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As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

nytimes.com

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

#551

Post by wruza »

worker_person wrote: post #498
gowld wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want someone to never learn that the system is rigged against them? So they blame themselves for their oppression? Millions of people will never rise above minmim wage jobs. Why fix that for one person ,and not for all? A Taco Bell worker probably has more free energy and intrest for tackling big problems like protesting against the oligarchs.

This is garbage. Work hard, plan hard, save money. Push through setbacks. Maybe you won't be a billionaire. But you can do pretty well in life. Don't blame others for your own laziness. Just met a guy last month that spent 5 years working at a carwash at minimum wage. He saved up money the entire time. Got himself a van decked for mobile cleaning. He still works hard, but is making some serious money now. Seen far mo…

This descent from a job that pays bills to stereotypical taco bell to welfare checks had no premise in this subthread. Aren’t you by chance just angry at someone else who is not rushing to make your own American dream come true?

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

#552

Post by dogman144 »

bennysomething wrote: post #469
mesofile wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I always remember that quote as well, the bored part of it really stuck with me. Unfortunately I smoked my first joint at 13, I'm pretty certain it damaged my short term memory. I think had it been legal I wouldn't have got hold of it until much older plus it would have lost some of its cool factor. It was mostly hash in my day, I actually never liked weed , it was all super skunk loaded with thc that caused paranoia…

Ya this is what I haven’t understood about weed advocacy and the discussion around it. I think that people who were in the scene in middle/high school, which unfortunately is very very common in my view but just not well known, know more than enough lives torpedoed by getting into it.

Sure, “surprise, doing drugs at 13 is bad,” but I don’t know a lot of teenage drinkers who stopped at drinking (vs further in) in the same bad spot as the teenage smokers I knew (who stopped at smoking).

The difference of smoking at 13 vs 30 is likely different, but idk if I really buy starting in adulthood and trending towards habitual is meaningfully immune from its bad impacts I’ve seen peers deal who stuck with it.

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

#553

Post by davewritescode »

SoftTalker wrote: post #263
mesofile wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can confirm. Two of my kids use THC pretty regularly and they seem content with a life that is paying the bills but not really leading anywhere. The third does not (AFAIK) and is on a much higher trajectory. All had pretty much the same upbringing, rules, experiences, and discipline. I've never used it, so don't have personal experience.

I’ve been using cannabis my whole life and I’m fairly successful. I have a nice house, healthy savings, nice cars and a lovely family.

Who know, maybe I’m not meeting my full potential but I really do enjoy life and cannabis helps.

I’ve struggle with anxiety and insomnia my whole life and medical cannabis allows me to “turn off” in a way that a lot less damaging than other medications I’ve taken.

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

#554

Post by akhmatova »

gunfighthacksaw wrote: post #545
akhmatova wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care ...? I don't. It's just an observation. That doesn't mean I care.

Apologies to mods for low effort reply to low effort post but you obviously care enough to have posted and responded.

No - I care (somewhat) about basic factual accuracy when it comes to public health debates.

What I don't care about is [sic] "other people do or don’t want to deal with your version of life?"

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

#555

Post by soared »

worker_person wrote: post #332
lacker wrote: 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…

Yep my daughter had a friend introduce her. She spent 5 years on it. 100% dependent on it. Entire time swearing up and down it didn't affect her. Of course we could all tell. Only when her finance had a psychotic breakdown and tried to kill everyone from it did she finally get off of it. Was 2 months before he didn't sound like an anime villain who was going to take over the world. She keeps commenting at much more e…

You are definitely not talking about weed

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

#556

Post by elevaet »

tsol wrote: post #541
blowski wrote: post #218

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.

Drugs are functionally different, I'd argue. You can quit games any time without pain, given enough mental resolve or motivation. No matter how good a reason it is you still have to deal with physical withdrawal when it comes to drugs

I thought it was pretty well known by now that there isn't really any physical withdrawl with cannabis; it's basically just mental.

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

#557

Post by radicalriddler »

This is interesting, last time I was back home one of my mates was telling me that one of my other mates was throwing up violently after smoking weed these days. He's 23 now, been smoking everyday since 15. He was one of those guys who'd say weed had no real negatives.

Nice to see an article on it. Definitely needs more awareness.

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

#558

Post by tomatotomato37 »

nshung wrote: post #329
SoftTalker wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm. Two of my kids use THC pretty regularly and they seem content with a life that is paying the bills but not really leading anywhere. The third does not (AFAIK) and is on a much higher trajectory. All had pretty much the same upbringing, rules, experiences, and discipline. I've never used it, so don't have personal experience.

To me, a life that is in content and has meaning trumps all those whatever higher trajectory means. I mean.. isn’t achieving those higher trajectories the goal of being content and having achieve the meaning if it exits at all?

Life naturally slows you down with age. Without enough momentum built up during your early years you may burn out and crash before you reach the end

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

#559

Post by vineyardmike »

palmetieri2000 wrote: post #543
blobbers wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible that some jobs are meant to be stepping stones, not permanent positions (ie: you outgrow them, and someone lower on the learning totem pole steps into the role for a time).

Absolutely, and you should be paid enough to properly take care of yourself while you have those positions.

So I absolutely agree with your opinion, and I think everyone should be paid a livable wage and should be able to live a meaningful life off their work pay.

That said, I think the argument of “stepping stone” job salaries is less crazy in the context of people who are dépendants of other adults. If you’re a teen and you live with parents who provide food and housing and basics like that, you’re needs from the wages are different. Plenty of jobs make sense as “silly shit teens do for spending money” that would also be considered “awful life for full time adult worker”. Some of these jobs only exist because there are short term employees willing to do it for low pay. It’s fine IMO that they exist but it’d be wrong to assume that an adult should have to live of it.

I think we should push for livable wages and ensure everyone can be happy and healthy from their salary. I don’t know if it’s even possible to protect the adults in “low skill” jobs without making it hard to have “stupid summer part time jobs” for teens. If it is possible, then we should allow those teens to have their dumb low pay jobs and not raise too much of a fuss.

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

#560

Post by ineptech »

photochemsyn wrote: post #409
ineptech wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1) Concentrated hash was widely available in California in the 1980s, and the strength of locally grown strains then was little different than it is today. Perhaps this was not true in East Coast or other regions of the USA. There was an active import market from Asia at the time as well, not just from Mexico. 2) If people want low-concentration cannabis (though why anyone would want to fill their lungs with soot and…

> Concentrated hash was widely available in California in the 1980s

I don't believe this for a second. I mean, maybe it was "widely available" compared to uranium-238, but not compared to concentrated hash today (which is what we're discussing). THC oil today is cheap enough and ubiquitous enough for minimum wage/homeless people to use daily, there's no way that was true before legalization.

> the strength of locally grown strains then was little different than it is today

First off, this contradicts every source I can find, as well as common sense (have all of the industry's attempts to breed more potent strains over the past three decades been abysmal failures?). But I did some research just for fun to confirm that; here are my results:

2013: Most potent strain ever tested in the history of the High Times Cannabis Cup was 28.35% (according to https://hightimes.com/grow/25-greatest-strains-of-all-time/ )

2022: Most potent strain I found by picking a random midwestern city (Ypsilanti, MI) and clicking on the first weed shop in the search results: 33.07% (according to https://menu.theflowerpot.us/stores/the-flower-pot/products/... )

Second, supposing they were growing 33% bud in Humboldt in the 80s, surely you would agree that most US pot smokers weren't able to get it. Today they can, which supports the assertion of the article.

> these kind of articles are just so reminiscent of Nancy Reagan's 'think of the children' pearl-clutching nonsense.

It's seductive but erroneous to assume that everything an idiot says is false.

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