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More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

theatlantic.com

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Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#191

Post by TheForumTroll »

insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

Most likely you thought you were better. Funny thing: That is exactly how drunks see themselves when drinking too.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#192

Post by justaj »

slowandlow wrote: post #66
insickness wrote: post #17

In the past I was addicted to pot. I was addicted in the sense that pretty much everything felt better when I was high. I was more relaxed and had less anxiety. Sex was better. Food tasted better. I was more creative. I thought about much deeper things. I spent less time online and in front of screens. The biggest downside for me--and the reason I ended up quitting--was that my sober life just sucked in comparison. I…

> The other downsides were that I wasn't as sharp mentally when I was sober. I wasn't as ambitious. I was less social. In other words, it made me feel fine just hanging out in my apartment doing nothing. On the balance that made pot a negative for me. This is exactly why I quit. I found myself not comprehending technical conversations as well as I used to while sober. Hanging out at home doing nothing when you REALLY…

> This is exactly why I quit. I found myself not comprehending technical conversations as well as I used to while sober.

This has not been my experience at all. In fact, total opposite entirely. If I smoke up I simply can not absorb any new technical information that is above my current knowledge and skill level. I am however more creative in coming up with solutions or new ideas with the information that I already might have.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#193

Post by TheForumTroll »

yesdocs wrote: post #189
illegalsmile wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't directed at you but all heavy decade-plus smokers I know say similar things. This makes me wonder, if you've smoked for 30+ years with minor breaks due to football/society how do you really know what your baseline is sober for a long period of time if you started as a young adult?

I have taken many jobs where I had to stop for long periods of time so that I may pass a drug test. Do you really think that in 30 years I was never sober enough to make this determination? This attitude stems from the 'you're a pot smoker, you probably don't know what you're talking about' camp. If the subject was about the effects of tea, we wouldn't see comments like this. For the record, is a person who is on pro…

You sound exactly like an alcoholic.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#194

Post by lrg »

If you manage to utilize cannabis to enhance your life, hats off to you. We can all admit to pursuing that, regardless of the substance of choice (mine being coffee and occasionally, nicotine). That being said, while cannabis use is more or less one of the safer addictions a person can develop, I think it is important to note its potential as a 'reverse gateway' drug. It normalizes smoking and has been found to increase the risk of future nicotine dependency in young adults who had not been exposed to either beforehand. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16185213 Contradictory to this, some people claim that cannabis has helped them quit nicotine by providing a somewhat safer alternative. The studies investigating this are mostly looking into the motives for smoking cigarettes and pot. A friend of mine has been smoking cigarettes for over a decade and has been slowly replacing the tobacco with weed, now only smoking joints rather than spliffs.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#195

Post by dqpb »

mjevans wrote: post #163
andbberger wrote: post #34

Alternative headline: citizens of deeply broken society turn to least harmful drug available to them to dull the pain of their shitty lives.

Exactly that. I strongly believe that those who /do/ use drugs like this are self-medicating to escape the seemingly/maybe actually intractable social issues for which there is no single easy answer or method of escape. Compared to /trying/ to get a good job somewhere and trying to find housing that isn't outrageously over-priced and trying to more or less win the lottery game that is presently life in western societ…

There is an easy answer though. You do what successful humans have done for thousands of years: - educate yourself - join or form a community that supports each other - fight for your survival like every ancestor in your genetic tree did before you.

Life isn't easy. But you also aren't naturally weak. Unfortunately, once you start doing drugs, you risk corrupting the source code of the machine you rely on.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#197

Post by TheForumTroll »

mjevans wrote: post #163
andbberger wrote: post #34

Alternative headline: citizens of deeply broken society turn to least harmful drug available to them to dull the pain of their shitty lives.

Exactly that. I strongly believe that those who /do/ use drugs like this are self-medicating to escape the seemingly/maybe actually intractable social issues for which there is no single easy answer or method of escape. Compared to /trying/ to get a good job somewhere and trying to find housing that isn't outrageously over-priced and trying to more or less win the lottery game that is presently life in western societ…

> trying to more or less win the lottery game that is presently life in western society

This is why the "western society" label doesn't fit on the US. Western society isn't like that generally. The US is a huge outlier.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#198

Post by moorhosj »

pc86 wrote: post #72
mnm1 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty, loneliness, helplessness, hopelessness, lack of other healthcare options, lack of community, overwork, hate by others (racism, sexism, etc.), lack of any say in government, getting fucked over by companies over and over again, etc. I bet all those are top reasons for self-medicating in America. When you're one accident away from being homeless, alone, and have no hope of changing anything about your life, it…

With the exception of healthcare options (and then only for a subset of Americans) none of these are problems unique to American life.

Sure, but the discussion is about the fringes. The US has a higher poverty rate than most other developed nations. Poverty isn’t unique to American life, but it impacts a larger percentage of Americans than in French, Brits or Australians.

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#199

Post by [deleted] »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #145
peterwwillis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One in six Americans takes psychiatric prescription drugs, mostly antidepressants. Weed is basically an antidepressant and pain killer. I think the bigger question is, why are Americans self-medicating so much?

Chemically, cannabinoids are not really antidepressants (which mostly affect the serotonin system) or pain killers (opioids affect the opioid receptors). Cannabinoids have a variety of effects due to the endocannabinoid system, which is naturally occurring in the human physiology and does affect mood, memory, etc. However, it's simply not chemically accurate to call them pain killers or antidepressants, cannabis lies…

[deleted]

Re: More Americans report near-constant cannabis use

#200

Post by iak8god »

Herodotus38 wrote: post #175
omegaworks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With that framing, you're omitting the most important part of the article: All of the most powerful, most predatory actors in that society are gearing up to make that drug more widely available, experiment with its potency, and capitalize on the notion that it is "the least harmful." I'm grateful they quoted a Stanford professor speaking truth: "We’ve learned enough about capitalism to know that’s very dangerous."

I agree with you. When I read articles like this: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/time/5368243/coro... I feel like we are repeating similar mistakes we made with the tobacco industry. That company will be doing everything it can to try and increase cannabis use to make more money. Just like the alcohol and tobacco companies.

> I feel like we are repeating similar mistakes we made with the tobacco industry.

Pot is so much less addictive and damaging to health than tobacco and alcohol, that it makes perfect sense to have it legal and as readily available as those things.

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