8 ms·

Is Marijuana as Safe as We Think?

63 points by gringoDan 8y ago

lewisflude 8y ago
Anecdotally I've seen multiple friend's mental health deteriorate while smoking weed consistently. In more than one case, they had a history of mental illness in the family. This could just be a correlation.
- bjt2n3904 8y ago
  Here to report two more cases of mental health decline with family history of mental illness.
- southphillyman 8y ago
  Same. I remember reading somewhere that it can trigger latent mental illness in some individuals.
- sv123 8y ago
  My mental health greatly improves while smoking cannabis.
  - lewisflude 8y ago
    That's good! I don't doubt that the same thing that could hurt someone could help someone else. The mind is a really complex thing. I think cannabis does have a lot of medical merit.
- thanatos_dem 8y ago
  Anecdotally, marijuana has been an amazing improvement to my mental health. I have suffered from insomnia my entire life. Then two years ago, my job got significantly more stressful and I began having panic attacks. I was perscribed Lorazepam in case of future attacks, but the potential side effects were terrifying (you may just suddenly die in certain circumstances), so I was scared to take it. Enter medicinal marijuana. I’m now part of the “smoke weed every day” lifestyle, except with edibles because my apartment doesn’t allow smoking. 20mg CBD, 5mg THC, about 2 hours before I want to sleep. Accept that I’m not going out for the rest of the night, work on some side projects, watch some TV, and then go to sleep waking up refreshed, no hangover or grogginess. Only real detrimental effect I’ve observed is a reduction in my short term memory. So I started keeping a proper notebook and calendar to compensate for that. After a couple of days of not consuming, my memory seems to return to normal, so I’m not too worried about long term effects there, but I would absolutely love to see more clinical trials around it.
  - jryan49 8y ago
    > I was perscribed Lorazepam in case of future attacks,but the potential side effects were terrifying (you may just suddenly die in certain circumstances) Saying that a therapeutic doze of lorazepam is going to make you "suddenly die", is a great exaggeration. Panic attacks are best fixed with a combination of drugs and CBT. So maybe try adding CBT to your drugs to wean off of it.
    - thanatos_dem 8y ago
      I know it’s an exaggeration, but it’s also a (small) possibility. Believe it or not I’m not at my most rational in the middle of a panic attack ‍️
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Ehh most people I’ve seen already had preexisting issues. Marijuana was their way to cope or suppress it, just like how some people do with alcohol or really any other drug.
  - insickness 8y ago
    In other words, they self-medicate with marijuana.
- hbosch 8y ago
  I have a family member who is addicted to cannabis. Maybe not in the same way that opiate or alcohol addicts are physically addicted, but this person smokes all day long from a small vape. First thing in the morning, all day, every night before bed. He sneaks it on to airplanes and smokes it in flight. He smokes it in public places and other peoples cars, like Uber’s. Without it, he’s irritable and short tempered. Without it he has no appetite and can’t eat. He does it at work and while he’s driving. I used to smoke weed. I’m older now and it makes me antisocial, so I stopped. But I always was (and remain) pro-legalization, but I’ve reflected on its danger as an abusable substance and can now recognize that its addictive — even if just in lifestyle.
- honkycat 8y ago
  Anecdotally, I really enjoy smoking weed and know dozens of daily users whose use has a minimal impact on their mential health. I personally use weed and it makes me relax, helps with my insomnia and lack of appetite. It's similar to World of Warcraft: Weed isn't the problem. It's the easy escapism that is the problem.
- tabs_masterrace 8y ago
  I'm no expert, but I think weed definitely promotes psychotic thoughts. More so, the stronger the THC content, and the longer and frequent the use of it. In very rare cases this can trigger Psychosis, but in most people it will not. Rather what you tend see in daily smokers is a attitude of mild delusional distrust, often leaning towards conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, etc. Since many are not aware of any unreasonable thought patterns, it may be seen as a mild form of psychosis. It goes away only 1-3 days after stopping consuming it though. But I think it's worth keeping an eye on, in this day and age, we really don't need more people following misguided errands.
  - brokenmachine 8y ago
    > attitude of mild delusional distrust, often leaning towards conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, etc Almost every article here on hn is about how some entity is spying on you, hacking you, or selling your data. Just because I'm paranoid, don't mean they're not after me.
  - plmu 8y ago
    Once you know that, you can resist these thoughts. The first few times I used it, it seemed like learning to drive a bycicle as a small kid for the first time. Once you learn how not too fall, it becomes trivial. If it were legal, like alcohol, people would better be able to deal with it. Even if not 100% harmless, prohibition is not helpful, for (almost) noone.
- makewavesnotwar 8y ago
  Could you expand on what you mean by "seen multiple friend's mental health deteriorate"? Also don't be so quick to assume there's a legitimate correlation... it could be sampling/observational error.
  - lewisflude 8y ago
    I'm referring to increased symptoms of anxiety, psychosis and increasing normalisation of weed as an every day thing. I specifically mean smoking weed, watching TV and living a more "relaxed" lifestyle (which isn't inherently bad) over doing things that might me seen as productive, both in a traditional sense (school, work) and in a personal development sense (hobbies, friendships, health). I know that there's a very big chance that it's just a correlation, and not a causation. In these specific cases, it really did feel like weed did make things a lot worse. There were long stretches of time where one of my friends in particular would stop smoking (conscious decision) and mental health stuff would get better. Note: I'm pro legalisation.
esahione 8y ago
Does it really matter? Is alcohol safe? Are most medications safe? Breathing is not safe either. Living on earth as well; small rocks from outerspace have created mass extinctions over and over. The universe isn't safe and I don't want to be safe; I want to be happy. You know what doesn't make me happy? The possibility of going to jail over something that hurts nobody. So take your safe space and put it in that spot in your mind that is labeled "wishful thinking". Edit: Note that anyone that is trying to argue the point of the article with me is missing out the point: it doesn't matter if it is safe or not, it is my choice to do it. Just like it would be my choice to take my own life away. Or to get an abortion (if I was a woman). It is not up to you, government, or society to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body and whether I should feel bad about it or not. So yeah, while you can argue whether it is safe or not, it doesn't really matter. Going to jail is definitely less safe than smoking pot.
- cirgue 8y ago
  > Does it really matter? Is alcohol safe? Are most medications safe? Yeah, it does. It matters a hell of a lot that alcohol isn't safe, and there are a whole bunch of very well-known problems associated with using it regularly. Same for most medications. Many aren't super safe, and there is a fair bit of research and information dissemination required to make sure doctors and patients know the costs and benefits. When we fail at doing that, it causes a lot of harm to a lot of people. You should be able to make your own call, and that means knowing. The really creepy thing about this conversation is that there is a shitload of money to be made by concealing the hazards of marijuana use, just as there is for alcohol and cigarettes.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    there are a whole bunch of very well-known problems associated with using it regularly. Are you at all inclined to share sources of this? After reading this long article posted that essentially says "we don't have enough evidence, there's not enough studies being done", someone saying there are well-known problems has me wanting to read more and not just take their word for it.
gdpgreg 8y ago
Well, give it a couple years for Canada to figure it out.
- droussel 8y ago
  I think we can look to Portugal for a good example of what a change in policy can do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal As for Canada, I would say that whoever wanted to consume marijuana was already doing so long before legalization was passed.
  - lcfcjs2 8y ago
    Maybe so, however this frees up legal testing of the substances, testing patients legally. Conducting legal experiments using marijuana.
pjc50 8y ago
Probably not, but is prohibition safe? Are armed police safe? Is paracetamol safe? Could this be perhaps an issue where a sense of proportion and balance of harms is appropriate?
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > but is prohibition safe? The article isn’t advocating a return to prohibition. It just asks us to confront widely-held assumptions about the drug. It prompts questions. (With flourish.) Should marijuana be taxed and restricted, in its marketing, like tobacco? Currently, it’s headed towards being treated more like alcohol.
  - kevinmchugh 8y ago
    Alcohol is taxed and restricted in marketing. While beer is still advertised on TV, you won't see someone holding an open bottle or drinking from it. That's illegal.
Spooky23 8y ago
We don't know, because it's illegal to research it.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  that’s untrue. what is true is that the one lab authorized to grow weed for federally funded research grows mids that are unrepresentative of commercially available medical and recreational weed.
  - Johnny555 8y ago
    Aren't you agreeing? If the only way you can legally study marijuana is to use strains that are unrepresentative of commercially available medical and recreational weed, then isn't that pretty much the same as saying it can't be studied? That seems kind of like the government saying that wine consumption can only be studied using samples of vodka produced by one lab since the active ingredient is the same.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    In other words: I'm going to study the effect of red wine on some health condition. Unfortunately I only have funding to buy alcohol from a store that does not sell wine, so I will experiment with beer.
notus 8y ago
No it isn't and people seem to have this misconception that you cannot be addicted to marijuana or that people who do are of weak character which prevents them from seeking help. It is nowhere near as destructive as some drugs including alcohol, but there are psychological problems that come along with habitual use depending on how much that need to be studied and addressed.
- honkycat 8y ago
  > No it isn't and people seem to have this misconception that you cannot be addicted to marijuana Who claims this? This is just obviously false. Weather there is a physical addiction has yet to be studied, but there is def a possibility of psychological addiction. > It is nowhere near as destructive as some drugs including alcohol, but there are psychological problems that come along with habitual use depending on how much that need to be studied and addressed. What psychological problems? Where is your proof?
EamonnMR 8y ago
I wonder if that illustration's concentric-shape-shifting style is 'in' right now due to the Collapse EP release a couple of months back. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(EP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(EP) Also similar and popular, but without changing shape as the concentric shapes move out: https://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/Black-Mirror-Bandersnatch-1.jpg https://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/Black-Mirror-...
random_upvoter 8y ago
When marijuana becomes legal, hiring tons of bio-engineers to improve your product also becomes legal. What if BigCorp(tm) manages to engineer marijuana so it becomes twice as addictive as it is now?
- wkearney99 8y ago
  IF they decide? You'd be pretty foolish to think anything BUT that would happen. At least not without a framework of understanding, testing and regulation that limited it.
threadify 8y ago
Marijuana is a soft drug like caffeine. For some people, caffeine is not a safe drug because they become addicted and have heart palpitations and lower quality of sleep. Marijuana is not safe in that it disrupts brain development in adolescents, exasperates psychosis with those who have mental health issues like schizophrenia, and lowers IQ with heavy daily usage. Moderation is key.
- fernandotakai 8y ago
  caffeine can also trigger anxiety[0]. i only know because that was happening to me -- i had constant anxiety attacks early in the morning, after my morning coffee. only after i stopped i realize how detrimental caffeine became to me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine-induced_anxiety_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine-induced_anxiety_disor...
dr_orpheus 8y ago
I feel like the title of this article is a little misleading. It discusses a lot about the uncertain studies and potential dangers. However, it doesn't really talk about what people's conceptions of marijuana currently are.
puzzledobserver 8y ago
The article points out that medical research on cannabis is inconclusive and insufficient. But it fails to mention that one of the main reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs is the political paranoia and subsequent legal difficulties involved in conducting cannabis research [1, 2, 3]. [1] Challenges and Barriers in Conducting Cannabis Research. Committee on the health effects of marijuana: An evidence review and research agenda. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ [2] Why Is it So Hard to Study Pot? Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is-it-so-hard-to-study-pot-124767/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is... [3] Medical cannabis research. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_research#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_research#Unit...
- xbryanx 8y ago
  Those are good sources and I agree with the sentiment, but it does mention this: "With marijuana, apparently, we’re still waiting for this information. It’s hard to study a substance that until very recently has been almost universally illegal."
  - puzzledobserver 8y ago
    Oops, missed that sentence: my bad!
Zigurd 8y ago
If cannabis displaces alcohol in recreational drug use, it is hard to see that being a bad trade-off, even in all but the rarest individual cases. There is also a massive amount of quack medicine out there "treating" cannabis users because that's the alternative to going to prison. Those quacks are not going to give up their gravy train without a fight. Overall the article is disappointing especially coming from Gladwell who I expect would delve into Drug War quackery and scientific fraud. He points out that cannabis is unstudied, and then goes on to the scary anecdotes. His omission of the harm reduction aspect of cannabis is highlighted by his use of non-cigarette nicotine products as an example of hard reduction that is sometimes the object of moral panic. There's no sense of perspective. Are we looking at a hidden public health crisis or a "D&D is harmful to some people" level of concern?
minikites 8y ago
https://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/25833504237 https://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/25833504237 >Nobody half-understands a topic as lucidly as Malcolm Gladwell. Unless he's found one case study claiming the contrary. https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/big-data-vs-big-hair.html https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/big-data-vs-big-... >And now, finally, just for fun, we have the Coup de Gladwell: >“I think millennials are very trusting,” Gladwell said. “And when they say they’re not...they’re bullshitting.” >And there you have it, folks. Who needs data when you have Gladwellian Pronouncements. The future is not the era of Big Data...it is the era of Big Gladwell. I don't trust Malcolm Gladwell to fully understand a topic, much less explain it to the public. This particular article is also suspicious because he's been pro-tobacco for decades: https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/
weeksie 8y ago
I think we should be doing a ton of research on the health implications of marijuana use. However, I don't think that should affect legality other than, perhaps, regulations on distribution. Legalization didn't happen on the back of "no long term health problems" it happened because throwing people in jail for a relatively non-addictive substance is unjust and eventually people had enough of it. But the question does seem a bit silly. Like, yeah it's probably not totally salubrious to get blazed every day. No need to clutch pearls. It's also not healthy to get drunk every day or eat tubs of ice cream constantly but we feel as a society that the freedom to do those things is worth some of us overindulging and hurting ourselves.
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kentrado 8y ago
An article riddle with questions and no answers. Yet, it feels as though the author wants us to be cautious about this mysterious substance we know nothing about. We might not know everything, but we do know a couple of things. For example, we know that nobody has died from cannabis overdose in the history of humanity. That, at least is something worthy of mention.
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onemoresoop 8y ago
While I'm for decriminalization/legalization of marijuana, I think jumping into an industry will create lots of problems and we'll find out about in the future. Whoever is skeptical will be best off IMHO.
honkycat 8y ago
No matter how harmful Marijuana is, prohibition is even worse. I recently moved to a state that has legal weed. I was pulled over yesterday and the amount of FEAR I felt when the cop got out of the car was intense. I spent years being harassed by cops who would "smell marajuana." And then it clicked in my head: I don't have to be afraid. Weed is legal. They can't use that excuse anymore.
klyrs 8y ago
tbh I only read the first several paragraphs... the medical community is completely ignorant about weed and its effects. Well no shit. Marijuana prohibition was a political, racially motivated decision. The American government decreed "no medical benefit" and forbade studies except for those that had a negative hypothesis, and strong-armed the rest of the world to follow suit. So the medical community is decades behind and the drug is a total mystery. This isn't remotely news. Now that science won't be censored in places such as Canada, we might learn something useful
gwbas1c 8y ago
The biggest difficulty with marijuana is that we don't really know what's in it. For years we only thought that THC is the active ingredient, and then in the last decade we've found out that CBD is also an active ingredient. We discus "cannaboids," but we (the lay people) don't really know what they are, nor are they labeled. (In CA, when I go to the pot shop, TCH and CBD percentages are labeled, and strain is sometimes labeled, but nothing else is.) The thing that a lot of non-marijuana consumers don't realize is that the effects vary considerably from strain to strain. (It would be as if different brands of beer had different kinds of buzzes.) This most likely is because the cannaboids vary as from strain to strain, but we don't know what they are, and don't label them. The best we can do is try to stick with known strains that we like. To be quite honest, (and to keep with the point of the article,) some strains are like coffee. They just make me feel a little different. Other strains really do put weird thoughts and paranoia into my head. Some strains make me very introverted. Could long-term heavy use of strains with certain cannaboids trigger behavior similar to mental illness? We don't even know what the cannaboids are to study!
- maceurt 8y ago
  Also, marijuana effect on the human body and its chemical composition changes based on if it is eaten or smoked. Eating edibles, pot brownies, etc. often times have account for a lot of the hallucinogenic experiences that are a lot more pronounced than just smoking it for example.
nickles 8y ago
"We don’t worry that e-cigarettes increase the number of fatal car accidents, diminish motivation and cognition, or impair academic achievement. The drugs through the gateway that we worry about with e-cigarettes are Marlboros, not opioids." The casual manner in which Gladwell dismisses the danger of tobacco is jarring. Each year, tobacco is responsible for at least five times as many deaths as opioids are in the United States (480k vs 70-90k) [0][1]. Globally, tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year [2]. Although Gladwell has dismissed claims that he has shilled for the tobacco industry [3][4], his trivialization of the dangers of tobacco do not support that position. Nevertheless, that does not undermine the argument that caution should be exercised with THC and other cannabinoids. It was prohibitively difficult in the past to do research on the compounds [5], so we should exercise humility when making definitive claims about them without further investigation. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... [1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco [3] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/08/malcolm-gladwell-smoking_n_7757624.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/08/malcolm-gladwell-s... [4] https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ [5] https://www.newsweek.com/why-its-hard-do-marijuana-research-69753 https://www.newsweek.com/why-its-hard-do-marijuana-research-...
wkearney99 8y ago
The tragedy here is the medicinal benefits of the non-psychoactive portions haven't been getting effective research. Anecdotal evidence shows great potential there. But meanwhile the dur-hurr, let's all get stoned crowd is pretending today's 20%+ THC weed is the same as what we might have enjoyed decades ago. It isn't and THAT is perhaps even less studied. Criminalizing it to the extent that's happened is a whole other train-wreck. So, yeah, bring on more testing and actual scientific study of it. Stop trying to deflect the argument because it might actually reveal problems. There are problems. Let's have a better understanding of them AS we move forward.
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63 points by gringoDan 8y ago

Anecdotally I've seen multiple friend's mental health deteriorate while smoking weed consistently. In more than one case, they had a history of mental illness in the family. This could just be a correlation.

bjt2n3904 8y ago
Here to report two more cases of mental health decline with family history of mental illness.
southphillyman 8y ago
Same. I remember reading somewhere that it can trigger latent mental illness in some individuals.
sv123 8y ago
My mental health greatly improves while smoking cannabis.
- lewisflude 8y ago
  That's good! I don't doubt that the same thing that could hurt someone could help someone else. The mind is a really complex thing. I think cannabis does have a lot of medical merit.
thanatos_dem 8y ago
Anecdotally, marijuana has been an amazing improvement to my mental health. I have suffered from insomnia my entire life. Then two years ago, my job got significantly more stressful and I began having panic attacks. I was perscribed Lorazepam in case of future attacks, but the potential side effects were terrifying (you may just suddenly die in certain circumstances), so I was scared to take it. Enter medicinal marijuana. I’m now part of the “smoke weed every day” lifestyle, except with edibles because my apartment doesn’t allow smoking. 20mg CBD, 5mg THC, about 2 hours before I want to sleep. Accept that I’m not going out for the rest of the night, work on some side projects, watch some TV, and then go to sleep waking up refreshed, no hangover or grogginess. Only real detrimental effect I’ve observed is a reduction in my short term memory. So I started keeping a proper notebook and calendar to compensate for that. After a couple of days of not consuming, my memory seems to return to normal, so I’m not too worried about long term effects there, but I would absolutely love to see more clinical trials around it.
- jryan49 8y ago
  > I was perscribed Lorazepam in case of future attacks,but the potential side effects were terrifying (you may just suddenly die in certain circumstances) Saying that a therapeutic doze of lorazepam is going to make you "suddenly die", is a great exaggeration. Panic attacks are best fixed with a combination of drugs and CBT. So maybe try adding CBT to your drugs to wean off of it.
  - thanatos_dem 8y ago
    I know it’s an exaggeration, but it’s also a (small) possibility. Believe it or not I’m not at my most rational in the middle of a panic attack ‍️
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
Ehh most people I’ve seen already had preexisting issues. Marijuana was their way to cope or suppress it, just like how some people do with alcohol or really any other drug.
- insickness 8y ago
  In other words, they self-medicate with marijuana.
hbosch 8y ago
I have a family member who is addicted to cannabis. Maybe not in the same way that opiate or alcohol addicts are physically addicted, but this person smokes all day long from a small vape. First thing in the morning, all day, every night before bed. He sneaks it on to airplanes and smokes it in flight. He smokes it in public places and other peoples cars, like Uber’s. Without it, he’s irritable and short tempered. Without it he has no appetite and can’t eat. He does it at work and while he’s driving. I used to smoke weed. I’m older now and it makes me antisocial, so I stopped. But I always was (and remain) pro-legalization, but I’ve reflected on its danger as an abusable substance and can now recognize that its addictive — even if just in lifestyle.
honkycat 8y ago
Anecdotally, I really enjoy smoking weed and know dozens of daily users whose use has a minimal impact on their mential health. I personally use weed and it makes me relax, helps with my insomnia and lack of appetite. It's similar to World of Warcraft: Weed isn't the problem. It's the easy escapism that is the problem.
tabs_masterrace 8y ago
I'm no expert, but I think weed definitely promotes psychotic thoughts. More so, the stronger the THC content, and the longer and frequent the use of it. In very rare cases this can trigger Psychosis, but in most people it will not. Rather what you tend see in daily smokers is a attitude of mild delusional distrust, often leaning towards conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, etc. Since many are not aware of any unreasonable thought patterns, it may be seen as a mild form of psychosis. It goes away only 1-3 days after stopping consuming it though. But I think it's worth keeping an eye on, in this day and age, we really don't need more people following misguided errands.
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  > attitude of mild delusional distrust, often leaning towards conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, etc Almost every article here on hn is about how some entity is spying on you, hacking you, or selling your data. Just because I'm paranoid, don't mean they're not after me.
- plmu 8y ago
  Once you know that, you can resist these thoughts. The first few times I used it, it seemed like learning to drive a bycicle as a small kid for the first time. Once you learn how not too fall, it becomes trivial. If it were legal, like alcohol, people would better be able to deal with it. Even if not 100% harmless, prohibition is not helpful, for (almost) noone.
makewavesnotwar 8y ago
Could you expand on what you mean by "seen multiple friend's mental health deteriorate"? Also don't be so quick to assume there's a legitimate correlation... it could be sampling/observational error.
- lewisflude 8y ago
  I'm referring to increased symptoms of anxiety, psychosis and increasing normalisation of weed as an every day thing. I specifically mean smoking weed, watching TV and living a more "relaxed" lifestyle (which isn't inherently bad) over doing things that might me seen as productive, both in a traditional sense (school, work) and in a personal development sense (hobbies, friendships, health). I know that there's a very big chance that it's just a correlation, and not a causation. In these specific cases, it really did feel like weed did make things a lot worse. There were long stretches of time where one of my friends in particular would stop smoking (conscious decision) and mental health stuff would get better. Note: I'm pro legalisation.

esahione 8y ago

Does it really matter? Is alcohol safe? Are most medications safe? Breathing is not safe either. Living on earth as well; small rocks from outerspace have created mass extinctions over and over. The universe isn't safe and I don't want to be safe; I want to be happy. You know what doesn't make me happy? The possibility of going to jail over something that hurts nobody. So take your safe space and put it in that spot in your mind that is labeled "wishful thinking". Edit: Note that anyone that is trying to argue the point of the article with me is missing out the point: it doesn't matter if it is safe or not, it is my choice to do it. Just like it would be my choice to take my own life away. Or to get an abortion (if I was a woman). It is not up to you, government, or society to tell me what I can or cannot do with my own body and whether I should feel bad about it or not. So yeah, while you can argue whether it is safe or not, it doesn't really matter. Going to jail is definitely less safe than smoking pot.

cirgue 8y ago
> Does it really matter? Is alcohol safe? Are most medications safe? Yeah, it does. It matters a hell of a lot that alcohol isn't safe, and there are a whole bunch of very well-known problems associated with using it regularly. Same for most medications. Many aren't super safe, and there is a fair bit of research and information dissemination required to make sure doctors and patients know the costs and benefits. When we fail at doing that, it causes a lot of harm to a lot of people. You should be able to make your own call, and that means knowing. The really creepy thing about this conversation is that there is a shitload of money to be made by concealing the hazards of marijuana use, just as there is for alcohol and cigarettes.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  there are a whole bunch of very well-known problems associated with using it regularly. Are you at all inclined to share sources of this? After reading this long article posted that essentially says "we don't have enough evidence, there's not enough studies being done", someone saying there are well-known problems has me wanting to read more and not just take their word for it.

gdpgreg 8y ago

Well, give it a couple years for Canada to figure it out.

droussel 8y ago
I think we can look to Portugal for a good example of what a change in policy can do: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal As for Canada, I would say that whoever wanted to consume marijuana was already doing so long before legalization was passed.
- lcfcjs2 8y ago
  Maybe so, however this frees up legal testing of the substances, testing patients legally. Conducting legal experiments using marijuana.

pjc50 8y ago

Probably not, but is prohibition safe? Are armed police safe? Is paracetamol safe? Could this be perhaps an issue where a sense of proportion and balance of harms is appropriate?

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> but is prohibition safe? The article isn’t advocating a return to prohibition. It just asks us to confront widely-held assumptions about the drug. It prompts questions. (With flourish.) Should marijuana be taxed and restricted, in its marketing, like tobacco? Currently, it’s headed towards being treated more like alcohol.
- kevinmchugh 8y ago
  Alcohol is taxed and restricted in marketing. While beer is still advertised on TV, you won't see someone holding an open bottle or drinking from it. That's illegal.

Spooky23 8y ago

We don't know, because it's illegal to research it.

hprotagonist 8y ago
that’s untrue. what is true is that the one lab authorized to grow weed for federally funded research grows mids that are unrepresentative of commercially available medical and recreational weed.
- Johnny555 8y ago
  Aren't you agreeing? If the only way you can legally study marijuana is to use strains that are unrepresentative of commercially available medical and recreational weed, then isn't that pretty much the same as saying it can't be studied? That seems kind of like the government saying that wine consumption can only be studied using samples of vodka produced by one lab since the active ingredient is the same.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  In other words: I'm going to study the effect of red wine on some health condition. Unfortunately I only have funding to buy alcohol from a store that does not sell wine, so I will experiment with beer.

notus 8y ago

No it isn't and people seem to have this misconception that you cannot be addicted to marijuana or that people who do are of weak character which prevents them from seeking help. It is nowhere near as destructive as some drugs including alcohol, but there are psychological problems that come along with habitual use depending on how much that need to be studied and addressed.

honkycat 8y ago
> No it isn't and people seem to have this misconception that you cannot be addicted to marijuana Who claims this? This is just obviously false. Weather there is a physical addiction has yet to be studied, but there is def a possibility of psychological addiction. > It is nowhere near as destructive as some drugs including alcohol, but there are psychological problems that come along with habitual use depending on how much that need to be studied and addressed. What psychological problems? Where is your proof?

EamonnMR 8y ago

I wonder if that illustration's concentric-shape-shifting style is 'in' right now due to the Collapse EP release a couple of months back. Compare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(EP) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_(EP) Also similar and popular, but without changing shape as the concentric shapes move out: https://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/Black-Mirror-Bandersnatch-1.jpg https://www.slashfilm.com/wp/wp-content/images/Black-Mirror-...

random_upvoter 8y ago

When marijuana becomes legal, hiring tons of bio-engineers to improve your product also becomes legal. What if BigCorp(tm) manages to engineer marijuana so it becomes twice as addictive as it is now?

wkearney99 8y ago
IF they decide? You'd be pretty foolish to think anything BUT that would happen. At least not without a framework of understanding, testing and regulation that limited it.

threadify 8y ago

Marijuana is a soft drug like caffeine. For some people, caffeine is not a safe drug because they become addicted and have heart palpitations and lower quality of sleep. Marijuana is not safe in that it disrupts brain development in adolescents, exasperates psychosis with those who have mental health issues like schizophrenia, and lowers IQ with heavy daily usage. Moderation is key.

fernandotakai 8y ago
caffeine can also trigger anxiety[0]. i only know because that was happening to me -- i had constant anxiety attacks early in the morning, after my morning coffee. only after i stopped i realize how detrimental caffeine became to me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine-induced_anxiety_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine-induced_anxiety_disor...

dr_orpheus 8y ago

I feel like the title of this article is a little misleading. It discusses a lot about the uncertain studies and potential dangers. However, it doesn't really talk about what people's conceptions of marijuana currently are.

puzzledobserver 8y ago

The article points out that medical research on cannabis is inconclusive and insufficient. But it fails to mention that one of the main reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs is the political paranoia and subsequent legal difficulties involved in conducting cannabis research [1, 2, 3]. [1] Challenges and Barriers in Conducting Cannabis Research. Committee on the health effects of marijuana: An evidence review and research agenda. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ [2] Why Is it So Hard to Study Pot? Rolling Stone. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is-it-so-hard-to-study-pot-124767/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is... [3] Medical cannabis research. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_research#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_research#Unit...

xbryanx 8y ago
Those are good sources and I agree with the sentiment, but it does mention this: "With marijuana, apparently, we’re still waiting for this information. It’s hard to study a substance that until very recently has been almost universally illegal."
- puzzledobserver 8y ago
  Oops, missed that sentence: my bad!

Zigurd 8y ago

If cannabis displaces alcohol in recreational drug use, it is hard to see that being a bad trade-off, even in all but the rarest individual cases. There is also a massive amount of quack medicine out there "treating" cannabis users because that's the alternative to going to prison. Those quacks are not going to give up their gravy train without a fight. Overall the article is disappointing especially coming from Gladwell who I expect would delve into Drug War quackery and scientific fraud. He points out that cannabis is unstudied, and then goes on to the scary anecdotes. His omission of the harm reduction aspect of cannabis is highlighted by his use of non-cigarette nicotine products as an example of hard reduction that is sometimes the object of moral panic. There's no sense of perspective. Are we looking at a hidden public health crisis or a "D&D is harmful to some people" level of concern?

minikites 8y ago

https://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/25833504237 https://twitter.com/hotdogsladies/status/25833504237 >Nobody half-understands a topic as lucidly as Malcolm Gladwell. Unless he's found one case study claiming the contrary. https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/big-data-vs-big-hair.html https://noahpinionblog.blogspot.com/2015/07/big-data-vs-big-... >And now, finally, just for fun, we have the Coup de Gladwell: >“I think millennials are very trusting,” Gladwell said. “And when they say they’re not...they’re bullshitting.” >And there you have it, folks. Who needs data when you have Gladwellian Pronouncements. The future is not the era of Big Data...it is the era of Big Gladwell. I don't trust Malcolm Gladwell to fully understand a topic, much less explain it to the public. This particular article is also suspicious because he's been pro-tobacco for decades: https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/

weeksie 8y ago

I think we should be doing a ton of research on the health implications of marijuana use. However, I don't think that should affect legality other than, perhaps, regulations on distribution. Legalization didn't happen on the back of "no long term health problems" it happened because throwing people in jail for a relatively non-addictive substance is unjust and eventually people had enough of it. But the question does seem a bit silly. Like, yeah it's probably not totally salubrious to get blazed every day. No need to clutch pearls. It's also not healthy to get drunk every day or eat tubs of ice cream constantly but we feel as a society that the freedom to do those things is worth some of us overindulging and hurting ourselves.

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kentrado 8y ago

An article riddle with questions and no answers. Yet, it feels as though the author wants us to be cautious about this mysterious substance we know nothing about. We might not know everything, but we do know a couple of things. For example, we know that nobody has died from cannabis overdose in the history of humanity. That, at least is something worthy of mention.

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onemoresoop 8y ago

While I'm for decriminalization/legalization of marijuana, I think jumping into an industry will create lots of problems and we'll find out about in the future. Whoever is skeptical will be best off IMHO.

honkycat 8y ago

No matter how harmful Marijuana is, prohibition is even worse. I recently moved to a state that has legal weed. I was pulled over yesterday and the amount of FEAR I felt when the cop got out of the car was intense. I spent years being harassed by cops who would "smell marajuana." And then it clicked in my head: I don't have to be afraid. Weed is legal. They can't use that excuse anymore.

klyrs 8y ago

tbh I only read the first several paragraphs... the medical community is completely ignorant about weed and its effects. Well no shit. Marijuana prohibition was a political, racially motivated decision. The American government decreed "no medical benefit" and forbade studies except for those that had a negative hypothesis, and strong-armed the rest of the world to follow suit. So the medical community is decades behind and the drug is a total mystery. This isn't remotely news. Now that science won't be censored in places such as Canada, we might learn something useful

gwbas1c 8y ago

The biggest difficulty with marijuana is that we don't really know what's in it. For years we only thought that THC is the active ingredient, and then in the last decade we've found out that CBD is also an active ingredient. We discus "cannaboids," but we (the lay people) don't really know what they are, nor are they labeled. (In CA, when I go to the pot shop, TCH and CBD percentages are labeled, and strain is sometimes labeled, but nothing else is.) The thing that a lot of non-marijuana consumers don't realize is that the effects vary considerably from strain to strain. (It would be as if different brands of beer had different kinds of buzzes.) This most likely is because the cannaboids vary as from strain to strain, but we don't know what they are, and don't label them. The best we can do is try to stick with known strains that we like. To be quite honest, (and to keep with the point of the article,) some strains are like coffee. They just make me feel a little different. Other strains really do put weird thoughts and paranoia into my head. Some strains make me very introverted. Could long-term heavy use of strains with certain cannaboids trigger behavior similar to mental illness? We don't even know what the cannaboids are to study!

maceurt 8y ago
Also, marijuana effect on the human body and its chemical composition changes based on if it is eaten or smoked. Eating edibles, pot brownies, etc. often times have account for a lot of the hallucinogenic experiences that are a lot more pronounced than just smoking it for example.

nickles 8y ago

"We don’t worry that e-cigarettes increase the number of fatal car accidents, diminish motivation and cognition, or impair academic achievement. The drugs through the gateway that we worry about with e-cigarettes are Marlboros, not opioids." The casual manner in which Gladwell dismisses the danger of tobacco is jarring. Each year, tobacco is responsible for at least five times as many deaths as opioids are in the United States (480k vs 70-90k) [0][1]. Globally, tobacco kills more than 7 million people each year [2]. Although Gladwell has dismissed claims that he has shilled for the tobacco industry [3][4], his trivialization of the dangers of tobacco do not support that position. Nevertheless, that does not undermine the argument that caution should be exercised with THC and other cannabinoids. It was prohibitively difficult in the past to do research on the compounds [5], so we should exercise humility when making definitive claims about them without further investigation. [0] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal... [1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/o... [2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/tobacco [3] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/08/malcolm-gladwell-smoking_n_7757624.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/08/malcolm-gladwell-s... [4] https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ https://shameproject.com/profile/malcolm-gladwell-2/ [5] https://www.newsweek.com/why-its-hard-do-marijuana-research-69753 https://www.newsweek.com/why-its-hard-do-marijuana-research-...

wkearney99 8y ago

The tragedy here is the medicinal benefits of the non-psychoactive portions haven't been getting effective research. Anecdotal evidence shows great potential there. But meanwhile the dur-hurr, let's all get stoned crowd is pretending today's 20%+ THC weed is the same as what we might have enjoyed decades ago. It isn't and THAT is perhaps even less studied. Criminalizing it to the extent that's happened is a whole other train-wreck. So, yeah, bring on more testing and actual scientific study of it. Stop trying to deflect the argument because it might actually reveal problems. There are problems. Let's have a better understanding of them AS we move forward.

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