RadixJournal - Some Respect for Dionysius...

00:00:00.000 Yeah. Hey, I didn't know if you would have time to go over this or if it's super relevant at all, but I saw you retweeted something about there was a study about marijuana usage that came out about it being at record high levels.

00:00:12.820 And I'm seeing a lot of cover for that from certain people saying like, well, you know, like the normal stuff, like, well, alcohol kills this many people a year.

00:00:22.580 So what's really the problem with this? I just kind of wanted your take on that to break it down a little bit, because there's obviously like additional problems that come with marijuana that that those people are just ignoring.

00:00:36.440 I'll talk about it a little bit. I mean, I wouldn't even mind doing a deep dive into pot at some point.

00:00:42.800 I've seen that there was a New York Times article and I'm seeing that people are talking about it and summarizing it.

00:00:48.400 A couple of notes. First off, just on a personal level, like I, I won't name names here, but it's not like anyone knows who this person is, but there's this woman who I've known simply through my, the kids, basically my time at Whitefish.

00:01:09.480 Like I I've got into, and I, and I, and I genuinely like her as well.

00:01:13.720 And it's, I hadn't seen her in a number of years. Maybe I didn't really talk to her in two years or something like that.

00:01:20.560 And I just kind of saw her randomly and I just noticed two things.

00:01:26.280 First off, this Mar-a-Lago face, the Botox filler.

00:01:31.260 It's not like she looked like Kimberly Guilfoyle or anything, but it is funny how universal that thing is, even with people in their like early thirties who you would presume wouldn't need that much.

00:01:49.500 I don't know. I just noticed it. And it's like, Oh, you too.

00:01:53.600 Of course you've now, you look a little bit different than when I saw you a couple of years ago.

00:01:59.400 But the other thing is the way she was talking. I was like, are you on drugs?

00:02:05.580 It was this like staring off to the upper left or something like, yeah.

00:02:12.520 And it's like, can you not do drugs, please?

00:02:17.420 It's 3 PM. I don't know. Yeah. Someone said total milf.

00:02:21.740 Yeah. I, again, I'm not even trying to be mean to this woman because she is very nice and I genuinely like her, but there it's something that's just so universal now that it sort of touches everyone.

00:02:35.100 Everyone's part of this. Everyone's being pulled into this vortex.

00:02:38.900 Um, the other thing, and I'm just speaking again, very personally, but I think whitefish is representative of a massive trend.

00:02:48.380 I don't even know how many dispensaries there are within walking distance of one another, but I think it's like six.

00:02:56.900 Six. So there's one place in downtown whitefish.

00:03:01.760 That's like the roofie dispensary where they're selling like moisturizer and whatever.

00:03:09.320 But then I presumably can also buy pot. And then there's like the power plant. Get it? Power plant. It's power. It makes you powerful guys.

00:03:20.360 Like you should smoke weed before you work out. Yeah. Or like, uh, late playing beach volleyball with your shirt off. Just smoke up where you do that. Whoa.

00:03:29.700 Anyway, then there's like one that's just like the cheapo one. That's just says dispensary and there's others that I'm missing and it's, it is a funny thing because there's the boutique quality to it.

00:03:43.560 And then there's just the brass tacks, you know, do you want to get high on the cheap quality to it?

00:03:49.280 And I don't know the last time I have smoked marijuana. Uh, I did it a few times in high school and, and then, you know, I don't know, you do maybe in my twenties or thirties, you'd like go to a party or whatever.

00:04:03.560 But from what I understand, it is far more powerful than it was in the nineties through the power of eugenics. And they have mastered the science. And, um, while humans keep getting dumber, our plants keep getting smarter. 0.75

00:04:19.820 And so this is a different type of drug and the ability to just put it into gummy or brownie form. And so everyone is mildly high is can't be underestimated.

00:04:34.980 There are serious issues in terms of particularly with young, with boys and young men in terms of IQ, there are really serious issues in terms of schizophrenia. And I don't know if the New York times article goes into this. I presume it does. Actually, I know it does because some people were mentioning this.

00:05:00.460 And I, I was actually talking with RFH about this a couple of weeks ago, and I don't remember the exact statistics, but just take my word for it on this. There is a clear connection. And if you have a tendency towards schizophrenia, smoking out on a regular basis, you smoke once or twice, probably not can do anything. Smoking out on a regular basis is the equivalent of playing Russian roulette.

00:05:29.380 In the sense of schizophrenia, we don't even fully understand schizophrenia. We, we know it as a phenomenon. It affects men more than it does affect women and it affects young men. So it seems to hit when you're 20, 25, thereabouts, and your life is destroyed.

00:05:50.560 I actually have a, not quite a friend, but a classmate of mine from St. Mark's who went to Princeton, actually. He was, he was a bit of a nerd, but he was obviously very talented.

00:06:05.160 And this young, this, this man now has been homeless multiple times and is basically dysfunctional. When he went to college, he started out just like everyone else. Things were looking up. And then he starts locking himself into his dorm room.

00:06:23.320 His like flat dorm mates can't get in. He's afraid. Everyone's trying to kill him. They're aliens. I mean, all the typical schizophrenic reactions basically are on display.

00:06:38.360 He cannot function at all. And I mean, it is absolutely debilitating. I mean, this is a terrible thing that we don't quite understand. However, we can describe it as a phenomenon.

00:06:52.020 Let's say that in its genetic in some fashion, let's say you have a 5% chance of becoming, of developing schizophrenia due to genetic biological factors. Smoking out regularly multiplies that by 10.

00:07:13.120 So you might as well hold a revolver up to your head and put one bullet in and start clicking away and see what happens. I mean, the idea and that kind of stuff doesn't happen with alcohol.

00:07:29.020 So the idea that we would just forget that this is a statistically relevant phenomenon that we just sort of wash it over and say, hey, man, pot's cool, dude. There's nothing bad with pot. It just gets you relaxed.

00:07:50.580 Right. And the fact that we would just treat pot as this benign and sort of just whimsical or meaningless when they have these clear correlations with something that dramatic is just the height of irresponsibility, the height of insanity, really strong correlations with repeated pot use at a young age and lowering your IQ.

00:08:19.640 So again, let's say there's a schizophrenic in your family tree. Your grandmother, she went crazy. You might very well possess those genes and smoking out is a lot like playing Russian roulette. 0.64

00:08:35.460 But if you're a young man, you might as well, you might as well just hit yourself over the head with a hammer. I'm not talking about looks maxing here. 0.99

00:08:44.060 You might as well just dumb yourself down physically because that's what you're doing with pot. 0.88

00:08:50.140 But on a deeper level, I just sort of hate pot. It's a dumb drug. It's a left wing drug, you could say. It's a drug that like it if it does something active, it creates paranoia. 1.00

00:09:06.660 Why would you possibly want to do that? It inspires you to eat a bag of Cheetos. Why would you possibly think that that is cool?

00:09:16.760 It dumbs you down. It makes you forget the world. It makes you check out of life. Everything's fine, man. It's cool. I love you, bro.

00:09:26.080 That's what it does. That's what it does. That's the drug. As opposed to a stimulant like cocaine. Say what you will about the 1980s Wall Street.

00:09:38.040 But there is something sort of, I don't know, cool about doing a line of coke and going to the disco and staying up all night and being energetic.

00:09:52.280 That is getting off your couch and entering life. I mean, I'm not endorsing cocaine, but I think you get my point.

00:10:02.660 The other thing, alcohol is obviously a depressant, although it's a funny type of depressant in the sense that alcohol can inspire fights.

00:10:13.260 It can inspire some very bad things as well. There's no doubt that 90% of men who beat their wives do it on alcohol.

00:10:20.880 I mean, I'm obviously going to inspire car wrecks and all that kind of stuff.

00:10:24.380 That being said, alcohol, the gift of Dionysus, it's culturally embedded in the world, and you can at least sort of defend it.

00:10:37.340 Alcohol is not going to make you a schizophrenic if you have a cocktail at night or you're drinking some wine with dinner.

00:10:45.020 It's not going to bring on some terrible schizophrenia.

00:10:48.700 It's certainly not good for you, but you get my point here.

00:10:52.920 It's about celebrating and enjoying life.

00:10:56.320 Alcohol is social.

00:10:58.580 And we see these things about the lack of alcohol use among Gen Z, and people are like, oh, look, Gen Z is so healthy.

00:11:06.540 Obviously, Gen Z is not healthy. 1.00

00:11:08.480 Gen Z are not having sex.

00:11:11.660 What, are they all religious moralists?

00:11:13.640 No, I don't think so. 0.97

00:11:14.900 I think something really bad is going on with Gen Z in the sense that they're watching porn, they're men in their 20s suffering from erectile dysfunction. 0.97

00:11:27.200 I mean, there are some really clear indicators that they are not enjoying life or experiencing life in all its moments.

00:11:36.400 Alcohol is social, and that is redeemable.

00:11:39.840 Now, I would say this, I was actually talking with a woman, I think this was about a year and a half ago or so, I can't quite remember.

00:11:48.720 No, it was, I guess, almost a year ago.

00:11:51.280 And unless I've, well, when you get old, you lose track of time.

00:11:56.500 Something that happened four years ago happened like four months ago and vice versa.

00:12:00.760 Anyway, I think it was around a year ago. 0.87

00:12:02.460 And she was talking about the, her alcoholism that she went through in college where she was a just dead ass drunk through college.

00:12:14.180 She would go to a party, get wasted by 8 p.m., blackout by 10 p.m. and wake up somewhere the next morning. 0.66

00:12:24.740 I mean, terrible stuff.

00:12:26.020 So she went to rehab, she got her life together, doesn't even touch alcohol, which is probably the right thing in her case.

00:12:35.860 She no doubt has some sort of genetic inclination to alcoholism, and she's on the straight and narrow.

00:12:44.080 I don't.

00:12:45.040 I can drink and not get super drunk.

00:12:47.740 Like my, remember, my grandparents every day at 3 p.m., they'd fix a bourbon or a club soda or something.

00:12:54.580 Anyway, I'm used to it.

00:12:57.860 But the fact is, it's not healthy.

00:13:00.760 And so I gave up alcohol for Lent.

00:13:03.740 So I was sort of observing the Christian tradition.

00:13:06.640 I was experiencing Christ's suffering, in fact, by not drinking.

00:13:10.240 And I actually sort of kicked alcohol to the point that I don't really need it.

00:13:15.600 I have not given up alcohol at our last conference.

00:13:19.540 I was drinking some red wine, and I probably had a little bit of whiskey as well.

00:13:24.940 But you really, you experience the just, you don't need that in your system.

00:13:31.080 And you experience getting it out and the fact that you wake up and you're a little more energetic.

00:13:38.920 You don't just lose a day by getting drunk at night and then just, you know, being depressed or lying about the next day.

00:13:47.380 Being sober is just great.

00:13:50.020 It's a very good thing.

00:13:51.500 And the other thing is that you sort of enjoy alcohol more.

00:13:54.760 So I think it was last summer.

00:13:57.560 I can't quite remember.

00:13:58.600 And I was actually in Dallas visiting my, I was with my mom and kids.

00:14:03.500 And we were visiting my sister and her family.

00:14:06.840 And everyone was ordering their drink around the table.

00:14:09.540 You know, you show up to a restaurant.

00:14:11.040 Oh, yeah, old-fashioned, all of this.

00:14:13.620 And I just didn't.

00:14:14.440 I said, I'll have a water.

00:14:15.880 And it was kind of powerful.

00:14:17.480 I don't know.

00:14:17.980 I didn't need it.

00:14:19.100 And I fell fine.

00:14:21.040 So I would recommend doing something like this, getting alcohol out of your system.

00:14:27.860 You don't need it every day.

00:14:29.360 Maybe it's Friday.

00:14:30.420 You want to wind down, have some red wine, have a cocktail.

00:14:34.520 That's all great.

00:14:36.000 But you don't really need it.

00:14:37.440 It's not helping you.

00:14:38.820 And it actually is hurting you in ways that you don't quite perceive.

00:14:42.120 So anyway, there's my rant on alcohol.

00:14:44.440 But I still do think alcohol is redeemable on some level.

00:14:50.380 In a way that pot isn't, precisely because alcohol is a social drug.

00:14:56.480 And pot, in my humble opinion, is an antisocial drug.

00:15:00.580 And it's actually an anti-life drug.

00:15:03.680 Pot is nihilistic.

00:15:05.720 Pot makes you retreat. 0.96

00:15:07.400 Pot brings you to another realm and not the real world.

00:15:11.660 So that would be my nuanced, compromised take on these two things.

RadixJournal - February 11, 2026

Some Respect for Dionysius...

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