231–240 of 352 posts
I'm surprised nobody caught that the Surgeon General's advisory text mentions "physical dependence", a term that is not used once in the referenced source. I'm no doctor, but physical and psychological difference seem quite different.
It’s not a death sentence, but it’s definitely incentive for people to keep smoking to avoid those effects
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The association between cannabis and schizophrenia remains, as far as I'm aware, primarily statistical, and other factors like familial history are significantly more predictive. EDIT: That is, I don't think we have sufficient understanding to say whether pot abuse causes schizophrenia, or schizophrenics are more likely to abuse pot. Given what I know of how awful a ride that is, self-medicating that devolves into ab…
The thing for me is the fact that it might lead to schizophrenia is still scary. I've met a lot of people on the "it's not proven so I'm going to assume it's safe" side and I never understood it but then again I'm fairly risk averse.
There is of course a risk with any mind-altering substance that it might trigger a latent or occult mental illness. Those odds go up, sometimes significantly, with more powerful substances, and even more so when the user has any genetic predisposition towards those conditions. There's also a risk of having a difficult or traumatic experience, which can likewise increase with dose or different substances. That said, those of us who work with these substances intentionally often find that those experiences can be where the really transformative stuff happens.
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> The effects take years to decades for anything significant enough to precipitate. This sentence is weird to me. Can you rephrase?
They are trying to say that THC can cause depression, but it can take many years. I'm just clarifying (and not downvoting, like the rest of 'hacker' 'news'.. lol) and do not necessarily agree/disagree with OP
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It is a kind of ironic situation. Modern states rights arguments tend to reside on the right, but that is also where anti-drug legalization sentiment resides as well. I'd be very interested to hear a debate where a right winger insists the fed should step in, and a left winger replies "Personally I support states rights". Just to see where it all goes.
Whenever power in Washington changes from one party to the other, the other party rediscovers the importance of states' rights.
If I am super happy with my life, I will likely not take an excessive amount of drugs. I would say I am reasonably happy with my life and I like taking drugs every now and then just for fun and because it feels nice.
The story goes totally different for people with shit lives (which is the majority of the population unfortunately). If I am already in some sort of depression, drugs will aggravate these problems. They will show how nice you can actually feel, just to go back into your sucking life afterwards. Who wouldn't want to take drugs all day in this scenario?
But that doesn't mean that drugs themselves cause these problems. Same as meat itself is not unhealthy. The link by statistics is very much against "Correlation does not imply Causation".
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…
The deadbeat examples are just more readily available, because the upstanding successful folks are aware of this misconception and the stigma. They tend to keep quiet about it, except among their own.
As I get older, I keep discovering “addicts” in my social circle that I’ve known for years, or in some cases decades, who I’d have never guessed have a habit. I don’t have any deadbeats in my social circle. These people all range from moderately successful to wildly successful. A lot of the daily users I can think of are far more productive than I am. At least two of them have founded and sold companies and no longer need to work. But they loathe feeling unproductive, so they still do, and they’re the first ones in the office every morning.
Personally, I have tried working under the influence, but it doesn’t work that way for me. It’s not addictive though, so I simply stopped using it.
Just like owning a bed doesn’t make you lazy and tired, and it doesn’t cause you to develop an excessive sleeping habit. Just because some people choose to remain in bed to avoid responsibility, doesn’t mean there is a causal relationship.
Ive smoked for about 15 years now. Started heavy through highschool and college and after college usually just a rip before bedtime. I cant say I've experienced anything negative. No issues focusing or memory problems, or dealing with stress/anxiety. I've quit for months at a time cold turkey with no issues. I'll probably never fully quit but I am doing it less just cause I worry about the effects on my lungs more th…
Anecdote like this is bad for two reasons: 1) How do you know you wouldn't have done better had you not smoked starting in high school? You can't go back in time and A/B test yourself 2) Your personal physiology may be fine with marijuana use, but that's not a guarantee that the same applies to everyone else. I'm sure plenty of HN readers (myself included) knew people in high school who did suffer from marijuana-rela…
It's just high school :) if GP passed and moved on, who cares? High school success becomes more and more of a boolean outcome as you get further away from it imo. And tbh even boolean is generous.
"I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea."
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…
I appreciate this honest statement. I work daily with individuals with mental disabilities including psychosis, memory dysfunction, and perceptional disturbances, and can certainly agree from what I have subjectively seen. (Though also longitudinally as I have viewed medical records extensively over years and years of research). I have witnessed secondhand that higher doses and earlier use of THC are more likely to p…
Ive smoked for about 15 years now. Started heavy through highschool and college and after college usually just a rip before bedtime. I cant say I've experienced anything negative. No issues focusing or memory problems, or dealing with stress/anxiety. I've quit for months at a time cold turkey with no issues. I'll probably never fully quit but I am doing it less just cause I worry about the effects on my lungs more th…
I've had approximately the same experience. Here's hoping it doesn't cause any long term issues, but I think I would have had a heart attack by now if I didn't smoke to calm myself down and realize I shouldn't take things so seriously. A truly enlightened individual doesn't need any drugs, but I'm not there yet. Maybe in time. For now I think the weed is a net positive.
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I've had approximately the same experience. Here's hoping it doesn't cause any long term issues, but I think I would have had a heart attack by now if I didn't smoke to calm myself down and realize I shouldn't take things so seriously. A truly enlightened individual doesn't need any drugs, but I'm not there yet. Maybe in time. For now I think the weed is a net positive.
I hate when people frame doing drugs in terms of needing them to have a good time. It's just a thing you do that affects your mind, like anything else. It's potentially more intense and definitely different than most other things, but acting like it's a crutch is existentially dishonest I think.
One of the odd things about drugs is that if you do use them as a crutch (and I certainly do), then you are forfeiting recreational value.
I smoke to feel "normal" and to avoid nightmares (it turns off dreaming, which is quite useful). That means I can't get "high" like non-potheads can. When I haven't smoked in a while, I get giggly and have the munchies and every idea is mindblowing, and that's truthfully quite a lot of fun and is the reason most people start smoking weed.
Unfortunately, if I don't smoke after work, I can't really feel like my work day is over, and I'll keep thinking about work until I exhaust myself. If I don't smoke before bed, there's a good chance I'll have horrible nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat. These aren't symptoms of withdrawal that go away in time, that's just how I lived my life before discovering weed, and that's how I feel daily even if I take a months-long break from smoking.
I would love to not need weed as a crutch, both to be healthier and so I can occasionally get a giggly-munchies-omg-this-music-sounds-amazing type of high.
The problem is, if I quit smoking, I feel less mentally healthy, and all of the psychiatric drugs that could possibly help are worse in health and effect than weed.