And I stopped because it was so overwhelming experience that I could not stand any more. I couldn't function normally and had really tough trips, thinking about so many end results in the same time. Minutes took hours and basically it was an agony, while everybody had pretty joyful time laughing.
Now, I'm 38. I'm functional (so far), I have family with kids. I haven't developed schizophrenia, but I have (had ever since my 18) the problem focusing on (for example) - dates, lists (for when I have to go to buy something), simple calculations etc. similar trivials, but I have no problems working on abstract stuff - I work as software engineer.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, based on my experiences, but it seems that majority of others had quite the opposite experiences than me.
I appreciate this honest statement. I work daily with individuals with mental disabilities including psychosis, memory dysfunction, and perceptional disturbances, and can certainly agree from what I have subjectively seen. (Though also longitudinally as I have viewed medical records extensively over years and years of research). I have witnessed secondhand that higher doses and earlier use of THC are more likely to produce anxiety, agitation, paranoia, and psychosis. Dr. Volkow's research at footnote 8 of this statement is spot on, and your comment seems to support his findings.
Have you considered that there might be a huge population of people out there who smoked weed and did not develop any problems, thus never coming into your orbit?
And your observation could be easily explained in reverse: "I have witnessed secondhand that people who were susceptible to anxiety, agitation, paranoia, and psychosis due to {trauma|genetics|isolation|etc} and other misfortunes in life were also likely to start consuming higher doses of THC earlier in life, and employ other unhealthy ways to numb their mental anguish".
See my reading of the same facts is just as valid as yours, hence neither can claim to be true.
At this point, if you ignore all the evidence that points at long term effects on cognition from marihuana consumption, it's more your conscious decision rather than lack of data.
At this point if you ignore all the evidence that these people have anxiety, or were in otherwise shitty environments and states in the first place, whether genetic nature or nurture you might want to just say we're collating and correlating rather than finding causes. Conscious decision my ass.
That’s some faulty logic. Either your reading of the facts is valid or his reading of the facts is valid, but given they are facts it is not necessarily the case that neither of you is valid.
Note that I’m not saying you are wrong, nor am I saying he is wrong - but I am pointing out that your conclusion that neither of you can claim any truth is an unsound argument.
Furthermore, you also cannot conclude that a huge population of people who took marijuana with high THC content do not have a significant percentage of people who experienced adverse health effects from their drug-taking. To know that you would also need to have done an extensive study to conclude anything.
Now it may be you have done such a thing (or have read such a study) but without presenting such a study (or group of studies) then it’s also speculation.
I did not say neither is true, I said neither can claim to be true. The logic here is perfectly sound:
If there was only one possible reading of the facts then that reading could be considered the truth. If there are two equally reasonable readings neither can be deemed to be the truth, and further investigation is required to clarify the matter.
So what you are saying is that one could claim to be true based on future investigation. In actual fact you are saying that you do not know which is true based on the limited information presented, not that neither can claim to be true.
In fact, one could be true based on enough evidence. Your claim of reasonableness is a red herring - it could be that one interpretation may seem reasonable but on further investigation it is not.
I’m merely pointing out you don’t know which proposition is true, not that neither can claim to be true. In fact, if one happens to be true then it can claim to be true, and will actually be true. That’s an important distinction.
There is not enough evidence to know which of the claims is true: either one or neither could be. But both claims are as valid as each other in that the observations are true (but correlation != causation applies: both claims show a correlation, there is not enough evidence of whether either of them show causation)
Society itself seems like a driver of psychosis. In school, they rarely teach critical thinking nor warnings of cognitive biases. People then grow up in a rather unfair world and system. Next they get easily persuaded by a clever YouTube video or concept. Now their anger has a revelation and a fascination.
Completely off-topic here, my apologies. If I wanted to talk with someone about memory dysfunction, who would that be? It's something that I've begun to notice in myself and I'd love to know more about what you do, with the hopes of finding a professional to speak with about my concerns.
Being in the bay area, I have witnessed what you expressed happen to many engineers since the legalization. They burn out quickly as well. They swear it's not weed since everyone else tells them that's all tinfoil hat stuff.
Are the engineers you are referring to in developing brain stages? You are replying to OP who said from 16-18.. that is still fairly prime development.. your bay area engineers are probably mid 20's? That is quite different when we are talking about brain development.
They're probably referring to someone who starts getting high everyday, and quickly becomes "smoked out" - We all know someone like this. I used to get high a lot (when I was 21-23), and I stopped because I noticed myself becoming a shell of who I once was. When I wasn't high, nothing was fun anymore. It started off as saying things like "Bro this would be so much more fun if I was stoned", or "Dude, imagine getting high and then doing X' - This soon turned into "I'm so bored. This would be more interesting if I was high".
Soon, I wasn't happy until I picked up an eighth and rolled up a blunt or packed my bowl. When I would stop, I would feel so numb. I soon got depressed, but luckily found a counselor and worked through that dark time with exercise and meditation. People really downplay how damaging getting high all the time can be.
It's strange though, because this doesn't happen to everyone. Some people can get stoned all day everyday and live a very happy, productive life. I wish I was in this category, but nothing good lasts forever.
I'll throw my hat in as one of those that has been smoked out practically 24/7 for the last seven years and haven't experienced these symptoms working at various big name tech companies as software engineer. I am glad to hear things are going better for you now!
Weed effects last for up to 8 hours. Weed messes with REM cycles. This means weed should be treated like coffee (no usage after 4pm) and obviously not before going to work. Meaning the best times to smoke are weekends and holidays, preferably right after you wake up at a normal hour (7-8am)
"There is moderate evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective for:
• Improving short-term sleep outcomes in individuals with sleep disturbance associated with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic pain, and multiple sclerosis"
That's not everybody, of course, but it's enough to say that weed can have positive effects on sleep quality.
In the article you cite, cannabis can help when your sleep cycle is _already_ f'ed. But then you have to have a real long talk with yourself and ask why? Why, when there are better medicines to manage sleep disturbance in the short term which actually improves your sleep. (I am genuinely asking, even OTC sleep medicines will work better than weed)
Weed cannot have positive effects for the layperson because it increases time between REM cycles. Again, if your lack of sleep affects your REM cycle (i.e. its already f'd) then you are doing no harm, but you are not doing much good either.
Maybe you missed my original comment. If you are getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night then you should _not_ be drinking caffeine after 4pm. Likewise, you should also NOT drink alcohol before bed. Further, weed, the topic of this thread, should be avoided after 4pm due to its prolonged effects on your body including impact to REM sleep.
I believe the aforementioned engineers are simply experiencing the effects of marijuana: both acute intoxication and symptoms associated with regular use. If they're healthy adults in mid 20s, then these symptoms should go away within 1-2 weeks of discontinuing use - problem is they don't view their symptoms as associated with routine use.
That said, seeking to be routinely intoxicated could itself a symptom of something else wrong in their work or personal life. This would be a non-controversial statement to make about "hard drugs", alcohol, video games, risky relationships, etc...
People drive high. I can't believe how many times I've heard "I can drive just fine, it's not like alcohol".
Cannabis changes my perception of time and significantly affects my attention. I would never drive in that state, or even cross the street, I'm sure I'd get hit by a car... I don't think other people are that different.
Chronic weed usage changes the way you're high. The time distortion nearly goes away and you can control your attention pretty well. I'm not endorsing driving high of course.
From watching chronic weed smoking friends... I do not believe this. If anything, they're much worse and much scarier more dangerous while driving. They definitely should not ever drive high.
Isn't that because they're also thinking they're invincible and can handle it, so the weed usage does not actually cause their driving behavior? At least that's the case with my own acquintances who drive high. As I said, I also don't think it should be allowed to drive high, however the effect long term usage has on a person is genuine, albeit definitely not generalizable - I'm pretty sure the strain is an important factor.
From my own observations, it was more that their reaction times were much slowed down and their depth and distance perception affected. I know one guy who crashed into a object while high. Luckily he wasn’t driving fast and nobody got hurt.
That requires clear and honest guidance as to where those boundaries might lie, though.
Broadly speaking, I am pro-legalization of Pretty Much Everything, on the basis that proper education and appropriate treatment programs for heroin users are better for society than jail time.
But that comes with the need to implement pragmatic, evidence-based policies for how we approach drug use as a society.
A lot of neural development happens before your mid-20s, with a very large chunk happening during your adolescent years. Recreational drug use before your mid-20s, which includes alcohol and nicotine, really has a massive impact on your entire life.
I would argue that "soft" drugs, like low-percentage alcohol (beer and wine), maybe cocoa tea (not purified cocaine), and possibly low-percentage CBD should be relatively safe for adolescents from sixteen onwards.
Medical professionals, feel free to chime in if I'm wrong here. :)
Hard alcohol, nicotine, cocaine, and such, on the other hand, should have some access barrier for those under the age of twenty-five (90th percentile for complete neural development).
I wouldn't advocate an outright ban or criminalization -- if a teenager wants some weed and vodka, they're going to get it -- but putting some barriers in place to discourage consumption for the under-aged would be wise.
All of this, of course, needs to be coupled with comprehensive education.
The abstinence-only approach of "Just Say No" doesn't equip kids to really understand the full impact of the drugs they choose to use, and because of that, there's a lot of misinformation out there, ranging from "weed will make you crazy" to "it's completely safe for kids".
Neither of those things is true, and if we want to empower people to make good decisions, we must first be honest with them about the impact and trade-offs of the options on the table.
That's the libertarian approach, which says legalize everything, tax everything. Am with you on it, although am not sure, how that would work with hard drugs ( cocaine,mushrooms,LSD, ecstasy,heroin). Again within hard drugs - cocaine is vastly different from doing LSD. A single dose of LSD in a bad setting could mess your psyche up for life. What you are doing is choosing the better of two evils.I would rather buy a pure form of LSD from Pfizer that one from a street dealer with a nefarious source and containing crap knows what!
I'd say more pragmatic than purely libertarian. :)
You still need a regulatory framework, and I would strongly argue for compulsory education on drug use, not to mention treatment programs, all of which should be funded through use taxes.
Otherwise, though, I agree very much with the libertarians that that empowering individuals to make their own life-choices is far more beneficial to society than criminalization and prohibition.
I think when you give people the facts and remove the stigma and the "mystery" surrounding drugs, you will get people to start making wise choices - to counteract it you need a sound education policy, not the fear-mongering that goes in the name of education now.
Thanks for making that distinction. I think the purely libertarian approach has the risk to do more harm than good.
Without education, social support, and access to mental health care, a drug free-for-all could very well lead to such disastrous results that there is a backlash that returns us right back to criminalization and prohibition.
One thing to note is that most weed strains now are very high in THC and low in CBD. Naturally, they were much more balanced and I think high-THC might be part of the problem and consuming more balanced (and lower percentage) strains may be much better. Anecdotally, I definitely find that higher less balanced strains give me more of a brain fog than weaker more balanced strains (less balanced strains but taking CBD pills separately to balance it out even works too).
I mean, heavy use either way may be bad and boundaries are important with anything (weed, beer, chocolate, etc), but smoking the strongest stuff may be extra bad.
>I couldn't function normally and had really tough trips, thinking about so many end results in the same time. Minutes took hours and basically it was an agony, while everybody had pretty joyful time laughing.
Curiosity : Why did you continue for two years with such poor experiences?
Cannabis addiction is a bitch. It also is really tough to get off of. If you use too much too often, you can get crazy sweats, horrifying nightmares (that are more real than being awake), irritability and headaches that make you want to relapse.
The worst part about cannabis addiction is it's mostly psychological.
I’m in recovery for drug and alcohol abuse and spent a lot of time with other recovering drug addicts. None of us look down on stoners as “having it easy”.
Addiction and the destruction it can bring to a person’s life is universal. The choice of drug is irrelevant.
The (elevator pitch) point behind addiction is that I, as an addict, have avoided reality by using, rather than actually facing reality as it is.
Paying my bills? F*ck that, I’m rolling a spliff. etc. etc.
Addiction is not universal at all. Not even close. It’s charitable of you not to look down on them, but they aren’t addicted to weed, and weed isn’t destroying their life. Their own choices are. You cannot even compare this with opiates.
Just to be clear - when I say it is universal, I’m referring to those who suffer from addictions, and what they experience. Not everyone is an addict or will have problems with substance abuse who has/does use substances.
I’m not going to argue that the withdrawal and initial stages of getting clean are different. They are totally different.
But the root causes that are the bedrock of this disease are all very similar across the board. Alcohol, sex addiction, opiates, cocaine, marijuana...
All of them are borne out of similar issues.
All of them cause similar types of destruction in the life of an addict, or persons in any type of vicinity to an addict.
In that sense, the effects are universal. No matter the choice of substance/activity.
I freely admit that my own choices (and some that were not mine) took me down the path I went.
But that’s looking at this from a very shallow perspective.
Because I wasn’t even aware that there’s a totally other side of the coin. A chance to actually live life. That never ever entered into my perception.
All I tried to do, like many addicts, was exist. In a state where I’m not dead, but I’m also not living. Just numbing the pain of my existence because I felt I couldn’t face the problems in my life.
And I couldn’t. Not alone.
Addiction is a disease of the mind.
It also gets a hell of a lot worse the longer it is allowed to fester away.
A great example of this is alcoholism....
If alcohol, by itself, was addictive, society would have eaten itself up a long time ago.
But that hasn’t happened. Only certain people seem to become alcoholics.
So it is universal in how it affects those who suffer from it, regardless of the substances involved.
Here’s a dictionary definition of addiction:
> the fact or condition of being addict to a particular substance or activity
Of course it exists. You can be addicted to anything: caffeine, chocolate, sugar, video games. It just means you have a dependence on it that is tough to break. It could be a physical addiction like nicotine or alcohol, but it could be a mental addiction or even just a routine that's hard to break.
Anything that either provides stimulation or that numbs you is, in my opinion, pretty addictive: all you need is someone who is somewhat susceptible to it (maybe they have a stressful job and like a distraction. After a while it becomes routine and hard to break out of).
Just because there are worse addictions doesn't mean its not a big problem and causes people hardships. Your comment seems very callous to me.
What seems callous is disregarding the differences between physical addiction of drugs like caffeine, nicotine and alcohol -- which can kill you if you stop taking it suddenly.
Sure, addicts like drugs and weed is a drug. I'm missing the part where the harm (to self and others) is anywhere near that of some of the others mentioned in this post.
Like you said, you can be addicted to anything but it would be absurd to equate chocolate to heroin.
And yet non-physical addiction also destroys lives sometimes. I’m not equating chocolate to heroin, but all forms of addiction can cause problems and even destroy lives, just because one form is much worse and much more likely to do that, doesn’t mean that we should ignore all the other forms. What you’re saying sounds very much like saying that if someone is worse off than you, that you don’t have the right to complain about your problems, which is complete bullshit.
You get addicted to dopamine release, not weed. Nicotine has addictive properties. Opioids have addictive properties. No one has ever sucked dick for a dimebag.
If weed gives you the dopamine release that you're addicted to, then there's no real difference to the user. There are also other mental reasons to get addicted, eg, to the escape from a stressful or unfulfilling or depressing reality.
When taking opioids you are also addicted to a dopamine release, just because it affects that more directly doesn't really mean much beyond that the addiction happens quicker and more intensely.
People can and do get addicted to gambling or video games too and those can destroy lives as well. Maybe not as often as heroin, but it certainly does happen.
Just because something doesn’t have physical withdrawal or isn’t as severe doesn’t mean that it isn’t addiction or isn’t a problem. Your argument is akin to saying that you can’t complain about something if someone else is worse off than you, which is just bullshit. People who are addicted to, eg, gambling, can still have their lives destroyed.
Condescending much? You don’t know anything about me and refuse to understand my point. I’m not equating these things as equal, just that they do cause problems. The fact that you utterly refuse to try to understand what I write and instead resort to name calling tells me that you’re not worth interacting with.
Although I'm not a fan of cannabis, it's worth considering that other people occasionally have trouble with "dates, lists... simple calculations" without drug use and lead successful, meaningful lives.
I've smoked heavily since 12 years old. I function, and it's helped me with arthritis and PTSD at this point. Sometimes addressing problems with common drugs helps. It definitely changes amygdala response and cerebral blood flow patterns. I think it in general makes people question things, and be better people. I also know it affects motivation, which can be great to quell response to pain, but is detrimental to getting up and out.
Much of it is also habits, related or not. If you aren't taking vitamins, exercising, eating well and isolated from people and things that are detrimental you're obviously not going to have things go smoothly. My family are monsters.
It's helped me through it. Or if you're handicapped by mental issues or the like.
I don't buy the psychosis thing, except maybe from edibles. And I absolutely hate to see people stating that it "makes them creative" or other repeated things that they've read or heard somewhere. Oversimplification and lack of education about it is common. Some people just don't handle it well, or are nudged into craziness. Too many people I know didn't read up on what they were getting into with cannabis and psychedelics and want to be into it to be cool, or fit in. I used to smoke to get high. Now I smoke for pain relief.
The national academy has a very nice writeup on "The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research (2017)" which is by far the most comprehensive guide I'm aware of.
Personally, i first used weed when i was 22 and figure that's about right. I continue to use it in moderation. I would not be comfortable with its use by a minor child or a pregnant mother.
In ever US state where it is legal (Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Alaska, Mass., and 2020 Illinois and Michigan) I think the minimum age is 21. Sure people underage can get it, but there is an attempt being made to limit it to people at least 21.
I knew parents who let their teenagers know they used it, but also told them they didn't want their kids using it until they were at least 18 (but if they wanted to try it; to ask them and not do it at a party or anything).
I've stuck electrodes in enough brains to be very, very conservative about what i'm comfortable allowing to cross the BBB in rapidly developing tissues :)
Can you provide a little more detail for those of us who don’t work in your field? As an outsider, it’s not obvious to me what commentary placing the electrodes has to offer.
>Sure people underage can get it, but there is an attempt being made to limit it to people at least 21.
This is actually an argument for legalization. Who would you rather snitch on if you got caught with weed as an underage teen: your dispensary employee/friend or your street dealer?
My weed dealer when I was in highschool was a jackass wannabe-surfer (never saw the ocean) whom I didn't particularly like, but was totally harmless. I'd much rather betray him than a friend. I know it happens sometimes, but the stereotype that weed dealers are/were often violent criminals is a bit silly. I'm sure if you were buying in bulk from organized crime things could easily get dicy, but a teenager buying a dimebag from some dude? Probably not much risk there...
Absolutely. Particularly, being reasonably sure I'm not breathing in toasted pesticides is a huge plus to the legal industry in my view. I generally trust that kind of stuff to be safe on raw fruit, but god knows what that stuff turns into if you burn it a little.
So if nice Mr DEA man goes to the state police and say "help me bust these grow operations", the head of the state police says "go piss up a rope, those are tax-paying law abiding citizens who are breaking no law I have the responsibility to enforce."
And this is called state's rights.
Rhetorically I am well within the realm of sanity to describe purchasing weed at the dispensary down the street as legal. Feel free to insert the implicit footnoted "persuant to the laws of the state of oregon" in your head, if you like, for completeness.
Unless the federal government wants to get into a serious fight over state’s rights, weed is effectively/wholly legal in states like California (I don’t know the specific laws outside of CA)
If you’d like to argue that the federal government - through the supremacy clause - has the power to override States that legalize marijuana, perhaps you’re right in theory.
But I think it’s a fantasy that the federal government will want to die on that hill. There are politically valuable reasons to avoid addressing the tension between state’s rights and the federal government’s power.
It sounds like we're using different definitions of the word "illegal". It's unfortunate that English makes it cumbersome to draw the necessary distinction.
Given that the federal government has consistently grabbed more power than our founding documents actually gave them, forgive me for not really giving a shit what the federal government's opinion is.
It is a kind of ironic situation. Modern states rights arguments tend to reside on the right, but that is also where anti-drug legalization sentiment resides as well. I'd be very interested to hear a debate where a right winger insists the fed should step in, and a left winger replies "Personally I support states rights". Just to see where it all goes.
> Demanding that people give the federal disclaimer every time they discuss the matter is tedious and pointless (since of course you already know it...)
It seems to me that saying "pot is legal in MA" is precisely as incorrect as saying "pot is illegal in MA". They're both half-truths.
I believe there's rhetorical and political power, however, in repeating an untruth without anybody challenging it.
HN is intended to be a site for serious discussion and honest debate, and I choose to not let use this rhetorical device go unchallenged.
It costs me karma every time, and I consider it a cost worth paying.
Does your distinction matter? If the state of Delaware declares driving a red cars illegal everywhere on the planet, would you jump to correct people saying driving red cars is legal in Germany and let them know it isn't?
Most people would not do so because there is no feasible way of Delaware enforcing their opinions in Germany. If you're not willing to take your viewpoint to the extreme then you're making an implicit declaration that you think the federal government does have the power to override the states here and will do so.
That's why people are downvoting when you say you're just exposing an "untruth". It's similar to hen people say they don't care about politics which really implies that the current status quo suits them well enough to not be involved
The US federal government has many ways of enforcing their opinions on US states and does so regularly. Almost all banks will not open accounts for pot related businesses due to federal banking laws. In the past the federal government convinced the states that did not have a drinking age of 21 to up the age by withholding federal highway funds from those states until they did.
Being "precisely correct" is tedious and pointless. I was like that in the past and it was a hard habit to kick, but I strongly encourage you to do the same.
Its a silly thing to get worked up over although important in a few instances. The pot industry has limited access to banking and you have states like Kansas going after Colorado for enabling drug traffiking
It saved the life of woman I know during pregnancy, quite literally. She has recurrent hyperemesis gravidarum. Which is nausea and vomiting in pregnancy so persistent and strong that some mothers resort to abortion due to the pain and suffering. She was in the hospital begging for her life while the doctors were unable to help. None of the standard treatments worked for her. She had lost over 20% of her pre pregnancy weight and hadn't eaten in weeks, surviving off her own dwindling body fat and a banana bag. (I can't overstate how agonizing it is. If you're skeptical, there are plenty of mothers accounts to read) She was discharged for the fourth time, where every previous time she became so dehydrated from the lack of IV fluids that she was re admitted within a day. Finally, encouraged by other mothers success with it, she tried medical cannabis. Slowly she could actually drink water, then a day later sip some juice, another day tiny bites of crackers. She still vomited, and was still nauseous, but less intensely and could push through it more easily. She could finally eat. The baby was born vaginally, no complications and no health issues (and still so, years later).
It's just one data point, but worth looking into further.
I smoke heavily for 10 years and if I could say something about the cognitive changes, it was for better. I learnt two foreign languages, more programming languages that I can count with one hand and got out of depression by means of self-awareness and meditation after a joint. Weed+Youtube surely is harmful, but so it is only Youtube (with less fun).
You didn't say anything about your age, which would be important given that the article is about the developing brain. It's already pretty understood that the negative impact is significantly less in the adult brain.
The majority of people I went to HS with that were potheads are in exactly the types of jobs and whatnot that the Surgeon General suggests is most likely. Of course there are a lot of outliers. Nobody said this was 100%. The musicians are still pumping out great music. The artists are still doing artistic things.
I'm 38 and started smoking daily when I was 13. There's been some periods of break in my life, but mostly I've been a daily smoker for 25 years.
I'm the lead developer at my company, who I've been with for 10 years. In my late teenage years I ran my small own software company for a couple years and then a small custom pc builder company for a couple years. I've done manual labor at times. I built furniture for a while.
I'm a bit of a homebody, and feel lazy at times, but thinking also of the list of personal hobbies and projects I've done in the last 20 years, I can't really say I'm very lazy at all.
I'm also an active father, and polyamorous and in two long-term relationships.
Fair enough. I started at age of 22 and I'm currently 32. Lots of friends started when they were teenagers and most of them have some issues that can be related to that phase. But also a lot of friends that didn't smoke but watched the same amount of TV have issues that are related to laziness, lack of focus, depression, ADHD, Game addiction.
That doesn't apply in this case, because the causation is well documented. The developing brain can suffer various types of delays when thc or just about any other intoxicant is distracting said developing brain's ability to actually develop.
Problems occur when the brain is too preoccupied in La La Land to develop optimally for the real world. There's a huge difference between the "thinker" and the "space cadet" when it comes to how one's brain handles thc in their youth.
Space cadets tend to stay space cadets. Thinkers tend to stay thinkers. The space cadet is who the Surgeon General is concerned about, because thc pretty much obliterates their chances of getting out of La La Land mentality.
Nobody says pot stops the brain from developing. You're going to get a notable Bell Curve. Some potheads go total 70's/80's movie revival mode. Others become Carl Sagan. Almost everyone around these people can identify which one is the Carl Sagan and which is the Tommy Chong (character) pretty early on. That's half of the pot humour in those movies, so it's not like only non-users notice this.
Funny point: I do think that we have a better ratio of Carl Sagans/Tommy Chong in the universe of pot smokers than in the non-smokers universe. Maybe the tommy chongs that don't smoke are a little bit smarter, but they probably are more sad/depressed.
That's actually why I suggested Tommy Chong's character. In real life, he's a smart guy - which you can tell when he's interviewing, versus when he is in character.
He definitely understands the dichotomy, and as an ironic twist, has become one of the most successful professional potheads in the world. He's a thinker who is very good at emulating the opposite side of the Bell Curve.
I accomplished a lot of things before smoking, so at least I kept the rate, but by comparison, I improved, both in results and especially caring less about money and stuff. Not coincidentally, today I save 80% of what I make monthly.
Also, important to note that I started smoke weed after I got financially broke because of a failed startup. That was also when I got depressed, and against all odds and people's opinion, weed helped me get back on track. Every person has a personal experience, but I can tell to the people that ask me at least one great experience about starting smoking weed.
<Throwaway because co-workers are stalking me on hackernews and marijuana is still taboo over here, although legal>.
Sorry for the long post, I feel I need to say this.
I smoked daily and multiple times a day starting at 28 and until 33. During this time, I switched jobs twice for higher pay, learned a lot and I was very uninhibited to the extent that I grew my social life tremendously.
One of my favorite things to do was to get high and solve leetcode problems. I could do it for hours. I will never forget the stuff I learned while high, I was focused to the extent that I feel those things etched into my brain (I'm talking algorithms, competitive programming tricks, etc..). I rarely played games or wasted time when I wanted to relax, I mostly read books (about mind bending stuff) or listened to good music while drawing.
I was super productive at work also. I never smoked at work but the 9-10 hours of sobriety during the work-day were laser focused.
But all my intellectual ventures have been at the expense of my lifting hobby so I stopped going to the gym for 5 years.
But at one point, it all took a turn for the worse. I started getting panic attacks and some severe anxiety. My heart rate used to go over the roof and one day I realized that I was burning out at work, marijuana wasn't making me feel better anymore, I was just smoking to get to the baseline of 'meh'. So 5 years later, I realize that:
a) I don't have too many memories since I started smoking pot.
b) I'm morbidly obese and my resting heart rate is dangerously high.
c) I'm burned out at work.
d) I'm an addict.
And I stopped. After stopping, I went through the worst 3-4 months of my life. Severe panic attacks that I was prescribed medication by a doctor. Depression, insomnia, irritability and the scariest IMO, depersonalization... Marijuana withdrawal is real. Not as 'real'/dangerous as opiates or alcohol but there is no mention whatsoever in the pop culture about it. If I knew how it would have been, I would never have smoked daily. It took me about 6 months of existential crises and bouts of deep depression to be decently productive again, to be able to feel 'normal' and to feel that I got my cognitive function back on track.
I haven't touched it for about 2 years now and I don't believe I ever will. I learned a lot about myself, most important thing being that I'm vulnerable to addictions.
I am one of the most liberal (in the European sense) person you'd meet. I would legalize all drugs, everything. And I am happy that marijuana is legal. Because now, perhaps the medical profession will take a closer look at it and people will be more informed (at least more informed than I was).
If we compare the effects of Marijuana on people to those of alcohol and or Oxycodone, I think it is clear to most that the latter two are more destructive.
I agree more research is needed on the effects of Marijuana use on people in general.
And we need to keep the risk factors in perspective. Many more people will die, hurt others and become addicted to alcohol and or Oxycodone than marijuana.
You would think this to be universally good advice based on the risks related to alcohol intoxication and alcoholism, but it’s not. Some people would do better to not smoke weed and instead drink moderately and socially.
Reading the comments here is a bit disappointing. There are a lot of legalization advocates seeming to take the position that because weed is mostly fine for most people it's always fine for everyone. It's not.
Anyone here who has a friend who smoked too much when they were young (and we all have that friend) knows that weed, like so many things in life, can be dangerous when you use it too much or when you shouldn't be using it.
Yes it should be legal. Yes adults should be able to buy it. We should also watch, very carefully, how our children use it.
That friend was already a deadbeat, with or without the weed. The weed didn’t make them that way. Deadbeats are often attracted to weed, as are many others who want to self-medicate.
The deadbeat examples are just more readily available, because the upstanding successful folks are aware of this misconception and the stigma. They tend to keep quiet about it, except among their own.
As I get older, I keep discovering “addicts” in my social circle that I’ve known for years, or in some cases decades, who I’d have never guessed have a habit. I don’t have any deadbeats in my social circle. These people all range from moderately successful to wildly successful. A lot of the daily users I can think of are far more productive than I am. At least two of them have founded and sold companies and no longer need to work. But they loathe feeling unproductive, so they still do, and they’re the first ones in the office every morning.
Personally, I have tried working under the influence, but it doesn’t work that way for me. It’s not addictive though, so I simply stopped using it.
Just like owning a bed doesn’t make you lazy and tired, and it doesn’t cause you to develop an excessive sleeping habit. Just because some people choose to remain in bed to avoid responsibility, doesn’t mean there is a causal relationship.
You're characterization of these people simply as deadbeats trying to avoid responsibility is both extremely insensitive and simple minded. How deep a person can gets caught up in addiction is usually a reflection of their emotional health. They're not trying to escape responsibility, they're trying to escape being alive.
We’re saying the same thing. I am not concerned with being sensitive, sorry. Facts don’t care about feelings. I think this mentality that we can’t speak the truth out of fear that we’ll hurt their feelings, and encouraging a victim mentality only makes things worse.
Recognizing that you are a deadbeat, and deciding that you don’t want to be is the only way to even begin recovery. I’ve seen this up close. Anyone who has any experience helping addicts will tell you the same thing. That’s why forced treatment doesn’t work and will never work.
Trust me, you’ll look at this differently after you have pulled family members out of crack houses that you thought only existed like that in the movies, had them steal your motorcycle and sell it for drugs, had them give your address to their crackhead friends where your wife and kids sleep, etc. Some of us are way past worrying about hurt feelings.
And this isn’t something that happens with weed users at all, which is why I don’t think people really understand what it means to be a drug addict when they mention weed. There is just no comparison.
I agree with what you’re saying, factually. I completely disagree with the way you’re saying it unfortunately.
The important point to remember is that addicts already punish themselves waaaaaaaaay more than anyone in the real world ever could.
Like, in my own experience, it’s like having a spade in my head that constantly smashes me in my face me every few minutes. It’s absolutely punishing.
I genuinely thought I was one of the worst human beings alive.
Referring to them as deadbeats is not the right way to go because it:
a) reinforces those punishing beliefs even more
b) reinforces the isolation and separation, which is a key element in the problem
c) provides an excuse to keep going through stereotypes and stigma (“once an addict, always an addict” etc.)
d) addicts, by our very nature, fight. Pushing an addict is like poking an angry snake. It doesn’t help anyone. Playing the snake calming music does though (ie being nice).
Edit:
One of the reasons I’m still clean is because of the guilt and shame I felt about how badly I treated people. People who were genuinely very nice to me. It takes time to see it, but it’s very important to be kind and to not judge. It’s tough, especially when an addict hurts someone so much and so often.
Of course what you’ve been through sounds like hell. And Addiction doesn’t just affect the individual. It affects everyone around them, unfortunately.
To be clear, are you saying nobody is a deadbeat? And anyone avoiding responsibility is a victim of something? Some might be, but 100% are? I find this view of the world very naive.
Weed isn’t the reason that someone isn’t taking care of their wife and kids. There could be many reasons, perhaps some legitimate and some not so legitimate. But the reason is never that the weed got a hold of them like people unfamiliar with it seem to think. It just doesn’t have that effect. Some drugs do, though.
Edit:
BTW, although my connection to the situation was quite stressful, I would not call what I went through hell compared to what his (now ex) wife and kids went through. But yes, the blast radius is large there. And the people who got the worst of it were the compassionate ones. They’re so easily manipulated, and the addicts know that.
Now that I think about it, the individual who helped him and his family the most (and who is currently not speaking to him) is actually one of the biggest weed users I alluded to earlier. That guy gets more done in a day before most people even get out of bed.
So yeah, I just can’t take people seriously when they talk about victims of weed addiction, especially when their opinions are formed based on that pothead from high school that didn’t go anywhere. It’s comical sounding if you have any real experience or understanding of these issues.
Not at all. I was well on my way as a deadbeat before this recovery I’m now in. My point was that being referred to as a deadbeat would incite those 4 points above in varying forms and make me much less willing to seek help.
And no. I’m not a victim of any massive trauma (I’m guessing that’s what you mean), came from a decent enough middle class family. So not all addicts are a victim of anything - except the disease.
And, to be clear, whilst I was avoiding responsibility throughout active addiction, I was avoiding reality far more. That is by far the bigger problem.
Weed can totally be the reason why someone doesn’t look after their wife and kids. I’ve caused the exact same problems in my own life! Just because _most_ people can smoke weed fine, doesn’t mean some people don’t completely screw up their lives with it.
Weed is like the beer of the drugs world. An alcoholic will still ruin lives even if they can only drink beer. It’s what I’ve done!
FYI, hash was one of my main drugs of choice (alongside cocaine and alcohol).
...
So this is probably most important thing for anyone related/involved to/with an addict to understand. And I actually came back to add this to the above when I started rethinking about what you said:
SET BOUNDARIES/LIMITS, DO NOT GET INVOLVED IN DRAMA AND DO NOT WAIVER.
Protect yourself first. Then be compassionate/helpful (not overflowing with sympathy, that’s not compassion) when it is appropriate.
Getting involved in my drama is like crack for me. “Attention from other people, yeeesssssss!!!”
An addict rarely asks for help honestly. When it happens (honestly), there’s always something different about how I would be asking. It’s at those moments when I was totally desperate that the magic could happen.
It doesn’t always work out, unfortunately. But they are the only opportunities where I’d be willing listen to other people and maybe, just maybe, be willing to change.
And those moments are where the compassion pays absolute dividends.
At least that’s my experience.
Patience, firm and consistent boundaries, and then compassion as and when applicable.
...
On a personal note, the whole thing sounds super rough. Maybe not hell, but still rough.
It’s a horrible disease to live with - as an addict and as someone who cares about an addict.
My thoughts are with yourself, your extended family and the husband.
THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol) activates cannabinol receptors in one's brain whenever they smoke cannabis. These receptors are responsible to stimulating hunger (why you get munchies) but they also stimulate something called long term depression, which is the process by which your brain forgets memories. The effects take years to decades for anything significant enough to precipitate.
Now, I'm not against smoking cannabis just like I'm not against drinking alcohol. I'm for people understanding the risk factors and being fully informed before they make a decision.
I was going off my undergraduate neuroscience course when I asked my professor who has his doctorate in neurophysiology about long term cannabis use. Looking at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis#...) you're right that it's fairly inconclusive and there may be some cofounding variables at play which are preventing us from assigning a firm sequela. Active cannabis users will have memory deficits.
They are trying to say that THC can cause depression, but it can take many years. I'm just clarifying (and not downvoting, like the rest of 'hacker' 'news'.. lol) and do not necessarily agree/disagree with OP
My brother smoked heavily during his teens and as a result developed schizophrenia / substance induced psychosis. It was generally terrifying to see him unable to complete thoughts and lose his train of thought. He's fine now but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if you told me those years knocked a couple of points off his IQ.
I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects. Unfortunately the politicization of marijuana has led it, similar to guns, to be woefully understudied as a topic of public health in the US.
It totally weirds me out how defensive people are about your anecdote here. Talking to any clinical psychotherapist dealing with young adults, you will hear lots of stories about weed-induced psychosis and anxiety.
What I wonder is why it matters to people that it's not as safe as they may believe? Cognitive dissonance? We do lots of unsafe things.
I think it's because for many years anecdotal reports from clinical psychologists and psychiatrists drove a narrative (convenient to pro-prohibition authorities) that cannabis caused psychosis. Large epidemiological studies now suggest that's probably not the case, but the original narrative is often parroted uncritically by news outlets and others.
There are almost certainly risks from taking cannabis, but they are almost certainly an order of magnitude smaller than the risks of drinking and smoking (individually... not just becase A and T are more widespread)
It’s not even anecdotal. The relative risk for developing schizophrenia for cannabis smokers vs non cannabis smokers is 2.3. This means that you are 2.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia if you smoke cannabis.
Reporting relative odds or risks without a baseline is very misleading. The absolute risk in either case is still very low. People aren't downplaying risks.. they are setting them in a proper context (where other legal recreational drugs cause substantially more harm).
Schizophrenia is an imbalance in the polyphony of minds occupying our heads. Our minds and bodies take training to pilot properly. If we want to have agency, we need to be methodical and purposeful in what we do and don't vastly surpass our current limits. You can't go squat 400 lbs w/o training. The same goes for mind altering substances.
there's a fairly deep schism between the "I should be free to harm myself however I want" crowd and the "we need to protect people from themselves" crowd. the first group doesn't necessarily believe drugs are as safe as they publicly claim, but they fear that discussions about harm are the first step towards issuing or doubling down on bans. they don't think it becomes safe by winning a debate; they just don't want to let the second group win the debate on the record.
the second group, for their part, tend to come off as sanctimonious busybodies.
I think this is essentially a tribal, not a logical issue. A nuanced view is not welcome on these kinds of issues, you're either with us or against us.
You can be against the prohibition of marijuana while also thinking it's a bad idea to smoke it all the time, or at all. Laws don't have to match your personal beliefs.
I agree thet debate is polarised. But I sympathise with the irritation caused by the focus on poor quality evidence linking cannabis to psychosis when the widespread harms of alcohol and tobacco are basically ignored.
Disappointed in the comments here. There are NO studies involving psychosis and schizophrenia that factor in weed actually helping (hint: it contains an antipsychotic). Schizophrenia involves a defect in the gene responsible for producing the protein FABP5[1] which delivers our bodies naturally produced cannabinoids (eg, Anandamide and 2AG) to where they're needed[2]. Therefore it is not surprising there is a 'link' between those using cannabis and mental illness: flooding the bloodstream with cannabinoids somewhat makes up for the deficit in endocannabinoid delivery.
Unfortunately the fallacy of correlation-is-causation muddies the water here. Does self-medication cause incipient psychoses to fully manifest, or do those with incipient psychoses resort to self-medication in early stages in seeking to treat their symptoms?
Fortunately, it's still illegal to even study these things in America so we can comfortably resort to what we have faith in without the scourge of proof.
This goes just as much for the miracle of CBD oil (CBD rhymes with 'znake').
There are estimates that 60-90% of schizophrenics smoke cigarettes, which is 2-3x the normal smoking rate. I think schizophrenics are more likely to smoke marijuana around the time the disease begins to manifest. It's a lot easier to look at your child/brother/uncle/whatever and say "weed did this to him, it's all weed's fault" vs "the disease presented concurrent with a time period where person used cannabis".
I'm not even slightly convinced that weed induced schizophrenia is real.
Cannabis gives me manic and schizophrenic symptoms. I feel emotions I don’t have names for. I don’t get these symptoms without. This is a strong psychedelic with a very long binding time deep inside our neurobiology.
I'm just not convinced we have adequate information to formulate an educated opinion either way. More, better, validated research would help, but like nutrition and much in medecine, the nature of the problem precludes ever gaining a rigourous scientifically robust result.
Not only that, I lack the confidence we as a society can make adequate decisions on restrictions to freedoms based on the sorts of numbers and correlations that are currently being published. Does the expected reduction in harm justify the restrictions of personal freedoms imposed in its name? Does it help more than, say, banning high school sports would?
> I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects.
This is sort of the inverse of the anti-GMO position: "we should ban GMOs until we understand them". I wonder if there are many legalize-weed / ban-GMO folks, and how they would defend their position?
That combination of positions is incredibly common. Their argument generally stems from a belief that natural things are inherently good and artificial things are inherently bad.
GMO's are potentially dangerous to introduce into the environment. Lot's of shoddy science by Monsanto around them. They don't stand the test of time and aren't necessary. When introducing new potentially dangerous things into the world, the burden of proof is to prove them safe. This is hard to do.
Weed has been around forever. Your use doesn't affect me(unless you are driving).
We do understand GMOs though, after decades of broad testing in both the lab and the field where they were proven safe, with anti-GMO proponents choosing to ignore it.
There hasn't been the same degree of controlled scientific testing performed with marijuana as of yet, so calling for it should be welcomed.
Mostly GMOs are used so they can spray more glyphospate. Not sure why anyone thinks this is a good thing. We have had enough discussions on this very forum about insect collapse etc
Ha, call it the libertarian / data-driven approach. Frenzy over drugs like marijuana and cocaine fueled the "war on drugs" which devastated communities -- so I'm a proponent of throwing out simple possession convictions and decriminalization, legalization in my mind will help keep it out of the hands of minor (I have no data). I'm for everyone knowing what they're getting into.
My question was about squaring the "legalize-weed" position with the "ban-GMOs" position. You only addressed the first part of my question as far as I can tell.
Cannabis is not "meant" for anyone. It is a naturally occurring substance. Whether it has a negative impact on teens or adults is a completely separate question. Just like with alcohol.
The association between cannabis and schizophrenia remains, as far as I'm aware, primarily statistical, and other factors like familial history are significantly more predictive.
EDIT: That is, I don't think we have sufficient understanding to say whether pot abuse causes schizophrenia, or schizophrenics are more likely to abuse pot. Given what I know of how awful a ride that is, self-medicating that devolves into abuse seems far more plausible to me. Further, there's research that takes into account family history of these mental illnesses out to 3rd — and further — degrees, and which suggests a much stronger link between that and the illness, than the drug use.
This is correct. But we do have sufficient statistical evidence to rule out _large_ negative effects. We do know that cannabis is very unlikely to be as harmful to physcal and mental health as alcohol.
The thing for me is the fact that it might lead to schizophrenia is still scary. I've met a lot of people on the "it's not proven so I'm going to assume it's safe" side and I never understood it but then again I'm fairly risk averse.
It's broken thinking to assume something is safe on the basis of a lack of proof otherwise. We have a pretty substantial body of research exonerating cannabis of a lot of the harms other drugs of abuse can bring. Literally no-one ever has died of a cannabis overdose, that we know of. We know it's safe that way.
There is of course a risk with any mind-altering substance that it might trigger a latent or occult mental illness. Those odds go up, sometimes significantly, with more powerful substances, and even more so when the user has any genetic predisposition towards those conditions. There's also a risk of having a difficult or traumatic experience, which can likewise increase with dose or different substances. That said, those of us who work with these substances intentionally often find that those experiences can be where the really transformative stuff happens.
Anyone who's taken it should have no problem understanding how easily this drug can create a disturbed state of mind. It has quite powerful psychoactive effects.
I do a lot of work with psychedelics. I'm very, very well aware of the power of consciousness-altering chemicals to have profound effects. That's kind of the whole point of using them. They should be respected but I don't see how that implies they should be feared.
I think you meant to say "Induced schizophrenia by weed could be a thing, but more research is needed". The causation and correlation between existing mental health issues and weed is not well understood. Correlation is not equal to causation...
Given the link between inflamation due to infection and schizophrenia (here's a radio documentary on the subject, 'The Inflamed Mind', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpjYmYPKZNE ) and the fact that joints and bongs are very often shared, any correlation could be entirely down to the increase in disease transmission vectors rather than the cannabis itself.
I'm sorry about your brother, but I want to point out this is anecdotal. Can cannibals lead to psychosis in people who are prone to it genetically, or are people who start experiencing delusions, bipolar and schizo-effective conditions just likely to escape using alcohol and marijuana? The exact cause/effect conditions here are a big unknown.
> The strongest evidence to date concerns links between marijuana use and substance use disorders and between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders in those with a preexisting genetic or other vulnerability.
> After adjusting for various confounding factors, no association between marijuana use and mood and anxiety disorders was found. The only significant associations were increased risk of alcohol use disorders, nicotine dependence, marijuana use disorder, and other drug use disorders.
It's pretty well established even in hardcore drug communities that drugs aren't for everybody and it's rarely ever the drug itself that caused it. Even without scientific evidence.
And then even the devil gets pointed out how they used the scripture wrong. The point being that the data itself is addressed, rather than just ad hom'ing the devil.
It's a division of the NIH and the article cites a peer-reviewed paper in Biological Psychiatry, so yes, I do think that this is a reliable source of unbiased information. The original study carefully describes its methodology (which is as sound as any neuroscience paper I've read), and was done in London, so you can't argue that the researchers are biased by American government attitudes toward drugs:
Every country, city, and government has a bias and an attitude toward drugs, including London. I hope you're not suggesting (perhaps you improperly worded your comment) that the US government is biased toward drugs but English government is not biased at all and is completely neutral scientifically. If that's what you meant, I think it's specious.
Every person has a bias towards or against anything they choose to take a position on.
I'm saying that the biases of the U.S. government, UK NIH, King's College London, and Palermo University, Italy (the other sponsor of the researchers) are likely to be largely uncorrelated when it comes to drugs. The U.K. does not have the U.S's history of criminalizing specific drugs (marijuana, heroin) simply because they are used by marginalized groups while legalizing others (nicotine, alcohol, caffeine) because they have powerful corporate interests backing them. They undoubtedly have other biases, but in a study of the genetic effects of THC on psychosis those are less likely to be relevant.
One way to minimize the effects of bias, despite its ubiquity, is to seek out multiple independent POVs. Each one of them is individually biased, but when you average them together you get something approximating the truth.
> ...was done in London, so you can't argue that the researchers are biased by American government attitudes toward drugs
Ah, my naive little cultural hegemonist. Sounds like you've live all your life in America. Have a Coke, turn on some Hip Hop, and watch your Mickey Mouse.
If you want to nitpick on the source, this is another source with a full publication:
> Variation at the rs2494732 locus of the AKT1 gene predicted acute psychotic response to cannabis along with dependence on the drug and baseline schizotypal symptoms.
Thanks for this specific info! If anyone reading this has done 23andMe, your ATK1 / rs2494732 genotype is available on there (search for those terms, it comes right up).
The way to contest evidence is to show that either: the statistical analysis has an error in the math, or that there is an issue with the scientific process used to obtain those results.
Wow what a paragon of truth and levelheaded reason, posting some propaganda article that any dumbass can poke holes in and which every dumbass has poked holes in. I love society now, and all of its earnest regard for public discourse and truth instead of just commies, who think they know whats best for everyone, marketing their worldview at any cost.
So that's as far as you got? Didn't like the domain, therefore the study results are bunk?
75% of the authors are affiliated with other institutions, only 3 are with the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NIDA itself is well-grounded. There have been some instances where they take a more conservative stance given uncertainty in results, but this is still a national scientific institute - not DARE or the DoJ.
Would you care to speculate again about how much time I've spent reading their literature before this discussion? I promise you, it's non-zero. Please try not to dismiss people's positions that shallowly; it's a disservice to the conversation we're trying to have, and it's rude.
I am involved in a number of communities that engage intentionally, even sacramentally, with psychedelics. The amount of sheer bullshit they continue to promulgate on that matter, about which I consider myself advanced-lay to burgeoning-expert, is staggering, and is sufficient for me to be default skeptical of anything else they might have to say. When you lie to me about things I know something about, I'm obligated to trust the rest of your oeuvre somewhat less, aren't I?
Finally, I said nothing whatsoever about the conclusion of the paper under general discussion. In point of fact, I generally agree with it.
Not OP, but FWIW your italicizing of drugabuse.gov also gave me the impression that you were dismissing it purely by domain. I did not ready any rudeness in your parent.
Thanks for your perspective, I appreciate it. I can see that being a legitimate read of the comment, if one punts on the guideline to assume good faith, and interpret people's arguments in the strongest light, rather than, e.g., dismiss them on the basis of formatting.
It's just disappointing when that happens, because I try to engage that way, and assume my comments will be treated the same.
EDIT: That said, I didn't exactly offer much in the way of argument there, did I?
oh thank the cosmos there is someone else who notices. im absolutely fascinated with psychedelic inspired communities, but that being said i certainly do notice a lot of people that tend to just devolve into a mostly coherent glossolalia in order to fit into some perceived archetype of a "woke shaman" or some such, and as someone with a vested interest in the pursuit of shamanism as an aspect of spiritual pursuits, it certainly frustrates me. i mean, to each their own, but i think it kinda poisons the well a bit. words and stuff ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'm not quite sure what you're referring to with "glossolalia", offhand. The shamans I work with variously use a mix of Spanish, English, and Quechua, or Shipibo-Conibo, and although all of those (if moreso the indigenous tongues) have what seem to be "filler words" with no specific (known) meaning, the overwhelming majority of the sounds they utter are recognizably from those languages, or whistling, or whatever.
your statement is soundly countered in a similarly unsupported opinion above. You may not like their domain name but the paper and science behind it appear pretty sound.
Can we stop with the downplaying when it comes to drugs?
Drugs should be guilty until proven innocent. Comments like these attempt to make them innocent until proven guilty. History has shown that there are very few "safe" recreational drugs.
This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.
"My mom died of cancer from smoking tobacco"
"Sorry about your mom, but I want to point out this is anecdotal. Can tobacco lead to cancer in people who are prone to it genetically? Or are people that are genetically prone to cancer drawn to tobacco? Or does it affect everyone? Lots of big unknowns here, so let's play it safe and not jump to any conclusions about the harm tobacco potentially may cause."
>This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.
With tobacco use, there was a huge amount if money spent selling the public on the idea that it wasn't dangerous. In contrast, there has been a large amount of money spent selling the idea that marijuana is incredibly dangerous. More accurate conversations would be
"My mom died of lung cancer"
"I'm sorry to hear that, would you like one if my doctor recommended cigarettes? Marlboro published a study saying smoking helps grieving people with no side effects."
Compared to
"My mother has schizophrenia"
"It's her fault for smoking marijuana. At least they locked up your father for selling it."
Meanwhile we all keep ignoring that the booze industry has worked tirelessly to make sure we use the phrase "drugs and alcohol" so alcohol isn't recognized as a drug by most of the population
Yes, and even more damning is the language used by DARE:
> D.A.R.E. America's Commitment to Prevention In its 35 year history, D.A.R.E. America has constantly improved its science and evidence based education programs to provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to resist drugs, alcohol, and other high risk behaviors.
Alcohol gets classified as separate from drugs. Wouldn't want kids telling their parents to not do drugs, right? And if their parents drink, that would just signal drugs are OK... etc etc
The person you are replying too understands that it is anecdotal, which is why they mentioned that it's a woefully understudied topic and needs more funding for long term studies.
It’s going to be difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions as you would need to construct identical environments with and without access to marijuana combined with cloned DNA or twin studies. Even then, will that be enough to predict if someone will have an adverse reaction to marijuana based on their DNA?
A simple test to determine if a teenager who tries marijuana should be forced to stay away from it is whether they have an extreme reaction to it.
I can't say what truly caused it or what factor cannabis played, all I know is that the diagnosis was 'substance induced psychosis' and 'schizophrenia' -- the doctors were pretty stumped and that leads to my point that a lot more research is needed.
It has been known for a while that certain drugs (also LSD) can induce psychosis' in certain people. The problem is that you cannot know if you are one of these people until you tried for a while. So it's a bit like playing Russian roulette. If you don't develop a psychosis when doing LSD, marihuana or shrooms, chances are that you will be fine. But if you do, you have a problem, possibly destroying your whole life.
I have a similar situation with my own brother- skipping over many details for brevity. What I've always wondered was whether the marijuana caused the mental illness or whether the mental issues developing lead to a dependence on the marijuana to cope with the stress, anxiety, etc. Sure, there is a correlation there, but how certain are we which causes which?
Then again, psychotropic drugs when you're already dealing with problematic brain chemistry probably isn't a great idea for anyone.
A number of studies ive read seem to point towards marijuana and hallucinogens as merely aggravating symptoms of mental disorders that were already present, but hadn't yet easily or fully expressed themselves. Things like bi-polar, schizophrenia, and other disorders are commonly known to grow in intensity going into adulthood, so even if the first time a breakdown or episode happens is actually triggered by something like marijuana, does that mean they could have never been diagnosed if they never used that drug? Or does it just mean they would have had a breakdown in the near future regardless? Maybe they just set the trigger of slightly earlier.
My experience is that many of the negative side effects of recreational drugs come from the culture in which they are taken, and the habits associated with them.
Taking ecstacy, for example, often involves staying up all night and dancing. I also feel terrible if I deprive myself of sleep without taking drugs, but I tend not to do that so often. So are the drugs dangerous, or are we just failing to construct heathy social norms around them?
Currently we strongly think that cannabis use can cause psychotic illness in some people, and that some of those would not have gone on to develop psychotic illness if they had not used cannabis.
But it's really complex.
People with schizophrenia smoke. They start smoking early, they smoke more frequently, and when they smoke they inhale deeper. EG, this, but there are lots of similar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25991762/
It's hard to unpick the causal directions. But the precautionary principle is sound: there's not many benefits to children of smoking cannabis, so they should probably avoid it.
It’s not anecdotal. The relative risk for developing schizophrenia for cannabis smokers vs non cannabis smokers is 2.3. This means that you are 2.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia if you smoke cannabis.
Your post annoys me because it might actually lead people astray. Please try not to talk about things you know little to nothing about.
Marijuana is well known for causing psychosis, paranoia, panic, and other disturbed mental states. There's a reason they tell you not to eat the whole brownie - once the bad trip comes on, you're stuck with it and just have to ride it out. It can be quite harrowing. I also don't think marijuana is at all safe to take regularly, just looking at people who do so. It seems to incur actual neurological changes - you even stop having dreams. I understand that it can be fun, but all things must be taken with moderation, and people's increasing obsession with this psychoactive drug is worrisome.
> I also don't think marijuana is at all safe to take regularly, just looking at people who do so
I suspect lots of people around you do so without you knowing it; as it remains a federal crime and not protected from employment and other discrimination, many people are discreet about it and the non-discreet are not a representative subset of the using population.
It's worth noting that this is even more true of 'hard' drugs than cannabis. There are a surprising number of fine upstanding citizens with a heroin addiction...
i wonder how psychiatric drugs effect the developing minds of children - pediatricians prescribe them to children as young as 10 and most stay on them throughout their teens
You can also nuke points off your IQ by drinking acetone or inhaling the fumes.
I'm all for solvents to continue being legally offered for sale in hardware or paint stores, as they have for a hundred umpteen years, but we need funding for longer term studies ...
Weed, in its consumption form, (i.e. not hemp) doesn't have practical uses except maybe covering odors. Acetone does.
That said, hardware stores should be able to sell weed right beside the hand grenades and hard drugs should be available over the counter at any pharmacy that feels like stocking them.
I have a very close friends who has been smoking cannabis daily since he was 15 years old. We are both in our 40s now. I have the feeling he is quite fast thinking and that he has better memory than me. That being said, he isn't a happy person, his whole life revolves around cannabis and it seems he missed so many things in his life because of that. It's pretty sad actually. He's aware of it, but it's such a central part of his life that he just can't stop.
It's always difficult to say if the substance ruined his life, or if he uses it because he has other problems. Probably both.
I'm all for legalization, as long as people are well informed of the negative effects of chronic use.
It's a subculture. Being a pothead is culturally very similar to being a gun nut. If you take a restricted or poorly understood item that provides enjoyment but is a bit taboo, and give people space to modify/grow/experiment/etc with it, it's spawns a subculture and people associate their identity with it.
It happens with hackers too, and porn, and weird nicotine vape culture, and I'm sure many other things.
For me, teenage recreational cannabis use helped to cure another severe disease I was struggling with. Unfortunately, since I've gotten older I've had to slow down a bit. Since then, there's been a gradual progression to the point where my Dorkinson's has almost fully returned.
In general it seems like a great idea not to use drugs when your brain is developing. I wish this signal was louder in the zeitgeist. Drugs are just as much fun at age 25.
> Edible marijuana takes time to absorb and to produce its effects, increasing the risk of unintentional overdose
No citation for this. Do they mean a larger than intended dose or a dose that results in a serious toxic reaction or death?
Better source:
Median lethal THC dose for a 70kg human estimated to be 4g [0], which is slightly over 1300 full joints (at 3mg per joint) [0]. I won't link them here, but a cursory web search showed me stores claiming to sell edibles with up to 1000mg of THC.
You can't OD as in heroin/cocain OD but you can definitely take doses that will make you sick, trigger paranoias, &c.
It's virtually impossible for an adult/teenager to die due to the direct effects of cannabis.
I meant that you can die from the direct physical effects (as in just having it in your system will kill you) of drugs like heroin, cocaine, caffeine, alcohol, &c. but drugs like cannabis can't be consumed fast enough to kill you (or you'd have to do it on purpose by injecting thc extract straight to your veins or something like that). It's the same with lsd actually, the lethal dose is 0.2-1mg/kg, the usual dose is 100-200ug. So a 75kg adult would need to consume 15mg of lsd = 15000ug = 150 normal sized blotters, which would cost you at least 150*5$, no way to accidentally OD on that.
But yeah if you're unstable in the first place, one too many beer or one to many joint and you'll do stupid shit. Anyway, always research, buy from renown sources, test your drugs (kits are available on amazon, ebay, &c.), do it in a safe environment with people you trust, don't use drugs when depressed or suicidal.
Larger than intended I would assume. There are plenty of reports of people consuming an edible, not feeling anything for twenty minutes, consuming more, and then having a bad trip.
It's a bad trip insofar as it's _absolutely not_ what you expect, if it's your first time having so much edibles; even if you've inhaled heavily in the past, the manner of the experience changes dramatically when you injest, and varies by strain.
It can be more of an intense psychedelic experience, as opposed to the generally pleasant inebriating experience most are accustomed to with marijuana.
They mean a larger than intended dose. It’s not uncommon for inexperienced edible users to take more prematurely because they “don’t feel anything yet.”
> The new study analyzed thousands of cannabis-triggered emergency room visits in the greater Denver area, and found that edibles induced a disproportionate number of pot-related medical crises. Edibles were also more likely than inhaled pot to cause severe intoxication, acute psychiatric symptoms in people with no history of psychiatric illness and cardiovascular problems.
> He also noted that the only deaths in Colorado that have been definitively attributed to cannabis involved edibles, and those deaths were surprisingly violent. In all three incidents, including a murder and a suicide in 2014 and another suicide in 2015, the pot users exhibited extremely erratic behavior after consuming edibles, according to news reports and trial testimony.
It's too easy to get uncomfortably high from edibles despite the warnings in my opinion. Call it unintentional overdose or not it can still cause real problems however you label it.
I cooked some edibles when I was a naive user and misunderstood the light effects of the THC absorbed in the mouth when eating the edible as being the real high. Waited 20 minutes, ate another, and drove home.
Luckily for me, I was only driving in apartment parking lot when it actually kicked in. Now I have a funny story to tell people, but what could have happened if this happened to someone with mental illness in public, or to someone driving longer distances? Getting uncomfortably high on edibles is a really common story hearing it online.
I don't think overdose necessarily means serious physical reaction or death. If you eat a weed brownie and become way higher than you expected (and freak out as a result), I think it's reasonable to call that an overdose.
Is there a listed Median Lethal Dose (LD50) for THC or CBD?
It is possible to overdose on nicotine if it's ingested (50mg ~60mg for a 150lbs adult, according to the CDC's website), but I'm not sure if there is such an amount defined for THC ingestion.
It depends on your weight and how much tolerance you have, but a fatal does could be as little as 2 grams (2000mg) of THC, which is about 100X what it takes to get high. Since marijuana is about 20% THC, and you only actually absorb about half of that when you smoke or injest it, the minimum lethal dose is probably about 20 grams, though some people may be able to tolerate a few times that amount. Fatal marijuana overdoses are rare, about 200 per year in the U.S., but they do happen. Claims that you can injest your body weight are based on articles written by advocates who can't do basic math.
For THC it's somewhere around your own body weight. I suppose you might get the munchies real bad and OD. Don't bake a dozen hash carrot cakes with cream cheese icing all at one time.
192mg/kg is on the higher end of estimates, which do range widely because they are based on animal studies. However, it's not comically large. Do the math, and it comes to just over 14 grams for a 75 kg (165 lb) adult. That's more than most people would ever consume in a day, but it's far less than the 600 gram lethal dose of alcohol for that same person. Alcohol kills far more people because it takes 100 - 250 grams of alcohol for a 75 kg adult to get drunk, so the lethal dose of alcohol is only about 5X the intoxicating dose vs. 100X the intoxicating dose for THC.
LD50 for cannabis is debatable but many put it at close to a gram of pure THC per kilogram of weight, intravenously. To put it in perspective caffeine and aspirin has an LD50 around 200mg/kg.
There's a reason why so many people say no one has overdosed on cannabis. For someone who weighs 65kg, they'd have to ingest approximately 65 grams of 100% pure THC for a 50% chance of dying from it. 99.95% THC crystals sold in dispensarys go for around $90 a gram, so someone who wanted to try to test this theory would be spending around $6k in weed to try to do in one sitting
One of the implications of this report is absurd. Why does the Surgeon General feel the need to clarify that one particular aspect of cannabis is deleterious, when their stance is that the substance is Schedule 1?
Ultimately because of the CSA the attorney general is responsible for all decisions on scheduling substances. By the letter of the law, they're supposed to consult with HHS and by extension the surgeon general, but in reality, it's a rubberstamped process largely controlled by the DEA.
The Drug Enforcement Agency and Food and Drug Administration set the drug schedules, and the Surgeon General is under the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.
Talking about Marijuana as this singular substance is demeaning the details. Different types, strains, turpen profiles, cbd levels, cbn levels all change the effects.
Does a higher cbd amount change the data? What about changing the levels of thc. Does hindu kush provide less anxiety vs purple haze over time?
It feels like it's way to early to draw grand conclusions.
Ive smoked for about 15 years now. Started heavy through highschool and college and after college usually just a rip before bedtime. I cant say I've experienced anything negative. No issues focusing or memory problems, or dealing with stress/anxiety. I've quit for months at a time cold turkey with no issues. I'll probably never fully quit but I am doing it less just cause I worry about the effects on my lungs more than anything.
1) How do you know you wouldn't have done better had you not smoked starting in high school? You can't go back in time and A/B test yourself
2) Your personal physiology may be fine with marijuana use, but that's not a guarantee that the same applies to everyone else. I'm sure plenty of HN readers (myself included) knew people in high school who did suffer from marijuana-related focus, effort, and studying problems
I totally agree with you. In my comment I wasn't trying to say the article was false, just my own experiences weren't negative. Some of my closest friends that I smoked all day with in HS never went to college and work in lower wage/service industry jobs.
Also to be fair, I was an awful student. However i was always the type that if I didn't want to do something, nothing could get me to do it. Yet when I want to do something, I tend to have pretty positive results. I still think I would have been a terrible student even if I didn't smoke weed. Who knows!
> 1) How do you know you wouldn't have done better had you not smoked starting in high school? You can't go back in time and A/B test yourself
It's just high school :) if GP passed and moved on, who cares? High school success becomes more and more of a boolean outcome as you get further away from it imo. And tbh even boolean is generous.
"I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea."
I've had approximately the same experience. Here's hoping it doesn't cause any long term issues, but I think I would have had a heart attack by now if I didn't smoke to calm myself down and realize I shouldn't take things so seriously.
A truly enlightened individual doesn't need any drugs, but I'm not there yet. Maybe in time. For now I think the weed is a net positive.
I hate when people frame doing drugs in terms of needing them to have a good time. It's just a thing you do that affects your mind, like anything else. It's potentially more intense and definitely different than most other things, but acting like it's a crutch is existentially dishonest I think.
I'm not 100% sure I understand your comment, but I don't think it's dishonest to frame drug use as a crutch.
One of the odd things about drugs is that if you do use them as a crutch (and I certainly do), then you are forfeiting recreational value.
I smoke to feel "normal" and to avoid nightmares (it turns off dreaming, which is quite useful). That means I can't get "high" like non-potheads can. When I haven't smoked in a while, I get giggly and have the munchies and every idea is mindblowing, and that's truthfully quite a lot of fun and is the reason most people start smoking weed.
Unfortunately, if I don't smoke after work, I can't really feel like my work day is over, and I'll keep thinking about work until I exhaust myself. If I don't smoke before bed, there's a good chance I'll have horrible nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat. These aren't symptoms of withdrawal that go away in time, that's just how I lived my life before discovering weed, and that's how I feel daily even if I take a months-long break from smoking.
I would love to not need weed as a crutch, both to be healthier and so I can occasionally get a giggly-munchies-omg-this-music-sounds-amazing type of high.
The problem is, if I quit smoking, I feel less mentally healthy, and all of the psychiatric drugs that could possibly help are worse in health and effect than weed.
When people call it a crutch, it's so disparaging and judgmental. I think if it makes your life better (like it clearly makes yours!), why associate guilt with the benefit?
Maybe in a vacuum, "crutch" _is_ a good term. Literal crutches help people after all! But there is definite stigma attached with the mindset.
Yep, agreed on that. Over time I have smoked less and less. Like i said I don't think I'll ever 'quit' but I imagine the time in between seshes will grow longer. All in all cannabis has been very net positive for me
These results are, for better or for worse, almost right in line with the stereotypes.
I smoked occasionally when I was younger, but many of those friends of mine I’d classify as stoners are noticeably unmotivated and have short attention spans.
As a teenager- I decided I would wait till I was 22 before I tried Marijuana. All of my friends were heavy users- and while that made me feel like a bit of an outsider, I had come to the conclusion that it was better to wait and see how using turned out for them before I joined in.
That decision was profoundly informative. My high school friends personal and professional trajectories have been severely hobbled. I don’t believe that weed is the sole factor, but it certainly didn’t help them become more ambitious or contribute to their fortitude.
Indeed, I succumbed to the habit as a teenager, when I was indoctrinated by full time users who were also my peers who abused my physically in pre teen years. Upon starting marijuana usage with these peers, they saw that I reacted to the substance and proceeded to abuse me psychologically. This planted the seeds necessary to catalyze a lifetime of delusion and exploration of waste and dipping my toes into counter culture. Now almost entirely alone and disconnected from any meaningful social roots, and suicidal much of the way, I’ve long since disconnected from such malicious people.
The group of friends from high school who didn’t use marijuana ostracized me by 18 and I stopped being alive since then. Now I’m in my 40’s and have been preparing for suicide with increasing inevitability since starting weed. I “gave up” on a fulfilled life as a teenager and have coasted my way to an inevitable suicide as a “stoner”.
For every time I've been caught in the place described in the first four verses, Christ has gifted me to see the other side in the last ones.
There's only one way to be sure you'll never have a chance to rejoice like that, and I pray both that you'll seek help before it comes to that, and that you'll be granted the same joy it describes.
I’m glad this came out. It’s easy to forget that weed causes harm. Just from my own experience, when I’m on it I can’t think straight, can’t track a sentence from beginning to end. I can’t imagine where I’d be if those effects had applied long term as my brain was developing. Actually I can imagine. I’d be incapable of doing the high-paid, satisfying work I do now. I’d be stuck doing toilsome work with nowhere to go and a feeling that there’s more but I can’t quite grasp it.
I sometimes I have a feeling this is the case, as a regular user. But to clarify, I'm struggling with understanding differential geometry, and work as an se. Not trying to humblebrag but just trying to establish context. Should I be worried? I ask because I experience some of the same symptoms you do.
Nicotine has never been considered an intoxicant, thus not relatable here.
This advisory isn't about telling people drugs are bad, it's about our society still frowning upon recreational intoxication and trying to scare people out of even seeing if cannabis or other substances can be beneficial to them.
> has there been any related deaths to cannabis usage
It's a common meme that cannabis has never killed anyone. Of course it did. People fall asleep while driving, they fall, they develop lung disease.
But it doesn't matter. People kill themselves doing all kinds of activities who are perfectly legal. Conversely, many things who don't kill anyone are illegal.
I decided to share a bit. Some of you already shared about differents effects of THC in different people. This is an example. We need this drug intensively tested, without any political or cultural bias.
Well, I'm the mother of a 5+ years old kid, and we are using THC oil with him, under medical control. My kid had been early diagnosed with a case of extreme anxiety at the age of 2-3 years old (you can't precisely diagnose this), imagine it as a case of autism without several syntoms; he was already well into the second year being medicated with risperidone + carbamazepine which allowed him to have a more or less standard life.
But, starting at 4 years old the stress related to extra requirements in school began to be highly crippling for him again. Then we asked our neurologist about THC.
We were advised by him, and then contacted a parent of an autistic adult who regularly use THC to be able to function (preventing extremely violent reactions).
So we tried it, precisely dosifying the oil, without leaving the other drugs. THC works in my kid allowing him to remain calm under extreme stress.
It is really a process but the main - under the table, because is illegal here to use THC, not talking about giving it to kids - medical advise is to use THC like ibuprofen. If you see the kid is having a bad time trying to control himself, you give him a dose of oil. If the kid is going to have a stressful day in school, you give him a stronger dose.
I have personally never consumed drugs previous to THC. That was because when I buyed the oil, I tried it to know exactly what effects would be going through my kid. With new batches of oil we use to test it in minimal doses (this is a requirement from the neurologist: we buy oil specifically made for medical purposes - more expensive - but the process is handmade, and different batches could be slightly more soft or stronger in its effects).
If you have a medical issue with a kid, and you're out of solutions, then you usually get to this point. That was my case, and the cases of several parents with I have contacted since we started this path.
THC as you could probably read in many sites in the internet could have a lot more effects in people than causing anxiety and delusional states of mind.
What the article says could be just true, but as with many legal drugs, for example diazepam, the effects are REALLY different if "standard" person consumes it, than when a person with extreme anxiety uses it.
I'm surprised nobody caught that the Surgeon General's advisory text mentions "physical dependence", a term that is not used once in the referenced source. I'm no doctor, but physical and psychological difference seem quite different.
When I was 16 I started smoking weed almost everyday until I was 20, I took a break until I was 22, and now I live in a legal state and I enjoy a joint or two on the weekends. I haven't had any problems whatsoever. I work as a software engineer and I got all As throughout school.
I realize this might not be the case for everyone, but that has been my experience.
well i mean you can frame any question of probability as russian roulette if you were determined to. the difference is, you go into russian roulette where absolutely dying is a guaranteed possible outcome, whereas what you were responding to exists more on a spectrum of possibilities, all subject to different risk factors external to this metaphorical game of russian roulette. im js that in terms of the game parameters, i think it's difficult to map something with so few to something with so many effectively.
These are all reasonable things. Legalizing it will drastically mitigate the ability for minors to get a hold of any just as was done with the much more dangerous and deadly drug, alcohol.
The difficulty with this is that it's still easy enough for joe-random to grow. One of the unique properties of pot vs just about any other recreational drug is how little processing is required to get it to a consumable form.
I never knew anyone making bathtub wine or processing their own heroine in HS, but I knew at least a couple kids who tended a couple pot plants.
Seems like there will always be someone doing this, and minors are always going to have relatively easy access to pot.
> Why would legalizing it make it harder for minors to get ahold of it?
Legalizing increases the marginal legal risk (and thus expected cost) of selling to minors (still illegal) vs. selling to everyone else. The same is true of non-sale person-to-person
distribution.
Ok, so you are saying given X minor marijuana user, it would be harder for X to obtain marijuana post legalization vs. pre legalization. That I agree with because X's dealer is willing to break the law to sell to minors while convenience store employees are less likely to.
However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal and thus you'll have more minors using it overall post legalization.
To illustrate my point, it would be like saying "legalizing marijuana makes it 50% harder for minors to buy it!" but leaving off the "(but also legalization would increase the number of minor users by 10000+%)" part.
All it would take is for Juul to make THC pods and suddenly you have a HUGE adolescent user base essentially using marijuana overnight that didn't exist before legalization.
They have Cannabis concentrate sold in single use 'pods' that attatch to any vape battery with a 510 connector.
I don't think legalization had as large of an effect on the perception and availability of cannabis as you say, part of the reason Colorado was one of the first to legalize is likely due to our already 'positive' image of it. Colorado and other states that legalized all already had medical programs that were commonly abused; either by little restrictions on access (Red cards) or allowing more growing & cultivation than the actual medical population could theoretically consume.
Being from Colorado, I have to say, anecdotally, that usage is up in young adults 18+ is up since it's never been more available and 'tolerated' at Colorado Universities. Dorms are pretty strict if they can smell it but concentrates are much eaiser to conceal and cheaper than edibles & flower. I can comment personally on its effect on minors (<18) but some reports did show it declined in that specific population following legalization (I don'r recall if they reported on the 18-21 population).
> However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal
Availability, sure; legalization is a product of image and appeal already reaching the level of legal recreational drugs, and there's no reason it would raise it beyond them. Might even reduce the forbidden fruit appeal to minors (but maybe not, because it still be forbidden for them.)
> All it would take is for Juul to make THC pods
Something that is unlikely, at least following the product design and marketing approach that had that effect for nicotine pods (for them or others) if the lawsuits against them for illegal marketing to children with their nicotine pods succeed.
> legalization is a product of image and appeal already reaching the level of legal recreational drugs, and there's no reason it would raise it beyond them
Sure there's a reason. The reason is that legalization opens the way for marketing. Marijuana companies will want to continuously increase its appeal and image via advertising, just like the alcohol industry aggressively does. We've already started seeing medical marijuana adverts online that do just this in places where it is legal.
> Marijuana companies will want to continuously increase its appeal and image
Yes and like other legal recreational drugs it can and certainly will be taxed, with taxes used for addressing problem use including propaganda designed specifically to reduce the drugs image and appeal.
> To illustrate my point, it would be like saying "legalizing marijuana makes it 50% harder for minors to buy it!" but leaving off the "(but also legalization would increase the number of minor users by 10000+%)" part.
This Washington Post article says that teen drug use is down in Colorado after they passed marijuana legalization: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/11/follo.... I think it's due to the reasons that others have mentioned - that minors can't buy it illegally from stores and the drug dealers they used to buy from are now irrelevant.
Minors can't buy Juul legally from stores either, yet Juul usage is skyrocketing among minors. I think it has less to do with the legality alone and more to do with fashion/image/etc (which is enabled by legalization).
Marijuana might be down now, but I could see THC Juul pods or MJ pills or some other form of legal marijuana becoming a fad among minors in the future and usage skyrocketing. Legalization is the enabler in this case.
When one is underage, it is easier to get illegal drugs than legal ones. The legality makes different sorts of barriers and different sorts of penalties for selling to a minor. I'm not sure it mattered if you were (are) selling pot to a 18 year old rather than a 30 year old - you were still selling pot. You would get in trouble for giving an 18 year old alcohol, though, but not the 30 year old. And a bunch of things like this.
On the other hand if you were a minor that wanted to use illegal drugs, you had to have the right friends/contacts to know where make illegal purchases.
Legality makes it so that now everyone knows where to buy it (at any store) and now minors just experiment a few times until they find a lax vendor just like they do with Juuls. After all, minors are not penalized for merely attempting to buy something.
And, like I put in my other comment, it doesn't really matter if the barrier for minors buying drugs is higher if the act of legalization increases the number of minors attempting to buy the drug by an astronomical factor.
> When one is underage, it is easier to get illegal drugs than legal ones.
I just don't buy this. When I was a kid it was trivial to ask somebody to buy us alcohol and cigarettes. Almost everybody I knew drank underage and at least a third of the kids smoke. Compared to this getting weed was always 'an event' and I did not get to try it until much later.
Smoking weed for me, at least in my early years (16-18, I'm 29 now) yielded a ton of anxiety. At the time I didn't know, but I would get full-blown anxiety attacks when I'd smoke weed.
I've since heard that it depends on the strain, sativa vs indica.
Indica == 'in da couch'; anxiety attacks.
Sativa is supposed to be a more mellow high.
While I don't smoke often now, I do on occasion. I've found that I tend to get anxiety in the beginning, but I've learned to sort of brush it off/ignore it and enjoy my trip.
This sounds weird. It is linked with suicides and decreased life satisfaction... I wonder how all the other drugs fare, even alcohol and smoking. How did they factor in the bias that is obviously at play here?
If I am super happy with my life, I will likely not take an excessive amount of drugs. I would say I am reasonably happy with my life and I like taking drugs every now and then just for fun and because it feels nice.
The story goes totally different for people with shit lives (which is the majority of the population unfortunately). If I am already in some sort of depression, drugs will aggravate these problems. They will show how nice you can actually feel, just to go back into your sucking life afterwards. Who wouldn't want to take drugs all day in this scenario?
But that doesn't mean that drugs themselves cause these problems. Same as meat itself is not unhealthy. The link by statistics is very much against "Correlation does not imply Causation".
another risk factor for cannabis users is contamination by pesticides. many of the illegal grow sites in California national forests have been contaminated by Carbofuran, a banned pesticide. this chemical is applied to the plants. these operations still supply a large fraction of consumer marijuana demand. if you're gonna toke, know your weed supply chain.
And I stopped because it was so overwhelming experience that I could not stand any more. I couldn't function normally and had really tough trips, thinking about so many end results in the same time. Minutes took hours and basically it was an agony, while everybody had pretty joyful time laughing.
Now, I'm 38. I'm functional (so far), I have family with kids. I haven't developed schizophrenia, but I have (had ever since my 18) the problem focusing on (for example) - dates, lists (for when I have to go to buy something), simple calculations etc. similar trivials, but I have no problems working on abstract stuff - I work as software engineer.
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, based on my experiences, but it seems that majority of others had quite the opposite experiences than me.