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 :)

I dont mind the presence of these articles. I like to be in the know. I like the opportunity to engage in a constructive nuanced discussion that you can no longer find on Reddit, and can be found in abundance on Lemmy.

What effects me most is that, whether honest (human), not (bots) or covert (intelligence agencies), the defeatism, acceptance and obeyance in advance is the fundamental barrier to meaningful change. It catches, it spreads and it demoralises. It is the boot on our collective necks.

We need to be more mindful of spreading our nihilism to each other, unless we’re happy being part of the problem. More solutions, more raising each other up, less wallowing.

When pressed, he refused to declare Zionism racist in that interview. That’s quite different from saying zionism isn’t racist; he just wouldn’t say that it was. Also, he’s kind of right isn’t he? From a nuanced perspective, it’s Netanyahu and his party that have largely created the fascism at the heart of Israel, so I appreciate his point. But, I suppose theoretically, the fact he went to reflect before changing his position, could indicate a needed to gain permission from the person he is owned by before changing his stance.

This week he has said specifically, that zionism is racism under pressure from his party. I don’t see that as the act of a committed zionist, but then again is it just verbal buttering? He’s seemingly willing to go so much further than Starmer, Badenoch or Farage in his anti-Israel speech. If he was owned by Netanyahu like so many politicians are, he wouldn’t be able to say this freely surely? It also shows he’s willing to go with consensus of his party which is also a good sign.

That said I’ve been fooled before by music to my ears; so it comes down to a matter of trust doesn’t it? Do we trust him? There’s no telling before reaching power. He’s been transparent about his finances at least; and doesn’t appear to have been bought like many other politicians. But whether or not he’s a Trojan horse for the left, who has a hidden master, is impossible to see at this stage.

Here’s a paraphrased quote from Zack Polanski: “Zionism is Racism”

What are you even talking about? Israel owns all the other major parties, except the greens! That quote is 100% more than any leader of any UK party has ever said regarding Israel or Gaza.

Three very different sources on this:

• https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/polanski-indicates-support-for-greens-zionism-is-racism-motion/

• https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-green-zack-polanski-zionism-is-racism-motion/

• https://news.sky.com/story/israel-not-committing-genocide-in-gaza-but-casualties-and-destruction-are-utterly-appalling-says-uk-government-13427380

It does seem to be a downward trajectory at least though. Let me cling to a little hope please :P. Perhaps the debates will swing it in Polanski’s favour; he is the only one who lays out a reasonable plan for working folks.

I hope the wider British public wakes up before the election. But, pretty much all of the mainstream media encourages their base instincts to blame immigrants at some level, rather than the wealthy. They are caught in a propaganda loop. Some of that influence is obvious (The Mail), some of it is very subtle (BBC, TheGuardian - editorship).

But I’m not overly optimistic. It took them way too long to realise the Tory leopards were eating their faces.

Americans coming over here is quite laughable. Good luck guys, you’d be better off somewhere that has a relatively young democracy and/or dictatorship in living memory (Germany and Spain look pretty good from where I’m sitting - but even Germany is a little bit O.o).

Ah yes, the great purge was so wonderfully kind.

In case you can’t tell, that is sarcasm.