Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

hhs.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 352 posts

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#341

Post by dkersten »

emteycz wrote: post #308
dkersten wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From watching chronic weed smoking friends... I do not believe this. If anything, they're much worse and much scarier more dangerous while driving. They definitely should not ever drive high.

Isn't that because they're also thinking they're invincible and can handle it, so the weed usage does not actually cause their driving behavior? At least that's the case with my own acquintances who drive high. As I said, I also don't think it should be allowed to drive high, however the effect long term usage has on a person is genuine, albeit definitely not generalizable - I'm pretty sure the strain is an important…

From my own observations, it was more that their reaction times were much slowed down and their depth and distance perception affected. I know one guy who crashed into a object while high. Luckily he wasn’t driving fast and nobody got hurt.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#342

Post by numismatex »

nenadg wrote: post #45

I smoked weed heavily from my ~16 to ~18. And I stopped because it was so overwhelming experience that I could not stand any more. I couldn't function normally and had really tough trips, thinking about so many end results in the same time. Minutes took hours and basically it was an agony, while everybody had pretty joyful time laughing. Now, I'm 38. I'm functional (so far), I have family with kids. I haven't develop…

I've smoked heavily since 12 years old. I function, and it's helped me with arthritis and PTSD at this point. Sometimes addressing problems with common drugs helps. It definitely changes amygdala response and cerebral blood flow patterns. I think it in general makes people question things, and be better people. I also know it affects motivation, which can be great to quell response to pain, but is detrimental to getting up and out.

Much of it is also habits, related or not. If you aren't taking vitamins, exercising, eating well and isolated from people and things that are detrimental you're obviously not going to have things go smoothly. My family are monsters. It's helped me through it. Or if you're handicapped by mental issues or the like.

I don't buy the psychosis thing, except maybe from edibles. And I absolutely hate to see people stating that it "makes them creative" or other repeated things that they've read or heard somewhere. Oversimplification and lack of education about it is common. Some people just don't handle it well, or are nudged into craziness. Too many people I know didn't read up on what they were getting into with cannabis and psychedelics and want to be into it to be cool, or fit in. I used to smoke to get high. Now I smoke for pain relief.

I'm 38 too.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#343

Post by numismatex »

brilliantmind wrote: post #312
DenisM wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you considered that there might be a huge population of people out there who smoked weed and did not develop any problems, thus never coming into your orbit? And your observation could be easily explained in reverse: "I have witnessed secondhand that people who were susceptible to anxiety, agitation, paranoia, and psychosis due to {trauma|genetics|isolation|etc} and other misfortunes in life were also likely to…

At this point, if you ignore all the evidence that points at long term effects on cognition from marihuana consumption, it's more your conscious decision rather than lack of data.

At this point if you ignore all the evidence that these people have anxiety, or were in otherwise shitty environments and states in the first place, whether genetic nature or nurture you might want to just say we're collating and correlating rather than finding causes. Conscious decision my ass.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#344

Post by emteycz »

dkersten wrote: post #341
emteycz wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that because they're also thinking they're invincible and can handle it, so the weed usage does not actually cause their driving behavior? At least that's the case with my own acquintances who drive high. As I said, I also don't think it should be allowed to drive high, however the effect long term usage has on a person is genuine, albeit definitely not generalizable - I'm pretty sure the strain is an important…

From my own observations, it was more that their reaction times were much slowed down and their depth and distance perception affected. I know one guy who crashed into a object while high. Luckily he wasn’t driving fast and nobody got hurt.

By the way, the Czech police says "you can spot a high driver by how unusually carefully they drive".

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#345

Post by ulisesrmzroche »

dkersten wrote: post #339
ulisesrmzroche wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t even know what opioids do, do you? Hint; it’s the withdrawal.

Just because something doesn’t have physical withdrawal or isn’t as severe doesn’t mean that it isn’t addiction or isn’t a problem. Your argument is akin to saying that you can’t complain about something if someone else is worse off than you, which is just bullshit. People who are addicted to, eg, gambling, can still have their lives destroyed.

You don’t even know what opioid withdrawal is or why it’s an epidemic

Pain receptors. Get it?

Literally and figuratively clueless

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#346

Post by LocalH »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #174
romansul wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless the federal government wants to get into a serious fight over state’s rights, weed is effectively/wholly legal in states like California (I don’t know the specific laws outside of CA) If you’d like to argue that the federal government - through the supremacy clause - has the power to override States that legalize marijuana, perhaps you’re right in theory. But I think it’s a fantasy that the federal government…

It sounds like we're using different definitions of the word "illegal". It's unfortunate that English makes it cumbersome to draw the necessary distinction.

Given that the federal government has consistently grabbed more power than our founding documents actually gave them, forgive me for not really giving a shit what the federal government's opinion is.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#347

Post by LocalH »

wannabcodr wrote: post #262
0000011111 wrote: post #180

If we compare the effects of Marijuana on people to those of alcohol and or Oxycodone, I think it is clear to most that the latter two are more destructive. I agree more research is needed on the effects of Marijuana use on people in general. And we need to keep the risk factors in perspective. Many more people will die, hurt others and become addicted to alcohol and or Oxycodone than marijuana. So put that beer down…

You would think this to be universally good advice based on the risks related to alcohol intoxication and alcoholism, but it’s not. Some people would do better to not smoke weed and instead drink moderately and socially.

It's almost like instead of outright banning all of these substances, there needs to be heavy research into them, with a goal of harm reduction.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#348

Post by LocalH »

MiroF wrote: post #270
rosser wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do a lot of work with psychedelics. I'm very, very well aware of the power of consciousness-altering chemicals to have profound effects. That's kind of the whole point of using them. They should be respected but I don't see how that implies they should be feared . EDIT: Phrasing

Putting weed and hard psychedelics in the same category is silly imo. The strength of a drug like LSD takes my breath away compared to something like pot.

I wouldn't call LSD a "hard psychedelic". Potent, maybe, but not "hard".

If anything, a more dissociative substance such as salvia would be more along what I'd call a "hard" one. Or perhaps 5-MeO-DMT.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#349

Post by LocalH »

mrosett wrote: post #83
umvi wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we stop with the downplaying when it comes to drugs? Drugs should be guilty until proven innocent. Comments like these attempt to make them innocent until proven guilty. History has shown that there are very few "safe" recreational drugs. This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage. "My mom died of cancer from smoking tobacco" "Sorry about your mom, but I want…

I'm looking forward to people talking about "Big Weed" in 20 years with the contempt currently reserved for "Big Tobacco."

It won't be weed's fault when that's the case. Weed is a lot different from tobacco in every way.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#350

Post by 693471 »

umvi wrote: post #144
693471 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we all keep ignoring that the booze industry has worked tirelessly to make sure we use the phrase "drugs and alcohol" so alcohol isn't recognized as a drug by most of the population

Is the booze industry doing that? Or do people do that as a form of rationalization to convince themselves that they aren't regular drug users?

Yes, and even more damning is the language used by DARE:

> D.A.R.E. America's Commitment to Prevention In its 35 year history, D.A.R.E. America has constantly improved its science and evidence based education programs to provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to resist drugs, alcohol, and other high risk behaviors.

Alcohol gets classified as separate from drugs. Wouldn't want kids telling their parents to not do drugs, right? And if their parents drink, that would just signal drugs are OK... etc etc

Post reply on HN