Cannabis, creativity, fly high together, say some students

On Sat., April 14,PCC student Karin Turley, 31, a human service major was a marijuana user. Everyone she knew smoked weed so it felt normal to her.

Turley said it made her feel more physical and creative at times, plus it gave her an emotional outlet during depressing moments.

In her 20’s, when she smoked weed, it not only affected her creativity, but her outlook and point in life. Turley said as a former dancer, it shaped her creative style and emotions through choreography. As a writer, it changed her issues and topics she had written about.  As a ceramic artist, it enhanced her originality.

Even though weed wasn’t the only artistic enhancement, she experienced many moments of “clarity, euphoric feelings” and a more carefree attitude toward life when smoking weed.

Turley strongly believed that nothing changes a person’s perspective on life more than love, loss, understanding, tragedy and hope. However, marijuana will always slightly make a person perspective more intense on nature existence, places, feeling, relationships, making them more care free and depending on what’s going on in someone’s life, she said.

Dr. Pou Chi, a general practitioner from Pioneer Medical Group said, creativity is a subjective part of the human experience. However, many artists do smoke marijuana as part of their creativity process. Chi said some people take drugs, especially hallucinogens like LSD, to change their perceptions or tap into parts of their mind that they cannot access easily, in addition to creating unusual perceptions.

Angelo Medina, a 21-year-old finance major, has experienced a similar epiphany with usage of marijuana. Medina used to smoke marijuana for three years recreationally and found himself more focused on everyday activities, he said.

Medina said his “determination was at optimum effect because of weed” and somehow it allowed him to find joy and a higher level of creative imagination. Unfortunately, in Medina’s opinion, the “positive side effects” had to come to a halt because it was impossible for him to sustain a job with weed in his system.

In spite of some students views, Marianne Palacios, family nurse of Health Services at LBCC, explained that marijuana has extreme side effects such as anxiety, concentration difficulty, confusion, dizziness, drowsiness, mood change, abnormal thinking, depression, disorientation, hallucinations, headaches, impaired judgment, memory lapse, numbness in extremities, psychological and physical dependence, increase in hunger and intake of food.

In contrast, Turley said that marijuana positively changed her life in a optimistic way. However, her life is better today “being weed free.”