Very nice. Do you feel the same about people who eat pork?

You know...I'm just going to come out and say this. I find this offensive, and I'm not just talking about William's dig above, but at a lot of what's gone on in this thread. I'm not a Rasta and I don't smoke anything, but I just don't like the way that the anti-marijuana people in this thread have consistently labeled, mischaracterized, ridiculed and demonized anyone who doesn't toe their party line. And ya know what, smileys don't fix it. Sorry, but they don't.

The post that started this thread was a silly toss-off: "should you smoke marijuana on your aikido journey". Who knows what that even means? It's somewhat open to interpretation, yet so many people in this thread made assumptions, ranging from "This person thinks it's fine to train while high" to "this person has no problems with criminal behavior" to "this person is smoking for 'enlightenment' *snicker*" to "this person is like a little child, and so I will lecture him/her like a little child about all the dangers of marijuana, which I know all about and which he/she could not possibly know anything about" to "this person is a member of a religion that I consider laughable and have no problems mocking in public". Oh, that little line was a perfect strawman -- and y'all went to town on it.

There are a lot of things that go into having respect for other human beings. One is that you yourself are not all-wise, and that simply because someone else's choices (or what very, very, microscopically little you know about them from posts on the internet) do not make sense to you, that doesn't mean that you've got it sussed and they're an idiot. A little humility wouldn't do any harm, even on a subject that you believe to be cut and dried.