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U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

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Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#131

Post by mrlala »

graphememes wrote: post #121
nenadg wrote: post #45

I smoked weed heavily from my ~16 to ~18. And I stopped because it was so overwhelming experience that I could not stand any more. I couldn't function normally and had really tough trips, thinking about so many end results in the same time. Minutes took hours and basically it was an agony, while everybody had pretty joyful time laughing. Now, I'm 38. I'm functional (so far), I have family with kids. I haven't develop…

Being in the bay area, I have witnessed what you expressed happen to many engineers since the legalization. They burn out quickly as well. They swear it's not weed since everyone else tells them that's all tinfoil hat stuff. It's very unfortunate.

Are the engineers you are referring to in developing brain stages? You are replying to OP who said from 16-18.. that is still fairly prime development.. your bay area engineers are probably mid 20's? That is quite different when we are talking about brain development.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#132

Post by umvi »

fleekonpoint wrote: post #117
umvi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Legalizing it will drastically mitigate the ability for minors to get a hold of any I can't tell if you are joking or not (sorry). But I simply don't believe this. Why would legalizing it make it harder for minors to get ahold of it?

This Washington Post article says that teen drug use is down in Colorado after they passed marijuana legalization: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/11/follo... . I think it's due to the reasons that others have mentioned - that minors can't buy it illegally from stores and the drug dealers they used to buy from are now irrelevant.

Minors can't buy Juul legally from stores either, yet Juul usage is skyrocketing among minors. I think it has less to do with the legality alone and more to do with fashion/image/etc (which is enabled by legalization).

Marijuana might be down now, but I could see THC Juul pods or MJ pills or some other form of legal marijuana becoming a fad among minors in the future and usage skyrocketing. Legalization is the enabler in this case.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#133

Post by luckylion »

umvi wrote: post #91
dragonwriter wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would legalizing it make it harder for minors to get ahold of it? Legalizing increases the marginal legal risk (and thus expected cost) of selling to minors (still illegal) vs. selling to everyone else. The same is true of non-sale person-to-person distribution.

Ok, so you are saying given X minor marijuana user, it would be harder for X to obtain marijuana post legalization vs. pre legalization. That I agree with because X's dealer is willing to break the law to sell to minors while convenience store employees are less likely to. However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal and thus you'll have more minors us…

> To illustrate my point, it would be like saying "legalizing marijuana makes it 50% harder for minors to buy it!" but leaving off the "(but also legalization would increase the number of minor users by 10000+%)" part.

Why would it increase that number?

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#134

Post by bigfudge »

high_derivative wrote: post #48
40acres wrote: post #3

My brother smoked heavily during his teens and as a result developed schizophrenia / substance induced psychosis. It was generally terrifying to see him unable to complete thoughts and lose his train of thought. He's fine now but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if you told me those years knocked a couple of points off his IQ. I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term…

It totally weirds me out how defensive people are about your anecdote here. Talking to any clinical psychotherapist dealing with young adults, you will hear lots of stories about weed-induced psychosis and anxiety. What I wonder is why it matters to people that it's not as safe as they may believe? Cognitive dissonance? We do lots of unsafe things.

I think it's because for many years anecdotal reports from clinical psychologists and psychiatrists drove a narrative (convenient to pro-prohibition authorities) that cannabis caused psychosis. Large epidemiological studies now suggest that's probably not the case, but the original narrative is often parroted uncritically by news outlets and others.

There are almost certainly risks from taking cannabis, but they are almost certainly an order of magnitude smaller than the risks of drinking and smoking (individually... not just becase A and T are more widespread)

i) clinical psychologist

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#135

Post by bigfudge »

lacampbell wrote: post #120
high_derivative wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally weirds me out how defensive people are about your anecdote here. Talking to any clinical psychotherapist dealing with young adults, you will hear lots of stories about weed-induced psychosis and anxiety. What I wonder is why it matters to people that it's not as safe as they may believe? Cognitive dissonance? We do lots of unsafe things.

I think this is essentially a tribal, not a logical issue. A nuanced view is not welcome on these kinds of issues, you're either with us or against us. You can be against the prohibition of marijuana while also thinking it's a bad idea to smoke it all the time, or at all. Laws don't have to match your personal beliefs.

I agree thet debate is polarised. But I sympathise with the irritation caused by the focus on poor quality evidence linking cannabis to psychosis when the widespread harms of alcohol and tobacco are basically ignored.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#136

Post by sohex »

weberc2 wrote: post #56
40acres wrote: post #3

My brother smoked heavily during his teens and as a result developed schizophrenia / substance induced psychosis. It was generally terrifying to see him unable to complete thoughts and lose his train of thought. He's fine now but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if you told me those years knocked a couple of points off his IQ. I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term…

> I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects. This is sort of the inverse of the anti-GMO position: "we should ban GMOs until we understand them". I wonder if there are many legalize-weed / ban-GMO folks, and how they would defend their position?

That combination of positions is incredibly common. Their argument generally stems from a belief that natural things are inherently good and artificial things are inherently bad.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#137

Post by luckylion »

habosa wrote: post #98

Reading the comments here is a bit disappointing. There are a lot of legalization advocates seeming to take the position that because weed is mostly fine for most people it's always fine for everyone. It's not. Anyone here who has a friend who smoked too much when they were young (and we all have that friend) knows that weed, like so many things in life, can be dangerous when you use it too much or when you shouldn't…

> We should also watch, very carefully, how our children use it.

Is anyone even arguing for "children should use it" at all?

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#138

Post by bigfudge »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #101
high_derivative wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It totally weirds me out how defensive people are about your anecdote here. Talking to any clinical psychotherapist dealing with young adults, you will hear lots of stories about weed-induced psychosis and anxiety. What I wonder is why it matters to people that it's not as safe as they may believe? Cognitive dissonance? We do lots of unsafe things.

It’s not even anecdotal. The relative risk for developing schizophrenia for cannabis smokers vs non cannabis smokers is 2.3. This means that you are 2.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia if you smoke cannabis. Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988731/ With that said, I think it should be legal. I just think people shouldn’t downplay the risks.

Reporting relative odds or risks without a baseline is very misleading. The absolute risk in either case is still very low. People aren't downplaying risks.. they are setting them in a proper context (where other legal recreational drugs cause substantially more harm).

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#139

Post by mrlala »

umvi wrote: post #75
superkuh wrote: post #4

These are all reasonable things. Legalizing it will drastically mitigate the ability for minors to get a hold of any just as was done with the much more dangerous and deadly drug, alcohol.

> Legalizing it will drastically mitigate the ability for minors to get a hold of any I can't tell if you are joking or not (sorry). But I simply don't believe this. Why would legalizing it make it harder for minors to get ahold of it?

Because when it's legal that destroys a lot of the market for illegal sellers.. so there are less illegal sellers around.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#140

Post by lacampbell »

bigfudge wrote: post #135
lacampbell wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is essentially a tribal, not a logical issue. A nuanced view is not welcome on these kinds of issues, you're either with us or against us. You can be against the prohibition of marijuana while also thinking it's a bad idea to smoke it all the time, or at all. Laws don't have to match your personal beliefs.

I agree thet debate is polarised. But I sympathise with the irritation caused by the focus on poor quality evidence linking cannabis to psychosis when the widespread harms of alcohol and tobacco are basically ignored.

Are there many people out there who think drinking and smoking are great ideas for your health!?

Plus, I think we'd all much rather deal with a stoner than a drunk.

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