Originally Posted by CheebaMonkey

is alcohol and mentions of drinking off-topic? if i wanted to tell, for example, in telling a story about getting caught with marijuana, how my drunken state affected my ability to handle the situation maturely? or is it that we just can't glorify it?

It depends on the context. If alcohol is going to be the basis of the story, as in if it centers around it, don't bother posting it. If it's a brief mention of it, and the story doesn't revolve around it, it might be postable. It depends on the situation.

what about prescription medications? if i wanted to explain, for example, the effect my regularly-taken prescribed anti-depressants affect my high, or how getting high affects how these medications work?

This is postable. I ask that you post it over at CheapTalk in the Health forums, as you'll get a better response there about this topic.

cold medicines? if i wanted to tell a story, for example, of a week where i was so sick that i was taking cold medicine every day, and that when i used pot the combination made me so dizzy that i fainted?

If you want to tell a story, it belongs in RLS. But if your post is about your health in regards to pot and the OTC medicine, what I wrote above applies to this as well.

vitamins and minerals? if i wanted to mention, for example, certain vitamins i might take that help with the possible short-term memory depetion that marijuana may cause? or that i take centrum every day and drink tea with ginsing to counteract feeling of burn-out? those are certainly mind-altering substances, however slight.

I've never heard of anyone taking vitamins to get high. Nor do I believe that they fall under the same classification as psychoactive drugs. Perhaps I'm wrong. But again, if your question is about pot interacting with the vitamins you're taking for medicinal reasons, and you're worried about your health, post it over at CheapTalk.

i think that common, legal substances should be considered on topic as long as you are relating them to marijuana use and not glorifying them in any way, though im sure it is all in how someone percieves a post.

No. If it's not marijuana, and it doesn't fit the exceptions I described earlier, it's off topic.

it seems kind of silly that so many people will say "while using an off-topic fungus" or "i use an off-topic powder" to get around this rule. most of the time its rather obvious what these people are speaking of. is it okay to do this as long as we don't use the real words? and if so, don't you think thats kind of silly?

We allow this because we don't want discussions revolving around off topics. We're trying to be a little lenient here.

right now there is a post concerning the possibility of marijuana as a gateway drug and whether or not it has been a gateway drug for people on these forums. is it acceptable to say "after using marijuana, my dealer offered me cocaine which i do often" or "i did heroin before i did marijuana" or "because of the effects of marijuana, i would like to experiment with mushrooms" etc etc etc? is the thread even acceptable at all?

The thread is more about the effects of a drug policy and not the drugs themselves. If you'd like to talk about drug policy, that's fine. It's threads about information or non-medicinal use of drugs other than marijuana that we don't allow, when they have nothing to do with pot (think of the exceptions I wrote earlier).

and lastly i have a question regarding the "legal highs" and "marijuana alternatives" that are being advertised by sites such as herbalsmokeshop.com.

Again, since they're not marijuana, they're off topic. Yes, the site advertises them. Gotta pay for all this somehow. But any new threads started on them are redundant. If you do a search, you'll see that many threads have been posted on them, and were closed (if you don't find a bunch of them at the Lounge, the rest are all over at CheapTalk). If a poster would simply search about it, they'd find the answer to their questions, one commonly being "do they work?" The closing of these threads has nothing to do with badmouthing the sponsors. People have written negative posts about them, and they're still on the boards. We haven't deleted them. Here are some examples.

http://www.marijuana.com/420/showthread.php?t=34599

http://www.marijuana.com/420/showthread.php?t=16741

http://www.marijuana.com/420/showthread.php?t=26706

http://www.marijuana.com/420/showthread.php?t=15313

http://420.marijuana.com/showthread.php?t=5767

Yes, Salvia divinorum is a legal alternative that gets you high, however, it's off topic, and may not even remain legal for much longer:

http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia_law.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvia_...m#Legal_status

And not to worry, your thread isn't going to get closed simply for asking questions about the site rules.

Hope this helps.