Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

511–520 of 543 posts

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

#511

Post by nashashmi »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #212
nashashmi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All drugs work this way: alcohol, cigarettes, weed, facebook, coffee, etc. The problem is confining to a narrow usage pattern. It is just impossible for 99.99% of people over 30 years of their lives. All will make mistakes at one point.

I'm not so sure. Many people get drunk every Friday or Saturday night for decades without developing alcoholism or ill effects on the rest of their life.

Yes but those people aren't exactly drinking just a little to become more productive the rest of the week. It's quite likely their day jobs are the hourly type factory based where intellect is need not apply.

I think the comment i was replying to stated that a little relaxation in the middle of a stressful hour can really help you focus more.

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

#512

Post by nashashmi »

Analog24 wrote: post #178
nashashmi wrote: post #113

Nothing news here. We all know kids recover quickly. Their minds are still developing and they can shake off whatever bad effects they have accumulated. Title might as well be: When Adolescents Give Up Pizza, their health quickly improves. When Adolescents Give Up bad habits, their behavior quickly improves. When Adolescents Give Up Facebook, their social circle quickly improves.

What are you talking about? That's a ridiculous overgeneralization. There are plenty of things that kids do NOT recover from and we now know that moderate marijuana use is NOT one of them. edit: emphasized the double negative to prevent further confusion. It could have been phrased better.

I wish that you told me what kinds of things don't kids recover from. Physical muscles, check! Mental cognition, check! Emotional therapy, check. Attitude adjustment, check.

What's left? Hunger? Poverty? Love? Addiction? Depression? It's debatable whether the child really did recover or just get stronger in a different way.

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

#513

Post by TomMarius »

macspoofing wrote: post #355
RIMR wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is perfectly normal for people to experiment with substances when they come of-age. Chronic drug use is no joke, but at least half the people I know used psychedelics in their early 20's. Most people drink, and most people have used cannabis at least once. What isn't normal is demonizing all forms of substance use, without properly differentiating it from substance abuse.

>Yes, it is perfectly normal for people to experiment with substances when they come of-age. Oh yeah? 13 year olds 'experimenting' by doing lines of coke seem normal to you?

Stop posting extreme hyperboles all around the discussion, please

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

#514

Post by thinkingemote »

kadendogthing wrote: post #466
thecatspaw wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if your definition of smoking marijuana is going outside, walking around, thinking about stuff or talking with friends, then yeah, it is also an alternative to boredom. But when you finished the joint, you will still have to do something. And after the active part of smoking is done, the "beeing high makes you more likely be okay with beeing bored" still applies. And I can promise you that I am not ignorant whe…

I don't understand what line you're drawing here, because I don't understand how this is different to say, listening to music. I wouldn't consider music an "alternative to boredom" as its foremost characteristic or as a last resort to boredom. It's just a fun activity. Just like smoking marijuana is. It's too much of a mischaracterization of music, or pot, or any other leisure activity.

Thanks for wanting to understand, here's another go.

The effect of smoking pot lasts longer than the action of smoking pot. The effect of listening to music often is limited to the action of listening to music.

Pot affects people over time. So you might smoke a joint then be quite content being in the world doing whatever. If you didn't smoke the joint and did the same whatever things you would feel bored.

You generally don't feel bored and are ok with it on pot, you feel ok doing the same activities you would feel bored doing if you were not high.

I hope that improves the understanding.

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

#515

Post by rorykoehler »

weberc2 wrote: post #478
the-pigeon wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is one of the big problems with cannabis studies. THC is known as the "active" ingredient in cannabis. However we know it's definitely not the only one. There are 113 identified cannabinoids. Most are believed to have some effect. And there's terpenes that are believed to have effects as well. So the problem is that ever single bit of cannabis has different ratios of these chemicals. Even two plants with the ex…

> The good thing is with legalization moving along we should see a lot more high quality studies that can help us figure this out. This is tangential, but it seems odd to me that many of the same people who are opposed to GMOs on the grounds that “science may have missed something” are okay with legalizing pot until science clearly demonstrates harm. Note that I’m not directing that at you (I don’t think you said any…

GMOs are the genetic equivalent to plastic in the ocean. Once it's in the wild it's damn hard to reverse the damage. Weed on the other hand you can just not consume.

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

#516

Post by rorykoehler »

tomcam wrote: post #437
darawk wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I really don't recommend you experiment with heroin :)

I am a very very fat guy trying to eat properly and it’s excruciating, even after 5 weeks away from most of my daily life. Damned if I haven’t toyed briefly and desperately with the idea of some kind of pharmaceutical intervention. But my lifelong policy with drugs has always been if I can’t even handle Mountain Dew Throwback, I won’t have a chance with speed or coke or pot

Unsolicited tip. Something I find has helped me a lot with challenges like you are facing is to stop looking at them as difficult or choices and simply understanding it what you have to and are going to do. Remove the choice from the equation. I had some pretty destructive habits when I was younger and now people comment on my strong mental discipline. This approach has really helped. I recently had to cut all starch from my diet due to an auto-immune diagnosis and went through ketosis. The discipline has now become the habit. It never occurred to me to not follow through even in the deepest keto flu period. It's possible to achieve and once you've beaten one hurdle the next one becomes easier until you control fully your thoughts and not the other way around.

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

#517

Post by code_duck »

macspoofing wrote: post #355
RIMR wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it is perfectly normal for people to experiment with substances when they come of-age. Chronic drug use is no joke, but at least half the people I know used psychedelics in their early 20's. Most people drink, and most people have used cannabis at least once. What isn't normal is demonizing all forms of substance use, without properly differentiating it from substance abuse.

>Yes, it is perfectly normal for people to experiment with substances when they come of-age. Oh yeah? 13 year olds 'experimenting' by doing lines of coke seem normal to you?

What do you mean by ‘normal’?

If you mean healthy and what I would suggest for a teen, no. If you mean something that happens fairly commonly in the world, yes, that does.

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

#518

Post by drooogs »

Zanni wrote: post #504
drooogs wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am a huge opposer of legalization, because I've seen what pot has done to people I care about. frankly, this argument has no place in a society that considers itself free. it is not for you to tell me what harm i may inflict on my own body, nor to restrict others from helping me do it.

You're staking out a pretty extreme position there. Society has already accepted: helmet laws, seatbelt laws, mandatory health insurance, age limits for alcohol and tobacco consumption, food and drug regulations, etc. You can argue that our society can't consider itself free, but it's the society we have and the same argument is in play on a number of issues.

> Society has already accepted: helmet laws, seatbelt laws, mandatory health insurance, age limits for alcohol and tobacco consumption, food and drug regulations, etc.

not everything on that list is terrible; in fact, it provides a good opportunity to illustrate my point. not wearing a seatbelt makes it likely that you will become a lethal projectile in the event of an accident, so i'm okay with seatbelts being required. as far as food and drugs go, i think people should have access to as much information as possible about the things they are putting in their body, but i don't think they should be prevented from selling raw milk or dangerous drugs. i also think it is fine to prevent children from doing any number of risky things, as they are not mature enough be fully responsible for their actions. my problem is with treating adults like children. unless what you do with your body actually harms others, you should be left to do it in peace. and no, the fact that other people choose to waste resources cleaning up your mistakes does not constitute harming them.

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

#519

Post by ocdtrekkie »

drooogs wrote: post #499
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drugs do not just lead you to harm others. In fact, like alcohol, most drug users probably do not harm others. But both cause significant self-harm. And society ends up bearing the burden of helping people who aren't able to help themselves, be it on an individual level or a governmental level.

> society ends up bearing the burden of helping people who aren't able to help themselves, be it on an individual level or a governmental level. it doesn't have to do this. if people want to kill themselves slowly, they should be allowed to.

The problem is the same people who want to kill themselves slowly want our tax dollars to provide them free medical care whilst they do so. Your comment ignores the real burden that self-harming people create upon those around them, and why we need to get them out of self-harm rather than bearing the burden of it.

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

#520

Post by weberc2 »

rorykoehler wrote: post #515
weberc2 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The good thing is with legalization moving along we should see a lot more high quality studies that can help us figure this out. This is tangential, but it seems odd to me that many of the same people who are opposed to GMOs on the grounds that “science may have missed something” are okay with legalizing pot until science clearly demonstrates harm. Note that I’m not directing that at you (I don’t think you said any…

GMOs are the genetic equivalent to plastic in the ocean. Once it's in the wild it's damn hard to reverse the damage. Weed on the other hand you can just not consume.

GMOs are already produced on a massive scale; any irreversible damage is already done. Further, this is true for any domesticated organism, not GMOs in particular. Besides, the argument I referenced was about health risks, not ecological damage.
Post reply on HN