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When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

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Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#401

Post by thecatspaw »

Maskawanian wrote: post #396
thecatspaw wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Faster Reactions? I havent noticed any difference in how fast I recognize changes between me and coworkers. If at all, I seem to miss changes more often, as my mind usually goes "was that allways like that? I guess so", since recall of memories can be pretty flaky

Well such is the nature of anecdotal experiences. I've noticed, that I react faster then others. No idea how universal this correlation is.

I doubt that it relates to adhd, I only found studies showing an increased reaction time, but Id be happy to be proven wrong.

Average seems to be 0.25 seconds, if I remember correctly a online test I did at home put me at 0.28, just sliightly over average

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#402

Post by gnulinux »

macspoofing wrote: post #387
gnulinux wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drug experimenting is not dangerous at all. If you know how to read, you can read studies about these drugs. Drugs like weed, alcohol, LSD, tobacco are extremely well-tested and we know most short-term/long-term effects on adult humans. If you decided to experiment with something known to be toxic to humans (like cigarettes), then that's on you. If you read studies claiming pot to be safe, and you're not convinced, t…

>Drug experimenting is not dangerous at all. No problems with 13 year-olds trying heroin? >If you read studies claiming pot to be safe, and you're not convinced, then don't smoke it. Pot isn't safe for kids, and there are multitudes of studies that show this. Will it hurt if a kid does something dumb once or twice? No. But habitual use is disastrous, from a brain developmental standpoint, mental health, and the sheer…

I never said "it's natural for kids to smoke pot" or never suggesting something even remotely close to a 13 year old trying heroin OR even an adult trying heroin. Sorry but I'm done with this conversation since you have bunch of strawmen you really want to fight.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#403

Post by freedomben »

tachyonbeam wrote: post #324
BurningFrog wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think we can treat pot as totally harmless for people under 30 and teens in particular because it seems like it's very harmful for some. You're right, of course. But the same is true of peanuts.

The problem is that the discourse right now is extremely polarized, following the left/right divide in politics. You have people on the right claiming that pot will automatically ruin your life, and (some) people on the left pretending it's completely benign and almost a panacea. I once watched a "documentary" claiming that pot cures cancer! I kid you not. The fact is, it's a substance that affects different people d…

I agree with you that it is extremely polarized, but disagree that it follows the left/right divide in politics.

I have many friends and family on all sides of the spectrum, and there are many conservatives that have opinions like, "it's not for me, but I don't care what you do with your body" (not a typical conservative position IMHO, but becoming more common). I've also been hearing the "I support medical, but not recreational." Even here in Utah, a very conservative state, we are close to legalizing medical cannabis with prop 2.

On the progressive side I've been starting to hear people saying more and more that the evidence is incomplete, and therefore the government needs to consider regulating it much more heavily or wait to legalize until more science is done.

Of course, those are not the stereotypical views, but it's one of the issues that seems to cross left/right divides a lot more than others.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#404

Post by ghostly_s »

framebit wrote: post #278

A therapist friend recently attended a conference where a big group of doctors and health professionals focused around adolescents presented on the link between pot and the development of psychosis and even schizophrenia in users under age 32 or something like that. I've definitely heard about this colloquially with people reacting very differently to the same strain ("we were all fine but she was just freaking out")…

I'm not an expert on this though my father is, and from my recollection of our conversations I believe schizophrenia being latent until some trauma 'triggers' it in young adulthood is a quite common pattern, especially in men. Drug use is just one of many events that can induce this, and I don't believe it's in line with current clinical understanding to say that "door" "may have stayed shut otherwise".

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#405

Post by ghostly_s »

zahrc wrote: post #377
bitzun wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun anecdote, my Bipolar disorder didn't manifest itself until immediately after the first time I consumed marijuana, and it is now a lifetime endeavor.

I know a lot of people who tried out marijuana as a medication for depression. (well, illegal / no prescription) It helped in the beginning, but most of them just became addicted, paranoid and incredible slow thinkers and figuratively numb. Depression is hell, but it's not worth giving up your sanity and intellect.

There is no evidence that marijuana is addictive or has lasting deleterious effects on intelligence. Your anecdata is not evidence.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#406

Post by moate »

simion314 wrote: post #360
moate wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is the carbon on cooked foods. It's not good to breath solid carbon particles into your lungs, or ingest them into your body. But most people find it reasonable to cook food, because it tastes better. That's not to say that these aren't things people should be aware of. They should know this and it will help them make the adult choices they want (smoke vs consumables vs other methods). Just so you know, yes, smoki…

I am not a smoker so I do not know the details but isn't electronic cigarettes better because they have no smoke, the smoke is the main bad part? I may be wrong and tabacoo causes cancer even without the smoke? If pot is legalized it should have same packaging as cigarettes that tells clear that smoke causes cancer, and also should tell all the side effects (because I see here on HN how good weed is, especially for c…

Vaporizing is better than smoking because it creates fewer carbon particles. Also there's fewer carcinogens (we're pretty sure on this one, but people like to argue about it) in pot than in tobacco. Another point is that you don't need to inhale at all, you could ingest since THC is alcohol and fat soluble. Many people find this to be a good way to imbibe because it's a more controlled dosage (if I use 1 LB of the same type of weed to make my edibles, each cookie should have the same effect on me vs smoking which is always some level of guess work)

The packaging would likely exist as it does for all drugs/controlled substances with a lot of warnings about health risks and impaired driving. There is MUCH hand wringing about making sure everyone is WELL aware that just because it's legal doesn't mean it's good.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#407

Post by eternalban »

adventured wrote: post #388
zahrc wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people who tried out marijuana as a medication for depression. (well, illegal / no prescription) It helped in the beginning, but most of them just became addicted, paranoid and incredible slow thinkers and figuratively numb. Depression is hell, but it's not worth giving up your sanity and intellect.

I'm a big supporter of legalization, because I think prohibition is dramatically worse than any negatives from people smoking pot (similar to alcohol, etc). That said, the two friends of mine that were the heaviest smokers, saw dramatic improvements in their lives in the few years immediately following giving up smoking pot. Both in terms of health and professional success. They were recreational smokers, rather than…

> I think prohibition is dramatically worse than any negatives from people smoking pot (similar to alcohol, etc).

Alcohol has been an integral part of Western civilization for quite a while now. Prohibition on alcohol is in no way comparable to prohibition on pot [in terms of its impact]. Why do you think its prohibition is "dramatically" worse than making this mind altering substance generally available?

[secret handshake disclaimer: I liked Spliff and I don't mean just the band.]

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#408

Post by newnewpdro »

Marijuana interferes with forming new memories, it's a pretty well known effect. Just try having a conversation with someone stoned, you're lucky if they can remember what the subject is one sentence later.

Obviously this effect isn't going to complement one's academic life, especially in the early stages where it's mostly rote memorization and testing.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#409

Post by ndarwincorn »

ghostly_s wrote: post #405
zahrc wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of people who tried out marijuana as a medication for depression. (well, illegal / no prescription) It helped in the beginning, but most of them just became addicted, paranoid and incredible slow thinkers and figuratively numb. Depression is hell, but it's not worth giving up your sanity and intellect.

There is no evidence that marijuana is addictive or has lasting deleterious effects on intelligence. Your anecdata is not evidence.

> There is no evidence that marijuana is addictive

Yeah that's misleading at best.

Re: When Adolescents Give Up Pot, Their Cognition Quickly Improves

#410

Post by joveian »

Balero wrote: post #86
Waterluvian wrote: post #67

Maybe this is too reductionist but I once heard someone describe it as, "there's nothing fundamentally dangerous about pot, but one of its (often intended) effects is that is slows our engines down. And some of us need to be firing on all cylinders." School was a tricky time for me. I'm thriving intellectually now, but I was a C- student pretty much 4th-12th grade. I needed those cycles that pot would have robbed me…

South Park put it quite well: "Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, 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 creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything."

"most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism"

This isn't true, unfortunately (at least in the US and I suspect much of the world) unless you are getting it legally or know the source. The US does grow quite a bit of illegal marijuana but there is also quite a bit imported by Mexican cartels and I have seen articles about how legalization is having a non-trivial financial impact on cartels, such as:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/03/legal...

For detailed reporting on cartels in Mexico see Borderland Beat: http://www.borderlandbeat.com/

Yes, you can say this is due to it being illegal and you would be right, but we shouldn't ignore what is actually being funded by US illegal drug consumption.

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