[HN Gopher] Marijuana addiction: those struggling often face ske...
___________________________________________________________________
Marijuana addiction: those struggling often face skepticism
Author : andrewl
Score : 179 points
Date : 2023-07-31 17:36 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| mistrial9 wrote:
| hilarious to see two hundred years of alcohol and tobacco medical
| cases, make big noises about an herb from the ground. They really
| have no clue?
|
| being "friendly and creative" does not make good armies. It
| really does come down to that, doesnt it?
|
| Obviously all kinds of people abuse substances daily. I saw a
| grown man sniff solvent glue from a bag once! How stupid is that?
| No one is suggesting that substance abuse is benign. The
| difference here is that this is a Political Newspaper pointing to
| "peril." The article is not the entire story, it is a partial
| story designed to create reactions along a story-line.
|
| get more exercise and relate to people.. not a headliner
| johnea wrote:
| I totally agree.
|
| In the US it's: Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, like the little
| baby jesus intended...
|
| Anything else is "Dangerous"...
| zikduruqe wrote:
| Genesis 1:29-30 Then God said, "Behold, I have given you
| every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the
| earth..."
|
| I mean, they pick and choose.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| The Roman Empire knew about marijuana from the Scythians and
| some turkic people, and from South Asia. The Romans rejected
| those cultures and built professional armies instead. Their
| drug was alcohol. Christian reformers 500 years later stuck
| with that formula, including alcohol in the Holy Sacrament,
| explicitly rejecting other substances. Hebrews also rejected
| other substances but included meat and alcohol -- which are
| explicitly banned in Hindu-Vedic systems with a vegetarian
| approach.
| ilteris wrote:
| I was consuming 5-6 grams a day for over a year until 3 months
| ago after weed got super easy to find in my state. It allowed me
| to escape from my responsibilities, first thing I thought in the
| morning and I seriously I thought I could not quit. I then
| watched a video of myself interacting with my 7 year old with my
| super bloody eyes and looked like a loser. That and my own mom's
| "I am scared that you would not be able to quit" were two things
| that triggered me to stop right there. Weed made me resentful
| towards people and life, made me criticize everything around me.
| I am not going to waste my 40s like that.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's a lot of marijuana. Good for you for recognizing you
| have an issue and quitting.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Congratulations. Your kid will cherish their newfound time with
| the parent you truly are. I find it can be so hard to show your
| love under the cloud of marijuana dependence.
| Rhapso wrote:
| It's very simple: anything that makes you stop hurting, one way
| or another, ends up being addictive.
| Scofield67 wrote:
| [flagged]
| mahathu wrote:
| Interesting article that I didn't expect to find on HN. thanks
| for sharing!
|
| I would like to add that in my own experience (and that of
| others, it wasn't mentioned in the article), synthetic
| cannabinoids, like the ones "cannabis" sold by the guys in the
| park down the road is laced with, is considerably more addictive
| than medicinal quality marijuana. Also, instead of a slow
| buildup, it usually hits a few seconds after taking a hit already
| and doesn't last as long, plus the effects were really paranoia
| inducing for me, to the point where I had auditory hallucinations
| and was afraid I gave myself schizophrenia for the rest of my
| life. But it was so addicting that stopping even for a full day
| felt like an insurmountable feat. I was already quite depressed
| before, so the feeling wasn't _that_ much different, but at times
| I just couldn 't wait to get home, light up a joint and blast
| myself with podcasts (usually reports from other countries and
| other cultures, something as far away from home as possible),
| sports broadcasts or the 10th The Office re-watch. Basically
| retreating into a cocoon where I wouldn't have to deal with the
| outside world. one time i woke up still wearing my shinguards
| from football ("soccer") practice the day before.
|
| I finally stopped when I had to go on a trip and be sober for 2
| weeks. As long as I wasn't at home, I didn't even think about
| smoking much (which is crazy when days before quitting seemed so
| out of the question) and when I came back I didn't have much
| trouble staying away, fortunately. Now I just take a few hits
| every couple weeks and actually get to enjoy being high for a
| change.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/WePGh
| max_lameme wrote:
| I smoked a lot of weed daily (~1gram/day) for almost 10 years.
| Finally got sick of this life and decided to quit, once I run out
| of it. First day I was pissed and then I was cured. I always
| thought that I'm addicted and it will be almost impossible to
| stop, but turned out I wasn't really addicted.
| Smashure wrote:
| Being able to quit doesn't mean you're not addicted. Addiction
| has a list of defined symptoms in the DSM.
| [deleted]
| bratgpttamer wrote:
| I think a big thing that's overlooked is the difference between
| psychological and physiological dependency, as well as the stigma
| or popular idea of addiction. Weed doesn't _feel_ addictive in
| the classic sense, especially in comparison to things that are
| much more addictive, like nicotine and alcohol.
|
| I used to live basically next door to a dispensary, and would
| smoke multiple times a day. If I didn't smoke, I'd sometimes find
| it hard to get to sleep the first night or so, but it wasn't as
| bad as going without a cigarette, missing adderall, or what I've
| seen people go through on opiates.
|
| Given that many recreational users are into other stuff, too
| (especially before legal dispensaries that looked like Apple
| stores came along), along with the pro-cannabis propaganda, it's
| easy to see how people don't take it seriously.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Anytime I hear about Marijuana addiction I think of this (vulgar)
| scene from the Dave Chappelle movie "Half Baked":
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwG3HWubpZI
|
| Definitely some skepticism there!
| spoonjim wrote:
| There is one great solution to all of this and it's to never have
| a substance at all. I've had a few things but now don't drink,
| smoke, or consume drugs and life is great.
| rc5150 wrote:
| It really must be nice to not feel the need or want to alter
| your consciousness. Lots of people I know who frequently use
| cannabis do so in order to change their perception of reality
| because for many, reality fucking sucks. Getting high is a
| great way to escape that.
| seadan83 wrote:
| I am not sure where to start with on this article. There are a
| lot of extraneous and tired points being trotted out that really
| clouds the underlying point.
|
| Essentially the point I took is some people could use serious
| help, and they get laughed at by society and the drug treatment
| programs they find because their problem is cannabis (and not say
| meth).
|
| I don't think this is a surprise or that profound. Drug treatment
| in the US has been generally 'jail' (and still is for most drugs,
| and for cannabis as well in many regions). Actual drug treatment
| in the US is something of a joke for any substance, whether you
| are taken seriously or not. Drug treatment programs are
| expensive, often not covered by health insurance (if you have
| health insurance), often not effective - and that is the tip of
| the iceberg.
|
| US medicine severely struggles for holistic treatments. Drug
| addiction treatment needs holistic treatment.
|
| For example, detox centers will help a person come down and get
| over the most intense part of withdrawal. This is super important
| for alcohol as that withdrawal can kill you. But, this is
| symptomatic of how US medicine works - treats the chemical and
| biology, but not the person.
|
| Read further on the updated rat-park experiment for why 'treating
| the person' is so important:
| https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/what-does-rat-park-tea...
|
| A couple of other notable points I'd like to raise:
|
| > "You smell it in the air when you're sitting at a stoplight,"
| Courtney said.
|
| This made me laugh. Try to quit smoking tobacco... Try to give up
| alcohol. Both are _everywhere_
|
| On a serious point, giving up any substance can be a real
| challenge, no matter what it is.
|
| > and the potency of the drug has been increased --
|
| This is such a boogeyman. Total amount of drug ingested is
| quantity times potency. Old school people made up the low potency
| with quantity. What is more though, there always was high potency
| strains available (just not as prevalent today). Thai sticks,
| hash oils, they have been around for a long time. So, the high
| potency stuff has been around, that is not new, and most people
| compensate for the high potency by ingesting less.
| roughly wrote:
| > This is such a boogeyman. Total amount of drug ingested is
| quantity times potency. Old school people made up the low
| potency with quantity. What is more though, there always was
| high potency strains available (just not as prevalent today).
| Thai sticks, hash oils, they have been around for a long time.
| So, the high potency stuff has been around, that is not new,
| and most people compensate for the high potency by ingesting
| less.
|
| My supply back when I used to smoke was limited to "what my
| dealer had available." There may have been better strains
| available, but I sure couldn't get my hands on them. There's
| also an issue of "minimum viable dose" - provided you have
| sufficient time and determination, you can get just as high
| with shitty weed as you can with the good stuff, but it's an
| awful lot harder to get only as high with the good stuff as you
| did with the shitty stuff. I am pro-legalization and anti-drug
| war, but I hear this bromide about the enormously increased
| availability of high-potency THC products not leading people to
| consume more and I just wonder what world y'all are living on.
| unfocused wrote:
| Here is a document (PDF ~266 pages) about INFORMATION FOR HEALTH
| CARE PROFESSIONALS Cannabis (marihuana, marijuana) and the
| cannabinoids
|
| Dried or fresh plant and oil administration by ingestion or other
| means Psychoactive agent
|
| https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/hc-sc/documents/services/d...
|
| I think what people need to be reminded of is that addiction will
| always exist. Whether it is collecting Pokemon, Video Games,
| Gambling, Drugs etc.
|
| What cannabis brings is less damage, post use, than say,
| Oxycontin. This is one simple example.
|
| Not a doctor, so don't ask me for details!
| chefandy wrote:
| It's clearly less damaging and chemically addictive than
| alcohol or whatever, but I wouldn't necessarily equate it with
| collecting Pokemon. I had a roommate who'd been persistently
| stoned for probably 30 years. A girlfriend convinced him to
| only use it on a few evenings a week, and he quickly realized
| that he'd entirely lost the ability to handle urgent negative
| emotions-- anger, frustration, disappointment, etc. He was
| still a great guy, but man did that put him through the ringer.
|
| Normally steadfastly mellow, one day I heard him stomping up
| the stairs to our apartment, then stomped into the living room,
| looked at me and exasperatedly said "THE WHOLE WORLD IS STUPID.
| EVERYBODY IS STUPID. EVERYBODY SUCKS" and then went into his
| room, slammed the door, and literally screamed at the top of
| his lungs 4 or 5 times. About half an hour later, he came out,
| apologized and said he got blocked for maybe 45 seconds taking
| a left into our driveway because someone who'd stopped at the
| traffic light right there either rudely or obliviously didn't
| leave an opening, which pushed him right over the edge. I knew
| what he was going through, and knew he was talking to a
| therapist about it, so I wasn't worried for him... but I sure
| felt bad for him!
| zlg_codes wrote:
| I want to thank you for sharing this story. I've struggled
| with my own THC addiction, using it as a crutch for trauma
| and anxiety, but your comment helped me realize that, like
| your roommate, the addiction has wrecked my ability to
| (responsibly and maturely) process negative situations.
| Enduring those situations is one thing, but seeing how
| they're connected to other parts of a more complete life is
| different.
|
| Sometimes it helps to see it described by someone else before
| you really see what you, yourself are in.
|
| Thanks again for helping a stranger connect some dots. You've
| given me more to think about in my approach to kick this
| habit.
| gvedem wrote:
| check out /r/leaves for community and resources. you're not
| at all alone, I've been using weed as a crutch since I
| started during the pandemic and it became habitual--don't
| think I've quit for more than two weeks since.
|
| it's great that people are discussing this, some people can
| definitely use weed responsibly and stop easily, but others
| really, really can't--and the sooner we recognize it as
| addiction the easier it is to get out.
| unfocused wrote:
| That's another element I can add, but didn't want to as
| it's not something I've experienced and know, but have
| friends in this area.
|
| Regardless of the drug you use, many are used to alleviate
| whatever problem you have e.g. Stress, Anxiety, Disorders,
| and then it becomes part of you, and you no longer have the
| need to address the root cause of why you need the drug.
| Again, not a doctor, but I think the poster above put it
| best as a "crutch". It's ok for short term, but long term,
| you allow yourself to ignore the root cause, which has long
| term effects.
| 666satanhimself wrote:
| [dead]
| itomato wrote:
| If she could pop a legal supplement would there be a problem?
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Weed is not addictive. If you think it's addictive I beg you to
| watch a fentanyl withdrawal. Watch someone sell their mothers
| ring for a hit of heroin. Weed, um, its a joke. Get over the
| headache, get over the "crave" and just go play video games.
| [deleted]
| foreverobama wrote:
| [dead]
| AnEro wrote:
| Any escape from reality or avoidance of it is addictive. And weed
| is way to normalized for self-medicating, if you said "im anxious
| im going to smoke" people are way more okay with hearing that
| than if you said you where getting a beer.
| imadethis wrote:
| If you know any ER docs/nurses/techs, ask them about cannabinoid
| hyperemesis and the denial that patients are in around their
| level of addiction.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| I'm surprised this isn't mentioned more, because it kind of
| blows away the argument that 'weed isn't physically addictive'.
| It absolutely can be.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| In my experiences, cannabis is about as addictive as
| coffee/caffeine.
|
| By that, I mean it's unpleasant to quit after continuous usage
| due to various withdrawal side-effects but only for a relatively
| short period of time (3 or 4 days max).
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| I just took a long break (1.5 months) after smoking every night
| for 6 months. Going cold Turkey I basically had no withdrawal
| symptoms other than my pre-existing sleep issues came back.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| dabbing all day and vaping oil is in no way comparable to
| caffeine, cannabis is way more addictive, side effects last
| longer than 3-4 days as well. People are extremely irritable
| having lost their main crutch for a month or longer. The fog
| doesn't lift for about a month. This article is talking about
| people actually addicted, not like they smoke once a day in the
| evenings or something.
| TillE wrote:
| Yeah I've used a lot of drugs and the only one I'd classify as
| genuinely easy to get addicted and difficult to quit is
| nicotine.
|
| With weed I go through periods of using it constantly for a
| couple weeks, and then just getting bored with it and not using
| for months.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Have you returned to using cannabis?
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| I had symptoms for about a month after quitting caffeine.
|
| I think your analogy holds. Most people only have a couple of
| days of symptoms after quitting caffeine. But if you're on 4+
| cups a day and/or you have a sensitive physiology, quitting can
| be rough.
| arp242 wrote:
| The current "Cannabis industry" is not that different from a
| "Tobacco industry 2.0" by being in denial of negatives, going on
| "but alcohol is worse!" whataboutisms, and generally denying
| responsibility from the negative effects.
|
| That doesn't mean it should be made illegal, but I strongly
| dislike the current state of the industry and regulation; it's
| like we learned nothing from tobacco or alcohol.
|
| All of the above applies to psychedelics even more, especially to
| those who tout the therapeutic effects while denying there are
| risks (the therapeutic effects are real, so are the risks).
| skyechurch wrote:
| The risks with pot and psychedelics are less easily
| quantifiable than with opiates, meth, etc. There are no bodies,
| which of course is good. But, leaving aside the acute or
| chronic psychosis cases, people who overuse these substances
| often end up depleted in characteristic ways.
| Weryj wrote:
| I would classify myself as addicted to weed.
|
| From my perspective and my best rationalisation of it, when I'm
| bored or stressed I reach for a dopamine hit and weed is a great
| source of one. The next day I'll have a low and there's a
| 'battle' between the rational and want. The rational side almost
| never wins and I'll be in a daily usage cycle for months.
|
| That being said I think it's an easier drug to break the cycle of
| with planning, since it only takes a few days of no use to
| dramatically improve my chances of resisting and honestly, if I
| didn't suffer from poor memory performance, I'd be okay as a
| daily smoker. But working is next to impossible at the level
| needed as a SDE.
| LargeTomato wrote:
| >working is next to impossible at the level needed as a SDE.
|
| This is the truth. I can't reason as well or as quickly. Things
| go over my head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get
| lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.
| boredemployee wrote:
| > Things go over my head. My working memory is so much
| smaller. I get lost in code all the time. I forget what I'm
| working on.
|
| I have the same symptons but I don't smoke weed. Maybe I'm
| just bored of the work required.
| simon83 wrote:
| > I can't reason as well or as quickly. Things go over my
| head. My working memory is so much smaller. I get lost in
| code all the time. I forget what I'm working on.
|
| Is that while being high on THC, or being sober but having
| consumed lets say the day before?
| LargeTomato wrote:
| Both. When I'm high at work it's very very acute. When I'm
| not high but I was high yesterday I can tell I'm lower-
| functioning but it's not as bad.
|
| Weed and untreated bipolar disorder are directly
| responsible for me losing my jobs at SpaceX, Google, and 2
| other smaller companies.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Do you still consume cannabis?
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Not the GP, but for me it can be both. Depends a lot on
| your overall usage pattern.
|
| Right now I only really smoke once a month at most, when
| the opportunity presents itself. In these cases, I'm
| obviously completely non-functional under the influence.
| But I also smoke a lot less because I have no tolerance, I
| feel pretty much completely fine the next day, possibly
| even better than usual, because the resulting night of REM
| suppressed sleep gives me a jolt of antidepressant effect
| without the downsides of sleep deprivation.
|
| If I'm in a binging mode, it means I have a huge tolerance,
| smoke a ton more, and honestly it takes at 2-3 weeks of
| abstinence before I'm back to baseline for working memory,
| possibly longer.
|
| But paradoxically, if I'm in such a binge, I'm probably
| more functional if I've had my morning smoke compared to
| skipping it for the day, because abstaining would then
| cause me to be highly irritable and unable to focus on
| anything in addition to the state of temporary dementia I'd
| be in. And since there's a massive tolerance, one dose
| won't have acute deleterious effects to the same degree.
| [deleted]
| jjulius wrote:
| This puts what I tried typing out a lot more succinctly than I
| could, at least as far as my own experience goes (YMMV, of
| course). At the beginning of the year I went cold turkey after
| consuming cannabis on a daily basis for about three years
| straight. At the time, I was plowing through at _least_ ~4000mg
| of tincture (~150mg /dose) and ~2oz of flower in a single month
| - my frequent use meant that even one bong rip would do
| nothing, I'd need at least 5 or so to even reach the point
| where I'd go, "Oh, I think I'm stoned now, maybe?". Went cold
| turkey for a month and when I ate 20mg it rocked my world, and
| a single rip would kick my ass for an entire evening.
|
| >That being said I think it's an easier drug to break the cycle
| of with planning...
|
| Yep, this is what's worked best for me. I ended up using daily
| for a week earlier this summer and it was wild to me that I
| could watch my use go from one bong rip on a Monday rocking my
| world, to needing 3 or 4 rips the following Friday to get to
| the same level. Now, what works for me, is buying only a tiny
| amount at a time and saying, "Okay, this is gonna be used at X
| event, Y event and Z event over the next two months". If I'm an
| idiot and use it up before the end of that time, oh well, no
| more until then.
| agency wrote:
| I would say the same for myself. It doesn't interfere with my
| work performance, and I tell myself it's better than if I were
| drinking or whatever, but it has definitely become a compulsion
| and I basically can't regulate my usage if I have it available
| in the house. Lately I've gotten a little timed lock box to
| force myself to take breaks which I'm kind of ashamed to have
| to resort to, but it's helping me keep a better balance.
|
| I will also say - and maybe this is more self-justification -
| but while I definitely cannot really do focused productive
| software work while stoned, I really do think that it puts me
| in a more creative mind-space and helps me see alternatives I
| wouldn't otherwise. I often go for a long hike after work and
| get stoned and stumble upon an approach to a work or life
| problem that's bouncing around in my head that I would not have
| otherwise.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... but it has definitely become a compulsion and I
| basically can't regulate my usage if I have it available in
| the house.
|
| I just replied to the OP myself, but I can definitely agree
| with this. When I first quit earlier in the year, I noticed
| that I'd be sitting on the couch watching TV or chatting with
| my wife in the evening, and I'd have this innate urge to get
| up, go to the garage and go smoke. It didn't even feel like I
| was consciously thinking I needed to get high, it had just
| become such a habit to do that in those moments. I had to re-
| train myself to ask, "Okay, _why_? " before actually doing
| it, and more often than not I couldn't justify the actual act
| of getting stoned in that moment beyond, "Well... to just be
| stoned," and that didn't seem like a good enough excuse to
| me, making it quite easy to fight the urge.
|
| But YMMV, of course.
| myshpa wrote:
| Psilocybin is able to instantly turn off an addiction, and it
| is not addictive itself.
|
| https://time.com/6167638/psilocybin-addiction-therapeutic-br...
|
| Psilocybin Could be a Therapeutic Breakthrough For Addiction
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9947277/
|
| All four clinical trials indicated a beneficial effect of
| psilocybin-assisted therapy on SUD symptoms
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27441452/
|
| All 15 participants ... At 12-month follow-up, 10 participants
| (67%) were confirmed as smoking abstinent. At long-term follow-
| up, nine participants (60%) were confirmed as smoking
| abstinent.
|
| At 12-month follow-up 13 participants (86.7%) rated their
| psilocybin experiences among the five most personally
| meaningful and spiritually significant experiences of their
| lives.
| paisleypepper wrote:
| Aside from the over-generalizations, psilocybin is a potent
| psychoactive substance. While it might not be "addictive" in
| the classic sense, it can lead to intense, sometimes
| challenging, psychological experiences. These experiences can
| be traumatic for some individuals, especially without proper
| guidance or in unsupportive settings.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| I'll note that "proper guidance" and "supportive setting"
| are very much undefined terms here and also do not preclude
| a traumatic trip.
|
| There's no situation in which using a significant dose of a
| psychoactive substance as powerful as psilocybin is without
| risks. That's not to say the risks aren't worth it for
| anyone, and experienced, supportive guidance can minimize
| some risks, but it's never without any risk at all.
| [deleted]
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I'm addicted to weed and do a lot of mushrooms as well. Never
| felt the urge to stop weed after a trip. As with all
| addictions, but especially weed, the only way to stop is to
| want to. The only really bad thing about quitting is the
| boredom from not being high. I've quite a dozen times myself,
| going upwards of a year sober, but I'm much less happy
| afterwards.
| myshpa wrote:
| > the only way to stop is to want to ... but I'm much less
| happy afterwards
|
| If you don't want to quit, nothing will help, probably.
|
| > the boredom from not being high
|
| Maybe this is the real problem?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| That's exactly what I'm saying. Mushrooms aren't the key,
| wanting to quit is. Quitting weed is pretty easy if you
| want to. Not at all like tobacco or opioids.
| [deleted]
| haswell wrote:
| The success scenarios I've heard about involve psilocybin
| + trained therapist. Some people have undirected
| transformative experiences, but some people (most?) need
| help navigating.
| [deleted]
| myshpa wrote:
| > undirected transformative experiences
|
| Going in without a therapist doesn't necessarily mean the
| experience is undirected.
|
| Even during an intense psilocybin experience, people
| typically retain some degree of agency and control over
| their actions. In most cases, individuals on a psilocybe
| trip can still make decisions and perform basic tasks,
| though their perceptions and judgments might be altered.
| colecut wrote:
| I would love to stop smoking, and have taken mushrooms
| several times in the past couple months...
|
| It unfortunately doesn't work for everyone.
| haswell wrote:
| The key with these studies is the associated therapy.
|
| I've heard the effects of psilocybin described as (roughly)
| increasing neuroplasticity for a time, thus allowing
| changes that would be significantly harder to accomplish
| otherwise.
|
| But I don't think unguided trips would automatically have
| this effect if you don't already have the necessary
| tools/frameworks going in.
| Weryj wrote:
| Absolutely, if I was still in Vancouver I'd make a stop by
| Granville.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Living in a legal state, I'm most annoyed by the number of pot
| shops everywhere. Its: gas stations, banks, fast food, weed
| shops. A boring utopia.
| rayiner wrote:
| My wife got a body scrub at a spa in Oregon recently. The more
| exfoliating of the two scrub options (I think salt versus
| volcanic ash) was based on CBD oil. The spa insisted that it was
| relaxing and folks got it all the time with no trouble. My wife
| was sick for the better part of three days, puking and nauseous.
| Apparently CBD poisoning is a thing, and the amount added to
| these things (especially in consideration of absorption vectors)
| is pretty much unregulated.
| xyzelement wrote:
| I used to be a big fan of pot and a proponent of legalization but
| now I am not sure.
|
| The impact of things is at the margins - people whose lives were
| going to work out well, will probably still be OK even with pot.
| People who were gonna have big problems probably will have them
| anyway. But I think there are _some_ people who will be pushed
| from the "barely OK" to "not OK" category.
|
| The legalization (vs decriminalization) has had a clear impact on
| the use. You used to smell pot when walking in NYC _sometime_ ,
| now you smell it consistently everywhere. You are constantly in
| the presence of high people which did not used to be the case.
|
| In my own life there were historically some benefits to discovery
| of pot, but I also recognize that areas where I wasn't vigilant
| about it, had negative effects. For example times in my life when
| I had gotten fat correlate to when I smoked actively. I was
| vigilant for pot messing me up in obvious ways - eg I didn't let
| it make me miss work or stop dating etc - but the weight subtly
| crept on me.
| ttul wrote:
| Yes, we should also make alcohol illegal again because those
| 1930s gangs were so cool.
| tetrep wrote:
| Well, modern gangs realized that if they don't go around
| shooting white people nobody seems to mind them much, so I
| don't think the 1930s gangs will reappear, modern gangs will
| just also deal in alcohol.
| burkaman wrote:
| I understand where you're coming from, but it's hard to argue
| that weed addiction is worse than jail (in the US).
| Legalization is about ending a practice that has objectively
| ruined many many lives. And while it's impossible to stop
| people from smoking weed and potentially becoming addicted,
| it's incredibly easy to stop the government from putting those
| people in jail.
|
| I think all this makes the decision very easy. There is no
| option where nobody is harmed, but legalization clearly
| prevents the most harm.
| clarge1120 wrote:
| The coolest part of this whole discussion is that we can finally
| compare weed and alcohol.
|
| Before the current weed era, weed was always compared favorably,
| by smokers, to alcohol with the adage: Weed is illegal, yet I've
| never seen a bar fight after everyone gets high.
|
| Now we can do a real comparison of the effects of weed smoking on
| the general public, the same way we've done with drinking.
| HankB99 wrote:
| > Weed is illegal, yet I've never seen a bar fight after
| everyone gets high.
|
| Dude! Who ate all of the pizza?
|
| ...
|
| ;)
| Invictus0 wrote:
| Not sure this experiment would pass the IRB
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Still, there's a point in the parent comment. One can more
| easily make observations about the behavior of their peers
| before/during/after use.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| And my point is that this is weird and lurid, not "cool".
| It's like cheering that a smallpox outbreak occurred so you
| can study the disease progression.
| foobarian wrote:
| It's more like, suppose people are purposefully infecting
| themselves with smallpox, and then suddenly the common
| cold is legalized so people switch to that. I could
| consider that "cool." Possibly similar story with vaping
| vs. smoking but the decrease in harmfulness is less
| obvious there.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > weird and lurid, not "cool"
|
| The point seems to be interesting in a way which might be
| called "cool" if one happens to be so interested. Even if
| one finds it lurid they may also find it interesting or
| "cool".
|
| > It's like cheering that a smallpox outbreak occurred so
| you can study the disease progression.
|
| I believe I understand the point. We don't want to
| celebrate a negative occurrence simply because there is
| silver lining. However, it's hard to see past a certain
| false equivalence that's being made. A disease which
| propagates ought to be treated differently from personal
| choices even if the things are equally destructive to the
| individual.
|
| But I'm a philosopher at heart. Let's say a person
| chooses to infect themselves with a disease to facilitate
| study of some aspect of it. Let's also say that they are
| able to do this in an environment that all but guarantees
| the disease will not propagate except possibly to other
| willing volunteers. Should this research be prevented?
| Would the results of this research definitely not be
| "cool", meaning "interesting"?
| jjgreen wrote:
| True story: I was talking to an academic who was doing a
| study, aiming to get people to fill out a big questionnaire
| on health and lifestyle. As an incentive, people got a
| voucher for a gym. "Don't you think you'd get different
| results if you offered 200 cigarettes or a bottle of vodka
| instead?" I asked, "Well _that_ wouldn 't get past the ethics
| board!"
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| I would guess it's less than 5% of users in the US.
|
| There are weed addicts. My college dorm had about half a dozen
| students jonesing when all the dealers (5-6 in our area) went
| home for the winter holidays. Did anyone lose their job, get in a
| wreck, end up in the hospital, or die from it? I seriously doubt
| it.
|
| I'd say alcoholism and binge drinking are far bigger threats. You
| know, like my roommate who nearly died from alcohol poisoning on
| his 21st birthday from downing half a dozen shots of everclear
| and more.
|
| The magnitude of harm, impairment, and life dysfunction for
| substance abuse varies by said substance. Weed addiction isn't
| nothing but it's not tobacco, drinking, or meth.
|
| I'd said the biggest harm of weed is people who smoke it
| unfiltered and inhale microfines and ultrafines more so than
| filtered tobacco cigarettes. Dabbing could be potentially better,
| but so much of the market is grey and black that there's not
| enough research or uniform safety standards on producing healthy
| inhalation products.
| cameronfraser wrote:
| this isn't a measuring contest to see which drug is worse, this
| is just acknowledging that people can have severe addiction
| issues with cannabis. Just because you don't die from
| withdrawals doesn't mean it can't lead to serious quality of
| life issues and poor mental health.
| smokeitaway wrote:
| The phrase "burnt out hippie" exists for a good reason. I was
| widely regarded as brilliant when I started smoking. After 30
| years of smoking almost every day, and about 5 years of smoking
| a few times a year, I'm noticeably dumber than peers who didn't
| smoke, who I used to run circles around. With very few
| exceptions, I've only used weed. For me, the biggest harm was
| brain damage.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| This isn't complicated: marijuana is addictive to some people,
| but making it illegal doesn't solve that problem--it should be
| legal. But it's apparent that's too much nuance for the average
| politician.
|
| I'll add that I've also experienced this with caffeine: I've got
| more than one health reason to quit (heart arrhythmia, anxiety,
| insomnia), but I had a hell of a time quitting, with multiple
| failed attempts (now a few months out and hoping it sticks this
| time). And when I talk about it to the people around me, I get
| shocked and even defensive reactions. But my life is so much
| better when I'm not drinking coffee. Which is not to say that's
| the best decision for everyone.
| rayiner wrote:
| > marijuana is addictive to some people, but making it illegal
| doesn't solve that problem--it should be legal. But it's
| apparent that's too much nuance for the average politician.
|
| By your logic, it's futile to ban harmful products, which is a
| weird take. Making something illegal influences social norms.
| It signals that something is "bad" and for "bad people." Not
| everyone will abide by that social signal, but most people
| will. Banning something _where the rest of the culture is
| trying to normalize it_ probably is futile. But that doesn 't
| mean that banning things doesn't work, or that legalizing
| things won't make the problem worse. It's hard to ignore that
| marijuana seems to be much more prevalent now that it's been
| legalized in many places.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| > By your logic, it's futile to ban harmful products, which
| is a weird take.
|
| How is that weird? Maybe try ban cigarette and alcohol first
| see if it works?
|
| I personally don't take any substances except coffee. Really
| wondering all those ppl who r advocating for banning weed
| smoke or drink alcohol personally?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| But.. banning things doesn't work. People use illegal drugs
| anyways, and they do it openly. Legalizing weed alone didn't
| make the problem worse, the shift of the marijuana industry
| to mass production did. And that shift was caused by states
| granting business licenses to dispensaries. After that
| companies decided (just like alcohol until recently by the
| way) that the only metric to compete on was strength.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > By your logic, it's futile to ban harmful products, which
| is a weird take.
|
| You are engaging in the fallacy of composition: the argument
| was that it does not work _for marijuana_. Not that it does
| not work _for harmful products_.
|
| It is not generally valid to conclude from "X does not work
| for Y" and "Y is a Z" that "X does not work for any Z".
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > It signals that something is "bad" and for "bad people."
|
| Given the absurd disconnect between US law and anything
| resembling ethics, I doubt this is true. If you're on the
| left, you're as likely to see law _enforcement_ as bad
| people, and if you 're on the right, substitute guns for
| marijuana and you're likely to have very different views.
| While some people might think this way at a surface level, I
| suspect the number of people who base their view of morality
| on laws is vanishingly small compared to the number of people
| who base their view of laws on their morality.
|
| > Banning something where the rest of the culture is trying
| to normalize it probably is futile.
|
| Good thing there's no cultural movement to normalize the
| substance we're talking about.
|
| > It's hard to ignore that marijuana seems to be much more
| prevalent now that it's been legalized in many places.
|
| Hard to ignore, but easy to explain with explanations other
| than "it made things worse". Does it occur to you that maybe
| people just aren't hiding their use now that it's legal?
| JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote:
| Great thinking! Surely this will work for alcohol too - let's
| do that one next.
| croes wrote:
| It's weird that alcohol is legal when marijuana isn't. The
| damage by alcohol is much higher.
|
| Banning alcohol didn't work.
| edgyquant wrote:
| The damage from alcohol was higher, when it was legal and
| cannibas was not. It remains to be seen if that stays the
| case.
| rvnx wrote:
| The societal damage and consequences of having people
| becoming lazy on their couch after smoking weed is
| largely underestimated.
|
| This is the real risk with cannabis.
|
| "Randy: Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't
| gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't
| gonna fund terrorism, but... well, son, pot makes you
| feel fine with being bored. And it's when you're bored
| that you should be learning some new skill or discovering
| some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you
| may grow up to find out that you aren't good at
| anything."
| TylerE wrote:
| No it doesn't. This is very very very settled science.
| Billions of people hVe been smoking the reefer for
| Millenia.
|
| Withdrawing from alcohol has well documented, and
| extremely dangerous _physical_ side effects (this is why
| it's done in a hospital when possible). cami is does not.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Weed is stronger and more available now than ever. I've
| seen people get constipated, get night terrors, cold
| sweats, etc. from marijuana withdrawals. So I think GP is
| right, it's left to be seen.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| > _get night terrors [...] from marijuana withdrawals_
|
| This one can be really bad, although it only lasts for
| about a week. Dreams so vivid it's terrifying, even when
| the content of the dreams seems mundane. If somebody were
| already marijuana as an emotional crutch, I think the bad
| dreams could have them running back to marijuana
| immediately.
| minsc_and_boo wrote:
| Alcohol has greater cultural and historical significance
| than marijuana does as context, despite killing 3 million
| people each year.
|
| Claiming it's okay to lose a hand because you couldn't stop
| from losing a leg has never been a very sound argument.
| There's better premises for keeping marijuana legal than
| pointing to alcohol.
| matrix_overload wrote:
| Interesting. Always had exactly the opposite with caffeine.
| Could never tell any effects except for the nice refreshing
| taste. Normally have 2 cups with breakfast, but can't tell any
| difference if I skip it (e.g. when travelling).
| reaperman wrote:
| I can't drink any caffeine either. I'm a fairly large guy,
| but even 1/4th cup of coffee at 6:00AM causes the same
| problems - my Apple Watch starts complaining that I have high
| HR, I get anxiety that blocks me from doing productive work,
| and my sleep schedule gets completely screwed up.
| colechristensen wrote:
| For me I strongly believe it is other alkaloids in coffee
| and similar plant products which I'm particularly sensitive
| to.
|
| Artificially caffeinated beverages have much less of a
| negative effect than coffee. And coffee preparation method
| makes a significant difference as well. Espresso is better
| than drip coffee which is better than cold brew.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > For me I strongly believe it is other alkaloids in
| coffee and similar plant products which I'm particularly
| sensitive to.
|
| This does seem to match my experience. Yerba mate doesn't
| produce the same reaction in me as coffee, despite having
| more caffeine (and no L-theanine, which could be a
| confounding factor when comparing with tea).
| slibhb wrote:
| > This isn't complicated: marijuana is addictive to some
| people, but making it illegal doesn't solve that problem--it
| should be legal. But it's apparent that's too much nuance for
| the average politician.
|
| If weed is illegal and the law is enforced then fewer people
| will use it and fewer will become addicted. That might not
| "solve" the problem but it helps.
|
| I'm not arguing that weed should be illegal, only that making
| something illegal reduces its use.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > I'm not arguing that weed should be illegal, only that
| making something illegal reduces its use.
|
| That sounds logical, but empirical evidence > logic.
| hinkley wrote:
| It doesn't matter. None of this matters.
|
| What matters is that marijuana had a demographic that allowed
| the government _and law enforcement_ to be both classist and
| racist at the same time. The severity of marijuana possession
| was jacked up so that it could disenfranchise people, some of
| whom just got the vote less than 2 decades earlier.
|
| When you put a law in place under such circumstances, you
| forfeit the right to talk about what's right and proper. What
| you did was monstrous, and the only correct response is to
| give back what you took, let the dust settle for some time
| proportional to how long you took it away, and only then let
| some new generation of lawmakers start discussing whether
| it's right or appropriate to take it away again.
|
| Whether it's worse than alcohol or not hardly matters. It's a
| dog whistle, and will remain so for decades.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| i don't agree that the behavior you describe is a 'dog
| whistle'.
|
| A dog whistle is a hidden signal. I'd say what you are
| describing is a hidden agenda.
| hinkley wrote:
| When people are discussing equality and you bring up
| tangential topics, you're labeled as an enemy. You
| understand that, right? If not, then it's time you
| learned about Deflection.
|
| One, welcome to semantic dilution. Two, a hidden agenda
| that people share without discussing it. And three, not
| helping.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Lol 40 years of the war on drugs proved that wrong. Can still
| buy bud illegally just as easy as mum could 40 years ago. If
| anything there are more users today given its more socially
| acceptable to be a stoner than an alcoholic.
| ojhughes wrote:
| Being alcoholic is far more socially acceptable in the most
| of the world outside California. In the UK, most people
| consider anyone who uses weed a druggy loser
| TillE wrote:
| The recent unscientific moral panic about "skunk" has
| been bizarre to watch. Even conservative Germany is on
| track to legalize cannabis in the very near future, and
| in the UK it's just not even a conversation.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is a nice pet theory, but all real world statistics have
| shown this to be false. Illegal drugs have become more widely
| spread year after year, up to the point where some of them
| are now common enough to either be or soon to be legalized.
| zapataband1 wrote:
| Making something illegal also weaponizes the state against an
| entirely new group of people. It's not something to take
| lightly. The FBI was just found to have framed four muslim
| men for a terrorism plot to bomb a synagogue. This is what
| happens when you make new crimes and incentivize our broken
| forces.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| This is what happens when you hire a ton of investigators
| to fight a sort of crime that only happens once in a blue
| moon. They start fabricating crimes to justify themselves.
| They might even do this unintentionally, since the line
| between prodding somebody into revealing their true
| intentions can become blurred with encouragement to do the
| thing.
|
| > _" Come on, I know you want to do the thing, you can
| admit it to me. I want to do the thing too! Here are all
| the reasons to believe the thing is a good idea... Don't
| you agree?"_
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The FBI was just found to have framed four muslim men for
| a terrorism plot to bomb a synagogue. This is what happens
| when you make new crimes and incentivize our broken forces.
|
| Er, are you arguing that "bombing people" is a new crime
| invented to weaponize law enforcement against Muslims, or
| does your example have nothing to do with your argument?
| tehjoker wrote:
| There's something to that, but I think that there have also
| been studies that show that regardless of policy, about the
| same percentage of the population uses drugs and can switch
| to different drugs when one gets too difficult to acquire.
|
| Not an expert on this by any means tho.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| I dont think making a substance illegal reduces its use. In
| the town where I live it was illegal to sell liquor until
| recently and this just created demand for unsafe unregulated
| products that normally can't compete with legal alcohol.
| Alcoholics dont really care about things like laws. They dont
| really care about anything. When a person is far gone enough
| that he or she will drink hand sanitizer, getting in his or
| her way will just cause more problems.
| Mordisquitos wrote:
| Even if, for the sake of the argument, we accept that
| illegality reduces consumption and that it would thus reduce
| the number of actively consuming addicts, that is still not a
| strong enough argument by itself. It depends on the
| assumption that the reason addiction is harmful to the
| individual and society is only the drug's effects _per se_ ,
| and not the myriad of other factors that come into play when
| an addict needs his or her fix, such as trying to get enough
| money to pay for it, marginality, exposure to criminality,
| risk of using an adulterated substance--all of which are
| greatly exacerbated by the drug being illegal.
|
| Does the drop in the number of addicts achieved by
| illegalising the drug make up for the increased suffering and
| societal damage caused by the remaining addicts now turning
| to more desperate measures?
| croes wrote:
| Prohibition didn't really work out for alcohol.
| [deleted]
| The_Colonel wrote:
| The two are not the same. Before the prohibition, alcohol
| had been legal for hundreds of years, socially accepted and
| permeated the culture. Can't say the same about weed.
| jrflowers wrote:
| When did humans start using cannabis?
| dekhn wrote:
| There is physical evidence back to about 2500-3000 years
| ago. But people were brewing beer ~6000 years ago.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| In my (European) country around the 1990s and got common
| only 15 years ago or so.
|
| I guess you could find it here and there earlier than
| that, but it was quite rare.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > > When did humans start using cannabis?
|
| > In my (European) country [...]
|
| Your country, and even Europe as a whole, is not the same
| thing as humanity.
|
| Documented pharmacological uses seems to be at least
| since 2,800 BC [0], cultivation seems to be at least
| another 5,000 years or so before that.
|
| [0] https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/medicinal-
| cannabis/history...
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > Your country, and even Europe as a whole, is not the
| same thing as humanity.
|
| What a strange thing to say, when the previous commenter
| wasn't saying the opposite. They were citing when weed
| became legal, socially accepted, and permeating of their
| culture, which is the topic.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I interpreted "In my (European) country around the 1990s
| and got common only 15 years ago or so." as "humans in my
| country started using cannabis in the 1990s _for the
| first time_ ". Bringing up the larger history of cannabis
| use in Europe is a valid point of discussion, as it is
| very likely that at some point in history it was also
| legal and ubiquitous.
|
| Edit: As an aside, this whole discussion began with on
| the topic of prohibition in regard to alcohol, which for
| a lot of people that term specifically refers to a period
| in the United States during the 1920s-1933. I'm not sure
| if the colonel was referring to a different European
| prohibition or how the rise in ubiquity of cannabis in
| the 90s has to do with their initial point, if at all.
| edgyquant wrote:
| We aren't talking about alcohol though.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It didn't work out well for marijuana, either, which
| isn't surprising because alcohol has much more of the
| features the pro-prohibition argument relies on and yet
| alcohol prohibition was a disaster.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| You're being voted down at the moment, but I'm not sure
| why.
|
| I think we should view alcohol and cannabis very similarly.
| Both are potentially addictive and both can seriously harm
| a person's life and family.
|
| Both require us to address the same question: how do we
| handle addictive substances in society?
|
| If made legal, then how do we navigate the normalization of
| a substance which can quite literally ruin a life? It
| prohibited, how do you manage the safety concerns and crime
| we know will stem from the ceaseless demand for drugs which
| are unregulated? How do we manage education in either case?
|
| In this sense, alcohol and cannabis are the same thing with
| the same problems attached.
| dancingvoid wrote:
| > If made legal, then how do we navigate the
| normalization of a substance which can quite literally
| ruin a life? It prohibited, how do you manage the safety
| concerns and crime we know will stem from the ceaseless
| demand for drugs which are unregulated? How do we manage
| education in either case?
|
| I believe you underestimate peoples ability to ruin their
| own lives, regardless of what laws and regulations are
| put into place to try to help them.
|
| Many people kill themselves with food, legal drugs to
| name a few.
|
| We'll be in a much better place if more people become
| knowledgeable in the workings of their own minds, bodies
| and emotions so that seeking self-destruction is less
| common.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Actions in the real world have multiple consequences. Illegal
| marijuana might help some number of people avoid addiction,
| while harming other people.
|
| The question is where preventing marijuana addiction ranks in
| comparison to other goals a Or rights
| standardUser wrote:
| We tried that for 50 years and ruined a _lot_ of people 's
| lives in the process. It was a colossal failure in every way.
| lul_open wrote:
| [dead]
| ugh123 wrote:
| > only that making something illegal reduces its use
|
| I'm not sure how that flies with this: "An article published
| in The Journal of the American Medical Association found
| there was no increase in cannabis use among the general
| population or among previous users after their states
| legalized marijuana."
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/US/marijuana-climb-legalization-
| state...
|
| And also adding that making something illegal will only
| _increase illegal usage_ , which puts people in jail and
| ruins lives (for a plant?).
|
| You sound like my uncle.
| vlunkr wrote:
| I'm not sure uncle-smearing is necessary.
| tqi wrote:
| I'm confused by the article/headline, which also states:
|
| Washington state and Colorado became the first states to
| legalize recreational marijuana in 2012, after which
| marijuana use saw a slight increase among Hispanic and
| white participants, researchers said.
| jacooper wrote:
| Well yeah, because enforcement was a joke.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Ok, tell me, how would _you_ enforce it?
| ethanbond wrote:
| Not if you were poor or black or Hispanic it wasn't (and
| obviously there's huge variation locale-to-locale)
| serf wrote:
| given that addictions still exist even for the most
| illicit drugs, I don't see that correlation.
|
| enforcement is significantly less 'a joke' for heroin and
| cocaine, yet addicts still exist for the products.
|
| also : is incarceration/penal-justice really the desired
| outcome here? Is the punchline here : "Would you rather
| be surrounded by ex-convicts or addicts?"
| zdragnar wrote:
| One could say the same things about tobacco and minors, yet
| somehow nobody is suggesting that we should let kids buy
| cigarettes.
| pseudocomposer wrote:
| No one is suggesting we let kids buy weed either. This
| comparison doesn't hold up to even slight scrutiny.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| You've missed the point. More than "slight" scrutiny is
| clearly required!
| zdragnar wrote:
| Actually, Minnesota's weed legalization law might face a
| special session because there's concern that the law
| doesn't add penalties for those who sell to minors. At
| this point, all anyone could be charged with is a petty
| misdemeanor, which- like many other crimes in the state-
| may go uncharged.
| metamet wrote:
| That's an argument for regulation vs illegalization,
| though.
| collegeburner wrote:
| no, the same public health "experts" say cigarettes
| should be outright banned for people under a certain age.
| new zealand recently banned ever selling them to anyone
| born after 2009, at any age
| rvnx wrote:
| and if you check this article and the charts (from
| Germany): https://www.dw.com/en/new-zealands-smoking-ban-
| a-precedent-f...
|
| It is very very obvious that restricting the product
| works in such case (from 30%+ of active smokers to almost
| 5%)
| ipaddr wrote:
| New Zealand health officials locked down the island
| earlier and for much longer than anywhere else during
| covid aside from China and they have increased social
| problems from it. I'm not sure the world should be
| following advice from that source.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| Sample size of one: I never bought weed when it was illegal
| because I don't associate with the sort of people who'd
| sell it. Sometimes it would be offered to me and I would
| try it, but I never had or wanted to have "a dealer". But
| now that I can just pop into a local store whenever I want,
| it's no big deal.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Sure, but people like you smoking slightly more often is
| not actually a real problem. Addiction _is_ a problem,
| and for people like me who are heavily predisposed to
| addiction, bans have done nothing to prevent addiction
| from developing, and done lots to make the lives of those
| who suffer from it worse, and indeed the drugs themselves
| more dangerous, even for casual users(it only takes one
| bad ecstacy pill to kill you...)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If weed is illegal and the law is enforced then fewer
| people will use it and fewer will become addicted. That might
| not "solve" the problem but it helps.
|
| Enforcing the law is not without costs, financial and social.
| We've tested this theory, and it does not help in net.
| progmetaldev wrote:
| Society as a whole would do better to take the money fighting
| against drug use, abuse, and sales, and instead put it
| towards programs that help people fight the issues that cause
| addiction in the first place. Mental health programs, along
| with support for those that have an addiction and wish to be
| free from it. Addiction is fueled by something lacking in
| people's lives. There may be an odd case here and there where
| someone tried a substance and got hooked, but usually
| addiction is a sign of a deeper mental health issue that
| needs to be dealt with, rather than the drug use itself.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > There may be an odd case here and there where someone
| tried a substance and got hooked, but usually addiction is
| a sign of a deeper mental health issue that needs to be
| dealt with
|
| Why do you think the balance is that way round?
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| making it illegal also makes it less likely someone will seek
| treatment if they're having problems, we've made this mistake
| time and time again
| ericmcer wrote:
| Good point. You can expand this to every issue facing society,
| view it through the lens of a politician trying to grab as many
| votes as possible and our current state makes sense.
| samstave wrote:
| >" _Boil Water?! What am I, a Chemist?!_ "
|
| -
|
| This may be a long one, but Ill start with simple and see what
| you think --
|
| The addiction problem is really a dopamine (co)injection
| problem based on the pychological aspects of earlier experience
| which created the gates of dopamine/seratonin/melatonin/neural
| transports desires that affect behavior as you mature.
|
| The pathways that are made for each within the brain structure
| early form bonds, and then its layers of bonds that keep
| coming, but just like snow on branches, the growth is bigger,
| the WEIGHT is bigger on the earlier formed branches... (The
| pathways are formed by an experience that triggers the neurons
| to neuron (network) and as they do so, if firing patterns keep
| happening, certain pathways get higher bandwidth, and these
| pathways "trigger" behaviour due to high bandwidth and thats
| how we get/devlop/inherit/build AND CHANGE our "PERSON"-ality.
|
| So when you're traumatised at an early age - whatever triggers
| in the neuro-pathways are triggered will be stronger growing up
| - such that if its a dopamine trauma - you'll go after that
| largely as you mature...
|
| Its reversable, because your biological and physical brain is
| self aware (conscious, a toroid) - and so you can change your
| behavior of which neurals get stronger, but will power (desire)
| has to be the strongest thread.
|
| (But this is how BGP was born through LSD) (look at Ciscos
| comments re hoffmans 100)
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I've had the same experience with caffeine- I am very addicted
| and without it the withdrawal includes a bad headache, serious
| fatigue, and not being able to think about much else except
| wanting caffeine. Yet lots of people have told me with a
| straight face that I am "wrong" and caffeine is not addictive.
|
| Interesting, I also have the same symptoms as you, including
| insomnia even if I limit coffee to early AM. I think these
| effects are characteristic of "slow caffeine metabolizers,"
| e.g. people for whom caffeine has an unusually long half life.
| My hypothesis is that for these people blood caffeine levels
| stay relatively high 24/7, so the body never gets to adapt to
| functioning without it, making addiction more likely.
|
| It's weird to me that people seem adverse to the idea that
| peoples bodies and genetics vary, and one persons experience
| isn't going to be the same as another.
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| I'm surprised that people don't know that caffeine is
| addictive. I'd think most adults have accidentally withdrawn
| from it at some point.
|
| I just tapered over the last two weeks, easier as an iced tea
| drinker. I measured what I drank one day in grams and then
| had 10% less the next day, decreasing by the same mass for
| the next 10 days. No side effects at all and it's there if I
| want to go back.
| robrtsql wrote:
| I did the exact same thing you did, except with cold brew
| concentrate, when I wanted to quit caffeine one time (in
| preparation for a dental surgery, where I decided I would
| rather not be taking caffeine while recovering). Would
| recommend for anyone who is trying to 'kick the habit'.
| rvnx wrote:
| I have the same issue, and it originally comes from soft-
| drinks like Cola, and now I have to drink tons of coffee just
| to not have headaches and withdrawal syndrome.
|
| If caffeine was illegal you and I wouldn't have acquired such
| addiction, so there is a very big + to prohibition; it will
| prevent future generations to fall into the same trap.
|
| Maybe making a law that forbids selling drinks containing
| caffeine to kids could be a good start.
| mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote:
| Then how did I get addicted to all these illegal
| substances?
| rvnx wrote:
| You got exposed to such substances because the law
| enforcement failed to apply the rules against controlled
| substances.
|
| Despite this, the fact that the substance is illegal or
| controlled, made that less people have been exposed (and
| eventually addicted) than if the substance was freely
| circulating.
|
| Singapore was well known to have a strong opium problem.
| Now they have death penalty, no opium problem anymore.
|
| Clear example: If cannabis cakes (space cakes) were
| legal, I'd consume them but they are not, and I do not
| trust + do not want to fund dealers. So I don't buy them.
|
| Another example: Alcohol is forbidden to 12 year old
| kids. Yes, some of them may find a workaround, and a way
| to buy it, but because of that you are still helping a
| large segment of the kids to not get early into
| addiction.
|
| If tomorrow you say to the kids that they can drink wine
| (in French schools it was possible before for kids!),
| then they are more likely to get addicted.
|
| Yes, there is still a small % that will get exposed, no
| solution covers 100% of the population, but if you can
| save 6 out of 10 addictions by regulating the substance,
| then you are doing a good job.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Just because you can effect health improvements by strict
| government controls, I don't think that means we should.
|
| > Now they have death penalty, no opium problem anymore.
|
| Hardly a policy that I think makes sense in the US.
|
| We could solve 6/10 instances of obesity by a strict
| governmental intervention into diets. I don't think that
| would be "doing a good job", even if the health outcomes
| would be improved.
|
| We could eliminate tons of cancers by banning both
| tobacco and alcohol. I don't think we should (as a non-
| user, I hate everything about tobacco; I could easily
| reduce my ~20 drinks/year to 0).
|
| We could eliminate a lot of greenhouse gas emissions and
| heart disease by banning the farming, sale, and
| consumption of animals. I don't think we should.
| cooldrcool3 wrote:
| What about personal freedoms? Is eroding our individual
| rights really worth criminalizing something like coffee
| just because it might be physically addictive?
| kevinmchugh wrote:
| Caffeine is long term safe to use, tapering is done easily
| when its necessary (see my other comment on the thread, I
| tapered over 10 days with no side effects). And it's a
| stimulant.
|
| I was happily addicted to it for years and other than a
| couple withdrawal headaches when my routine got disrupted*
| the only ill effects was occasional morning crankiness.
|
| I expect I'll become addicted again at some point in the
| future. Probably in the winter with a nice hot mug on a
| snowy morning. I'm looking forward to it.
|
| I can't imagine any state or religion banning caffeine.
| It's the safest, most wonderful drug there is.
|
| *Any restaurant or convenience store could fix my headache
| for me.
| bjt wrote:
| > I can't imagine any state or religion banning caffeine.
|
| Coffee and tea have been banned for practicing Mormons
| for a long time. Caffeinated soda was kind of an "extra
| credit" ban for decades until the church more recently
| started pulling back on that.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2016/01/03/461843938/can-mormons-
| drink-c...
| km3r wrote:
| Yet a majority of caffeine users don't get addicted, and
| the increased productivity and freedom seems well worth the
| trade off on prohibition. There are better solutions to
| addiction than making everyone else suffer.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > If caffeine was illegal you and I wouldn't have acquired
| such addiction, so there is a very big + to prohibition
|
| This hypothetical is not in evidence.
| rvnx wrote:
| If no caffeine then no addiction to caffeine.
|
| You don't get an addiction to a substance that has never
| been near your body.
| tomca32 wrote:
| Yeah but legality has nothing to do with that. A whole
| lot of people put a whole lot of illegal stuff into their
| bodies every single day
| rvnx wrote:
| > Yeah but legality has nothing to do with that.
|
| Making a product legal increases its availability,
| affordability and reach. So, the number of people
| exposed.
| aranchelk wrote:
| Moreover, legality doesn't even necessarily imply reduced
| cost. I've heard anecdotally that in California illegally
| produced cannabis is cheaper: it's not taxed and there's
| no cost to meet regulatory compliance for the producers.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I don't think it's common to claim there's no such thing as
| caffeine _withdrawal_ -- that 's extremely well known and
| documented. The headaches and fatigue from going cold turkey
| are the worst.
|
| But at the same time there's valid debate over whether that
| should be classified as an _addiction_ rather than a mere
| normal _dependence_. Because for most people, it 's
| relatively simple to taper down their caffeine intake by e.g.
| 10% per day and end it after a month and they're fine. They
| don't find that psychologically difficult, they don't need to
| go to rehab, they're just slightly tired and maybe
| intermittent slight headaches during the process. That's all
| -- which is why it's generally much better than cold turkey.
|
| Addiction is often associated with something that normal
| willpower has no control over, that adversely affects your
| life. That's not generally the case for caffeine. Everyone I
| know who has wanted to stop drinking coffee has managed it
| when they decided to. Which is _not_ the case with things
| widely understood to be addictive in some people, e.g.
| alcohol, tobbacco, heroin.
|
| So there's an important distinction here that I don't think
| we want to erase. Dependency != addiction.
| mcpackieh wrote:
| If you want to kick caffeine, I recommend switching to
| caffeine pills and continue using as many of them as you need
| to feel normal, then start ramping down the dose. Since pills
| are discrete it's hard to cheat. When I do this I usually
| start at 400mg (sometimes 600mg) a day then over the next
| month ramp down to 100mg a day until finally going to zero.
| It takes me about a month before I can function normal with
| no caffeine.
|
| ...then a few months later I decide to start again. Oh well.
| I've done the above about half a dozen times. It's fairly
| easy to defeat the chemical addiction which I experience as
| you describe (really awful headaches, fatigue, lack of
| concentration, etc), but eventually I'll pick it back up to
| get a little extra edge.
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Something I used to do is make a big pot of coffee and sip
| on it throughout the day, which was very hard to regulate
| (and it was also just too much caffeiene). Now I make a
| single cup of coffee in the aeropress and I use 16 grams of
| beans which i weigh manually. And I only have one cup of
| coffee in the morning instead of multiples throughout the
| day.
|
| Point is, weighing beans and using the aeropress helps me
| keep my dosage consistent so I don't go overboard.
| gorjusborg wrote:
| I second that recommendation. I've weaned off caffeine
| multiple times using that method.
|
| Just be careful not to double dose when taking the pills.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| It's telling that both people recommending this method
| have seen it fail multiple times, and are somehow
| rebranding those failures as successes. Every time you
| quit again "successfully" was because the previous
| attempt failed.
|
| While I'm not aware of efficacy studies of different
| methods of quitting caffeine, cold turkey seems most
| effective for nicotine and a few other stimulants.
| jw1224 wrote:
| Perhaps (respectfully) this is not good advice? In my
| experience a "sense of control" over one's addiction only
| serves to keep it alive.
| projectazorian wrote:
| If you have demonstrated the ability to quit any time you
| want, is it an addiction? Or a tool you find useful?
| roywiggins wrote:
| I've tapered caffeine successfully by measuring out
| instant coffee. This works pretty well for managing the
| physical effects of caffeine withdrawal, or at least
| spreading them out. Basically, I 1) committed to only
| having the same exact amount of instant coffee, at the
| same exact times, every day, and then 2) every so often,
| reduced it a bit. Then I switched to a very moderate
| amount of decaf (which, yes, has a little bit of caffeine
| in it, but not enough to cause me problems).
|
| I did this because I was getting withdrawal headaches
| most mornings, which is an unpleasant way to begin the
| day- I wasn't even drinking that much caffeine!
| [deleted]
| treeman79 wrote:
| "I'm not addicted, it doesn't affect me." Every addict I know.
| Seen a number of people slowly change from it until they are no
| longer who they are. Never in a good way. Seen some who got off
| it.
|
| One because her husband has such a bad reaction (after several
| years of use) that he can't ever touch it again. She became her
| old self again. Not quite as bright as she once was, but
| personality improved to the loving person I once knew.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I feel like something that could help would be a limit to the
| potency. I like weed - but I really just want a 5-10% THC
| flower with some CBD in there for good measure (still not
| convinced the CBD isn't a placebo, but it's there naturally so
| no harm in having it). But most shops near me don't sell
| anything less than 20% THC. WTF?
|
| Occasionally I can get something 10-15%. And if I'm lucky I can
| get something less than 10%.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Then look for high-CBD strains. The weed plant that produces
| lots of CBD will not produce much THC. The inverse is also
| true. I see CBD strains all the time that are as low as 1%
| THC.
| projectazorian wrote:
| Mids are easier to get on the illegal market, ironically.
| asadotzler wrote:
| So do less of it. The concentration is meaningless, the
| ingested and metabolized amount is what matters.
| shams93 wrote:
| Exactly, booze is legal, some people get addicted but
| prohibition does more harm than good. Cigarettes are even worse
| they really have no benefit of any kind to anyone, its pure,
| deadly addiction and totally level for adults.
| artur_makly wrote:
| how much better is your sleep? and did it improve almost
| overnight?
| kerkeslager wrote:
| My sleep is a lot better. There were about two weeks were it
| was... inconsistent. I would be exhausted most of the time
| which helped me get to sleep but also more often anxious and
| irritable which would keep me up. The anxiety and
| irritability wore off after about two weeks, and the energy
| came back to what feels normal-ish at about three weeks. I do
| have ongoing problems with sleep, but it's become apparent
| that this is due to some bad sleep habits which I wasn't as
| conscious of when I was drinking coffee because I could just
| drink a bit extra the day after to make up for staying up
| late--i.e. I was covering up my bad sleep habits. When I
| actually discipline myself and follow good sleep hygiene
| habits, I sleep well, which wasn't the case when I was
| drinking coffee, even if I drank it only early in the day.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bennyschmidt wrote:
| Cannabis "addiction" is as problematic as caffeine "addiction". I
| put those in quotes because neither are what typically comes to
| mind when a person thinks about drug addiction.
|
| If you think quitting weed is hard, try quitting coffee if you
| have it every day. For me, suddenly quitting coffee results in
| severe migraine headaches and I can't do my job well. Extreme
| irritability and fatigue, it's truly a stimulant drug withdrawal.
| It takes about a week or so to get through it, and having green
| tea in its place is the only way I can reasonably taper down.
|
| A similar kind of thing happens if you suddenly stop smoking weed
| when you use it daily - cold sweats, irritability, but it only
| lasts about a day. Anyone who has struggled with caffeine,
| alcohol, or amphetamine addiction (yes, including ADHD pills),
| who has gone through a cannabis withdrawal will be pleasantly
| surprised for lack of a better description at how short-lived it
| is. I believe that's why so many stoners exclaim "I can quit at
| any time if I wanted", it's not that big of a deal.
|
| I really believe the negative effects of over-consuming caffeine
| (irritability, cold sweats, heart racing nervousness), and also
| the effect of withdrawing from caffeine, are both more severe
| than either with cannabis. Because caffeine is an accepted daily-
| use stimulant in our society, I compare it to that.
| zer8k wrote:
| Ever since it became legal I have friends who spend majority of
| their day high. Of course, when confronted, they say it's not
| addictive and they dont have a problem. As we know this is the
| first sign of a very serious addiction.
|
| It's a comparison problem. It won't kill you like alcohol
| withdrawals will or make you agitated like nicotine will. So then
| it must be okay right? These same potheads will quote studies and
| news articles talking about the benefits or just how risk free it
| is.
|
| Its very similar to the way a functional alcoholic will justify
| their drinking. They even use avoidance language. 20 years ago we
| called it weed, now we call it "cannabis". Oh, you're not
| addicted to weed you're just using cannabis every hour of every
| day. I think legalization didn't help, nor hurt, but the re-
| branding of weed as "cannabis" while biologically correct gave
| these type of people a get out of jail free card. If you don't
| believe me, say to yourself "I smoke weed 8 times a day" versus
| "I use cannabis 8 times a day". One of them makes you sound like
| a degenerate, one of them makes you sound like you take a
| medication. That difference is very important in justifying
| addiction in the mind of an addict.
| asdf6677 wrote:
| Do they have a good reason not to get high? Alcohol is
| different because it's much less healthy, more expensive, and
| causes hangovers. I can't think of any side effects of non-
| smoked cannabis that last beyond the evening except for the
| stuff that matters in 30 years
| gnulinux wrote:
| Reading _just_ this comment, I 'm inclined to think your friend
| is likely correct. You _very clearly_ have a dangerous bias
| against THC and it 's clear in your rhetoric, for example:
|
| > while biologically correct gave these type of people a get
| out of jail free card.
|
| Yikes.
|
| I think part of the problem is ever since legalization weed
| became more mainstream (potentially dangerous) but weed-
| conservatism (i.e. exaggerating real risks of THC) also became
| much more common to encounter (also potentially dangerous). The
| reality is somewhere in between. I do not use THC, but as
| someone who used it previously and it _tremendously_ helped me,
| my current mental model and set of anecdotes say you 're likely
| wrong and exaggerating the real risk your friend is under.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > You very clearly have a dangerous bias against THC and it's
| clear in your rhetoric
|
| On the topic of biases, I wonder why you consider theirs to
| be "dangerous".
|
| Regardless, their biases to seem to stem from a certain
| personal experience with marijuana, particularly their
| friends' habits with it. It's possible this person's "friends
| who spend majority of their day high" have a substance abuse
| problem even if not everybody who uses the substance abuses
| it.
| gnulinux wrote:
| I responded to a similar question below:
|
| > Because THC is shown to be an effective care for many
| mental and physical problems. THC itself can be dangerous
| or even very dangerous (psychosis risk etc) but this
| doesn't warrant being so overly cautious that we miss the
| forest for the trees. Facts show THC can be a very
| effective palliative tool, and it's unclear how much damage
| you can do with short-term regular use.
|
| To add, it also leads to apologism of (or apathy for)
| locking people up for consuming THC.
| arp242 wrote:
| The context here is "friends who spend majority of their day
| high". Call me conservative or "dangerously biased", but
| doesn't strike me as healthy.
| ekam wrote:
| How is being conservative about weed dangerous?
| pstuart wrote:
| It likely corresponds with supporting bad drug laws.
| gnulinux wrote:
| Because THC is shown to be an effective care for many
| mental and physical problems. THC itself can be dangerous
| or even very dangerous (psychosis risk etc) but this
| doesn't warrant being so overly cautious that we miss the
| forest for the trees. Facts show THC can be a very
| effective palliative tool, and it's unclear how much damage
| you can do with short-term regular use.
| thuuuomas wrote:
| Incarceration is dangerous
| messe wrote:
| > As we know this is the first sign of a very serious
| addiction.
|
| Isn't denying an addiction when told one has an addiction also
| the first sign of not having an addiction? "Methinks the lady
| doth protest too much" works well and good for a play, but
| doesn't really meet the traditional standards for evidence.
| omginternets wrote:
| I think we can agree that using a substance every waking
| moment is a major red flag.
| messe wrote:
| Of course (well, there's some arguments to be made here
| with regard to prescribed drugs, but let's leave them aside
| for the minute). The only gripe I was addressing here was
| the idea that denial = guilt.
| omginternets wrote:
| That's not quite how I read it. My guess is that the OP
| meant something closer to "constant consumption paired
| with the denial that it could perhaps be unhealthy is a
| strong predictor of addiction."
|
| Going by that charitable interpretation, I think his
| point stands.
| havblue wrote:
| I'd think their specific behavior is the sign of the problem.
|
| Is this a non sequential fallacy? I think the worst offender
| of this argument that I see on the internet is, "if this
| offends you, it proves that I'm right".
| [deleted]
| Terr_ wrote:
| Yeah, this sounds like a Catch-22 of substance use: If you
| deny you have a problem, that proves the problem exists. If
| you affirm you have a problem, that's also proof the problem
| exists.
|
| > There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which
| specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of
| dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a
| rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he
| had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer
| be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be
| crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he
| was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy
| and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and
| had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute
| simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a
| respectful whistle.
|
| -- _Catch-22_ by Joseph Heller
|
| Or if you prefer the Monty Python version [0]:
|
| > "Will you please listen!? I am not the Messiah, do you
| understand? HONESTLY!"
|
| > "Only the _true_ Messiah denies his divinity! "
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HB7zqP9QNo
| rc5150 wrote:
| "Potheads", "get-out-of-jail-free", "degenerate", etc.
|
| "Ever since it became legal I have friends who spend majority
| of their day high. Of course, when confronted"
|
| Maybe you should quit interrogating your friends to prop up
| your own puritanical moralities. All I see when I read your
| post is how much you hate people who use weed.
| omginternets wrote:
| I didn't read that intent in his post. I don't think anyone
| is pointing fingers at you.
| glonq wrote:
| I do know several people who develop temporary or permanent
| paranoia from weed, so maybe that's where the pointy
| fingers are coming from...
| omginternets wrote:
| C'mon, let's not do that...
| chayesfss wrote:
| [dead]
| zer8k wrote:
| "Hey man have you tried going a couple days without smoking
| weed?" is not interrogation. It's concern.
|
| I don't understand this attitude. Do you not care about the
| people around you? I'm not smashing my friend's joints or
| tossing their bongs. I'm asking because I am concerned about
| their health.
|
| What I enjoy about the comments to my comment is it
| demonstrates how deeply ingrained this righteous indignation
| is in the "cannabis community". I don't understand your
| insults. "Puritan", etc. For some reason having concern for
| friends is now puritanical...what a world. Your focus on
| dissecting my use of idiom as some sort of in-built hatred
| for weed smokers is honestly so on point for the HN commenter
| community its actually almost funny.
| rc5150 wrote:
| "For some reason having concern for friends is now
| puritanical" -- it's difficult for me to reconcile your
| claim to have concern for your friends while also vilifying
| them for being "potheads" or "degenerates"?
|
| Not really trying to insult you, that wasn't my intent, but
| in an era in society where personal autonomy and agency is
| becoming paramount to societal influence it makes damn near
| no sense that you're so worked up over someone else's
| personal choices.
|
| Notice I don't disagree with the presented findings, how
| cannabis addiction isn't a boogeyman or false flag, it's
| can become a chemical dependency, but I do disagree with
| your stance of wanting to police the behavior of others to
| fit your own perspective, despite calling it 'concern' or
| 'caring about the people around me'.
|
| If you were my friend, I'd tell you to mind your own
| business then eventually lose your number. I'm an adult, I
| take my own calculated risks and understand the
| consequences of my actions.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "Of course, when confronted"
|
| "Hey man have you tried going a couple days without smoking
| weed?" is not interrogation. It's concern."
|
| Or maybe it is both?
|
| Your friends are probably old enough to no want to be
| controlled by you. Tell them your opinion, it might do them
| good, but maybe don't tell them what to do. They should
| figure that out on their own.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| A question of "Have you tried..." might be the precursor
| to an offered opinion. Maybe their friends have been
| successful at that exact thing and the opinion is moot.
| But if the answer is no, perhaps that's the point at
| which it might be suggested to try.
|
| There's no controlling that is necessarily suggested by
| their comments. Certainly such questions can be asked in
| bad faith but it might be assumed that OP isn't doing
| that.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| Well, it is also about intention yes, but my point was
| just that people do not like to be treated as children
| (especially when they are acting as such). To reach them,
| I first have to respect their choices.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| This is a reasonable position, which is not something that
| can be said about the "war on drugs" type of person that
| I've encountered. That person is much less likely to be
| critical about why they question the use and, in my
| experience, will often assume that "use" is "abuse"
| regardless of the actual effect it has on the user.
|
| The comment rightly calls out that it is a personal take
| about your friends but that is also something which might
| be done by someone with more pointed and less honest
| intentions. Certainly assumptions can be more charitable,
| however. I don't mean to justify these complaints of your
| comment but hopefully they're more understandable.
| maxbond wrote:
| I suggest you send your comment to one of these friends and
| ask them if they feel like this is overbearing or not.
|
| If when considering this, you feel hesitant to show them
| what it is you wrote about them, then I think that's
| something to reflect on.
| bitcoin_anon wrote:
| Most of us who drink coffee or tea are in the same boat. We do
| it every day, sometimes multiple times a day. There is
| withdrawal. There is tolerance. The half-life is so long that
| even if we stop in the morning, we are spending the majority of
| the day high.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Just to add a little more complexity to the equation. Note
| that there is a weird level of approval for some substances (
| coffee, uppers, whatever NY brokers and med students use ),
| because they help some corporate goals, while those that do
| not increase bottom line and are even detrimental to it (
| alchohol, pot and so on ) are frowned upon, because they lead
| to downtime.
|
| I am mostly thinking out lout.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| And if you pay attention to how you actually respond to
| caffeine, it actually has a HUGE effect on your state of mind
| and how you react to things. Not always in a bad way, but it
| easily can affect you as much as weed.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| _it easily can affect you as much as weed_
|
| How so? Comparing relatively normal doses, the effects of
| caffeine seem subtle in comparison.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| After going off caffeine for a day or two, drinking a
| strong cup of coffee or tea on an empty stomach will give
| me a fair bit of a buzz, to the extent that it feels like
| my head is floating. Two cups and work can become
| difficult and I can't sit still. If I drink three cups by
| mid-afternoon, I begin to feel anxious and slightly
| paranoid, as if I'm forgetting something important. It
| also impairs my sleep.
|
| If you're a habitual user, you may not even realize how
| it effects you, and you'll need more dosage to get
| effects.
|
| I'm a very long way from the folks on r/decaf, most of
| whom I think need some serious help, but it's much more
| impactful than you may realize.
| TehShrike wrote:
| Hearing a friend describe how he reacted to caffeine made
| me realize that some people have wildly different responses
| than I do.
|
| Caffeine doesn't make me feel particularly great, and I
| feel almost no compulsion to have more than one cup, but it
| made him feel amazing, and he felt compelled to drink more.
|
| I can stop drinking coffee for a week without any
| annoyance, but if he tries to pull back or stop drinking
| caffeine, he experiences 2 weeks of crippling headaches.
|
| My takeaway: work your way into any drugs tentatively, and
| don't listen to people who tell you how much "everyone"
| responds to it.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| > Of course, when confronted, they say it's not addictive and
| they dont have a problem. As we know this is the first sign of
| a very serious addiction.
|
| We don't know anything of the sort.
|
| It's common for addicts to think they aren't addicted. But it's
| also common for non-addicts to think they aren't addicted,
| because, you know, _they aren 't_.
|
| _It 's just difficult in many cases to tell whether someone is
| addicted_, and your confidence that you know isn't warranted,
| nor does it make you particularly helpful to addicts.
| twelve40 wrote:
| > Of course, when confronted, they say it's not addictive and
| they dont have a problem. As we know this is the first sign of
| a very serious addiction.
|
| this has to be more nuanced, because according to this logic
| 100% of all humans have this addiction. If you confront a non-
| addict, they too will tell you that they don't have a problem.
| sdwr wrote:
| Yes, everyone has addictions.
|
| For example, smiling can be addictive. Now, most people
| aren't "problem smilers", but for some it becomes a crutch
| and takes over their personality.
| Rapzid wrote:
| "I'm innocent!"
|
| That's exactly what a criminal would say!
| maxbond wrote:
| > Of course, when confronted, they say it's not addictive and
| they dont have a problem. As we know this is the first sign of
| a very serious addiction.
|
| The first sign of an addiction (at least, the first which is
| visible to an outside observer) is that it interferes with your
| life and you won't stop. Until about a week ago, I was a heavy
| daily cannabis user for a very long time (more than ten years).
| If you had asked me if I had an addiction, I would have said
| no.
|
| Recently I came to believe I had Cannaboid Hyperemesis
| Syndrome, a disease for which the only cure is to quit
| cannabis. So I quit - immediately. I have a gigantic pile of
| weed in the house (I had just bought more when I started having
| symptoms), and I pass by it everyday. I just shake my head and
| go, "darn, wish I could smoke that," and go about my day.
|
| That's not a story you're going to hear from an addict.
|
| That's not to minimize the experience of people who do
| experience a cannabis addiction. I have known people I suspect
| have a problem. But no, cannabis and alcohol continue not to be
| comparable as far as their harm and addictive potential.
|
| (And I have absolutely no regrets about my consumption, it was
| an incredible medication for my anxiety.)
| qup wrote:
| How is your anxiety now, if I may ask? Have you tried any
| alternatives?
| maxbond wrote:
| Okay. I'm having a fairly high rate of anxious thoughts but
| it's bearable. So far they're of the type that can be
| shaken off easily. I'm sure if I leave it untreated for a
| few months I'll have some form of breakdown, but while I
| haven't tried any alternatives yet, I'm looking for a
| psychiatrist & intend to find a different medication.
| catchnear4321 wrote:
| > As we know...
|
| this was the moment.
|
| or was it? no, it was earlier.
|
| > Of course, when confronted...
|
| of course...
| jddj wrote:
| Nicely captured. L'essence du puritain.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Of course, when confronted, they say it's not addictive and
| they dont have a problem. As we know this is the first sign of
| a very serious addiction.
|
| No, saying you don't have an addiction may be a common thing
| addicts (and non-addicts!) do, but its not even close to the
| first sign of addiction. Or even a recognized symptom. Or even
| a recognized danger sign that would call for more intense
| screening. Its not a useful indicator of addiction at all.
|
| > 20 years ago we called it weed, now we call it "cannabis".
|
| "Weed"/"pot"/"ganja"/etc. are sonewhat vague slang. "Marijuana"
| and "hemp" are legal categories. "Cannabis" is a correct,
| precise term that encompasses both hemp and marijuana.
| evandale wrote:
| I smoke weed 8 times a day and I smoke cannabis 8 times a day.
| Sounds the same to me. Why the hell would the word you use
| matter?
|
| Take your morals and shove them. Go look in the mirror and
| judge yourself if you want to judge somebody but leave me out
| of it.
| haswell wrote:
| I agree with most of what you're saying here about this being a
| comparison problem.
|
| The one area of major disagreement is regarding the "cannabis"
| designation. For me, this term is associated with the opposite
| connotation. When I started taking its effects more seriously,
| I started using the cannabis word because I feel it lends more
| respect to the plant. This wasn't originally my idea, and so
| I'm not alone in this.
|
| This respect was part of my own mindset shift on usage away
| from habitual use. A way to remind myself to take it seriously,
| and to partake intentionally if/when I do.
|
| Most people I know are pretty aware of their "problem" but have
| no intention of changing it. Calling it one thing over another
| might be a form of self deception for a few, but self deception
| will always find some answer.
|
| > _It won 't kill you like alcohol withdrawals will or make you
| agitated like nicotine will. So then it must be okay right?
| These same potheads will quote studies and news articles
| talking about the benefits or just how risk free it is._
|
| I do think we have major issues with how we paint these
| different groups. When someone is an alcoholic, they gain
| sympathy and support from society proportional to their
| maladaptive behaviors and/or willingness to address the issue.
|
| "Potheads" is almost always derogatory, and I don't think
| people who struggle with this are seen in the same light as
| people who struggle with other drugs of abuse, and it's not
| surprising considering the pretty clear misconceptions the
| public has about cannabis as a whole.
|
| And I think this is important to note, because one of the #1
| emotional factors that leads to continued maladaptive substance
| use is shame. Society has progressed quite a bit towards
| supporting and celebrating people who struggle with
| drugs/alcohol. I don't think society has done the same with
| cannabis. Attitudes are closer to "they're just lazy and it's
| not even addictive so what's their problem?".
| pstuart wrote:
| This is how "drug education" has failed us.
|
| The status quo is "drugs are bad, m'kay?" and "drinking is
| fine, everybody does it, just don't drive when drunk".
|
| The way forward should be understanding the following:
| * Let's use the word "drug" for any compound that alters your
| state of mind. * Everybody is different in how they
| respond to a drug * Most drugs are dangerous when
| consumed to excess * Most drugs can impair your
| thinking and should not be used in unsafe conditions *
| Some drugs can be dangerous due to adulterants (e.g.,
| fentanyl) * One should be mindful in how they consume
| drugs (not under peer pressure, not appropriate time/place,
| etc) * If you are going to use a drug, treat it as
| dessert rather than a meal * Addiction is
| possible/likely when one consumes a drug frequently in a
| short amount of time, or by consistent use of it *
| Addiction can be overcome but it requires serious effort and
| can be *very* discomforting * The first high is often
| the "best", and trying to capture that again can lead to
| addiction * If you think you have a problem with drugs,
| you probably do, and should seek help in addressing your
| problem * If you are an addict and you break your
| addiction you cannot return even once to using again
|
| I'm sure there's room for improvement there, but it's a
| start.
| maxbond wrote:
| I think this is a great list. I would point this out.
|
| > * Let's use the word "drug" for any compound that alters
| your state of mind.
|
| > * If you are going to use a drug, treat it as dessert
| rather than a meal
|
| Consider that your definition rightly includes things like
| antidepressants, but people for whom antidepressants are
| working _should_ take them regularly (which I assume is the
| distinction you 're drawing with dessert versus meal).
| pstuart wrote:
| Thanks for the input! Yes, that definition should be for
| the context of "recreational" use.
| haswell wrote:
| The cultural roots of drinking are deep, and while I agree
| that alcohol enjoys a seemingly protected status, I don't
| know that blanket labeling everything "drugs" is a step
| forward.
|
| I think this kind of abstraction is what gets people into
| risky situations. I'd rather we raised awareness across the
| board about the benefits and repercussions of the popular
| substances of choice. Some general rules of thumb are good,
| but less compelling than direct information about the ways
| things can go wrong, and ultimately not useful in the
| moment of choosing "do I partake?".
|
| I think most people understand that some drugs are
| dangerous and some are not. But the drug conversation has
| been so dishonest for so long, that people struggle to
| assess what is real/true, or what to take seriously. I
| don't think people will take seriously anything that
| collapses mind altering substances under that single
| umbrella.
|
| I think there are strong arguments to be made that
| psychedelics - especially psilocybin - deserve to remain in
| a category of their own. To associate them with "drugs"
| broadly seems counterproductive at a time when we're
| finally seeing research dollars pour into the field, and
| the effects of these compounds doesn't seem comparable with
| other recreational drugs. And no one gets addicted to
| psilocybin, but there are some very real risks that users
| need to know about.
| pengaru wrote:
| > Ever since it became legal I have friends who spend majority
| of their day high. Of course, when confronted, they say it's
| not addictive and they dont have a problem. As we know this is
| the first sign of a very serious addiction.
|
| Before it became legal, I'm willing to bet those friends spent
| a majority of their day doing something equally unproductive.
| Be it playing video games, or watching tv, whatever
| $couch_potato_activity. And they're probably just doing the
| same stupid thing while high, because it's even more fun that
| way.
|
| It's easy to villify a drug for what would happen either way,
| you're not proving a causal relationship. Pot and being a lazy
| slob dovetail quite nicely, just like pizza and beer. Nobody
| blames pizza and beer for the fat stained-shirt slob who never
| gets off their ass.
| vuln wrote:
| "I smoke cannabis 8 times a day."
| episiarch wrote:
| [flagged]
| zer8k wrote:
| > My eyes are rolling so hard. You convicted them on evidence
| of their denial?
|
| The behavior of an addict doesn't need a degree to see. If
| you are in a perpetual haze, need it to get up in the
| morning, and say you do not have a problem _you do have a
| problem_.
|
| > These strawmen are transparent and juvenile, while
| substance dependency of every kind is a complicated and
| common problem that requires far more nuance.
|
| This is not worth addressing because it seems like you're
| just mad.
|
| > Whatever axe you're grinding, it's basically unhinged and
| socially degenerate in and of itself.
|
| I've noticed people who like the word "cannabis" take issue
| with it being called avoidance language. It's the same thing
| seen in vapes, different variations of alcohol, designer
| drugs, etc. In fact, vapes follow almost the same model as
| the "cannabis industry" and do quite a bit to dance around
| the fact it's a drug. Vape stores in particular will sell to
| 50mg salt nic as a new user. A weed store will sell you
| medical grade 80% THC hydro as a first time user. Drugs are
| drugs. If you use them responsibly you probably aren't
| smoking/drinking/injecting it to feel normal. The path to
| profitability is to create addicts. You do this by feeding
| them more of the addicting substance they they realize.
|
| I'm not sure what you're on about but maybe you forgot to
| toke up before posting.
| episiarch wrote:
| > because it seems like you're just mad
|
| On the contrary... it really seems like you are deeply
| aggrieved about the personal, legal habits of other
| persons.
|
| > I've noticed people who like the word "cannabis" take
| issue with it being called avoidance language
|
| The only person so far who's used the word "cannabis" in
| this conversation has been you. I believe you are tilting
| at windmills on the public Internet, and I seriously wonder
| what you have been smoking all morning.
| zer8k wrote:
| I don't care what people do. I'm not a "karen". I'm
| reflecting the OP's post. Addiction is addiction and we
| are talking about it. I'm sorry my opinion is not to
| continue to let people who have a problem have that
| problem. As someone who has been an addict I am
| intimately familiar with both the pipeline to addiction
| and the behavior of a functional addict.
|
| You're the one who engaged in childish name calling.
| Maybe back off and get some context.
| maxbond wrote:
| You can't post a bunch of pejoratives like "pothead" and
| "degenerate" and then try to claim you aren't expressing
| a judgement.
|
| Addiction is not addiction, either. Not everything has
| the same addictive potential, and not every substance
| creates an equally strong addiction.
|
| Frankly, you're making a lot of very strong claims about
| addiction, but it's pretty clear you aren't knowledgeable
| in the subject.
| networkchad wrote:
| [dead]
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| They might try drowning them to prove their innocence
| instead. /s
| johnea wrote:
| Just think of all the "shoe buying addicts" and their lack of
| support...
|
| https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/fashion/article/fugly-shoes-ad...
|
| People's ability to form psychological depenndancies on just
| about anything is a well established phenomenon.
| thebigspacefuck wrote:
| In my experience, cannabis addiction is the definition of
| insidious. I used it daily in high school and college since the
| age of 15 or 16. The effects on my learning and memory were
| profound, but I never noticed how bad until I was off it for 1-2
| months. I was flunking Calculus, got busted my parents, then my
| head cleared, I picked up the subject in a month without even
| studying and aced the AP Calc exam. Same thing happened in
| college studying engineering, I'd flunk the first exam, decide to
| quit, then learned the material easily. Most people aren't trying
| to learn STEM so it's probably impossible to tell how bad it's
| impacting you. The withdrawals weren't so bad, just feeling kind
| of spaced out and weird for one or two months, but it was just
| hard to quit because you don't see the reason to. I haven't
| smoked much since school, but my memory is so bad now 10 years
| later it's sad.
| lm28469 wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| hn8305823 wrote:
| Get addicted to cannabis: You might spend more $$$ per month than
| you would like to
|
| Get addicted to alcohol: Die a very painful death over a two-
| month period as multiple organs shut down.
|
| Get addicted to tobacco: Die a very painful death over many years
| as you develop cancer and try to fight it.
|
| Get addicted to cocaine: You will _definitely_ spend more $$$ per
| month than you would like and will probably die of a heart attack
| by the time you are 50
| drdaeman wrote:
| While AFAIK no one had ever died from cannabis use, to be
| entirely fair, isn't there some impact of long-term use on
| brain functions? Plus some effect on the lungs if smoking
| (though, of course, there are other means of consumption).
|
| Also, most certainly it takes somewhat longer than a couple
| months of alcohol abuse for the liver and other organs to start
| failing.
| croes wrote:
| Alcoholics can survive pretty long, way longer than two month.
| xormapmap wrote:
| > Get addicted to cannabis: You might spend more $$$ per month
| than you would like to
|
| I can tell you are addicted to cannabis because you are way
| downplaying addiction to it while exaggerating the other
| substances. While cannabis will not kill you it can still
| destroy relationships, make you stupid, and waste 40 years of
| your life. That sort of behaviour can rub off on your kids too,
| so when they're adults and also addicted to cannabis and
| playing it off as "I just spend more money than I'd like",
| that's on you.
| chasebank wrote:
| The two biggest 'pot heads' I know both had a severe illness
| from smoking weed and both of them refuse to acknowledge it's
| the weed doing it. It's a debilitating condition, they vomit
| all day, go into shock and have to get thrown into hot showers
| regularly to ease the pain. I'm sure it's not as common as
| alcoholism but good god, it doesn't look fun.
|
| [0] https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-
| con...
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| One related thing I'd like to point out that I think the article
| gets wrong is that the 2018 Farm Bill, which aimed to legalize
| just hemp, for all intents and purposes made weed legal
| nationwide due to some clever workarounds by producers. I live in
| a state that very, very much still calls all use of marijuana
| illegal except for some very specific and tightly controlled
| medical uses (i.e. it's not like "hey doc, can you just write me
| a 'script" like other states), yet I can still walk into a very
| nice, clean, well-maintained store in a plain strip mall and:
|
| 1. Buy D9 gummies and other edibles that contain up to 50mg D9
| THC. Basically, since the law defines hemp as containing < .3% D9
| THC, producers just extract all the D9 THC from hemp and inject
| it into edibles such that the total weight of the edible means
| there is still less than .3% D9 THC in the edible. These get me
| just as baked as "normal" weed gummies, they're just a bit
| bigger.
|
| 2. More surprising to me is the recent addition of "THCA Hemp
| Flower". To me these are just normal buds - I can grind them up
| and vape them and they get me just as high as "normal" weed.
| Basically these flowers contain low amounts of THC, but high
| amounts of THCA. But when you heat it, THCA turns into THC by
| decarboxylation. The thing that I don't understand is that I
| thought "normal" marijuana always needed to be heated anyway,
| e.g. why they say you can't just eat a weed bud but if you're
| making an edible you need to heat the oils first.
|
| The gummies/edible workaround I can understand, but the THCA
| flower "workaround" seems like it's skirting _really_ close to
| the edge of the law. Not that I 'm complaining or anything, but
| it's weird to me how people don't know that weed is legal
| nationwide in the US.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > The gummies/edible workaround I can understand, but the THCA
| flower "workaround" seems like it's skirting really close to
| the edge of the law.
|
| They both fit the law in the same way; the law defines hemp in
| an expansive and inclusive way, subject only to the D9 THC
| limit, so anything not D9 THC doesn't count against the limit
| even if it has similar effect. Even the DEA accepts this,
| though the DEA seems to have adopted a view unsupported by the
| text of the law that things that don't naturally occur in
| cannabis but meet the inclusive description in the law's text
| aren't legalized as hemp, which leads to controversy around
| some _synthetic_ cannabinoids, where the DEA view and the text
| of the law (and some emerging case law) seem at odds.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I guess the thing that surprised.me is that I thought the
| majority of THC in "normal" marijuana was in the form of THCA
| anyway.
|
| I remember reading an article years ago (well before 2018)
| that basically said "to make the THC in marijuana available
| in a way that gives pleasurable effects, it must first be
| decarboxylated, which is why it needs to be heated before
| being consumed." So from that I thought that most of the
| stuff that was sold as weed (again, pre 2018) was in the form
| of THCA anyway.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| Yeah, having a look at a random bag of legal Canadian weed
| here, it shows:
|
| - THC 3.1mg/g
|
| - THC Total 229.6 mg/g
|
| - CBD 0 mg/g
|
| - CBD Total: 0.8mg/g
|
| So yeah, I guess if you were to eat the whole bag raw you
| might get a bit of a buzz from it (1/8oz / 3.5g bag ~= 10mg
| before decarb)
| rco8786 wrote:
| > it's weird to me how people don't know that weed is legal
| nationwide in the US.
|
| Yes, this. I bought some D9 gummies on a whim after seeing a
| prominent NASCAR driver racing in a full body wrap ad for an
| online distributor (3Chi). I didn't really think much of it but
| figured I'd try it out. And, uh, wow. It's literally identical
| to eating a gummy that you might buy in a shop in Cali,
| Colorado, etc.
|
| I've been trying to tell people this, and that weed is
| effectively federally legal as long as you stick to this set of
| rules. But nobody seems to believe me.
| TylerE wrote:
| They are and they aren't. They get the get job done but you
| are definitely not getting full-spectrum terpenes.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I believe that for the D9 gummies, but not for the THCA
| hemp flower. Vaping that feels identical to me to vaping
| "normal" weed.
| mcculley wrote:
| Do these show up in a urine test the same way as inhaling
| marijuana?
| scythe wrote:
| >The thing that I don't understand is that I thought "normal"
| marijuana always needed to be heated anyway
|
| I can confirm, as I had a rather disappointing failure (many
| years ago) in making some edibles when they didn't get hot
| enough for decarboxylation when I was using marijuana that I
| knew to be of excellent quality.
| docandrew wrote:
| It's still illegal for federal/military employees or anyone
| with a security clearance - at some point the government will
| have to reconcile this discontinuity. Even off-the-shelf hand
| lotion and soaps have CBD now and might be risky for someone
| who gets drug tested.
| TylerE wrote:
| Aalso snyone subject to dot regs (trucker drivers, etc).
| time0ut wrote:
| I'll preface this by saying I don't think there is anything
| wrong with using cannabinoids in general. I don't personally,
| but find the industry fascinating.
|
| The farm bill opened the doors to a lot of other stuff besides
| legal D9 gummies and high THCA flower. Companies are selling an
| ever increasing number of cannabinoids. Some are found in tiny
| trace amounts in nature, others are completely novel. What they
| all have in common is they are unstudied, unregulated, and
| created via various chemical synthesis processes from base
| cannabinoids. It seems like a ticking time bomb.
| ksaj wrote:
| That's interesting. I live in a country where it is legalized,
| so our gummies are usually 10mg. You can also buy 5mg and 2mg
| mainly for medical or lightweight use, and usually have an
| extra dose of CBD.
|
| Having said that eating 2 20mg gummies to get high, or a
| handful of weaker ones that still add up to 20mg to get high,
| results in the same thing (as you've mentioned). Most people
| can easily, and happily, eat a handful of gummies.
|
| I guess that law is why our packaging also includes the
| concentrations for the whole package as well as the per-unit
| concentrations - to make some of it saleable in the parts of
| the US with the type of laws your describing.
|
| Federally legal weed is a cash cow for the government and
| provinces here alike. Sadly it's hard to profit for the
| producers, so the stock market value is terrible.
|
| Imagine a government that can make it hard to profit off of
| weed! Pretty shocking on its own. So full legalization is a
| "damned if you do; damned if you don't" situation for
| producers.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Yeah, to clarify, the D9 gummies I see here are always 10mg.
| 50mg is only sold in things like brownies or rice krispies
| treats that are intended to be shared or eaten in multiple
| servings.
|
| Of course, the problem with a pot brownie is that I may start
| intending to only eat a quarter of it but then somehow it all
| ends up getting eaten pretty quickly...
| di456 wrote:
| 40mg is a huge dose, no?
| treis wrote:
| Different people react very differently to edibles. 40mg
| can be either plant yourself on the couch for the next four
| hours or barely feel anything.
| freedomben wrote:
| That's what I thought too when I read that. I would be
| vomiting buckets if I ate that much. 10mg is usually the
| most I would ever want.
| drekk wrote:
| It depends on a lot of factors, such as your body weight
| and tolerance. In university a 10mg edible would put me on
| a nice high for hours. Nowadays I'd need to consume at
| least 40mg to even feel it. To answer your question though
| 40mg is a large dose, especially for someone who hasn't
| used cannabis with frequency. I recommend most people start
| out with 5-10mg.
|
| What I find really fascinating is that the route of
| administration can affect your tolerance even if the
| potency theoretically should be the same. If you consume
| edibles often (eg for health reasons) you'll find you
| increasingly need larger and larger doses until it plateaus
| somewhere. If you "switch it up" and consume the same
| quantity via, say, a concentrate you vaporize, it'll hit
| you a lot harder. Even if you don't change the route of
| administration but the circumstances (like a new location)
| there's a similar effect.
| legulere wrote:
| > Further, both the Farm Bill and the USDA specify that
| analytical testing of samples for total THC must use "post-
| decarboxylation or other similarly reliable methods
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinolic_acid
|
| To me it seems like THCA-Hemp is against US laws
| aketchum wrote:
| re #2
|
| As I understand it, normal marijuana contains 1-2% TCH and the
| rest being THCA. So the new "high TCHA flower" is not higher
| TCHA than normal, simply lower pure THC than normal.
|
| Craziest part is you can buy the high TCHA flower and the D9
| Edibles online, shipped through USPS, and you just pay standard
| sales tax (not a sin tax like you would in a legal state).
| Knee_Pain wrote:
| [flagged]
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Many things can be addictive as that largely has to do with how
| a person's habits affect their life. One can play card games
| without becoming addicted.
| throwbadubadu wrote:
| But the same is then also true for cannabis, alcohol and
| likely some more drugs.. underlining OPs statement? Or not?
| Just confused.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Perhaps I am assuming too much of the subtext.
|
| People commonly say things like this to suggest that it
| necessarily causes addiction which makes it a Bad Thing. It
| is true generally that it "can" cause addiction but only
| true circumstantially that it "does" cause addiction.
| Again, I may be reading too much into the comment but it
| seemed to be trying to make the "necessarily does cause
| addiction" point.
| extr wrote:
| When I was in my early 20s I would probably say I had a
| dependence on cannabis. Key for me in transitioning away from
| that was lower THC % products. It's was as if I wanted to enjoy a
| single beer after work but the only thing available was
| everclear. Most vape pens are billed as 85%+ THC. Now, I still
| enjoy cannabis, but I have a single puff of a vape pen that is
| around 3% THC (the rest is usually CBD) before bed. Or I take an
| edible that is 1.5mg THC (very low, edibles are usually sold at
| 5-10mg doses). It's a much different relationship. I don't feel
| like my mind is racing out of control, I don't build up a massive
| tolerance. I sleep fine without it. It's startling to think that
| a single puff of a 90% pen is literally 30x as much THC.
|
| However, these products are disappointingly few and far between.
| When I walk into a CA dispensary, I actually have to hunt around
| for them, if they're even available. When I ask, staff members
| wonder if I'm buying it for my grandmother! It would be great to
| see the industry refocus on products that are designed to be
| consumed in moderation.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Look for federally legal hemp derived delta 9 products. They
| usually max out at 5 or 10mg per serving
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Look for federally legal hemp derived delta 9 products. They
| usually max out at 5 or 10mg per serving
|
| So funny that that law didn't account for how edibles work.
| If you have a baked good (brownie, cookie, etc.) which weighs
| 100 grams, and it contains 29mg delta-9 THC, thats below the
| 0.3% legal threshold, and still a solid dose.
|
| I always try to explain this to people, that the Republicans
| actually unwittingly legalized weed in 2017, but no one ever
| gets it. Fact is, delta-9 THC edibles are now federally legal
| (and can be ordered online) in all 50 states due to the Farm
| Bill loophole.
| markdown wrote:
| > I always try to explain this to people, that the
| Republicans actually unwittingly legalized weed in 2017,
| but no one ever gets it.
|
| It's because you're using the word wrong. Weed is illegal
| federally. The problem is that you think THC is weed, and
| Delta-9 is weed, and CBD is weed. Words have meaning. A
| caffeine pill isn't coffee, and beef steak isn't a cow.
| Something being derived from something doesn't make it that
| original thing.
| Lofty1971 wrote:
| I think they are using the word correctly in the commonly
| agreed upon wording. Republicans legalized hemp
| technically, then set the legal definition of hemp such
| that THCa flower fit under that definition. THCa flower
| does not have more than 0.3% THC by weight (well it might
| but that's another issue of allowing pre harvest
| testing), it can however have more than 0.3% THCa by
| weight. THCa converts to THC when exposed to heat (such
| as combustion in a joint, pipe, oven, etc.). In common
| word usage of weed as a plant that gets you high off THC
| when you smoke it then they did legalize 'weed'.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| It was funny last year when Minnesota set a limit of
| 5mg/serving and 50mg/package. All this stuff in the news
| about MN legalizing edibles, but they just put a limit on
| potency of products that were already sold there. And now
| you can get cans of seltzer that have 10mg and call it 2
| servings.
| driggs wrote:
| That's because the loophole doesn't exist. It's an
| obviously flawed interpretation of the 2018 Farm Bill which
| isn't likely to hold up in court when it's finally tested
| there.
|
| Here's a commentary by drug policy litigator Matt Zorn:
| https://ondrugs.substack.com/p/delta-9-thc-gummies
| The prefatory text to Schedule I(c) of the Controlled
| Substances Act removes all doubt: "[u]nless specifically
| excepted or unless listed in another schedule, any
| material, compound, mixture, or preparation, which contains
| any quantity of the following hallucinogenic substances" is
| a Schedule I substance. A 12 mg THC extract
| infused into a 4-gram gummy consisting of non-cannabis
| isn't a "hemp" gummy. It is a "material," "mixture," or
| "preparation" containing "marihuana," which is a Schedule I
| controlled substance.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >which isn't likely to hold up in court when it's finally
| tested there.
|
| This is the key. Who will ever bring this in front of a
| judge? The "anti-weed" lobby has all but ceased to exist.
| Which leaves basically a small handful of deep red state
| attorney generals that would even have the standing to be
| able to attempt it.
|
| And which side do you think has the funding (and
| incentive) to defend it all the way to the supreme court?
|
| The floodgates have opened, and they're never going back.
| There's simply too much money and momentum behind it.
| Even the conservatives are on board at this point now
| that they've seen the tax revenues.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Who will ever bring this in front of a judge?
|
| Apparently, an accused trademark violator, in the hopes
| of proving that, as it was not in _legal_ use in trade,
| the trademark they are accused of violating was not valid
| in the first place.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > That's because the loophole doesn't exist. It's an
| obviously flawed interpretation of the 2018 Farm Bill
| which isn't likely to hold up in court when it's finally
| tested there.
|
| It's been tested somewhat (interestingly, in a trademark
| case which rested on whether the infringed trademark was
| for a legal product) and it has succeeded at the Circuit
| Court level. _AK Futures LLC v. Boyd Street Distro, LLC_
| , 9th Cir. No. 2-56113 (May 19, 2022):
|
| _Importantly, the only statutory metric for
| distinguishing controlled marijuana from legal hemp is
| the delta-9 THC concentration level. In addition, the
| definition extends beyond just the plant to "all
| derivatives, extracts, [and] cannabinoids." 7 U.S.C. SS
| 1639o(1). The use of "all" indicates a sweeping statutory
| reach. See Lambright v. Ryan, 698 F.3d 808, 817 (9th Cir.
| 2012) ("The common meaning of the word 'all' is 'the
| whole amount, quantity, or extent of; as much as
| possible' . . . ." (quoting All, Merriam-Webster (online
| ed., visited Oct. 4, 2012))). This seemingly extends to
| downstream products and substances, so long as their
| delta-9 THC concentration does not exceed the statutory
| threshold._
|
| Of course, as this was on an appeal of a denial of a
| preliminary injunction, the ruling is framed in
| likelihood of success rather than absolute terms, but its
| a pretty strong negative indicator for your argument that
| this is a clearly incorrect interpretation that no court
| would take seriously, since both the District Court and
| the Circuit Court very much took it seriously.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| As other commenters have said, I think "the train has
| already left the station" on this one, and considering
| even conservative states aren't trying to crack down on
| this, who's going to bring it to court?
|
| For example, Florida recently was about to pass a state
| law limiting the _total_ amount of THC in each individual
| edible, which would have killed the "legal D9 THC"
| market. They apparently got huge pushback from
| producers/consumers in the state and dropped any limits:
| https://floridaphoenix.com/blog/florida-senate-approves-
| hemp...
|
| Edit: BTW, though, that link from Matt Zorn was great,
| thanks for posting.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Who would waste their time litigating such a case when
| the legalization trend is so clear? A solid majority of
| US citizens live in states which have already decided
| that federal marijuana laws are irrelevant.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| Ordered online you say? Where would this be done?
|
| //Asking for a friend.
| ChoGGi wrote:
| There's a crap load of online places in Canada, but I
| very much doubt they ship cross border.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Most people don't know about Delta-9 yet. It was brought to
| my attention when I saw a video about a business selling
| Delta-9 drinks in an illegal state.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >Most people don't know about Delta-9 yet.
|
| Delta 9 is the long-known active ingredient in regular
| marijuana. You're thinking of delta 8, which is a new
| isolate.
|
| This is kind of my point though. When I talk about this
| stuff, people assume I just mean delta 8, or CBD or
| whatever. Nope. Straight up delta 9 edibles are 100%
| federally legal now.
| golergka wrote:
| This reminds me of spice. Synthetic cannabinoids started in 00s
| as a legal alternative to weed, but in a span of just around 10
| years evolved into one of the most frightening drugs out there.
| pstuart wrote:
| It's nasty stuff, and yet another indicator of how the War on
| Drugs has only made things worse.
| opportune wrote:
| Since you take a single puff of that pen, is it an oil cart
| you're hitting that has just 3% THC?
|
| For those who want to try using low controlled doses like you
| said, I gotta recommend dry herb/flower vapes - the normie
| portable ones, not the $400 desktop vape with a fan and
| everything. It's easier to find low-but-not-0 THC flower than
| oil cartridges IME, and if you can't find them, you can just
| pack less. It's also a lot easier on your lungs and having to
| take multiple hits per packed chamber allows you to control
| your dose a bit better. Low dose edibles also work but they can
| last a long time in your body due to being metabolized
| differently and are similarly hard to find.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I have a hard time finding 5mg dose edibles for my wife. Most
| are 10 plus. Was at the dispensary the other day and a girl who
| probably weighed 115lbs suggested I try capsules as they are
| stronger. Capsules are 30mg and she says she takes 2 at a time.
|
| That dosage is insane to me. I'm 235lbs and 15mg is a solid,
| "I'm not driving" dose for me.
| jondwillis wrote:
| Buy tinctures. Much cheaper and you can microdose or
| macrodose. Some tinctures are very high TC, while others are
| more balanced w/ other cannabinoids.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Fuckin crazy. In Washington, you cant buy an individual
| serving over 10mg. Nothing stopping you from eating the whole
| bag really, but I've heard of other states having edibles up
| in the 200mg range which seems nuts to me!
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Susceptibility to edibles varies greatly. My wife can take
| 100mg and just have a nice sleep. I can take 30mg and it will
| wreck me if I'm not careful.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Interesting, my wife takes a third to half of a 5mg edible
| and is good. I take 10mg and then another 5mg about 45
| minutes later. I have taken 50mg over the course of a day
| before but I think the max single dose I have taken is 20mg
| and I was pretty high but still sociable. I like to
| maintain a solid sense of control.
| fogoflove wrote:
| It's easy to build a tolerance if you get high enough. I
| started smoking after years of not, and I was taking
| 2.5mg feeling toasssstty. But now I need +100mg to get me
| stoned off edibles.
|
| Becoming a regular smoker is often a hunt for something
| that can get you just as high as the first time, but
| nothing will. (Concentrates can get you very high,
| though.)
|
| With that said, I want to lower my usage -- and,
| admittedly, it has been hard. Especially if there's
| hardly anything disincentivizing me from not feeling good
| all the time. I also have ADHD and take Adderall every
| day, so it's a part of a routine that has a designated
| dopamine hit a least once every 1.5hrs, whether that be
| coffee, weed, whatever.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Being a regular smoker seems to require regular breaks or
| your tolerance is going to blow through your budget and
| you won't even have the advantage of being high while all
| your money disappears. A week or two off does wonders. A
| few months off and that first day back is really nice.
| I've never been very good at regulating my dosages. I
| find it much easier to switch between consuming all I
| want / not consuming anything at all than trying to
| maintain a consistent low dosage.
| oorza wrote:
| > Becoming a regular smoker is often a hunt for something
| that can get you just as high as the first time, but
| nothing will. (Concentrates can get you very high,
| though.)
|
| At my peak, I was a half-gram, gram of concentrates a day
| smoker. There was always the option of taking three or
| four good dabs in a row and getting past the point of
| high and into psychedelic panic. The idea that "you can
| never get as high as the first time" is a total myth
| peddled by the same people who claim it's a "gateway
| drug".
| olyjohn wrote:
| * * *
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Edibles at high doses are a completely different experience.
| a 60mg dose would be comparable to acid with heavy thought
| loops and perhaps ego death. Some people are looking for that
| I guess.
| TylerE wrote:
| For real? 60 is barely "I feel stoned for me", and I'm not
| a a super-heavy user. I've had doses... considerably higher
| than that.
|
| 10mg I'm not sure I could reliably ABX with a placebo.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| That's not really true for long time users. I've
| encountered people who need 600mg to get a light buzz.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Right I meant 60mg for this guys wife who is looking for
| a 5mg dose.
| ghosty141 wrote:
| Tolerance varies insanely for edibles. Some people dont
| process them like others. Ive heard about people just not
| getting high from edibles at all, even high doses like
| you described. It'd be curious if this phenomenon is
| backed by science or not.
| tstrimple wrote:
| I'm one of those people for whom edibles don't really
| seem to work. Knowing this, last time I gave it a go I
| took 90mg followed by another 90mg an hour later. Didn't
| feel a thing. Don't think I'll buy any again.
| olyjohn wrote:
| * * *
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I smoke / take edibles probably 3 - 4x a week. 600mg in
| one dose for me is probably asking for a psychotic break.
| olyjohn wrote:
| * * *
| jdhn wrote:
| >It would be great to see the industry refocus on products that
| are designed to be consumed in moderation.
|
| I feel that the legal weed industry is speedrunning the past
| decade of craft brewing. Craft beer focused on growing the
| scene while focusing on higher and higher ABV beers, but now is
| transitioning back towards beers that are a bit more
| sessionable and don't get you blasted after 2 beers. Wouldn't
| be surprised to see the weed industry start focusing on
| sessionable items sooner rather than later.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| Cannabis has an inverse relationship between potency and
| health as alcohol. Drinking a dozen beers is (marginally)
| less dangerous than a dozen shots, because it takes longer to
| process and alcohol is a toxin. THC isn't a toxin. The
| smaller amount you inhale, of smoke or vapor, the better.
| I'll take a puff of some 90+% vapor any day over having to
| smoke an entire joint for the same effect.
|
| What we need is more accurate vapor delivery devices that can
| meter better.
| FloatArtifact wrote:
| Underlying assumption is that moderation is the issue,
| however it's addiction for those that can't quit. In layman's
| terms, the brain's chemistry has been altered permanently.
| This can happen for some even after the first use THC,
| opioids, alcohol and you name it.
|
| Obviously the progression doesn't happen as fast for some.
| However, the key being they can't quit in moderation or in
| excess. Some can abstain for 3 months, some for six, thinking
| they don't have a problem but then find themselves using even
| a little. There's a self-rationalization as well as self-
| centeredness that's part of the disease process of addiction.
| I would say it's not only a disease process but it is a huge
| factor. Cross addiction substituting one substance for
| another is also part of that self-rationalization.
| binarymax wrote:
| Still waiting for the craft beer scene in the US to get out
| of its grapefruit juice phase.
| zerocrates wrote:
| The whole New England/juicy/hazy IPA space has been the
| "fad" for so long that the fad cycle almost doesn't seem to
| exist anymore.
| oorza wrote:
| Might be because there's a lot of people like me that
| only like that style of beer. I don't dislike other types
| of beer, but I'd rather drink something else than a
| lager, stout, porter, pilsner, etc. I've found that there
| aren't a lot of diehards for any other style, but IPA
| diehards are a dime a dozen.
| yogurthewise wrote:
| Agreed, IPAs(west coast, hazy, etc) are pretty much the
| only beer I enjoy drinking(for taste). Occasionally, I'll
| take a lager on a hot day when I want something really
| "light".
| dylan604 wrote:
| Very much in agreement. Cannabis as a medicine means needing
| other cannabinoids other than THC. The minors all contribute
| in ways that we're just now really starting to study for a
| better understanding of the why.
| DANmode wrote:
| Relearning old lessons.
|
| Oils from plants in nature are super helpful, when used
| correctly!
|
| (Hint: if you're a medicinal user in any form, probably
| best to stop lighting shit on fire)
| SCAQTony wrote:
| I spoke with a rehab specialist and he mentioned that since
| cannabis is oil based, there is no physical withdrawal symptoms
| as there are with other opioid products. This is due to taking
| weeks to get cannabis out of your system. Thus, it is often
| argued that it is not physically addictive but rather
| psychologically addictive.
| metadat wrote:
| Abruptly stopping after prolonged heavy use can wreak havoc on
| the person's sleep patterns.
|
| Seems like a notable withdrawal symptom of you ask me.
| petsfed wrote:
| I know of plenty of people who have to fall asleep with the
| TV on, and if they turn off the TV before attempting to
| sleep, its massively disruptive to their sleep patterns.
|
| I doubt anyone would argue that that's indicative of a
| _physical_ addiction to the television, even as there are
| obviously "withdrawal" symptoms. Thus the grandparent's
| distinction between physical and psychological addiction.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| "rehab specialist" typically means someone who was previously
| a client of a treatment center, perhaps with or perhaps
| without a certificate in counseling.
|
| Source: my observations routinely interacting with numerous
| clients and employees (never a client nor employee myself) of
| more than a few treatment centers.
|
| An Addictionologist is an M.D. with a specialty in addiction
| who can speak to the matter on a scientific basis.
| conkeisterdoor wrote:
| Indeed, and so can smoking shortly before bed. Regular daily
| use can also suppress your ability to dream (or at least your
| ability to remember those dreams).
|
| I've gone through periods where I smoke a relatively small
| amount of flower on a daily basis for months at a time, and
| then stop cold turkey, over a dozen or so times in my life.
| One thing I really enjoy about stopping cold turkey to take a
| tolerance break is that my dreams become profoundly vivid
| during the first week or so of withdrawal. I can often
| remember dreams vividly as if they occurred in waking life,
| for as long as two days after the night I dreamt, and with
| enough clarity to write them out in detail. I usually look
| forward to the experience.
|
| Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I actually enjoy the "come down"
| from individual smoke "sessions", and the "reset" I
| experience when stopping cold turkey. It feels refreshing in
| a way, not really sure how to describe it.
| iceflinger wrote:
| In my experience with this I call it "addicted to being
| sober"
| ribosometronome wrote:
| For sure. Head over to /r/leaves and you'll see others
| complaining about pretty gnarly symptoms when they quit. Cold
| sweats, loss of appetite, nausea, irritability, etc.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| What's that 'other' doing there?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Stopping after smoking a lot can lead to trouble sleeping and
| nightmares. Certainly feels like a withdrawal when I wake up in
| a cold sweat.
| gvedem wrote:
| yep. this is part of the skepticism mentioned in the article
| --I have anxiety, depression, hot/cold flashes, appetite
| loss, sleep issues, and disgusting night sweats for a few
| days after I stop heavy use, but am often told it's all in my
| head. the reality is that our own cannabinoids do all kinds
| of things for our homeostasis that are not well understood.
| so asserting categorically that there is no physical
| withdrawal when you stop flooding your body with external
| cannabinoids is naive.
| [deleted]
| petsfed wrote:
| I think this distinction really confuses the issue because the
| actual physiological changes that can make quitting cold turkey
| actually fatal for certain drugs at certain intensities can
| appear to be on a continuum if you're not looking at actual
| cells and organs.
|
| I think a lot of what we understand as "psychological"
| addictions to drugs are just drugs where the addictive changes
| are limited to higher functioning portions of the brain. And
| our obsession with mind-body duality means we understand those
| differently.
| JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote:
| > cannabis
|
| > other opioid products
|
| Not even close
|
| > This is due to taking weeks to get cannabis out of your
| system.
|
| I doubt it. It's not psychoactive weeks later.
|
| I agree with the "psychologically addictive" vs "physically"
| though. (I think it's even simpler than that though - you're
| just addicted to the quick dopamine surge, same as another
| round of Counter Strike, sex, cupcake, whatever)
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I spoke with a rehab specialist and he mentioned that since
| cannabis is oil based, there is no physical withdrawal symptoms
| as there are with other opioid products.
|
| Cannabis is not an opioid, and I don't think there is any
| indication that being oil-based has any impact on whether a
| substance has withdrawal symptoms. Also, while the substances
| of interest in cannabis may be in oils naturally and in the
| easiest extractions, they aren't actually "oil-based", anyway.
| So, whether it came from a rehab specialist or not, this seems
| to be multilayered misinformation.
| omginternets wrote:
| Forgive my ignorance, but I've never been clear on the
| distinction between "psychologically addictive" and
| "physiologically addictive". Surely anything that produces a
| measurable dependency and withdrawal is just addictive?
|
| This distinction seems rooted in mind-body dualism, further
| driving my skepticism.
| thefz wrote:
| > Forgive my ignorance, but I've never been clear on the
| distinction between "psychologically addictive" and
| "physiologically addictive".
|
| Quit cigs/caffeine and you'll be irritable and nothing much
| else... maybe constipated for the first days? Quit heroin and
| you will likely stop to function, your brain needs it. Same
| as alcohol, real alcoholics don't stop cold turkey or they
| will likely die, their body needs it. As the substances have
| replaced their natural counterparts which the body has forgot
| how to make.
| omginternets wrote:
| The constipation is exactly physiological withdrawal
| symptoms, though... as are the sweats, sleep issues and
| tremors.
|
| I'm struck by how you and others point to _physiological_
| symptoms when arguing that the withdrawal is purely
| psychological.
| leetcrew wrote:
| this is an emotionally charged topic and people are often not
| very precise with terminology when discussing it. so I can
| understand why you would be confused just from reading a
| couple articles and comment sections.
|
| > This distinction seems rooted in mind-body dualism, further
| driving my skepticism.
|
| this does not really make sense though, and opioid withdrawal
| is a good example to demonstrate why. people who abruptly
| stop consuming opioids usually get symptoms that are similar
| to a bad cold or flu. it's not just "in their head"; they
| literally have snot pouring out of their nose and sweat
| uncontrollably for days. this is typically what people mean
| by "physiological addiction". sometimes it is also called
| "dependence" to distinguish long-term pain management
| patients from addicts. btw, most common recreational drugs
| cause _some_ degree of withdrawal, but it 's often not
| significant enough to notice.
|
| in the short term, drug with significant withdrawal symptoms
| are especially difficult to stop consuming for any length of
| time. but it doesn't take that long for the body to return to
| homeostasis. a couple weeks is typical, but it might take up
| to a year in extreme cases.
|
| the learning (ie, what you might call "psychological
| addiction") never quite goes away though. this is why addicts
| must be extremely cautious, if not abstain entirely, for the
| rest of their lives.
| omginternets wrote:
| I appreciate your example (and level-headedness, btw), but
| what are we to make of:
|
| 1. The fact that these behaviors are learned precisely in
| response to physiological changes (be it avoidance of
| withdrawal or chasing the high)
|
| 2. The fact that all the supposedly non-physically-
| addictive drugs like cannabis have well-documented
| withdrawal symptoms, like sleep dysfunction, that are very
| much physiological.
|
| If your point is that the physiological withdrawal from
| heroin is _worse_ than cannabis, then I don't disagree. I
| just disagree with the premise that anything can be
| meaningfully addictive without having a measurable
| physiological effect. This includes things like gambling,
| in which the physiological effects are well-documented.
|
| So I'm not so sure that the two forms of addiction can be
| so well separated. It seems to me that physiology is the
| mediator of behavior, here, which points back to the very
| definition of addiction.
|
| I'm left to wonder why people insist on the relevance of
| this distinction. I don't believe it's only to make the
| point that cannabis is less bad than heroin, as nobody is
| seriously debating that. I instead get a strong whiff of
| semantic games.
| leetcrew wrote:
| severe withdrawal complicates the early stages of
| recovery and probably makes a relapse more impactful
| (just what I've observed; I'm not a doctor). but in
| general I agree, the distinction does not matter much
| _within the context of addiction_. detoxing is not the
| hardest part of recovery for most addicts. the hard part
| is usually "what to do instead" for the next n decades.
|
| there is a useful distinction to be made between what I
| would call "addiction" and "dependence" though. this is
| why I included the example of PM patients in my initial
| comment. just like addicts, these people build tolerance
| and would experience severe withdrawal if their supply
| were abruptly cut off. the difference is that these
| people are (mostly, pill mills are a thing) not chasing a
| high for its own sake. their lives are actually improved
| by consuming opioids, and they would be just fine with an
| equally effective substitute.
|
| to be clear, I am not implying PM patients are morally
| superior to opioid addicts in some way. the distinction
| is that addiction is intrinsically damaging to a person's
| quality of life. dependence is merely a tradeoff that may
| or may not be worth it.
| omginternets wrote:
| >the hard part is usually "what to do instead" for the
| next n decades.
|
| Agreed. And (as you've no-doubt guessed by now), I would
| argue that this second, harder phase of recovery has very
| little to do with addiction _per se_ , in both it s
| mechanisms and coping strategies.
|
| >there is a useful distinction to be made between what I
| would call "addiction" and "dependence" though.
|
| I'd have to think about this a bit more, but even though
| I agree the distinction is practically useful for
| treatment, it's once again a distinction of degree rather
| than kind. In both cases, there is a physiological
| habituation to a substance that causes unpleasant
| withdrawal symptoms. Something analogous to the pleasure-
| seeking behavior of _bona fide_ addicts is still there, I
| think, when you consider that drug-dependent people will
| consume a substance to "feel normal".
|
| >dependence is merely a tradeoff that may or may not be
| worth it.
|
| I'd quibble about _merely_ , since the worm can turn
| mighty quick, and people are generally pretty bad at
| knowing how deep in the hole they are. But I take your
| general point.
| Sahbak wrote:
| You can and will die if you quit cold turkey from certain
| drugs. That is the difference.
| lbourdages wrote:
| Like alcohol. Heroin, however, will not kill you, but I
| doubt anyone argues that it is not addictive.
| arp242 wrote:
| I don't think anyone has ever died because they stopped
| smoking tobacco. Is tobacco not "physically addictive"? If
| it's not, this only underscores the point that
| physically/psychologically addictive distinction is not all
| that useful. And if it is, that only underscores your
| explanation isn't a very good explanation of the
| differences.
| [deleted]
| omginternets wrote:
| I don't think that is the difference, since a fair few
| drugs we universally agree are addictive _don't_ do that.
| shrimpx wrote:
| It's not that you will die but your body will react
| adversely. Like with alcohol if you quit cold turkey you
| can get tremors and seizures. Even with caffeine you get
| brain fog and hardcore headaches.
|
| Basically with hard chemical dependence there _will_ be
| some kind of adverse body reaction. With marijuana that
| doesn 't exist or is so vanishingly small that you don't
| feel anything.
| nulld3v wrote:
| > With marijuana that doesn't exist or is so vanishingly
| small that you don't feel anything.
|
| What? For many, many users this is just completely not
| true. Insomnia, headaches, nausea, irritability are all
| common symptoms of weed withdrawal.
| omginternets wrote:
| Which is it? Is it absent or "small"?
|
| I believe it is rather established that cannabis has
| withdrawal symptoms in the form of sleep and mood
| impairments. That would qualify cannabis as
| physiologically addictive, as indeed would be any drug
| with physical withdrawal symptoms.
|
| Granted, they may be lesser than other drugs, but they
| are still there.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's an overused distinction - but certain drugs when used
| over long periods of time result in such large biochemical
| changes to the human body that if they are suddenly
| withdrawn, the person may experience various medical
| emergency situations that require hospitalization (delirium
| tremens with alcohol, seizures with benzodiazepines,
| dehydration due to vomiting and diarrhea with opiates).
|
| These extreme physical effects are seen at the upper end of
| abuse limits, and the majority of people who legitimately
| suffer from addiction don't need round-the-clock medical care
| if they quit - and even those who do can generally avoid such
| problems if they go through a tapering-off process over the
| period of about a month.
| mughinn wrote:
| While I'm not an expert, it's probable some things directly
| cause addiction by modifying something in your brain, while
| others don't do it directly with the chemicals but by other
| means
|
| The divide is probably clearer with non-drug addictions, like
| gambling. Gambling isn't some drug that modifies chemicals in
| your brain and makes you addicted, and yet some people are
| addicted to gambling.
|
| It's possible some drugs function like gambling, where they
| don't actually modify chemicals in your brain to make you
| addicted, but you can get addicted anyways, psychologically
| omginternets wrote:
| What other possibility is there besides "modifying
| something in the brain", especially for something
| psychological in nature?
| lfmunoz4 wrote:
| [dead]
| Frummy wrote:
| My interpretation is that physiologically addictive means
| actual physical changes, such as some receptor becoming
| downregulated and to feel something again you take the drug
| again. Whereas psychologically addictive could mean you need
| something for the identity you have or to cope with life
| experiences. For example I am physically addicted to nicotine
| but psychologically addicted to caffeine, I would describe
| it, since I get an actual craving for nicotine whereas
| caffeine well I like doing a lot of work and fitting into
| capitalism but I go weeks or months without thinking about it
| there's no mechanism in my body which tells me to take an
| energy drink although some people have it that way
| omginternets wrote:
| Receptor modulation happens when you play video games, too,
| but I doubt anyone would claim they are "physiologically
| addictive".
|
| Again, this whole distinction is predicated on the idea
| that something can affect behavior without affecting the
| brain. I struggle to see how that is even possible.
| Frummy wrote:
| All roads lead to rome right. But the brain doesn't have
| to be the first busstop. One avenue is via the gut,
| bacteria screaming for unhealthy food. Or just the old
| ghrelin, hunger hormone.
|
| But on a more analytical approach, I just don't agree
| with your premise. There's a stark difference between the
| brains lowlevel mechanics such as serotonin receptor
| downregulation all the way to buying the brand in the
| supermarket that reminds you of your childhood. What I
| mean is it's not a mind-body dualism problem, rather,
| it's a scale problem. Does the mechanism that drives you
| to behave consist of individual molecules or cells, or
| unfathomably complex dynamic patterns of neurons firing
| across every region of your brain that constitute almost
| a religious reminder of who you are and what you desire.
| What I'm saying is is it the hardware or the software.
| That's physiological vs psychological. But if you wish
| you can turn any topic in the world into metaphysical
| philosophy, I just think we have a lot of textbooks in
| any hospital university library already on these topics
| that don't bring philosophy into it.
| omginternets wrote:
| This isn't metaphysics. I'd like to know what
| distinguishes physiological from psychological addiction.
| So far, the proposed mechanisms don't hold up to
| scrutiny, since the proposed physiological mechanisms
| (e.g. serotonin modulation) are at play in psychological
| phenomena as well.
|
| On a related note, I'm not sure what to tell you if you
| don't see how espousing mind-body dualism can lead people
| to propose nonsensical distinctions, especially in
| medicine. I'd have expected a vehement defender of
| scientific medicine to agree with this.
| Frummy wrote:
| Mind-body problem is metaphysics. I could ignore that
| part, but it would help if you strengthened that initial
| connection. Currently I'm experiencing a socratic style
| where I throw information and then it gets deconstructed
| but I don't have much to go off of. State your case why
| this seems rooted in the mind-body problem.
|
| Otherwise I really like my scale argument and would like
| to see you deconstruct it, right above read it again if
| you feel like it, I don't think your argument that just
| because physiological mechanisms are "at play" in
| psychological ones defeats it.
|
| Are you a nondualist? I've had that period so I can
| understand both sides, if you expand more on your
| viewpoints with some real detailed fleshing out rather
| than just deconstructing any incoming argument.
| Personally I have my criticisms of medicine, but can
| celebrate a lot of textbook content as true.
|
| So now that you know I'm an ex-nondualist, maybe you can
| give my scale argument a reread and see if you accept it
| as a description of the phenomenon? So to be perfectly
| obvious, there's direct chemical reaction and implicit
| chemical reaction. I consider it a big difference to
| flood a bunch of molecules past the blood-brain barrier,
| versus experiencing something such as a video game and
| reacting to it.
|
| And hey, I am in a period of my life where I definitely
| put precedence for the body and let the mind follow.
| Daily exercise in nature, oh boy that really improves my
| mind. Reason alone in a dark room did not get me far at
| all.
|
| But if you feel like we're not getting anywhere or I'm
| not convincing then that's fine and you can ignore this
| omginternets wrote:
| I read, interpreted and answered your comment much too
| hastily, and now I feel foolish. Please accept my
| sincerest apologies. In my defense, I can only point to
| the large number of posts that are frustratingly missing
| the point, and to the fact that I am regrettably not the
| most patient of persons.
|
| Let me try again...
|
| My response should have been something like "my question
| is less focused on the metaphysics, and more focused on
| what I think is an issue of logic, so I am happy to stick
| to the level of analysis of a university hospital
| textbook". It seems to be the case that people are
| attempting to partition the phenomenon of addiction into
| psychological vs physiological addiction. My issue is
| twofold:
|
| 1. I know of no substance that is well-established as
| being addictive that does not produce both (1) a
| physiological response at the time of
| consumption/engagement and (2) an unpleasant
| physiological withdrawal symptom of some kind. This
| notably includes drugs that are popularly described as
| being purely psychologically addictive, such as cannabis.
|
| 2. The psychological ( _i.e._ cognitive and behavioral)
| patterns that we associate with addiction are driven, in
| a fairly direct manner, by the physiological responses to
| the presence and absence of the drug. Addicts return to
| drugs both to avoid physiological withdrawal symptoms and
| to pursue pleasurable physiological effects.
|
| Together, these suggest a psychological effect of the
| drug that mediated by physiology. In all cases, the
| physiological phenomena are necessary. I am generally
| quite sensitive to arguments of emergence at a particular
| scale, but I don't see the necessity for it here. Can you
| be more precise? The closest you come to providing an
| example has to do with a "reminder of who you are and
| what you desire". I am also not-insensitive to higher-
| order explanations for behavior, including some from the
| psychoanalytical tradition, but I don't think these
| negate the causal chain outlined in point #2. Therefore,
| I don't see how psychological addiction can exist
| separately from physiology, except perhaps in the trivial
| case of categorizing psychology as a subset of or
| emergence from physiology. Certainly, I think, one does
| not encounter "psychological addiction" without also
| encountering its physiological counterpart, rendering the
| ontological distinction questionable. It is further made
| questionable by the _prima facie_ dualist argument that
| subtends the psychological-vs-physiological distinction.
| Certainly, if this is _not_ a dualist position, the
| argument is not immediately obvious to me, and I would be
| interested in hearing it.
|
| Moreover, if you'll allow me to stray from the purely
| logical argument surrounding biology and psychology, my
| sense is that this dichotomy between physiological and
| psychological addiction is in large part a semantic game
| that serves to advance a certain _political_ discourse.
| Invariably, it serves to argue that cannabis isn 't
| "really" addictive by arguing that is withdrawal is
| qualitatively very different from that of, say, heroin.
| To this I can only say, "of course it is!" Nobody is
| really arguing that cannabis is as dangerous as heroin!
| But _this_ is indeed the argument of scale; I might be
| convinced that the severity of cannabis ' toxicity,
| intoxication and withdrawal is minor enough to warrant
| the drug's legality, but I still contend that for those
| who _are_ addicted to cannabis, the same commingling of
| physiological state and behavior is at play.
|
| And in case it needs to be said, _of course_ the
| difference in degree that separates cannabis from heroin
| (and other "hard" drugs) is large enough to place the
| two in qualitatively different categories. Again, my
| point is that despite this, both produce their addictions
| in similar ways (roughly: the dopaminergic circuit), as
| is supported by the scientific literature.
|
| (Edits made for clarity.)
| function_seven wrote:
| Yes. This distinction drives me up a wall. The way I see it,
| _all_ addictive substances are psychologically addictive[0].
| Some are _also_ physically addictive.
|
| Addiction, by definition, is a psychological phenomenon. For
| recreational drugs, it's the only thing that keeps you using
| even when the net effect is harmful to your life.
|
| It's really annoying to see people say things like, "It's
| only psychologically addictive" as if that's somehow less
| perilous than the alternative, or easier to overcome if you
| want to stop.
|
| Most alcoholics have a hard time quitting not just because of
| the DTs (not that I'm dismissing those!), but because it's
| bloody hard to break that habit! The yearning for a drink is
| incredibly strong, long after you've detoxed. The physical
| withdrawal from alcohol can be managed over just a few days.
| The psychological withdrawal from it is typically a long-term
| journey with plenty of opportunities for relapse. Same with
| heroin. Kicking it is no fun, that's for sure. But once
| you've done your 30 days or whatever, the physical part is
| over. The real challenge is just beginning.
|
| [0] Okay, I supposed there are addictions that are purely
| physical. Some blood pressure medications, for example. I
| ignore these, because "addiction" is probably not the right
| term for them. "Dependence" better suits therapies that you
| really do need to continue, or taper when it's time to stop.
| omginternets wrote:
| I still don't understand the distinction between "physical"
| and "psychological", especially when the thing being
| manipulated by the drug is the central nervous system.
|
| Surely psychological phenomena are also physical ones,
| insofar as they are seated in the brain and the rest of the
| body? Do you have an example of a pure case of
| "psychological addiction"? The only thing I can think of is
| the social aspect of consuming the drug. But then, I can
| think of a great number of activities that, when removed,
| cause "withdrawal" in the form of longing for the social
| interaction, none of which fit the common-sense definition
| of "addiction".
|
| So I'm left to conclude that this distinction is a false
| one. For the purposes of things we generally consider to be
| drugs, the only possible kind of addiction physiological.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You're totally right and it's funny even the comments
| agreeing with you don't get your point. Humans love to
| categorize, you can't blame us for making them up most of the
| time.
|
| And the mind-body dualism is still very much here to stay,
| culturally.
| omginternets wrote:
| Thank you. It's always destabilizing when so many people
| simultaneously miss what I thought to be a clearly-stated
| point.
| jmdeon wrote:
| I'm with you here. I think talking about both is important
| but its a false dichotomy.
|
| I would classify "psychologically addictive" as something
| that makes a little voice in my head go "do that thing again"
| and is mainly driven by the speed at which an action(drug or
| not) receives a physiological response in my body. If I take
| a hit of a weed vape I feel it so fast that my psychological
| addiction gets triggered more easily. Whereas when I eat a
| weed edible the response takes so long that the little voice
| in my head doesn't say, "eat another one". Unless I eat one
| every day then that little voice becomes stronger over time.
|
| I can do either of those things one time and only experience
| the acute withdrawal.
|
| I would classify "physical addiction" as a habit where
| cessation causes a lengthy (not acute) withdrawal period,
| caused by some type of brain changes like receptor degrowth
| because of over-agonization or whatever. I think we qualify
| ones that have worse withdrawal as more physically addictive.
| As some have already pointed out, alcohol withdrawal can make
| you dead and opiate withdrawal can make you wish you were, so
| we consider these very physically addictive. THC withdrawals
| exist, but they are so minor when compared to death or
| opiate-withdrawal hell that we consider it not very
| physically addictive.
|
| An extreme example: Someone could spike my coffee with
| opiates every day for a year without me knowing, slowly
| increasing the dose so I'm not too messed up. I would be
| physically addicted but have no psychological addiction.
| omginternets wrote:
| That's fair. I cringe at the linguistic abuse that is
| "physiological vs psychological", if that's how we're
| defining things, but I guess that's "just" semantics. [0]
|
| To reiterate an important point you make: if we're going
| with those definitions, then the only difference between
| the two is one of quantity. In both cases, physiological
| effects of the drug are driving the addiction, mediated by
| behaviors that emerge in response to changes in physiology.
| So again, the qualitative difference is only the one that
| emerges from a vast difference in quantity.
|
| I'd also insist that we recognize some of the very-
| physiological withdrawal symptoms experienced by at least
| _some_ cannabis users, e.g. sleep disruption...
|
| [0] Part of my reason for asking this question initially is
| because I'm convinced this is not mere semantics, but
| rather a linguistic game that people play to argue that
| cannabis has zero meaningful addictive potential. I find
| that to be disingenuous.
|
| P.S.: I hope it's obvious to everyone that I'm not bashing
| cannabis use in general. Hell, I appreciate the occasional
| joint.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I take edibles / smoke a few times a week. Never during work
| hours. I think if I started consuming during work I would label
| myself an addict. I generally find I am a much better parent /
| husband when on a low dose of thc. My patience for my kids is
| infinite. I spend time with them just teaching them chess or
| showing them how to do pushups, or just talking. When not high,
| my mind wants to do a lot of other things that are generally
| unimportant and future focused. THC grounds me in the now. My
| wife prefers it as I am pretty much agreeable to whatever she
| wants [I mean this in a good way, not in a "I drug him so I get
| what I want way"]. I am generally an argumentative person, and
| sweat the small stuff. Not when I am high. I never drive or do
| anything risky while high. I'm also not taking so high a dose
| that I am making bad decisions [besides the next sentence].
|
| If I could just avoid being hungry while high it would be perfect
| but eating a cake after spending an hour and a half at the gym is
| pretty dumb.
| lying4fun wrote:
| > When not high, my mind wants to do a lot of other things that
| are generally unimportant and future focused. THC grounds me in
| the now.
|
| I had a joint-a-night (occasionally more) phase that lasted for
| 8 months and this resonates with my experience very much. A
| side effect that I miss dearly now that I am 6 months off of
| it. Rarely I succeed in trying to emulate it, but it's still
| useful as a reference of a better state of mind, so its easier
| to spot when I stray away too much
| zw123456 wrote:
| Everything can be addictive. My stepsister is addicted to buying
| things and never opening the item. Her husband enables this
| because they live out in the country and he had a sort of
| "warehouse" built for her with huge metal racks that hold hudreds
| of items she has purchased over the years that have never been
| opened or had the shrink wrap disturbed. It is of course a type
| of hoardism. She buys things but if she opens the package and
| uses the item it ruins it is sort of how she explains it. We know
| it is a disorder of some sort, she is addicted to buying things
| and hoarding them. What should we do about it?
|
| Well, if her husband is OK with it, then what is it for us to
| judge? I am conflicted on this. But, I think, there is some sort
| of line where something is addicting and addicting and harmful.
| If this is not disrupting their lives, and they are happy, who am
| I to judge?
|
| I don't know. To me it is weird, but probably a lot of things I
| do seem weird to others. I journal daily. Is that an addiction?
| Probably, of some sort, I don't know. How to navigate. The less
| harmful it is, the less we should meddle I suppose.
| pengstrom wrote:
| I struggle with cannabis addiction on and off. When I'm into it,
| it means several joints daily for months until I manage to pull
| my self out of. One day I fear I won't be able to.
| haswell wrote:
| One major issue has been over-emphasis on the fact that it's not
| _physically_ addictive in the ways that some drugs are. I think
| this leads to the mistaken belief that it's not habit forming,
| and that there are no side effects of stopping after extended
| use.
|
| While it's not "withdrawal" in the traditional sense, it can be
| quite unpleasant. And the thing that sounds most helpful in that
| moment is...smoking a bowl.
|
| What comes next is a lot of emotion management. Doable. Hard.
| Help is good.
|
| I think legalization was good. Cannabis has mostly been a good
| thing in my life. At times, it hasn't been. I worry about the
| crazy high THC strains everywhere now, and the misperception that
| these are completely harmless plants.
|
| I still partake and find it worthwhile for creative endeavors,
| but had to make drastic changes to my usage habits with a promise
| to quit permanently if I found myself back in a similar cycle.
|
| Enjoy responsibly.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| A lot of addiction-related messaging has definitely not focused
| on the mental component of addiction. People who use opiates
| medically are so much less likely to get addicted than
| recreational users that I would assume that it's actually the
| main component of an addiction, while the physical symptoms are
| less impactful.
| cratermoon wrote:
| Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9311924/
|
| "effective treatment approaches will include biological,
| behavioral, and social-context components."
| yodsanklai wrote:
| I have few friends who are seriously addicted. Their lives
| revolve entirely around cannabis. That being said, I don't think
| it's a particularly addictive substance. People get addicted to
| all sorts of things. For instance gambling, it's hard to believe
| someone can be addicted to that, yet people are...
| boring_twenties wrote:
| Why is it so difficult to understand how people get addicted to
| gambling? I'm pretty sure it causes observable physiological
| changes, like increased heart rate
| deadbeeves wrote:
| Name an activity that causes no effects whatsoever on an
| organism's physiology.
| omginternets wrote:
| In all fairness, not all activities have the dopaminergic
| response of gambling.
| deadbeeves wrote:
| Agreed, but that's a very different statement from "it
| causes physiological effects", or even "it raises the
| heart rate".
| mmaunder wrote:
| The negative cognitive effects of weed in its various forms are
| short term but very real. So continuous use deprives the user of
| living a much fuller life and reaping all the benefits that go
| with better overall brain function: financial, social, career,
| creative and so on. So while the addictive nature of marijuana
| may be debatable, continuous long term, or lifetime use, whatever
| the cause, has awful consequences for the user.
| psychphysic wrote:
| Forget Marijuana addiction, we have a cupcake addiction problem.
|
| Society will drown under obese patients long before we need to
| worry about pot heads.
| smokeitaway wrote:
| I've been addicted to thc for much of my adult life. I know
| people who smoke much more than I ever did. I'd use every day,
| only after work, but I never didn't use it after work. I was
| using it as a crutch, I used it as a cure-all, I used it as a
| social lubricant. As mentioned in the article, I used it for
| anxiety, and the anxiety got worse.
|
| I tried to quit a bunch of times, some more successfully than
| others. But quitting is really hard. I'd successfully exhaust my
| supply, but there's always bowl- and grinder-scrapings. After a
| night or two of smoking tar and dust, "fuck it", I'd find some
| more.
|
| My #1 excuse was always sleep. Weed is the best sleep aid I've
| ever found. Quitting usually went fine until I wanted to go to
| bed. Several hours into a sleepless night, desperation sets in.
|
| Eventually, I found a hack in LSD when I first had the
| determination to use it without mixing THC. I slept like a baby.
| No cravings the next day, or the next. I started dreaming again,
| after years of sleeping like a corpse and waking up exhausted.
|
| I've since started and stopped a few times. Picked it back up to
| be social (and, hey, it's fun!), the habit-driving insomnia comes
| back with a vengeance. Stopping with LSD seems to work reliably
| for me. I only allow myself a hit of LSD per year, so that's how
| often I excuse a social session. But the last couple of times, I
| haven't needed the LSD. It seems that I finally kicked the
| compulsion. Although, I don't trust that enough to make it a more
| regular habit.
|
| Edit reply to jrflowers:
|
| No, I do not take acid to sleep. Taking it once allows me to quit
| thc cold turkey. I take it first thing in the morning, so I'm
| hungry for dinner and sleepy for bedtime. Last thing I need is a
| new habit.
|
| Edit reply to gvedem (an hour and a half later I'm still "posting
| too fast" to make a second comment):
|
| I bought the acid from a friend. I am aware that "one tab" is not
| a standardized dose and that adjacent tabs on a sheet can have
| significant discrepancy. But "one tab" is what I took.
| iceflinger wrote:
| >But quitting is really hard. I'd successfully exhaust my
| supply, but there's always bowl- and grinder-scrapings. After a
| night or two of smoking tar and dust, "fuck it", I'd find some
| more.
|
| I've found my attempts to quit go better when I actually have a
| large supply of it that I'm consciously choosing not to indulge
| in. When your supply is exhausted your brain goes into a bit of
| a panic mode about it and you can't think rationally about
| how/why you're quitting.
| jrflowers wrote:
| You take acid to sleep?
| gvedem wrote:
| just curious if you know the dosage you have used--I am
| definitely going to try this once I've cleared the post-
| quitting effect on my headspace.
| armatav wrote:
| LSD used correctly is an insanely effective way to combat
| addiction
| mandmandam wrote:
| Psilocybin too.
|
| I swear, 'they' don't want us free of addiction. (Why would
| they - they're making bank).
| armatav wrote:
| During the times in which they are illegal, there's a
| certain beauty to the rebellion of a person fed up enough
| with their unconscious misalignment that they break the
| rules and heal themselves. (as long as they don't get
| punished for it. if they're punished for it, the society
| becomes a degree crueler)
|
| Of course, it would be a lot better if they were legal, but
| I don't particularly want to see a time in which the only
| way you can get access to these things is through system-
| mandated control.
| glonq wrote:
| LSD used incorrectly is an effective way to create insanity
| ;)
| JPws_Prntr_Fngr wrote:
| Yes, be very careful not to accidentally dose yourself
| continuously during days-long sleep deprivation torture in
| a CIA mind control experiment. You might break something!
| gvedem wrote:
| you can harm yourself with just about anything if you don't
| take appropriate care, yes.
| armatav wrote:
| Actually, there's some literature on it being used to
| _cure_ schizophrenia, autism, depression, mania, etc.
|
| If you abuse it, or mix it with something else, you can
| hurt yourself for sure.
| scythe wrote:
| >My #1 excuse was always sleep. Weed is the best sleep aid I've
| ever found.
|
| I started smoking weed to get to sleep when I was in a crappy
| college dorm with those awful cheap Venetian blinds and a
| streetlight outside the window that birds liked to congregate
| around and chirp all night. When I got older I found I could
| achieve the desired effect by lowering the indoor temperature,
| using a decent mattress, installing curtains and (this part is
| still hard to manage due to funds and neighbors) having a quiet
| room.
| thefz wrote:
| > My #1 excuse was always sleep. Weed is the best sleep aid
| I've ever found. Quitting usually went fine until I wanted to
| go to bed. Several hours into a sleepless night, desperation
| sets in.
|
| Weed and alcohol destroy your sleep. Taking marijuana to sleep
| is like hitting your toenail with a hammer so that when you
| stop you feel better, it does not make sense.
| ryanwaggoner wrote:
| They're not the same at all. Alcohol wrecks my sleep, but
| weed has very little negative effect.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| MJ was quite literally ruining my life. Quitting was the best
| thing I ever did.
|
| I was burnt out of my job and used marijuana to cope. New job and
| scenery were key to this quit.
| chewz wrote:
| [flagged]
| deadbeeves wrote:
| If THC was especially good at destroying mitochondria we'd be
| seeing lots of cannabis users with cases of necrotic tissue due
| to cells being unable to maintain their metabolism.
| chollida1 wrote:
| > THC is destroying mitochondria like nothing else...
|
| Really? I've never heard that. What source did you learn this
| from?
|
| I tend to eat weed before running and have for 20ish years. If
| it really did destroy mitochondria then I'd expect it would
| show up in my vo2 max or some other measurable health stat.
|
| I'm slightly concerned but given that this is the first time
| I've heard this, I'm not too worried about it.
| zingababba wrote:
| I personally believe cannabis + exercise is the most glorious
| thing on this planet. I've been using it primarily as an
| ergogenic for some time now, simply fabulous.
| foxyv wrote:
| As much as I think that Marijuana should be decriminalized
| completely. I also still think that it causes a ton of problems
| among those who smoke it. I've had friends change completely
| after starting to smoke habitually. I don't think it would be a
| problem if our society weren't so messed up right now. But, like
| alcohol, I think poverty and isolation just makes it so much
| worse.
| [deleted]
| thefz wrote:
| You don't need to reach to poverty and isolation to see its
| effect. I have some friends in their 30s-40s who daily consume
| 3-7 joints, and it shows. They are in full denial but you can
| really tell they are slow. In everything. It screws up your
| cognition.
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