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As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

nytimes.com

421–430 of 686 posts

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

#421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is largely the problem with mobile phones as well. Like you probably aren't going to go mad or get rectangular eyes or whatever, but you can just sort of sedate that sensation of boredom with scrolling reddit or facebook or whatever, which does all of bupkis for making us happy in the long term.

This is the same argument with all consuming vs producing. It's why there was a moral panic in the 1800s over Jane Austen style fiction, in the 1930s over radio, and so on. Being addicted to cannabis is not really any different to playing computer games 12 hours a day, doing endless marathons, watching sports, investing, or many similar activities.

phones are on a different level than fiction or radio or arguably even cannabis imo

you can do something else while you listen to the radio or smoke pot (e.g., clean your house, hang out with friends or family, with weed you can even read or program)

phones and books both consume your attention, but a book at least demands a bit of effort to follow and might introduce you to new ideas or vocabulary, even if you're reading pulp fiction

on the other hand you can scroll twitter or insta or watch tiktok absolutely mindlessly, and doing so will tend to become a habit all while it chips away at your attention span and your willpower

weed can make boredom feel ok too, and can certainly affect attention, willpower and memory, but if used in moderation it can also magnify your curiosity and sense of wonder, help you introspect, etc

cannabis is a powerful entheogen and it deserves far more respect and restraint than it currently receives

smartphones give us enormous powers but they can also exert massive power over our minds and actions, they too should be treated with caution and used with far more restraint

cannabis might make you lazy or suggestible, and it can even be dangerous for some people or if used irresponsibly, but it won't spoon feed you mind-melting pablum or ads or propaganda or spy on you

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

#422
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…

> 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.

Chicken vs. the Egg.

Perhaps many are drawn to cannabis due to the inability to achieve such goals due to whatever individual or societal issues/reasons one may have.

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

#423
post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also this excellent browser extension: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome Despite the name, it also works for Firefox.

Or, if you don't want to install sketchy plugins in your browser, as soon as the page loads in a new tab, switch to it and press ctrl+p, you'll can create a PDF and read the page without the block or the ads.

wow - takes some dexterity. I thought it didn't work because I was refreshing the page and hitting ctrl + p. But it really is you have to wait for it to load and switch to that tab and do ctrl + p. Cool trick!

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

#424

Weed is harmless, except for teens . Weed has always hurt teens. The hurt is subtle. It tends to steal their future and their ability to support themselves or contribute to society. But this really isn't about weed. It's about bad parents.

How are “good parents” expected to find this low-odor, marker-sized object without deeply invading their child’s privacy or ruining their bond and becoming “bad parents”? Gone are the days of finding a smelly bong in the back of the closet, this could be in their pocket or purse at all times. The side effects of weed could be found in every sober teen. Hungrier, more emotional, more distant from parents, etc. Are goo…

For one, Good parents don't submit their children to unreasonable searches. Also, if the parenting is good, the search is unnecessary, because there is nothing illicit to find. I'm not a parent, and I realize it is very hard to do well, but my understanding is it has to do with the right attention at the right times, mostly just being there, but also not shying away from correcting discipline. Parents that become their childrens' best friends and never correctly discipline them for fear of their hatred only produces narcissistic children. I think the family unit must be relied upon, separation and sacrifice of duties, with the mother the nurturer and the father the "whip," (i do not advocate for corporal punishment, whip is metaphore) usually kids turn out ok. When roles are mixed or when no one wants to do the hard work of being the bad cop is when kids learn they can get away with murder.

the finest day i ever had was when i learned to cry on demand

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

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 90% sure that "endless marathons" referred to "watching entire seasons of shows on NetFlix", not "running 26.2 miles over and over".

Cannabis and jogging make a lovely combination.

I'm not convinced the heart agrees (medically speaking).

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

#426

This line has been reliably trotted out every few years since the 1990s at least: But experts say today’s high-THC cannabis products — vastly different than the joints smoked decades ago — are poisoning some heavy users, including teenagers. The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol - drinking one liter of beer, everyone knows, is not the same as drinking one liter of vodka.…

Yeah, I'm calling BS. 1) That line has been trotted out continuously because weed potency has been going up continuously. In the late 90s, good weed was anything above 4-5% THC; the store near my house currently has nothing below 23%. For your beer/liquor analogy to work, you'd have to live somewhere where the bottle shop only sells triple IPAs and fortified wine, and Coors is in the soft drink section. 2) I don't be…

>That line has been trotted out continuously because weed potency has been going up continuously. In the late 90s, good weed was anything above 4-5% THC; the store near my house currently has nothing below 23%. For your beer/liquor analogy to work, you'd have to live somewhere where the bottle shop only sells triple IPAs and fortified wine, and Coors is in the soft drink section.

While there definitely was a crescendo of potency, it largely peaked. The plants simply won't grow beyond about 33% THC. But 25% was available eight years ago. One review says that seedless marijuana ("sin semilla") averaged 11.5% THC as of 1997:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00213-002-1349-y

Still, I've got to figure it's an advantage in terms of health to take three hits from a glass bowl instead of two dozen pulls on a joint. There's no real disadvantage to drinking beer instead of whisky like there is with weed.

I can't speak to hash. I don't like it.

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

#427

When I lived in NYC almost every single one of my friends regularly smoked pot and it seemed pretty harmless to me except I’d occasionally have a friend who never really addressed their anxiety because pot was their go-to so that anxiety just got worse and worse. Years later, I joined Al-Anon because my partner was struggling with alcoholism and I was really surprised to see so many people there because a partner or…

It’s a terrible anxiety medicine as probably the most common side effect is anxiety.

I’ve come to see cannabis in the way that it buries anxiety, and this buried anxiety then goes sour. Festers.

There’s also a sense that something about cannabis turns people’s imagination against themselves. Long-term use. At first it seems to free up the imagination and enhance the sense of meaningful experiences and emotion. Then that slowly turns to fog and people tend towards these little micro-jumps to conclusions, conclusions which are trite and shallow. I speak from experience btw. (My own!) I found the world to be stupid. People were stupid. It was just my lack of imagination and impeded generation of solutions to life, which I imagined to apply to everything but me. It’s funny and super lame and quite sad imo.

Seen it happen time and time again.

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

#428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same argument with all consuming vs producing. It's why there was a moral panic in the 1800s over Jane Austen style fiction, in the 1930s over radio, and so on. Being addicted to cannabis is not really any different to playing computer games 12 hours a day, doing endless marathons, watching sports, investing, or many similar activities.

I'm 90% sure that "endless marathons" referred to "watching entire seasons of shows on NetFlix", not "running 26.2 miles over and over".

I was previously at a place in my life where I compulsively did endurance exercise (including 3 marathons) to keep myself fatigued and numb my feelings. It was not too different to how some people smoke weed or drink, except that everyone in my life thought it was great and healthy. I spent a long time not making some very hard but positive life choices, and now my stomach lining is shot from pounding NSAIDs to keep exercising through joint pain.

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

#429
It's a serious problem that we're getting rid of the CBD in products.

CBD is a natural antipsychotic.

There's some very promising research on it alone as a treatment for schizophrenia even: https://academic.oup.com/schizbullopen/article/3/1/sgab053/6...

And a large body of research on how it reduces the potential psychotic side effects of THC.

But go into a dispensary and ask for a 1:1 or even a 1:2 THC:CBD product, and they will look at you like you have two heads.

The plant naturally contains an antagonistic for the psychotic effects, we're selecting to eliminate that antagonistic from the products, and then have a surprised Pikachu face when an increasing number of users have psychotic effects.

It's almost impossible to get cannabis products with a nice mix of CBD alongside THC unless explicitly asking for it and possibly needing to hit up multiple dispensaries to find it. That's really not ideal.

And all too often ratio products dilute the THC per volume according to the ratio, which further discourages recreational users from selecting for the ratio products. If the THC only product has 10mg per serving, the 1:1 and 1:2 should also have 10mg THC per serving, with an additional 10 or 20mg CBD alongside it. Not 5mg or 3.3mg THC.

This is a merchandising issue.

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

#430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let alone the mental health risk from permanent THC-induced psychosis.

Downvote? Seriously, hn? It’s a fact that hashish intake can cause psychosis.

Why is this one drug so special that it cannot possibly cause madness? I don't understand the downs either
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