Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus • Hacker News Board

Re: Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus

#91

Post by Felminor » Sat, Mar 11, 2023, 8:43 AM UTC

mrtranscendence wrote: post #38

Felminor wrote: post #8

What's that? '. Their cognitive decline may have altered employment opportunities for which they were qualified, but they were in no way demented. Yet.' Who writes like that? Also I have insomnia and ADHD and I'm pretty sure weed does help and allowed me to do more not less. Without it I'm super tired already at Thursday. And yes I lived long enough without it and it was like this before my weed use not after.

Interesting. I have ADHD and find that smoking weed makes my symptoms noticeably worse. Depending on how high I get, I find myself largely unable to focus, or even to complete thoughts without becoming distracted. This seems to persist after I'm no longer high -- even many hours after smoking I still find myself less able to stay on task. If you're of the hyperactive type I could possibly see some benefits? As an ina…

I'm very restless normally.

Enough weed and I'm not keeping myself awake.

But I only eat a cookie before bed

Re: Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus

#92

Post by yehosef » Sun, Mar 12, 2023, 1:52 PM UTC

I think that part of the suspicion of research like this comes from years of complete lies about the dangers of cannabis. The fact that is still classified as a schedule-1 drug even though we know that it's nowhere near as dangerous as it was claimed.

It's also important to note what affect cannabis has on the pharma-industries. It's a "weed" that can help cure a huge variety of serious issues with far less cost, side-effects and risks than prescription drugs. Given the influence of the big-pharm on medical publications and research, I assume some people will be suspicious of any research which says anything bad about something that might affect their bottom line.

I'm not saying these arguments are valid for this article, just explaining another angle why some people might be suspicious.

Re: Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus

#93

Post by clbrmbr » Mon, Mar 13, 2023, 10:23 AM UTC

gaganyaan wrote: post #84

clbrmbr wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer duration and fat solubility of canabinoids makes the alcohol comparison difficult. Many people have a glass of red wine with dinner daily, and are not drunk in the daytime, but even very light cannabis consumption nightly seems to result in a permanent low-level stonnedness.

Do you have a source for permanent low level stonedness? TBH that sounds completely made up.

I did not intend that as an empirical observation but rather a mathematical pharmacokinetic result of fat-solubility rather than water-solubility. THC is fat-soluble and so has a higher volume of distribution which drives a longer half-life.

(See Shulgin “The Nature of Drugs” pg 132)

And “constant” would be a better word than “permanent”, as certainly it should go away after some weeks of abstinence.

Re: Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus

#94

Post by armitron » Tue, Mar 14, 2023, 3:09 AM UTC

starkd wrote: post #89

nebulousthree wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of your experience with cannabis is telling. If you're frustrated with not being able to hold a thought for more than 5 seconds, then that might mean that you went into it with expectations of how it should go, and then spent your time being high trying to retain the "control" you had sober and bring those expectations to reality. This is a common mistake. The good parts of cannabis come from letting…

But theoretically, the cannabis should have helped that. I also felt a lot of nerve twitches all over. It might have been too high THC, but it was not an experience that I cared to repeat. For the kind of experience you are talking about, I would think psychadelics would probably be the better fit.

If you have control problems with cannabis, I suggest you stay well away from psychedelics. Everything that you mentioned regarding your cannabis experience is something that you learn to integrate and eventually move past, to super-creative super-introspective states that you can harness for growth and value. You can learn to guide the experience while you're undergoing it.

Psychedelics are in a different class in that there is no guiding the experience while it's happening. The best one can do is prepare the context (set & setting) and hope for the best. In that sense, they're a lot more difficult to handle than cannabis, but also potentially orders of magnitude more rewarding. But to reap those rewards, I feel that one needs to deploy -if only temporarily- a different model of looking at the world: more like a shaman treating the substances like sacraments, with awe and respect, than a cold rationalist.

Re: Long-Term Cannabis Use, Cognitive Decline, and the Hippocampus

#95

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 25, 2023, 3:49 AM UTC

clbrmbr wrote: post #93

gaganyaan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for permanent low level stonedness? TBH that sounds completely made up.

I did not intend that as an empirical observation but rather a mathematical pharmacokinetic result of fat-solubility rather than water-solubility. THC is fat-soluble and so has a higher volume of distribution which drives a longer half-life. (See Shulgin “The Nature of Drugs” pg 132) And “constant” would be a better word than “permanent”, as certainly it should go away after some weeks of abstinence.

[deleted]