More Americans report near-constant cannabis use • Hacker News Board

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#131

Post by mettamage » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

I just wanted to give a quick note that I do not have this experience at all.

Food doesn't taste better.

I am less creative. I lose my English and my Dutch. I am more stupid and everyone else who's high seems so intelligent!

I think about pretty much nothing. I'm like a little cupcake on a couch. I am doing as much as a little cupcake on a couch as well :)

I do have less anxiety and better sex. So for me it really just is a tool to use for those two things. I mostly use it as a tool for relaxation or psychological experimentation on myself (especially my working memory behaves differently).

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#132

Post by pnathan » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

Rather than criminalizing a relatively harmless substance, the US should look into treating marijuana like alcohol. Carefully regulated quality for the stuff in stores; home brew is your problem and your friends' problem.

WA has this song and dance to buy legal pot and heavily regulates the entire sector with taxes on top: that should be substantially simplified, in my opinion.

Medical research should be freely doable without any more grief than other substances.

I have rather the same opinion about other, less harmful, drugs (MDMA, LSD, etc). The paranoia from the 70s and 80s hasn't done much for us - the drugs are still with us, and prohibition has produced enormous violence and organized crime. Time to practically equate these drugs with alcohol.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#133

Post by bongo662 » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:56 PM UTC

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

I feel about the same. From the time I was 14 I was smoking pot nearly everyday until about 3 months ago when I decided to cut it out of my life completely. I really dont have an exact 'why' but I came home after work one day looked at a bowl that I had packed the previous night and decided to flush my weed down the toilet and throw all my paraphernalia and accessories (grinder, papers, wraps, bowls) down the trash chute.

I haven't missed it once honestly. Maybe I just came to a realization that I didn't enjoy it in the first place.

Edit: I'd like to add that around the same time I gave up/quit using all drugs (except a beer or two on the weekends) unless they were prescribed to me by my doctor. Even then I refused pain medication when I broke my hand because I think I have a tendency for substance abuse.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#134

Post by coldtea » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #86

coldtea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing. That should be the natural state of man, though, I'd extend it to meeting with friends, cooking, playing, etc -- that is, being "non-productive". It took a lot of advertising and protestant ethic working hand in hand through opposing ends to move the needle towards full on consumption and full on productivity. "All human evil comes…

Not everything is a social construction. The default state of life isn't being relaxed and comfortable, the default state is starvation and defending against disease, predation, and conflict. In your world where everyone is cooking and playing, who provides the food? Who staves away conflict? What lifeform on Earth let you to believe that the default state of being was effortless comfort?

>Not everything is a social construction. The default state of life isn't being relaxed and comfortable, the default state is starvation and defending against disease, predation, and conflict.

That's not what ethnologists saw in most primitive people's they've examined...

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#135

Post by rayvd » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 7:58 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #44

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

> In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing. That should be the natural state of man, though, I'd extend it to meeting with friends, cooking, playing, etc -- that is, being "non-productive". It took a lot of advertising and protestant ethic working hand in hand through opposing ends to move the needle towards full on consumption and full on productivity. "All human evil comes…

> "All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room." - Blaise Pascal

Most human good comes from this, too...

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#136

Post by dv_dt » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

andbberger wrote: post #34

Alternative headline: citizens of deeply broken society turn to least harmful drug available to them to dull the pain of their shitty lives.

Yup, this article should put the use into context of other legal and abused drugs like alcohol and opoids etc, as well as illegal drugs. I would bet that substance abuse is increasing across the board in the US due to the stagsperity of our current economics.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#137

Post by dustingetz » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 8:01 PM UTC

dgzl wrote: post #37

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

> In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing. I've experienced this as well, but I don't consider it an inherit downside. To me, this is just my personal self being satisfied and at peace with not needing more than I have. Frequently I like to smoke alone in nature, just so I can rest peacefully.

social interaction is how we cooperate as a species so from the species’ perspective this is a downside

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#138

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 8:02 PM UTC

ralusek wrote: post #86

coldtea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing. That should be the natural state of man, though, I'd extend it to meeting with friends, cooking, playing, etc -- that is, being "non-productive". It took a lot of advertising and protestant ethic working hand in hand through opposing ends to move the needle towards full on consumption and full on productivity. "All human evil comes…

Not everything is a social construction. The default state of life isn't being relaxed and comfortable, the default state is starvation and defending against disease, predation, and conflict. In your world where everyone is cooking and playing, who provides the food? Who staves away conflict? What lifeform on Earth let you to believe that the default state of being was effortless comfort?

[deleted]

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#139

Post by losvedir » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

I've tried pot a few times and my subjective experience was vastly different from all the comments here. It must affect people very differently, because I couldn't fathom being high "near constantly". I had trouble doing basic things like remembering to keep chewing the snack that I was eating or keeping track of the sentence I was in the process of speaking.

Each time I come away thinking, "well, that was an awful experience". I've thought I was getting too high, but I've either under shot and felt nothing, or had the same high experience, never managing to just "be relaxed" or "think more deeply" or be "more creative" or all these things in the comments here. I'm not sure there is such a state for me on marijuana, so I just don't try anymore.

I've always felt a little duped by the pro-pot messaging I hear, which makes it sound like no big deal and tons safer and better than, say, alcohol or cigarettes. Alcohol impairs me with a noticeable dose effect, so it's fairly easy to moderate, and the way it impairs me kind of twists or stretches my reality, while I haven't noticed a dose effect with marijuana and it just utterly breaks my reality.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#140

Post by sevensor » Mon, Aug 20, 2018, 8:07 PM UTC

nate_robo wrote: post #59

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

I was always curious about the mental sharpness / memory portion. I know the short-term memory impairment is well documented but in regards to mental sharpness, that's a bit more nebulous and hard to hone in on. Is there any evidence that the use of cannabis effects cognitive ability while not under the effects or "high" of the drug?

As an unscientific experiment, compare the rate of spelling and grammar errors in the comments on this article to the error rate in HN comments overall. I think I see a pattern, but it may be that all I'm seeing is my own biases.