When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves • Hacker News Board

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#221

Post by dsfyu404ed » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:41 PM UTC

CuriouslyC wrote: post #138

jlawson wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As for lung cancer, that's a straw man, vapes and edibles make that a non-issue. Isn't that kind of like saying "drunk driving is a straw man, Uber makes it a non issue"? Of course we know there's less harmful ways to consume these substances. We also know many, many people will not make use of those less harmful ways.

You can't stop people from being stupid and self destructive, just look at the prevalence of obesity. If the law required that people eat beans and kale, there would be a lot less obesity, but would you really want to live in that society?

There's evolutionary reasons people prefer less healthy food. Obesity and weed smoking are not equals. You have to go out of your way to get weed. You can become obese with passive inaction.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#222

Post by djsumdog » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

magicnubs wrote: post #185

kaybe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it sound as if we should let people that only have a few days to live take all the heroin they want, actually. Maybe we should.

To a lesser extent, that's part of what hospice / palliative care is. Not to the extent that it's purely recreational, but often involve continued use of opiods for pain management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliative_care#Physical_pain

Wouldn't that be the argument of legitimate medical use though? You're mitigating the pain of people who literally have less than a year to live.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#223

Post by icebraining » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

CosmicSteve wrote: post #8

narzu wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that alcohol and tobacco are legal doesn't mean we should legalise all drugs that are somewhat healthier than alcohol and tobacco. I think we can do much better.

We can do much better? What the hell does that mean? More drug prohibition? Yeah, that's been working out just peachy. Portugal's decriminalization of all drugs has led to a sharp drop across the board in drug usage and an increase in effective rehabilitative outcomes.

Portugal's decriminalization is not the same as legalization; it could itself be viewed as "doing better". I personally am for legalization, but in terms of reducing consumption, it might be more effective.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#224

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

magicnubs wrote: post #185

kaybe wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it sound as if we should let people that only have a few days to live take all the heroin they want, actually. Maybe we should.

To a lesser extent, that's part of what hospice / palliative care is. Not to the extent that it's purely recreational, but often involve continued use of opiods for pain management. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palliative_care#Physical_pain

Sadly there's still some prohibition on giving the patient enough to comfortably OD and voluntarily end their suffering in a lot of places. I've heard nurses say that they're instructed to try and keep the patient optimistic, even when all that life means to them anymore is continued suffering. Gotta squeeze every last dollar out of them or something I suppose.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#225

Post by kranner » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

geff82 wrote: post #50

kranner wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just correlation. Maybe they started smoking early on because they had big psychological problems already.

It might "just" be a correlation but it might be heavily interconnected. If you have data proving your "just correlation", please provide them.

What you have mentioned amounts to correlation only. If it's also causation, you're the one that should provide the proof.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#226

Post by DisruptiveDave » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:43 PM UTC

Waterluvian wrote: post #67

Maybe this is too reductionist but I once heard someone describe it as, "there's nothing fundamentally dangerous about pot, but one of its (often intended) effects is that is slows our engines down. And some of us need to be firing on all cylinders." School was a tricky time for me. I'm thriving intellectually now, but I was a C- student pretty much 4th-12th grade. I needed those cycles that pot would have robbed me…

It's funny because all it has ever done for me is the opposite. I'm a pretty energetic dude and weed has always made me want to get out and move, go and play a pickup game or something. It has also brought a different type of focus on any activity I'm doing.

I see a lot of pretty silly takes in this thread that weed automatically makes you happy with boredom somehow, and that apparently leads to a bunch of people sitting on couches zoned out who would have otherwise, with that "bored" time, gone out and learned juggling. Sounds like some grandma's opinion from the 40s.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#227

Post by rv-de » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #206

rv-de wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that we should expect responsible behavior from adults. Only this way a society can also develop responsibility. By prohibiting everything that is dangerous (or just considered as such) humans never actually get a chance to grow up.

It's sort of a balancing act between building safety rails so that people don't accidentally fall off cliffs while hiking while also allowing people the agency to free climb El Cap if they so choose...

You totally make a valid point. But I would literally remove all those safety rails. People just have to keep a safe distance from the edge of the cliff.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#228

Post by hindsightbias » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

geff82 wrote: post #73

simias wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about biology, medicine or toxicology so I can't really refute your argument but your first sentence triggers all sorts of red flags for me, mainly because it appears way too simplistic and fails to provide any source or real scientific argument. What does "washing out" mean and why is it bad if remains of pot can be detected in urine months later? What does the fact that the human body is able to "…

Sorry, my knowledge is from biology classes a few years ago, but no blabla (I am no biologist either). Washing out means, there is no real process in the body to cope with THC in a linear way and thus, if heavily used, it might accumulate and have side-effects such as worse cognition. Also, just a reminder, a little acohol is in many ripe fruits and your body will not suffer from it by eating many fruits. https://en.…

> psychosis

Have been dealing with that result on a young relative. Whether it's correlation or causation, it seems bizarre to me that modern-day 500mg 72% THC vape could be considered a safe thing by default - particularly when so many studies are 10 or 15 years old.

I could imagine some adults regulating themselves. But teens and young adults?

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#229

Post by stouset » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #175

Balero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Park put it quite well: "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."

I have a similar attitude to MSG. It's probably not going to give you cancer, or cause any serious health problems, but it makes you ok with eating non-nutritious food that would otherwise be bland and tasteless.

Only because fearmongering has scared people away from MSG. You can use it to improve the flavor of nutritious food, too. It’s conceptually no different than salt; junk food contains it, but that doesn’t mean you should avoid it in your own cooking.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#230

Post by dang » Wed, Oct 31, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

GrumpiNerd wrote: post #141

rv-de wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how is that bad? Okay - so you normally would feel unpleasant. Now you don't because of weed. Of course you can argue weed is unhealthy - totally possible. But regarding the perceived state change. How is that causing harm? Because s/he's not going to become wealthy or "successful"?

Being able to not rely on government assistance for ANYTHING, including health care, would be a start.

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