“If you’re gonna walk on ice, you might as well dance.”

Joe Rogan's adventures at the High Times awards. Funny stuff. Much more at the link.

The Joe Rogan Blog » Conduit to the Gaian Mind » The High Times Stony Awards, and reefer madness!:

"“High Times would like you to present the award for Stoner of the Year. Do you want to do it?”

I laughed out loud, and told my manager, “Hellllllllllll Yeah.”

There ain’t no fucking way I’m passing this up. You can take your Oscars and your Emmys and stuff them deep up your ass as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not missing the “Stonys.”

I hosted the event about 4 years ago in NYC and spent the last 3 hours of the night laying in bed with my eyes closed watching magical elves performing a cosmic sitcom.

...Like my friend Joey Diaz often says, “If you’re gonna walk on ice, you might as well dance.”

...even in it’s most potent form cannabis is still basically harmless.
It can freak you out, but it can’t kill you, and as soon as it wears off you’re good as new.

If that’s the case, then why is it illegal?

That’s a really fucking good question that’s got a whole lot of good answers, mostly dealing in economics, the business of busting and imprisoning people, and the reluctance of the government to ever change their stance on something that they once vehemently opposed.

It’s really the only way to control people; you have to REALLY control them.

The government is ALWAYS right, even when it’s wrong, because if they admit that they’re wrong about cannabis, one of the first things that’s going to happen is that a FUCK LOAD of people are going to go out and start smoking it.

The next thing that’s going to happen is that there’s going to be a massive chain reaction from what would essentially be an almost instantaneous shift in national consciousness.

Once people realize it’s safe, it will very quickly become the preferred drug of choice.

It’ll kill the liquor business, because you can grow it yourself.

Then of course there’s the problem of, “If they were wrong about this, what else are they lying to us about?” That could start a big, fat, chain reaction shit storm that no one in government wants to deal with.

...Back in 1970 Carl Sagan was asked when he thought marijuana would be legalized, and he thought that it would be within the decade. The guy interviewing him called him a pessimist. I wonder what we’ll be thinking about it 30 years from now.

I have a feeling the same retarded arguments against it will still be around.

I mean, if they’re around now, with all of the access to information and all the results of the numerous medical studies on the innocuous health effects of smoking it, what’s there to make me think it’s going to change 30 years from now? Are the tests going to be any clearer? They ALL say it’s safe. What more do we need?"