing IMO, but anything stronger would be an unintelligent choice. Some people like to get baked then write, some like to use their intelligence and write on stronger topics. Either way, Who Cares? Whatever works for YOU. I personally can write a song just from sitting in a planetarium. But that's me.

Could the beatles have done what they did without drugs?

More than likely not.

I think we all agree that pot should from now on just be considered a plant XD

@Btimm

Smoking pot as much as smoking cigarettes will not yield the same results. It doesn't leave tar or any of the stuff in a pack of smokes behind in your lungs. However inhaling dead burned plant matter is never going to be great on the lungs, not all smoke causes the same amount of damage as others.

@JustJeff

Not really--hookahs are very light even compared to "Light" smokes(Like Camel Lights). You're not even close to a pack if you only use it a couple times a week.
Much much lower in the nicotine factor as well, which really makes it hard to get that addiction like smokes will get you.

Maybe drugs DO make your songwriting better, i don't know because i never tried weed or anything else so i guess it isn't really my place to say. But i just don't think it does. What i think it REALLY is, is your motivation. I'm guessing people use drugs (relating to songwriting) because they think it WILL enhance there songwriting when really it's all in there head. People use drugs as a motivator without even knowing. I don't really know, i'm just speculating. People use such drugs because it is fun and eventually addicting, not for purposes as such. But i say again i don't know

@Mezzie
Depends, some cannot write for crap when they're on drugs. I can't play or write well when I'm hammered, so I just bake because I actually sit and focus on whatever I'm doing and really dig in.
Don't knock it til you try it man, smoking pot(safely of course), will unlock so many new doors

@case +3

@gshred theres nothing toxic to humans in shrooms, you just have to know that they are the right type of mushroom and not a poisonous one instead.

And a bad trip is just like throwing up and blacking out after smoking weed, it won't happen to everyone just some people.

Most dangerous thing to do with weed is skunk instead of normal weed, with skunk they separate the female plants from male ones, and THC (which is what gets you high) is what the females use to attract male pollen.

So with no males and no pollen it puts THC production into overdrive, however cannabis comes with another chemical (which name escapes me) that counteracts the possible negatives of THC (psychosis, paranoia etc) now the more THC the less of this other chemical (lets just call it the counter chemical).

So skunk has tons of THC and very little of the counter chemical making it from something harmless to something that is dangerous to someone with a family history of mental illness etc

Good information to put out. But be aware also, you don't need any prior family history to have immediate and extremely negative results from smoking "skunk" weed.

What you'd be smoking is essentially pure THC and in an extremly high volume. THC is very dangerous on it's own. DanielM hit the nail on the head when he said paranoia. Severe paranoia. Although it is not deadly, THC is not something you want to mess with on its own. Oh yea, and Phsycosis (side effect of THC)can land you in a mental institution.

I know this is off topic now, but don't experiment with drugs. Research your drug/substance of choice before use and be aware of potential side effects and/or outcomes during and after use. Learn from other peoples mistakes.

Rock on!

QUESTION!!!!!!

How do you all feel about eating cannabis vs. smoking it?
Does it reduce some of the physical harm?
Does it have its own risks?
Does it produce the same high?
Pro con?
your thoughts?

@dm Have you guys heard of cbds? The stuff you get off a
overmature hemp plant bud,its a body,not mind high.

Id like your guys thoughts on that also.

GS420 /(-.-)\

all same sh!t, if eated it last longer and you real sh!t smells awful next morning... risks? ofcourse there are, bigger or lesser... Allergic reactions have been reported, not serious but hey... that stuff dont belong to your system naturally. High is more pleasant and deeper when eated.

btw, guitarslingers post is one of the best posts ive seen towards this subject. Rock on.

I have friends who can handle that stuff, I had friends who didnt. I visit them in the hospital once in a while... Gate theory, yeah its proven to be wrong, but there are exeptions I met them. Risks? do you take the risk to find it out?

Emp

Eating cannabis lasts longer but isnt any weaker or stronger, also some of the biscuits taste great.

Also because you eat it it can take like 3 hours (thats how long it took for me) to hit and even then it starts off like a slow wave of highness that washes over you.

If say you were to go to a coffee shop in Amsterdam to get some pot go to one of the small cafe looking ones ran by nice old ladies who cook the cookies themselves at home a lot of the big joints get a lot of drunken fighting and some of them lace their pot with ecstasy.

@DanM and Guitarslinger

Uh... that's called Dank. The bomb s&%t. Sticky icky. Just because it has more THC doesn't make it deadlier, it just affects you more with less. It's better tasting, smoother smoking, and overall affects you more with only 1 hit.
A strain high in THC content would be White Widow, it has roughly 23-26% THC content when grown correctly. While I'm sure that you could overdose on pills of THC concentrated down, you won't die from a THC overdose by smoking weed that is a little more potent than "reggies"(The cheap stuff with seeds).
It would take a roughly 1,500 lb. joint smoked in roughly 14 minutes to die from a THC overdose. Which is physically impossible while smoking weed.
Just stop trying to make it sound worse than it is guys, it's literally a part of a plant.
It is safer than anything else on the planet that we could eat/smoke. Caffeine and Tylenol kill more people each year than cannabis--which I have to admit is easy to do, since nobody has ever died from it.
I could ramble more, but I think you guys are tired of my inner 'hippie', so I'll leave it at that XD haha

case I got nothing against cannabis I've had it and would again :P

You can't die from cannabis but if you have a genetic disposition to mental illness paranoia etc then high THC levels can really mess with your mind, but that's a relatively low percent of the population from what I understand but personally I wouldn't go for weed with a very high THC content as there's a history of alzheimer's on my mums side so it could really f#@$ with my mind

no-one mentioned death, just a serious mindf#@$ XD

For more info, click play



Emp

I never DID say it was bad or worse than such and such i just have to disagree with the people saying it makes your songwriting better is all. I thought that's what it was about

I've played sober (obviously) and smoked up, and I honestly don't see a difference. If anything it made me worse because I wasn't as concentrated. I think it's all pretty subjective. It might open some people up to new ideas just because of the fact that they FEEL different. Personally, it hasn't done that to me yet. Guess I'm gonna have to keep trying. xD

You know those blues solos where the guitarist keeps playing the same couple of notes forever...

@Mezzie
My bad man, I must've misread your post haha

though, personally I feel that because of my 'enhanced' feelings towards things when I'm baked, that I am a better composer/writer. Not because the material is "soooo much more brutalz \m/", but because I am more attached to the material and want it to be the best it can be, rather than a cookie cutter song. I also spend more time finding melodies rather than just random shred practice, which benefits the song writing massively.

@DanM
Agreed with the mental illness part, but like you said I don't think it's a common occurence.

@Ozz
When I first started to smoke, I couldn't really play guitar very well since I was unused to functioning while baked, but after doing it so much I don't play any worse than I do while sober. Drunk? That's a completely different story.

In calfornia,you"d be hard pressed to
to find a 18yr old without a medical cannibis card.
My guess would be about 1-10.

Its legal for some people,to use for medicinal herb.
But like every other drug theres risks and side effects.

Dude, if you think about it that's totally what i've been saying. It's not the DRUG itself that makes you a better songwriter It's the DRUG that makes you THINK your a better songwriter. Which comes around to my point about motivation. The drug is your motivator. If your smoking pot for the main purpose of improving your songwriting you WILL write lyrics, melodies, etc better. See my point? It doesn't have to be weed, or any kind of drug, it can be anything. It could be cookies, or mayonnaise i don't know lol. You could almost think of it like a placebo. You take the pill in an effort to get better and you will get better because you think you will (obviously depends on your condition) when in matter a fact all your taking is sugar. Just my point of view.

And i don't think that the first time you smoked weed was to get better at songwriting... just saying :P

Of course it wasn't ;)

You could lthink of it, but you're sort of skipping the part that cookies and mayonnaise don't include any sort of mind altering effects. I do think differently when I'm baked than when I'm sober. It's not a placebo bro, a placebo would have no effects other than what the person might think is happening to them.

I think marijuana should be legal. *applause* Yeah, that way potheads will have nothing to talk about ever again. You people are so annoying.

It's not a placebo it does have an effect on you i know that, It's a placebo for songwriting... think you missed my point

@Btimm

If you'd ever hung out around potheads in their natural "habitat" the conversation is usually not about legalizing/decriminalizing the plant(though there's thousands of things to discuss about that) but rather deeper questions and speculations. Most people think all we like to talk about is the 'legalize it' thing, but honestly that's usually what the topic turns to when discussing with people who don't smoke. Also, which do you find more annoying: a really drunk dude sitting next to you at a ball game, or a really baked dude sitting next to you at a ball game?

@Mezzie
Oh...
I hate the internet man...haha
I agree with you about a placebo effect on songwriting, but it doesn't give me a false sense of being a better songwriter than I was before, the material that I come up with while baked just sounds cooler to me usually. Though for me, songwriting is a mood I swing in and out of throughout the week.

@case: It's a Daniel Tosh joke.

...Clearly I missed that... forget everything I wrote XD

Should I watch more tv to pick up on things like this?

I knew about Tosh like from 6 years ago, well before Tosh.0. It's from his standup CD. A buddy of mine playedit while we were having a poker night and we couldn't stop laughing. If you haven't seen much of him, heis basically an equal opportunity hater of everyone, hahaha.

"People don't see me taking this angle, but I do, and with some force: Grow up and do coke like an adult."

I know about the show, and I love it, but I've only ever seen one of his standup specials(unfortunately). Do you know what the name of the CD was?

True Stories I Made Up

hah that's an awesome title

ok.... so whos Daniel Tosh??? :P

Daniel tosh is the host of Tosh.o .
I seen commercials,but not the actual show.
Looks funny.

Back-to-topic.

KTHNXBAI.

Hold up. Yay for the whole "real geniuses don't need drugs to make music" bandwagon bull. Great, but really, have you tried playing guitar with some LSD? Marijuana does next to nothing for me personally when playing music.

LSD however is something else. People need to give up on the whole drugs are evil crap; miseducation, willful ignorance, and the crazy amounts of self-righteousness seen today are evil imo.

I've been playing guitar for just a little over 2 and a half years now, started learning scales and harmony from the start and I've been expanding on the musical playground I've unveiled since with the assistance of a loop.

To the point, LSD to me has been an educational tool with music, the way I hear the intervals in the music is inspiring, the way I let my mind and body relax and really breathe in each moment of musical harmony. It's like an accelerated learning program, or at least this has been my experience.

It's not evil - it's common sense. You are intentionally bringing in a foreign substance to your body that alters the way your mind processes information. You call someone like me evil, simply because I don't agree with your decision-making process to be a user. Seems to me you are being quite arrogant.

Everything touches us. We are crawling through foreign space. Everyone chooses their own risks, life is full of them. Where did I say btimm is evil?

Sorry if I come off as arrogant, I'm just tired of 'THIS IS THE WAY THINGS ARE, IF YOU DISOBEY YOU WILL BE JUDGED!'

I respect your decision to not partake in this risk, I just like to think we can live in a world where people can experience life together instead of pushing each other away.