7 ms·

You don't have to go and look on social media, just come here to HN and say "perhaps weed is not completely safe and we should research whether it could damage

by deith 7y ago

You don't have to go and look on social media, just come here to HN and say "perhaps weed is not completely safe and we should research whether it could damage the brain" to get downvoted

kalium_xyz 7y ago
It always fascinates me how powerful the placebo effect is. If people believe false health claims they seem to become true health claims.
- tayo42 7y ago
  Something I read recently is that anti depressants are less effective since their initial release, mostly because of placebo wearing off.
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    It’s also plausible that we are diagnosing more and more people with weaker and weaker symptoms with the same disease, so in aggregate, the effect will seem weaker.
JaumeGreen 7y ago
There's lots of pro-cannabis and pro-LSD comments everywhere. My cynical view is that the "power" wants us all sedated, and it's investing its media to promote the "new" batch of drugs to get another generation hooked up. I do think that there are probably quite beneficial uses of drugs, but probably not in a ludic way as most people prefer to use them.
- pushpop 7y ago
  I share some of your cynicism but I think the “sedated” comment is a massive leap to make. However I do sometimes wonder if there has been a push from tobacco manufacturers as a way to booster profits now that smoking has fallen out of vogue. Admittedly I’ve done zero research to back up this suspicion. Personally I do think laxer drug laws are a good thing. Those that want to get high will always find a way so it’s better to regulate the market than push it underground.
- swiley 7y ago
  My first thought when I saw this was of all the people and corporations investing in CBD and whatnot. Most corporations seem to be using adtech and social media (which are really the same) to perform mass manipulation. When that’s combined with all the crazy financial tools people can make a lot of money. I think if lawmakers actually wanted people using drugs for the effects then drugs would be legal, I would argue they instead want the ability to arrest and incarcerate people at will.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    What lawmakers want isn't some single coherent thing; you're talking about a profession perhaps most famous for getting in fights with each other. Some politicians may want draconian drug laws because they're involved with the prison industry or prison workers union, while other politicians with different interests might want drug legalization for reasons like those described in the grandparent comment. The distribution of politicians across this policy continuum may change quickly, or slowly. Not all change is quick. Here is my pet theory: many politicians have historically opposed cannabis use because they believed cannabis use makes people lazy and believe widespread use of cannabis could suppress economic productivity. This is the sort of believe that could be challenged with evidence to the contrary; currently several states have legal cannabis and in doing so are putting many beliefs to the test. If/When fears relating to economic suppression are dispelled, some politicians who once opposed it may decide they no longer care.
    - non-entity 7y ago
      > Here is my pet theory: many politicians have historically opposed cannabis use because they believed cannabis use makes people lazy and believe widespread use of cannabis could suppress economic productivity. Or y'know, this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/03/23/nixons-drug-war-an-excuse-to-lock-up-blacks-and-protesters-continues/#f0076ad42c88 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/03/23/nixons-d...
      - smileysteve 7y ago
        It's both or all 3. 1. Corporate interests want to reduce hemp use for oil and material to help their dino oil products 2. People buyin that its bad 3. Politicians use it as a way to think people are bad 4. One generation later and the reason is whatever is most expediant. I believe that 80+% of politicians today that oppose legalization do so genuinely because they grew up being told it was bad and a gateway drug. And they're too ignorant to consider the Nixon quote or that their government has always been bought and paid for to maintain a status quo
- pjc50 7y ago
  Not really consistent with it all being illegal, is it?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- fiblye 7y ago
  I think at least with regards to HN, it's that the average user is, just being honest, wealthy and from a very privileged background without too much lifetime difficulty. There's a disproportionate number of people here who can and did walk into Silicon Valley and said something along the lines of "give me 10 million dollars and I'll make a phone app", then have the free time and comfortable fall back to write a failure report about "their journey." I'm not saying that's all or even most of the people here, but it's a larger proportion compared to probably any other community on the internet. I mention this because many of the strongest "let's decriminalize (or even legalize) all drugs" commenters have similar backgrounds. Comfy financial situation and room to experiment with the peace of mind knowing that they have people to help dust them off should they get a little sloppy with their drug use. These people can afford to take a week to enjoy an ayahuasca resort, follow it up with a beach vacation and a little MDMA, then return home to a daily bowl of weed to relax from their hard month of partying and pop a couple addies to get focused and pull an all-nighter on their new web app. They can financially and mentally afford to use drugs as mood and mental enhancers. Loads of people who aren't so comfortable use drugs to numb the rough edges of life. Having been on this site for over a decade, I've seen loads of comments that make many users here seem completely out of touch with what average people go through--many HN users on another plane of existence. I think a considerable number of people who promote drugs everywhere have good intentions, but they don't really consider the effects for most people. The aspect of being locked up for drugs does do a lot to tarnish lives, but the mere act of having easily available mind-altering substances is also enough to ruin the lives of many.
  - bigfudge 7y ago
    If alcohol were not legal your comment would make sense. As it is, we reserve the most dangerous (as in, causes most harm both personally and socially) for those least able to cope. Prohibition makes recreational soft drug use less common among those with fewer resources than it otherwise would be, despite the fact that this would be safer than abusing alcohol.
  - tartoran 7y ago
    Anything that can be abused is finds its population to do so. Banning is not a solution though, but more research and education on the subject. Think about how alcohol abuse and even sugar abuse are treated by society: people are aware of the dangers yet some can’t stop having them.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  Certainly one of the things that gives me the creeps are the CBD quiosques freaking everywhere selling what amounts to CBD weed, CBD lotions, CBD potions, CBD whatever; I've seen them in airports, in tourist locations and in shopping malls. Mostly completely unpatronized, with a sullen presumably CBD anesthetized employee manning the desk. Just for the rent and employees we're talking something like a hundred millions a year in money flying out the window. To what end? Nobody is buying this shit (outside of tourist locations afaik). Someone is paying for it to happen. It reminds me of when the Israeli spooks were selling toys in shopping malls in 2001 (rounded up after 911 and memory holed)[1]. Maybe it's just RJR ramping up to sell actual weed everywhere, but it sure is creepy. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1387069/US-arrests-200-young-Israelis-in-spying-investigation.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel...
  - zer0tonin 7y ago
    Do you have a source on the fact that "nobody is buying this shit"? Here in Paris the few attempts at opening CBD shops (now closed by police) were extremely popular.
    - scottlocklin 7y ago
      My own lying eyes tell me this. Though there were a lot of takers in the Lisbon tourist location; I see literally dozens of these across the US northeast with zero customers, ever. Was just staring at the one in the Manchester NH airport. In a freaking airport! "Gee I have to get me some CBD cookies and massage oil to take on the airplane with me."
      - catalogia 7y ago
        > "Gee I have to get me some CBD cookies and massage oil to take on the airplane with me." Where they THC cookies, they'd probably make the plane flight a lot less uncomfortable with a lot of people. I'd wager they're trying to cell CBD to people who hate flying and are willing to try anything to make it less unpleasant. That their products are ineffective, at least in this application if not in general, kind of takes a backseat.
- susijdjdjxa 7y ago
  LSD is sedating? Spoken like someone who never tried LSD.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
shkkmo 7y ago
At the federal level, weed is still classified as schedule 1. The federal government's stance has served to place severe restrictions on exactly the sort of research you seem to be calling for. There is certainly some evidence for health and even psychological risks, but none that I am aware of for "brain damage", which is why you are likely to be downvoted.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y ago
  I have smoked weed heavily in my late 20s, ingested many types of edibles, topicals, etc. I am certainly not as sharp as I used to be. It can cause brain damage indirectly due to changes in your cardiovascular system. It can mimic a temporary sort of vascular dementia, as well as increase your blood pressure to very unsafe levels. Weed can also reduce the amount of grey matter in your orbitofrontal cortex. Not to mention the somewhat bizarre cartoon-like images you see on high doses of edibles. These images can fracture your mind if you see them enough. The risks are very real, and trying to downplay them or censor them is extremely irresponsible.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - Lewton 7y ago
    > in my late 20s > I am certainly not as sharp as I used to be It's called turning 30 :-)
    - JaumeGreen 7y ago
      No. At your thirties you can be at least a sharp as in your twenties. One of the main culprits of loss of sharpness is sleep deficit, that usually hits when having a full time job and family. It's not the age, it's the environment.
- deith 7y ago
  US is not the only country in the world, and there have been studies linking teenage use to psychosis and schizophrenia
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
thrower123 7y ago
You get this with any kind of health-related opinion, on any forum. Just look at anything diet-related, and watch the people spouting vegetarian and vegan propaganda come out of the woodwork. Health cults have taken over. My theory is that so many people feel powerless in many aspects of their lives, and they fall back on diet and exercise and snake-oil supplements as one corner of life they can over-compensate on.
- kortex 7y ago
  Yes, but I don't think it's just "health cults". Locus of control and learned helplessness are very powerful drivers. If you have a person that has derived benefit from an intervention, placebo or otherwise, and you challenge that mental model, you cause a mighty cognitive dissonance in their brain. That challenge must be "dealt with", the usual outlet being arguments over the internet.
KingMachiavelli 7y ago
You'll always have to ignore large categorizations such as safe or harmful anyway, no reasonable person is saying cannabis is as safe as air (well actually some air might be worse) rather they are saying that since society is perfectly fine and acomidating of worse substances such as alcohol and tobacco it makes no sense to prohibit cannabis much less criminalize it.
- catalogia 7y ago
  > no reasonable person is saying cannabis is as safe as air (well actually some air might be worse) Maybe none of them are reasonable, but there sure are a lot of them. I've met a lot of people who think consuming cannabis is more healthy than not consuming it. I think this is becoming a more popular viewpoint and might even become a mainstream belief in a few years.
yodsanklai 7y ago
Often nuanced points of view are those that get you criticised the most.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  A nuanced point of view is incompatible with the ideology of the extremists at both ends of whatever the issue is so you have twice as people mashing the "make the wrongthink go away" button

by deith 7y ago

You don't have to go and look on social media, just come here to HN and say "perhaps weed is not completely safe and we should research whether it could damage the brain" to get downvoted

kalium_xyz 7y ago

It always fascinates me how powerful the placebo effect is. If people believe false health claims they seem to become true health claims.

tayo42 7y ago
Something I read recently is that anti depressants are less effective since their initial release, mostly because of placebo wearing off.
- alasdair_ 7y ago
  It’s also plausible that we are diagnosing more and more people with weaker and weaker symptoms with the same disease, so in aggregate, the effect will seem weaker.

JaumeGreen 7y ago

There's lots of pro-cannabis and pro-LSD comments everywhere. My cynical view is that the "power" wants us all sedated, and it's investing its media to promote the "new" batch of drugs to get another generation hooked up. I do think that there are probably quite beneficial uses of drugs, but probably not in a ludic way as most people prefer to use them.

pushpop 7y ago
I share some of your cynicism but I think the “sedated” comment is a massive leap to make. However I do sometimes wonder if there has been a push from tobacco manufacturers as a way to booster profits now that smoking has fallen out of vogue. Admittedly I’ve done zero research to back up this suspicion. Personally I do think laxer drug laws are a good thing. Those that want to get high will always find a way so it’s better to regulate the market than push it underground.
swiley 7y ago
My first thought when I saw this was of all the people and corporations investing in CBD and whatnot. Most corporations seem to be using adtech and social media (which are really the same) to perform mass manipulation. When that’s combined with all the crazy financial tools people can make a lot of money. I think if lawmakers actually wanted people using drugs for the effects then drugs would be legal, I would argue they instead want the ability to arrest and incarcerate people at will.
- catalogia 7y ago
  What lawmakers want isn't some single coherent thing; you're talking about a profession perhaps most famous for getting in fights with each other. Some politicians may want draconian drug laws because they're involved with the prison industry or prison workers union, while other politicians with different interests might want drug legalization for reasons like those described in the grandparent comment. The distribution of politicians across this policy continuum may change quickly, or slowly. Not all change is quick. Here is my pet theory: many politicians have historically opposed cannabis use because they believed cannabis use makes people lazy and believe widespread use of cannabis could suppress economic productivity. This is the sort of believe that could be challenged with evidence to the contrary; currently several states have legal cannabis and in doing so are putting many beliefs to the test. If/When fears relating to economic suppression are dispelled, some politicians who once opposed it may decide they no longer care.
  - non-entity 7y ago
    > Here is my pet theory: many politicians have historically opposed cannabis use because they believed cannabis use makes people lazy and believe widespread use of cannabis could suppress economic productivity. Or y'know, this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/03/23/nixons-drug-war-an-excuse-to-lock-up-blacks-and-protesters-continues/#f0076ad42c88 https://www.forbes.com/sites/eriksherman/2016/03/23/nixons-d...
    - smileysteve 7y ago
      It's both or all 3. 1. Corporate interests want to reduce hemp use for oil and material to help their dino oil products 2. People buyin that its bad 3. Politicians use it as a way to think people are bad 4. One generation later and the reason is whatever is most expediant. I believe that 80+% of politicians today that oppose legalization do so genuinely because they grew up being told it was bad and a gateway drug. And they're too ignorant to consider the Nixon quote or that their government has always been bought and paid for to maintain a status quo
pjc50 7y ago
Not really consistent with it all being illegal, is it?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
fiblye 7y ago
I think at least with regards to HN, it's that the average user is, just being honest, wealthy and from a very privileged background without too much lifetime difficulty. There's a disproportionate number of people here who can and did walk into Silicon Valley and said something along the lines of "give me 10 million dollars and I'll make a phone app", then have the free time and comfortable fall back to write a failure report about "their journey." I'm not saying that's all or even most of the people here, but it's a larger proportion compared to probably any other community on the internet. I mention this because many of the strongest "let's decriminalize (or even legalize) all drugs" commenters have similar backgrounds. Comfy financial situation and room to experiment with the peace of mind knowing that they have people to help dust them off should they get a little sloppy with their drug use. These people can afford to take a week to enjoy an ayahuasca resort, follow it up with a beach vacation and a little MDMA, then return home to a daily bowl of weed to relax from their hard month of partying and pop a couple addies to get focused and pull an all-nighter on their new web app. They can financially and mentally afford to use drugs as mood and mental enhancers. Loads of people who aren't so comfortable use drugs to numb the rough edges of life. Having been on this site for over a decade, I've seen loads of comments that make many users here seem completely out of touch with what average people go through--many HN users on another plane of existence. I think a considerable number of people who promote drugs everywhere have good intentions, but they don't really consider the effects for most people. The aspect of being locked up for drugs does do a lot to tarnish lives, but the mere act of having easily available mind-altering substances is also enough to ruin the lives of many.
- bigfudge 7y ago
  If alcohol were not legal your comment would make sense. As it is, we reserve the most dangerous (as in, causes most harm both personally and socially) for those least able to cope. Prohibition makes recreational soft drug use less common among those with fewer resources than it otherwise would be, despite the fact that this would be safer than abusing alcohol.
- tartoran 7y ago
  Anything that can be abused is finds its population to do so. Banning is not a solution though, but more research and education on the subject. Think about how alcohol abuse and even sugar abuse are treated by society: people are aware of the dangers yet some can’t stop having them.
scottlocklin 7y ago
Certainly one of the things that gives me the creeps are the CBD quiosques freaking everywhere selling what amounts to CBD weed, CBD lotions, CBD potions, CBD whatever; I've seen them in airports, in tourist locations and in shopping malls. Mostly completely unpatronized, with a sullen presumably CBD anesthetized employee manning the desk. Just for the rent and employees we're talking something like a hundred millions a year in money flying out the window. To what end? Nobody is buying this shit (outside of tourist locations afaik). Someone is paying for it to happen. It reminds me of when the Israeli spooks were selling toys in shopping malls in 2001 (rounded up after 911 and memory holed)[1]. Maybe it's just RJR ramping up to sell actual weed everywhere, but it sure is creepy. [1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/1387069/US-arrests-200-young-Israelis-in-spying-investigation.html https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel...
- zer0tonin 7y ago
  Do you have a source on the fact that "nobody is buying this shit"? Here in Paris the few attempts at opening CBD shops (now closed by police) were extremely popular.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    My own lying eyes tell me this. Though there were a lot of takers in the Lisbon tourist location; I see literally dozens of these across the US northeast with zero customers, ever. Was just staring at the one in the Manchester NH airport. In a freaking airport! "Gee I have to get me some CBD cookies and massage oil to take on the airplane with me."
    - catalogia 7y ago
      > "Gee I have to get me some CBD cookies and massage oil to take on the airplane with me." Where they THC cookies, they'd probably make the plane flight a lot less uncomfortable with a lot of people. I'd wager they're trying to cell CBD to people who hate flying and are willing to try anything to make it less unpleasant. That their products are ineffective, at least in this application if not in general, kind of takes a backseat.
susijdjdjxa 7y ago
LSD is sedating? Spoken like someone who never tried LSD.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

shkkmo 7y ago

At the federal level, weed is still classified as schedule 1. The federal government's stance has served to place severe restrictions on exactly the sort of research you seem to be calling for. There is certainly some evidence for health and even psychological risks, but none that I am aware of for "brain damage", which is why you are likely to be downvoted.

0x8BADF00D 7y ago
I have smoked weed heavily in my late 20s, ingested many types of edibles, topicals, etc. I am certainly not as sharp as I used to be. It can cause brain damage indirectly due to changes in your cardiovascular system. It can mimic a temporary sort of vascular dementia, as well as increase your blood pressure to very unsafe levels. Weed can also reduce the amount of grey matter in your orbitofrontal cortex. Not to mention the somewhat bizarre cartoon-like images you see on high doses of edibles. These images can fracture your mind if you see them enough. The risks are very real, and trying to downplay them or censor them is extremely irresponsible.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Lewton 7y ago
  > in my late 20s > I am certainly not as sharp as I used to be It's called turning 30 :-)
  - JaumeGreen 7y ago
    No. At your thirties you can be at least a sharp as in your twenties. One of the main culprits of loss of sharpness is sleep deficit, that usually hits when having a full time job and family. It's not the age, it's the environment.
deith 7y ago
US is not the only country in the world, and there have been studies linking teenage use to psychosis and schizophrenia

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

thrower123 7y ago

You get this with any kind of health-related opinion, on any forum. Just look at anything diet-related, and watch the people spouting vegetarian and vegan propaganda come out of the woodwork. Health cults have taken over. My theory is that so many people feel powerless in many aspects of their lives, and they fall back on diet and exercise and snake-oil supplements as one corner of life they can over-compensate on.

kortex 7y ago
Yes, but I don't think it's just "health cults". Locus of control and learned helplessness are very powerful drivers. If you have a person that has derived benefit from an intervention, placebo or otherwise, and you challenge that mental model, you cause a mighty cognitive dissonance in their brain. That challenge must be "dealt with", the usual outlet being arguments over the internet.

KingMachiavelli 7y ago

You'll always have to ignore large categorizations such as safe or harmful anyway, no reasonable person is saying cannabis is as safe as air (well actually some air might be worse) rather they are saying that since society is perfectly fine and acomidating of worse substances such as alcohol and tobacco it makes no sense to prohibit cannabis much less criminalize it.

catalogia 7y ago
> no reasonable person is saying cannabis is as safe as air (well actually some air might be worse) Maybe none of them are reasonable, but there sure are a lot of them. I've met a lot of people who think consuming cannabis is more healthy than not consuming it. I think this is becoming a more popular viewpoint and might even become a mainstream belief in a few years.

yodsanklai 7y ago

Often nuanced points of view are those that get you criticised the most.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
A nuanced point of view is incompatible with the ideology of the extremists at both ends of whatever the issue is so you have twice as people mashing the "make the wrongthink go away" button