Wise Weed

How can we use cannabis well? As a philosopher, I think that using cannabis well means using cannabis wisely. And it will come as no surprise that I believe this means using cannabis as part of a philosophical way of life. A philosophical way of life provides a practical framework for shaping your personal use of cannabis. It determines whether or not you should use cannabis. It defines the purposes for which you should use it. It specifies how much you should use and how often. It alerts you to the dangers of excessive use and it tells you that some ways of using cannabis are wrong. It helps you fit cannabis into a pattern of life that aims at goodness.

Philosophical ways of life include Stoicism, Epicureanism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Platonism, and so on. Of all these ways of life, the many uses of cannabis fit best into a Platonic framework. Platonism includes medical uses of cannabis. It includes the uses of cannabis to help forge ascetic communities. It includes uses of cannabis for wellness and spirituality. It includes the uses of cannabis for human enhancement, such as enhancing artistic creativity. And it includes the sacramental uses of cannabis, in which cannabis is used to increase our awareness of the transcendent aspects of reality.

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Chapter Abstracts