421–430 of 568 posts
I'm so glad that the effects of cannabis persist beyond the period while I'm consuming it. If they stopped as soon as I stopped vaping, I'd have to find some other substance to abuse, that lasts at least an hour or so. Maybe something safer, like alcohol or smack perhaps. /s
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Do you dispute that getting into a car is a gateway to car accidents?
Getting into a car is necessary for having an accident, but it is insufficient. The "gateway drug" argument is that any amount of cannabis is sufficient for becoming a skin-popping fentanyl junkie, but it is not necessary.
That's an extreme, and not representative of what most people mean when they say "gateway drug".
My understanding of the gateway drug argument is this: someone who starts with a seemingly-innocuous mind-altering substance is more likely to end up wanting more and going for harder stuff than someone who has never used any drugs at all. By normalizing the light drug, some percentage of the new users will end up addicted to hard drugs that wouldn't have otherwise.
I'm not familiar enough with the evidence to have an opinion on the accuracy of this argument, but it's not helpful to take the most idiotic framing of it and attack it, even if it is the framing with the greatest meme value.
From my short 1 month experiene working in a clinical ward: if young people got brought in due to a psychosis, in the case that it was drug induced, at least 50% were long term cannabis users (followed by alcohol abuse, then some psychoactive drugs, and heroin/crack). Cannabis definitely is not the vanilla drug so many people make it out to be. *EDIT: I get the selection bias now, sorry.
But aren't these outliers? For the vast majority of people it is an occasional indulgence, like alcohol, no?
That said, this could also be selection bias.
I am currently living clean, but have had multiple periods of being stoned basically 24/7 beforehand, whilst always having a very healthy relationship to alcohol (a few drinks socially, once per week or less). It's possible that the people I attract into my life tend to be similar to me.
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People are skeptical on any side about purely anecdotal experiences. I've posted pro-marijuana anecdotal experiences in here, but I don't expect people to take it as gospel, and frequently specifically call it out as a personal anecdote. In the past, have seen the exact sort of response your replying to directed towards me. And that's fine, because anecdotes aren't data! But it's just hard to separate correlation fro…
We don't tend to see the same skepticism for the positive anecdotes in online discussion of cannabis, though.
You can look in the comment section for this very article for multiple examples - I replied to someone who indicated that another person must have "depressing" nights because they stated that they sometimes enjoy having a night with friends listening to music while high, for example. Subjective opinions of how to enjoy an evening are greeted with being told they're wrong - a bit beyond even skepticism, even!
If us potheads start posting anecdotes about how smoking took us from being unsuccessful and contemplating suicide to successful and having wonderful personal happiness and contentment - basically the reverse of the original post in this thread - I'm sure we'd see similar levels of skepticism. As it is, the positive anecdotes are basically "It's fun and helps me relax", "I feel more creative while high", "It sometimes helps me approach things from a different perspective" and similar.
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> I've been working on moderate, prepared, virtuous pot smoking for years what tips do you have?
For me: Do it alone. Do the first 5% of the task to get the momentum. Vape it slowly while doing the task. Combine w caffeine. Psych youself up by saying "what if...". Use low temp vape so co2 and physical symptoms don't interfere. Use it to let your curiosity propel you. Use the smallest amount you can to achieve the effect. Try different strains and keep track. Sometimes a body strain can put you in touch with your…
I keep a weed vape, as well as different sized pipes. The big, fancy one is great for extended/shared sessions, but the smallest one (called a bat, I think. It looks like a straight glass tube, with a small 'pinch' near one end) is my idea of a perfect single serving. It takes a bit of practice, but gives me between 3 to 5 light hits.
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Ok. An anecdote about cannabis use producing persistent cognitive impairment seemed to me to be relevant to an article describing cannabis use producing persistent cognitive impairment.
Did you miss the part where the kid became a heroin addict? Heroin will certainly provide long term impairment in the form of a lifelong addiction. Hard to find the effect of MJ in that long shadow.
There are people who I would regard as highly functional and productive throughout the day but who are drinking alcohol/smoking pot/using stimulants on a daily basis for decades. The dosages can be fairly high so as to clearly bluring the line between use or abuse but obviously low enough to ensure day-to-day functionality. For alcohol I'm talking about >70g daily (>5 standard drinks: >5 cans of beer, >1 bottle (750mL) of wine (12%)). So with that edge example in mind it highlights at least two important factors:
1. physiological adaptations 2. social acceptance/functionality
[Anectode: From my experience in Eastern Europe I was struck by fairly many examples of decades of regular high dosage use but excellent mental and physical fitness at an age of >75, to a point in which this age group seemed even "healthier" on an average than wealthy European countries in the West. Obviously from an epidemiological standpoint this "normal use" wreaks havoc but nonetheless the possible range of variation is quite remarkable.]
I find the model of a "Default mode network (DMN)" from neuroscience quite helpful to explain incentives in using "mind-altering" drugs like alcohol, cannabis etc. People (from sometimes to usually) do not enjoy or even begin to suffer on wakeful rest (daydreaming, mind-wandering: remembering the past, planning for the future, thinking about others/yoursels) so obviously they are drawn in trying to modulate it in differnet ways. Given the culture there are many "tools" at hand. From acupunture to zazen.
Cannabis in itself has wide spectrum of effects as there are a great variety of active compounds in different concentrations depending on the strain and cultivation methods but to make the matter simple let's reduce it to CBD and THC.
CBD seems to be described as "bodily" reducing pain, anxiety, helping in falling asleep ...
THC is usually perceived as acting more on the "mind" at the right dosage and consumption (orally) moderately psychedelic and generally stimulating. The "dark side" being perceived as paranoid/psychotic/panic attacks.
So to say "Cannabis" produces acute cognitive impairments (more neutral: modulates DMN) that may continue beyond the period of intoxication for me is kind of a no-brainer. If I regularly "consume" to modulate my DMN it going to change my brain in some way or another but as with the edge cases with alcohol highlighted above it is extremely difficult or outright impossible to isolate confounding factors to what causes actual permanent damage (social isolation, chronic abuse, physiological issues, genetics, upbringing (nurture), invidiual psychological vulnerability ...).
Instead of playing into fear a model like DMN for me puts things into context.
My personal romance: I once overdosed on edibles it was the classical "horrible" experience but very insightful after I took the time to integrate it. So I decided to exclusively use the THC-side of Cannabis to face my "demons" in living through my paranoias. This high dosage use of course limits itself to a maximum of 2 times a year. It still remains very unpleasant and a hard ride but I'm more in harmony with the plant so as to not fight with her. In this respectful dance I found it quite valuable as a teacher.
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I wonder, if you hold other psychoactive substances - say coffee, alcohol, or nicotine to the same standard? That is, we should assume they cause long term impairment without the need for any kind of study?
You should assume any disturbance of your brains chemical equilibrium is bad long term. Those drugs included. Absent fixing a specific deficiency that is. If a study comes back and says, with a high confidence, that isn't the case for this or that, great, but I think it's a safe assumption for most chemicals. Edit: Just to be clear, I'm saying it's not enough to show something is bad, as pretty much everything is bad…
I think we are mostly in agreement - that any substance entering the body will have some effect.
The question is what effect, how much of an effect, and wether it is permanent/long lasting. Questions which require a study to answer.
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Well, in Russia it's the other way around - repeated pushes to legalize mj in Russia are seen as a way for USA to cripple Russian youngsters , making them disinterested in pursuing casual life goals - education, career and family. Go figure
How do they bring into this narrative various drug-using super-functional people like Steve Jobs?
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It's really no different to people using caffeine (aside to the legality). They are both drugs, the main difference being I bet more folks suffer from the effects of caffeine (anxiety, loss of sleep, stress), than the do cannabis.
They are both drugs, but the side effects of caffeine are a lot less bad per usage compared to weed per usage. Perhaps I should phrase that a bit better, but I hope you see what I'm getting at.
Caffeine can have pretty "bad" effects - issues with sleep, headaches, panic attacks, and all sorts of cardiovascular issues (increased heart rate, sweating, etc).