7 ms·

I wonder how much the current 'marijuana is good for you' attitude resembles the 'smoking is good for you' attitude in the past? NB: I think all drugs should b

I wonder how much the current 'marijuana is good for you' attitude resembles the 'smoking is good for you' attitude in the past? NB: I think all drugs should be legalised so this isn't an anti-drugs post.

maxerickson 10y ago
Don't most of the people espousing that attitude acknowledge that the smoking part has negative consequences? Hence vaping and edibles and such?
- rascul 10y ago
  There have been studies in the past few years showing that the health risk from smoking perhaps isn't as bad as was commonly believed. Here's one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25521349 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25521349
  - ionised 10y ago
    The problem in the weed health impact debate is that you'll likely find just as many studies showing higher risks as those showing lesser risks.
    - rascul 10y ago
      Unfortunately this is true and it may be difficult to weed out which studies are both unbiased and conclusive, if any do exist.
- k-mcgrady 10y ago
  I actually expanded upon my comment to cover that and it didn't post. Smoking it we can all agree isn't good for our lungs. However I wonder about the long term mental impact on regular users. The only ones I've known (and we're talking a couple of people so not a big sample) regularly lose focus and zone out when I talked to them (and they were sober). We look at cigarettes and alcohol as indulgences. We know they cause damage so we make a choice to accept that or enjoy them occasionally. Marijuana talk tends to be focussed around health benefits still and at one time this was the same for alcohol and cigarettes. For example we don't look at daily marijuana users the same way we would alcohol users.
  - derekp7 10y ago
    I've had the same observation, that the people I know who smoke pot always seem to have that typical dunceness about them. But then I've wondered if the cause and effect is reversed -- maybe it is people who already have these cognitive attributes are more likely to be predisposed to smoking pot?
    - ionised 10y ago
      Anecdotally, this slowness/lethargy/lack of focus is one of the two reasons I quit smoking weed years ago. The other reason being the gradually mounting paranoia eventually culminating in what I can only describe as a paranoid anxiety attack. The day that happened I quit. I'm pro-legalisation but I abused it and ruined it for myself. Many others do too, all the while espousing its complete lack of drawbacks, which I find irritating.
    - mercer 10y ago
      I'm sure that's at least a partial explanation. I've met quite a few people who struck me as stoners who only 'picked up the habit' later on. I've also met regular smokers who don't conform to the stereotypes. That said, I personally don't feel comfortable indulging in something chronically that has such pronounced effect on my mental abilities. Even if it has no long-term physical consequences, the habit (and what comes with it: junk food, junk tv, lethargy, etc.) itself can't be ideal.
      - goldfeld 10y ago
        That may explain part of your negative bias. I barely eat during or after (munchies are emotional in nature), don't have TV, dropped net/phone addiction (far more insidious an evil in this age), and usually get high to sing, compose on the guitar, dance, stretch, sometimes some light programming.. I do it every day. It's about what you do with it, isn't it? Get high every day to be a vegetable: train to become better vegetable. I'd rather train useful skills when I'm in a THC rush of relaxed flow.
        10y ago
- ionised 10y ago
  I've witnessed countless pro-legalisation fundamentalists that absolutely refuse to believe smoking cannabis has any negative effect whatsoever, phsyically or mentally. As someone who smoked it heavily for around 10 years (don't anymore) I know it can have negative effects. I witnessed them in myself and in the people around me at the time. I'm pro-legalisation myself, but can't help roll my eyes at these 'potheads' that give the case for legalisation a bad name.
  - MOARDONGZPLZ 10y ago
    I've also been intrigued by this. I have never smoked any substance, but I don't care if others do at all, really. I acknowledge the benefits of it, but when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident.
    - JadeNB 10y ago
      > when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the excellent responses! (The detailed discussions below are far more interesting than my question, I think.) To be clear (since I am "submitting too fast" to reply to comments below), lest I sound like some kind of denier, when I say "I don't have any evidence either way", I mean literally that—just that I haven't bothered to get any, not that there isn't any.
      - saiya-jin 10y ago
        burning any organic material, and most others produce carcinogens. hence vaping - heating material to boiling temperature of pot resin while not burning rest of the plant, in ideal conditions.
      - Karunamon 10y ago
Synaesthesia 10y ago
Tobacco is carcinogenic, even if chewed or sucked, and lacks any legitimate medical use. However Cannabis has many medicinal uses, is very safe and non-toxic with no signs that it causes cancer. I don't think that smoking weed is necessarily good though - I would recommend vaporizing it.
- tptacek 10y ago
  It seems pretty unlikely that cannabis smoking is significantly safer than tobacco smoking for lung health, and far more likely that the gap in outcomes in the literature is due to the difficulty (historically) of doing studies on the same scale as the tobacco studies. We seem too ready to forget that the cancer/tobacco link was itself once controversial.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    I think this issue is muddied by conflating two different questions. 1. Tobacco itself is quite carcinogenic. Snuff, chew, gutka, and any other means of consumption all have strong cancer links. Cannabis, as I understand it, is not nearly as carcinogenic as that. 2. Smoking is also, separately, carcinogenic. Regularly breathing dense smoke is terrible for your lungs, even if you're smoking dried lettuce. I think it's pretty well established that via 2, smoking cannabis is bad for you. If it's less bad than tobacco, that's as likely to be usage habits as anything. But people are still arguing fairly extensively over 1 - tobacco is a known carcinogen no matter how you ingest it, but I'm not sure that's a settled question for cannabis.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > If it's less bad than tobacco, that's as likely to be usage habits as anything. If by "usage habits" you mean "usual quantities of material smoked and inhaled", then, sure, that's probably a pretty big difference. Now, legality (and, price, which is strongly influenced by legality) plays some role in that, but the inherent nature of the effects of each drug and their concentrations in the material that is smoked also play a pretty big role.
    - 10y ago
Bman456456 10y ago
I knew this post would be here, haha. There is some evidence that THC has some anti-cancerous properties that could make this different. There is also a lung specialist (Taskin) who researched it and it went against his original hypothesis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821 One thing to note, is that people tend to smoke a lot less cannabis than they do tobacco. More research needs to be done and hopefully it will be coming soon.
yodsanklai 10y ago
I'm also a little bit bothered by the 'marijuana is good for you' attitude that we see in the US. It seems that in order to prove that it's not bad, people go to the opposite direction. The reality is more nuanced than good/bad. It may not be as bad as tobacco or alcohol, but it is potentially harmful (I know many people whose lives have been very negatively impacted by long-term cannabis consumption). I also find it surprising to see how it is sometimes depicted very positively in mainstream TV series.
- throwaway7767 10y ago
  Marijuana is not harmless, nothing is. But relative to other drugs (including legal ones) its harm potential is very limited. I wish the discussion were a bit more nuanced than "Marijuana is evil!" "No, marijuana is awesome and everyone should smoke it all the time!" > I also find it surprising to see how it is sometimes depicted very positively in mainstream TV series. Why? Most peoples experiences with marijuana are positive. That doesn't mean it's harmless, but not every show on television has to be part of some drug-prevention propaganda.
ceilingscorpion 10y ago
> [tobacco's] virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet the latter are many and great. To quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and partial thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked brain; to counteract the effects of physical exhaustion Read that and my immediate thought was "Huh, I've heard this argument before."

maxerickson 10y ago

Don't most of the people espousing that attitude acknowledge that the smoking part has negative consequences? Hence vaping and edibles and such?

rascul 10y ago
There have been studies in the past few years showing that the health risk from smoking perhaps isn't as bad as was commonly believed. Here's one: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25521349 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25521349
- ionised 10y ago
  The problem in the weed health impact debate is that you'll likely find just as many studies showing higher risks as those showing lesser risks.
  - rascul 10y ago
    Unfortunately this is true and it may be difficult to weed out which studies are both unbiased and conclusive, if any do exist.
k-mcgrady 10y ago
I actually expanded upon my comment to cover that and it didn't post. Smoking it we can all agree isn't good for our lungs. However I wonder about the long term mental impact on regular users. The only ones I've known (and we're talking a couple of people so not a big sample) regularly lose focus and zone out when I talked to them (and they were sober). We look at cigarettes and alcohol as indulgences. We know they cause damage so we make a choice to accept that or enjoy them occasionally. Marijuana talk tends to be focussed around health benefits still and at one time this was the same for alcohol and cigarettes. For example we don't look at daily marijuana users the same way we would alcohol users.
- derekp7 10y ago
  I've had the same observation, that the people I know who smoke pot always seem to have that typical dunceness about them. But then I've wondered if the cause and effect is reversed -- maybe it is people who already have these cognitive attributes are more likely to be predisposed to smoking pot?
  - ionised 10y ago
    Anecdotally, this slowness/lethargy/lack of focus is one of the two reasons I quit smoking weed years ago. The other reason being the gradually mounting paranoia eventually culminating in what I can only describe as a paranoid anxiety attack. The day that happened I quit. I'm pro-legalisation but I abused it and ruined it for myself. Many others do too, all the while espousing its complete lack of drawbacks, which I find irritating.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I'm sure that's at least a partial explanation. I've met quite a few people who struck me as stoners who only 'picked up the habit' later on. I've also met regular smokers who don't conform to the stereotypes. That said, I personally don't feel comfortable indulging in something chronically that has such pronounced effect on my mental abilities. Even if it has no long-term physical consequences, the habit (and what comes with it: junk food, junk tv, lethargy, etc.) itself can't be ideal.
    - goldfeld 10y ago
      That may explain part of your negative bias. I barely eat during or after (munchies are emotional in nature), don't have TV, dropped net/phone addiction (far more insidious an evil in this age), and usually get high to sing, compose on the guitar, dance, stretch, sometimes some light programming.. I do it every day. It's about what you do with it, isn't it? Get high every day to be a vegetable: train to become better vegetable. I'd rather train useful skills when I'm in a THC rush of relaxed flow.
      - 10y ago
ionised 10y ago
I've witnessed countless pro-legalisation fundamentalists that absolutely refuse to believe smoking cannabis has any negative effect whatsoever, phsyically or mentally. As someone who smoked it heavily for around 10 years (don't anymore) I know it can have negative effects. I witnessed them in myself and in the people around me at the time. I'm pro-legalisation myself, but can't help roll my eyes at these 'potheads' that give the case for legalisation a bad name.
- MOARDONGZPLZ 10y ago
  I've also been intrigued by this. I have never smoked any substance, but I don't care if others do at all, really. I acknowledge the benefits of it, but when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    > when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the excellent responses! (The detailed discussions below are far more interesting than my question, I think.) To be clear (since I am "submitting too fast" to reply to comments below), lest I sound like some kind of denier, when I say "I don't have any evidence either way", I mean literally that—just that I haven't bothered to get any, not that there isn't any.
    - saiya-jin 10y ago
      burning any organic material, and most others produce carcinogens. hence vaping - heating material to boiling temperature of pot resin while not burning rest of the plant, in ideal conditions.
    - Karunamon 10y ago

Synaesthesia 10y ago

Tobacco is carcinogenic, even if chewed or sucked, and lacks any legitimate medical use. However Cannabis has many medicinal uses, is very safe and non-toxic with no signs that it causes cancer. I don't think that smoking weed is necessarily good though - I would recommend vaporizing it.

tptacek 10y ago
It seems pretty unlikely that cannabis smoking is significantly safer than tobacco smoking for lung health, and far more likely that the gap in outcomes in the literature is due to the difficulty (historically) of doing studies on the same scale as the tobacco studies. We seem too ready to forget that the cancer/tobacco link was itself once controversial.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  I think this issue is muddied by conflating two different questions. 1. Tobacco itself is quite carcinogenic. Snuff, chew, gutka, and any other means of consumption all have strong cancer links. Cannabis, as I understand it, is not nearly as carcinogenic as that. 2. Smoking is also, separately, carcinogenic. Regularly breathing dense smoke is terrible for your lungs, even if you're smoking dried lettuce. I think it's pretty well established that via 2, smoking cannabis is bad for you. If it's less bad than tobacco, that's as likely to be usage habits as anything. But people are still arguing fairly extensively over 1 - tobacco is a known carcinogen no matter how you ingest it, but I'm not sure that's a settled question for cannabis.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > If it's less bad than tobacco, that's as likely to be usage habits as anything. If by "usage habits" you mean "usual quantities of material smoked and inhaled", then, sure, that's probably a pretty big difference. Now, legality (and, price, which is strongly influenced by legality) plays some role in that, but the inherent nature of the effects of each drug and their concentrations in the material that is smoked also play a pretty big role.
  - 10y ago

Bman456456 10y ago

I knew this post would be here, haha. There is some evidence that THC has some anti-cancerous properties that could make this different. There is also a lung specialist (Taskin) who researched it and it went against his original hypothesis. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23802821 One thing to note, is that people tend to smoke a lot less cannabis than they do tobacco. More research needs to be done and hopefully it will be coming soon.

yodsanklai 10y ago

I'm also a little bit bothered by the 'marijuana is good for you' attitude that we see in the US. It seems that in order to prove that it's not bad, people go to the opposite direction. The reality is more nuanced than good/bad. It may not be as bad as tobacco or alcohol, but it is potentially harmful (I know many people whose lives have been very negatively impacted by long-term cannabis consumption). I also find it surprising to see how it is sometimes depicted very positively in mainstream TV series.

throwaway7767 10y ago
Marijuana is not harmless, nothing is. But relative to other drugs (including legal ones) its harm potential is very limited. I wish the discussion were a bit more nuanced than "Marijuana is evil!" "No, marijuana is awesome and everyone should smoke it all the time!" > I also find it surprising to see how it is sometimes depicted very positively in mainstream TV series. Why? Most peoples experiences with marijuana are positive. That doesn't mean it's harmless, but not every show on television has to be part of some drug-prevention propaganda.

ceilingscorpion 10y ago

> [tobacco's] virtues rarely get a hearing, and yet the latter are many and great. To quiet nervous rest; to soothe a ruffled temper; to favour calm and partial thought; to steady and clear (not to cloud) a confused, overworked brain; to counteract the effects of physical exhaustion Read that and my immediate thought was "Huh, I've heard this argument before."