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As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

nytimes.com

311–320 of 686 posts

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#311
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

This is an old 4% strength THC I-used-to-be-a-stoner argument that is completely irrelevant to the "real" dangers (multiple) to teenagers, which include: concentrated THC in teenagers causes psychosis; moderate THC in teenagers makes them permanently less intelligent.

THC users like to downplay them.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#312
post #69
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

Why is this topic always brought up regarding weed, but nothing else? Should we make video games illegal because they can cause some people to live a lethargic and less productive life?

I don't think video games fuck up your lungs and kill you in the long term, at least in capita.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol Eh, I don't believe that. Especially with weed there is not much to indicate dosage and the addiction is often to tobacco too which motivates people to smoke another joint. It is true that plants got more potent too. At least this is the case in Europe where weed is a bit different than in the US. But I guess the most immediate dang…

I track my cannabis consumption. Every time I buy I record the weight, price, date, and strain info. My daily consumption in grams per day averages out to 1.5g. Yet there are days when I'm consuming 3+ grams, and if you look at my spreadsheet you can see that more often then not those heavy days fall in a row. I'm not having days where I intake more THC, I'm having days where I consume more cannabis than normal from…

In the 90s as a teen the height of my pothead days I was consuming an ounce a day, that's 28g. I smoked joints like a pack-a-day tobacco user.

Now, I consume at most 1-1.5g a day. And that's a high all day kind of day for me.

I'd say my tolerance is down because I don't consume regularly or nearly as much but the main difference is in the 90s I only had access to mexican brick (low THC) and now I wouldn't touch that stuff if you paid me. Oddly, I do miss the act of just having a long smoking session but there's no way at current potency I can even justify rolling a joint when 2-3 hits sit me down. So there's definitely some substance to the potency being a self regulator.

For a time, I grew hydroponically and if anything is making people sick, my bet or first inclination would be to see if it's the nutrients not being properly flushed before harvest. I'm not sure if there are any regs on that stuff yet?

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#314
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

> The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes.

That may be true for the majority of users, but the increase in people having significant negative reactions to high-dose THC is a real phenomenon.

This new era of extremely potent THC concentrates and other high-dose products has opened the door to some people using far more THC than previous generations could easily consume. Many of these high-dose users are discovering that the old narrative that weed isn’t “physically addictive” isn’t actually true and prolonged high-dose usage can produce significant physical and mental withdrawal effects. It won’t kill you like extreme alcohol withdrawal can, but the deep impulse to redose and inability to quit easily catches a lot of these high-dose users unprepared after they’ve been told that weed is harmless for so long.

Psychosis among high-dose users is also on the rise, though harder to pinpoint because the connection is very hard to make and quantify in studies. Again, this isn’t something people were taught to watch out for so you see some of these users believing that marijuana is a treatment for their psychosis rather than a cause and they spiral further and further until quitting.

The old street knowledge about marijuana’s biggest downside being laziness doesn’t really apply to people engaging in the more extreme doses and uses heavily processed and concentrated products.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#315
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

> The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "normal". And you just won't get as much out of your life as you could get, won't achieve as much relationship success, professional success, or personal fulfillment.

As a general rule, I don't disagree, although there could be other important variables in place here as well.

An alternative outcome is that one spends their time thinking about intelligent and important things (that few other people think about), except they may not have an easy route to monetization (professional success) for various reasons that are not the fault of drugs, and in some cases arguably due to a lack of more widespread drug usage, or simple diversity in thinking and discussion.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#317
post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does caffeine have negative side effects, or does caffeine, taken in excess, including in late hours of the day, have negative side effects? It's an important distinction to make in this discussion, which largely boils down to "off label use", whether we're talking about drinking simply too much coffee or people with developing brains getting too much thc.

> Does caffeine have negative side effects, Caffeine has negative side effects. It is an addictive psychoactive drug. Its effects are mild, but, to repeat, it is an addictive psychoactive drug. Even moderate use can cause sever anxiety in some people. L-theanine is a great counter to this. Green tea naturally has L-theanine in it and that is likely why people who drink green tea do not report anxiety (at least in sig…

Note: L-theanine binds to glutamate receptors and that can mess with psychotropic medications like mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics.

From personal experience, it caused my medications to stop working.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#318
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stand corrected.. so we’re back at personal responsibility again. Last I read this was a very rare phenomenon happening mostly in chronic users of concentrates. I still fail to see how that is valid reasoning for anything else in this article.. Just read your comment again, but substitute cannabis with alcohol. You would be dead by now with these dosages, and if you go a step further the article would be correlatin…

I agree with most of your post. However, the article is about teens vaping concentrate that can contains as much as 90% THC. The title on HN is misleading, the article is not about teens smoking a few joints per week. To reuse your alcohol analogy, the article would be about teens drinking undiluted alcohol (94%) and the title on HN would be "Teens drinking beer are frequently found dead"

You're right, that one is way better.

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#319
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

I thought the way that South Park put it (in the voice of Randy Marsh) many years ago was just about perfect: “Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and ...it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorists, 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 creat…

> it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorists

Afghanistan?

Re: As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

#320
post #57

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "no…

I thought the way that South Park put it (in the voice of Randy Marsh) many years ago was just about perfect: “Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and ...it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorists, 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 creat…

clip of that scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G83G0EDE2RY
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