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When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

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

#301

Post by andai »

darawk wrote: post #281
fhood wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lotta people talking about heroin in this thread, but lets be clear, unless you have tried heroin, or are otherwise intimately familiar with its affects, you are probably not qualified to talk about what it feels like. Not trying to single out parent, just felt like it should be mentioned.

As someone who's done quite a bit of heroin...All of these comments are sort of correct in their own way. On its own turf, no, nothing will ever feel as good as heroin. Normal life experiences can't compete with that, not directly. But there is a one-dimensionality to its goodness that allows you to have experiences that, though i'm not sure they feel "better" than heroin, feel good in different ways that can be more…

As someone who's been through many different addictions, I'm starting to appreciate freedom from craving (a specific form of inner peace) more than the pleasure of indulging in a craving. (As well as the subtle benefits to mind and mood that come with it!)

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

#302

Post by IMTDb »

josefresco wrote: post #136
IMTDb wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch the MRI scan of a 35 yo alcoholic and the MRI scan of a 35 yo heavy pot smoker then do the comparison again. The liver can more or less heal itself until it's too late. The brain, not so much.

88,000* people die each year from alcohol-related causes in the United States. Clearly there's more to worry about than your "self healing liver". Also, citation needed for your claim about MRI/brain activity. * https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohol-health/overview-alcohol-co...

I never ever said that alcohol is nothing to worry about. I just said that the liver heals better than the brain Please refrain from putting word in my mouth (or anyone) in the future.

Sample Citation for the MRI : https://academic.oup.com/schizophreniabulletin/article/40/2/...

And if your next point is "yeah but we know nothing about the long lasting effects after your stop", nature has you covered : https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201744

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

#303

Post by SuspiciousSwan »

fhood wrote: post #240
SuspiciousSwan wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess looking at movies and books, I could see where you'd get this idea, but it really isn't accurate. There are different types of feeling good, and the purely chemical good isn't particularly rewarding. There are the moments in life where you are happy because you are living the life you want to live, and those are way better than just feeling good from drugs. Sometimes life goals and drugs come together, and th…

Lotta people talking about heroin in this thread, but lets be clear, unless you have tried heroin, or are otherwise intimately familiar with its affects, you are probably not qualified to talk about what it feels like. Not trying to single out parent, just felt like it should be mentioned.

I'm writing from personal experience. Well, I've never done heavy opiates in a basement, so maybe going subterranean makes all the difference.

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

#304

Post by Kadin »

Nasrudith wrote: post #269
jimmaswell wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terminal patients are often given lethal doses of morphine near the end.

From what I heard it is a bit of a lawyerish distinction at that point - that euthanasia is never the intent but may be the end result. If they arecterminally ill or mortally injured with instructions to treat by giving enough that they don't have pain. If it is a level that they can just slumber peacefully 22 hours a day they are to go with that. If they are 95% third degree burnt and they need more than that and it…

The mental gymnastics are due to the legal environment in the US and in particular on laws in many states that could send physicians who prescribe a drug for the purpose of ending a patient's life to jail.

But there are lots of drugs that have the possible side effect of death, and plenty of patients who decide that the risk-benefit of taking a drug is warranted even though it might kill them.

So therefore, everything has to be described in terms of "pain management" and "comfort" where the cessation of breathing is just a... potential side effect. If that, combined with the patient's standing orders not to intubate or perform any sort of resuscitative action in the event that they stop breathing, leads to death... well...

The euphemism that is frequently used is "palliative sedation" (or "terminal sedation", although that seems to be used mostly by people of the thou-must-maximally-suffer school of thought).

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

#305

Post by rayvy »

Balero wrote: post #86
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…

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 read this in Randy's voice and laughed out loud.

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

#306

Post by jhwang5 »

gnulinux wrote: post #163
macspoofing wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's just natural that young people _experiment_ with drugs. Is it?

Yes, people are curious. Curiosity is a good thing and experimenting with pot is hardly dangerous. I smoked weed only two times in my life because I was very curious (living in the Bay Area, everyone was smoking it) but decided it's not my thing. I think it's natural.

If you're curious, you can try swallowing fire while you're at it.

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

#307

Post by Analog24 »

Rotdhizon wrote: post #238
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."

[Deleted]

I think you'd be surprised how many people smoke weed in high school. If I had to estimate I'd say that over half of my class smoked (including the class president and valedictorian) and probably close to 20% smoked on a daily basis. The parking lot literally reeked of weed every morning. Did everyone turn out ok? No but the vast majority of them did. Plenty of my aforementioned classmates are now doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. By a number of metrics, they are successful and very useful humans.

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

#308

Post by IMTDb »

apsec112 wrote: post #160
IMTDb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/nida-notes/2016/09/reg...

"Permanent" implies that you'd have to look at people who did pot a while ago and then stopped. This data (and any data on current users) is consistent with the alternative hypothesis that the changes are temporary and will revert after ceasing use.

Long lasting effects are harder to study obviously, but here is one that confirms that there are long term consequences:

https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201744

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

#309

Post by nickdandakis »

nashashmi wrote: post #109
leesec wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely benefit from this. I find pot to be a great context switcher. Formerly after working on a problem for long hours, when I would go home I would still be immersed in the problem and unable to take my mind off it. Now when I come and have my things in order I warm up a vape bag and put on some jazz and am able to completely detach from work and really just enjoy my nights.

I have never understood this concept of detaching from work only to wake up the next day and having to face it. Why would you detach so much? Relaxing is overrated. It deprives you of powers you have developed or will develop, only to make you a more powerless person. And a powerless person can never and should never relax.

Do you also think you don't need to make your bed in the morning since you're gonna sleep in it later that day?

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

#310

Post by Kadin »

nashashmi wrote: post #109
leesec wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely benefit from this. I find pot to be a great context switcher. Formerly after working on a problem for long hours, when I would go home I would still be immersed in the problem and unable to take my mind off it. Now when I come and have my things in order I warm up a vape bag and put on some jazz and am able to completely detach from work and really just enjoy my nights.

I have never understood this concept of detaching from work only to wake up the next day and having to face it. Why would you detach so much? Relaxing is overrated. It deprives you of powers you have developed or will develop, only to make you a more powerless person. And a powerless person can never and should never relax.

To each their own, but I'm not paid to work 24 hours per day, and doing so would undoubtedly affect my outside-of-work relationships and interests.

My experience is that there is not a linear relationship between effort invested and output. It's a diminishing returns problem after 8-10 hours per day, so it's not even productive for me to spend all day and night churning on a work problem, even if I wanted to do that.

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