So many generalisations and a complete lack of understanding of there being other valid ways of conducting a relationship beyond what you’ve experienced yourself or seen with your own eyes.

True love is like any other feature of a relationship, only as enduring as the health of that relationship. That takes work, communication, and many other aspects too numerous to list here. It is complex and not easy to define. But it can endure just fine.

If it makes you feel better to think that relationships based on true love don’t last, by all means continue in that fantasy. But it is a fantasy and I think it says more about your fear of what you’re missing as someone who’s likely stuck in an arranged relationship, or stuck in a culture where that is expected of you, than it does about how enduring true love can be.

Agreed. Although with the caveat that, had there been more stringent regulations surrounding misinformation and manipulation in political and media discourse for the UK, Brexit would never have been able to occur. Leave got there (and only just) through a multitude of lies and emotional manipulation.

Direct democracy is the ideal end goal of any democratic system. But for it to work, people need to be educated, healthy, stable, and both interested and invested in the political process.

We’ve a lot of ground to cover between then and now.

Never encountered fake pot until Covid.

For some reason the increase in demand meant that the streets became filled with synthetic cannabinoid sprayed weed, pesticide sprayed weed and other adulterated products.

It definitely happened before, but it happens much more frequently now than it ever had in the past.

It happens for one reason and one reason only: to make more money. Whether thats to increase the grow weigh, the intensity of the high, the ability to spray it with synthetics after washing it for the real THC or the cheapness of spraying the plants with pesticides for bugs: all of it is to make more money without caring about the consumer.

Legalise it, regulate it, health and safety it.

Hello friend. I was also in your position not so long ago and really feel for you so much. But have hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel youre in, and you’ve taken the first and hardest step in admitting to yourself that it’s a problem. Seriously well done.

There are two things I would suggest you consider if you feel you have the energy to start to tackle this:

The first is that, I believe current methods of getting “clean” and “sober” are inconsistent in their outcomes for a reason.

Whilst total sobriety works for some people, it is my belief and experience, that going completely cold turkey and abstaining from a social and common drug like weed forever, is the hardest route forward long term. I have observed that for those that choose this path, they will always to some degree, feel the pull towards that drug regardless of the length of time they’ve abstained. It will be a constant battle for the rest of their life. To some degree this is sobriety on a knifes edge.

I saw this in the midst of my addiction and decided this wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted a new relationship with my drug of choice. One where I challenged every unhealthy behaviour I’d developed with it. One where I gained control back piece by piece. One where I rewired my brain so much that I could say yes or no depending on the context and reasoning occurring inside.

And so that’s what I did. I started by weaning myself off by working out how much I smoked and choosing to weigh that amount at the start of every day. I’d then decrease this little by little every day, getting used to the feeling and effects of taking that control and running out at the end of each day. This forced my front brain to take charge amdnstart to plan where I’d have this limited amount.

Over two months I eventually whittled it down to one joint a day. It wasn’t without slip ups, but it was important that I accepted these, and instead of criticising myself, got straight back on the horse.

Once I made the jump to zero, I felt it important to give myself a length of time entirely off of it. To deal with the effects of withdrawal, such as night sweats, nightmares, vivid dreams etc.

Then once that period of time, for me six months, had elapsed, I made a list of all the unhealthy behaviours that I had built up over the years with weed. And reintroduced the weed with those in mind, challenging them each individually. This ranged from being able to say no to it when being social, to stopping at a certain point of the evening (one and done etc), to preplanning when I’d order it so that I was free and available to waste that time, so it didn’t impact my life.

For you this will be unique to your addiction.

I can now happily say I’m at a point where 80% of my addictive behaviours are dealt with. Where I am in control and weed is no longer my mistress. The balance has swung in my favour. But I still have some work to do :).

Secondly, I would advise you examine the reasons why you may have been attracted to weed in the first place.

The route cause of your issues will vary depending on your own individual history. But for me things like childhood trauma, ADHD and health issues formed the core parts of my need to use weed as a means to hide from the adult world.

Tackling these greatly helped alleviate the gut feeling of needing weed as a means to cope. Now it forms a part of my social life, as a means to accentuate and elevate a night, or a day at home, rather than a means to close off and hide.

I hope you find this helpful and I wish you the best of luck moving forward friend. Should you choose to go down this path, know that regardless of the slip ups, you’ve got this. As long as you can be gentle with yourself, you can always come back to it.

Peace and love :)

How can any system of government be defined as democratic when that system concentrated power into a single party system? All the while suppressing dissent and suppressing civil liberties.

Democracy is defined as power ultimately residing with the people, either directly or through freely elected representatives. None of which the USSR had. It was a totalitarian dictatorship with power concentrated centrally through the politburo and a dictator sitting at the top of it all.

Did I also spot an apologist for the acts of the great purge elsewhere in this thread?

Also, your “meme” is based on the logical fallacy of false equivalency. Comparing a single aspect of two different systems of government, doesn’t equate that either of them are better than the other. You’ve selectively chosen a single frame of reference that doesn’t prove your argument in your “meme”. It is a misleading and fallacious method of debate.