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.
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.
>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.
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 :)
>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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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 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.
Readit News
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.
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.
It's very unfortunate.
Dead Comment
Curiosity : Why did you continue for two years with such poor experiences?
The worst part about cannabis addiction is it's mostly psychological.
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.
I'm 38 too.
http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2017/health-effects...
The conclusions summary PDF has the highlights: http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20File...
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.
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 generally agree.
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?
I'm assuming you know that marijuana remains illegal due to (a) federal law and (b) the Constitution's Supremacy Clause.
I mean this with complete sincerity and genuine curiosity: Why did you choose wording that suggests the activity is wholly legal in those states?
It's just one data point, but worth looking into further.
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 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.
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.
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).
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.
So put that beer down before the bong.
Given any choice of substances, I’ll run wild with them.
I can successfully self destruct no matter what the substance. Harming not just myself, but everyone around me as I go.
From a risk assessment standpoint, yes, marijuana has lower physical impacts (you’re not going to seize from withdrawals afaik).
However, the psychological impacts are different to alcohol. Alcohol encourages “release” of emotions. Marijuana closes everything off.
Furthermore, the impact I have on society can be damaging with both, but in different ways.
So, in my own experience, put down both.
It’s a hop, skip and a jump from one heavy night to picking up the beer/spliffs again.
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.
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.
Is anyone even arguing for "children should use it" at all?
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.
This sentence is weird to me. Can you rephrase?
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.
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.
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)
i) clinical psychologist
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988731/
With that said, I think it should be legal. I just think people shouldn’t downplay the risks.
the second group, for their part, tend to come off as sanctimonious busybodies.
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.
1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240203
2. https://www.wnypapers.com/news/article/current/2018/03/15/13...
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.
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?
Weed has been around forever. Your use doesn't affect me(unless you are driving).
There hasn't been the same degree of controlled scientific testing performed with marijuana as of yet, so calling for it should be welcomed.
Until we have proper studies on this (which is hard, because of the current federal drug classification), it is impossible to tell.
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I'm in my late 40's now and totally normal. I think I smoked weed like 3 times in the last 20 years and it is not my thing anymore.
Smoking weed was definitely more fun in my youth. Did it affect my brain development? maybe
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.
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I'm sorry your brother developed it, but there's no saying that it was caused by weed
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.
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."
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.
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/substance-use-disorder/cann...
There are many diseases known to propagate via cannibalism, including ones with psychological symptoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
Your post annoys me because it might actually lead people astray. Please try not to talk about things you know little to nothing about.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988731/
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 ...
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.
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 happens with hackers too, and porn, and weird nicotine vape culture, and I'm sure many other things.
I'm not seeing how the pot culture is especially destructive compared to say, binge watching Netflix.
Any examples?
Just imagine if you made the same statement about someone smoking cigarettes. And with vaping now, both bad habits are pretty discreet.