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Hi, I just had a thought about my cannabis usage over the past 5 years (with a 1 year break) that I began in my journal. I wanted to share it with you Cannabis can relieve anxiety in the moment, but if it breaks through, it will be more present. It will be more uncomfortable, and at times nearly unbearable. It will be a physical experience of anxiety without any limitation or method of managing it. What does this remind me of? My mother. I was not able to control my mother's anxiety. I was able to master this anxiety I felt by recreating my own mother in my head, and adhering to what I thought would make her more anxious, and by facilitating what I thought would make her less anxious. Many people experience uncontrollable anxiety when they first use cannabis. I did. Even now I sometimes do - often, in fact. Every smoking experience I've had over the past year has involved at least some anxiety while I've smoked. I think this is a sign of relative health compared to when I was able to smoke without any anxiety. What is the effect of cannabis overall on anxiety? It increases anxiety. This is because if cannabis is being used to manage anxiety, the user will not have to manage their anxiety with their foresight and frontal lobes, or an "inner parent" (not to be confused with an inner abuser). And the body will create more anxiety in response. When the body is then without cannabis, the person is left off unpracticed in managing their anxiety without cannabis. The more the cannabis use, the more frequent, the more well-timed, the more the person loses the ability to manage their anxiety without it. I think I used cannabis despite it making me more uncomfortable in my first uses because I felt insecure that there was not an uncontrollable source of anxiety in my life. I had spent my whole life managing anxiety from my mother, from the fact that I was afraid of being rejected and abandoned (another way of saying from my mother), from public school; that when I was living on my own at 19, doing well in a philosophy college course, I felt insecure by the relative lack of anxiety in my life, and I sought to create more. It was trauma-recreation to create an uncontrollable anxiety in my life that I would have to learn to master, and find ill-found joys in. It is no coincidence that my cannabis use began when I moved out of my mom's at 19, and that my anxiety management (in terms of alleviating it without cannabis) has worsened the more I've used weed. Thank you for reading and I hope this encourages you go avoid becoming addicted to cannabis, and to work to quit (with professional guidance if possible) if you are already addicted.

The European Union has citizen initiatives which, if 1 000 000 signatures are collected, will be passed through to the commission for discussion. There is currently one initiative called "Weed like to talk" up and running (terrible name I know). Any thoughts on this? Are there any Europeans here on this board who are interested in this matter? I for one believe that it will have little to no direct impact because even if the EU would go through with it, the countries themselves would refuse the EU to poke around in their laws regarding narcotics. However, if enough votes are collected an international debate will occur, and politicians around the union will in turn notice the growing number of potential votes to be gained from a campaign related to the legalization of cannabis. Reason has already written an article on the subject: http://reason.com/blog/2014/02/24/citizens-initiative-seeks-to-legalize-ma Current number of votes: https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/REQ-ECI-2013-000023/public/map.do Collection of signatures: https://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/REQ-ECI-2013-000023/public/Does anyone know where I could recommend this delightful radio channel to maybe talk about this initiative? It would be great if as many people as possible could become aware of it as basically not one of the newspapers or TV news channels in Europe have reported on it. I'm a bit new on this board, have mercy.