39 ms·

As weed gets more potent, teens are getting sick

219 points by actfrench 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago
I know a cannabis entrepreneur who makes high-quality gummies standardized to 150 mg THC which is, I think, too much. As a cannabis experienced user I find these make me feel hosed for six hours or so. It may or may not be a good time, but I'm certainly not going to do more than lay on my ass. If I take half of one of those (75 mg) it is a strong intoxication, pretty consistently a good time, and I can go for a walk, do the dishes and otherwise be able to do most things. The local health department had complained about very strong products being for sale and I've talked with this guy a few times about it. He'd say that people can always cut them in half but I'd say that a lot of people don't know what they are doing, will take the whole thing, and probably have a bad time when they could have had a good time and become repeat customers. Despite the unit economics being worse he's recently come out with a 75 mg product.
- newsclues 4y ago
  Meanwhile in Canada the stores only sell 10mg and I need to eat a dozen to feel a buzz. Just give consumers choice
- ecpottinger 4y ago
  I have a friend who stopped eating gummies for the same reason. They found the chocolate bars easier to break into the smaller pieces since they are grooved that way.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    Gummies, being more sugar than fat, metabolize so much faster...not always desirable (who wants overpowering effects for 30min if they're eating an edible?).
- corrral 4y ago
  Sweet Christ. 150mg? Goddamn, I hope my tolerance never gets that bad. That'd be so expensive. 1/10 that at once is enough to get me fucked up enough that, if I had taken more, I'd just be asleep.
  - geekbird 4y ago
    Seriously. I accidentally ate 1/4 of a 100mg THC chocolate bar, but it was not the right hybrid to keep me asleep, so I was in and out for hours. 25 mg is more than twice my preferred THC dose.
  - notamy 4y ago
    > Sweet Christ. 150mg? Goddamn, I hope my tolerance never gets that bad. It's a nightmare. I'm a medical cannabis patient, so unfortunately, proper symptom management means my usage ends up being quite high. My tolerance got so high that I barely felt anything from 350mg+ in edibles or RSO[0]. Taking a tolerance break from that is an awful experience; my psychiatrist actually had to prescribe benzos (Klonopin) to make it doable. [0] https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-rick-simpson-oil https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-rick-simpso...
  - tacheiordache 4y ago
    150mg is crazy. Im a causal smoker who tokes just a little bit and that not every day. 150mg would send me to ER
  - genocidicbunny 4y ago
    Back before CA legalized marijuana, thus putting in the limits on edibles, you could get some super-strong ones if you had a medical card. I recall a friend of mine buying 1500mg edibles that would put down most experienced smokers for two or three days. Said friend was going through one of those edibles per day, but those edibles also cost less than a 100mg edible does these days.
- ginko 4y ago
  > He'd say that people can always cut them in half People who want a stronger buzz could always just take two..
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
    The issue then becomes getting diabetes before getting high due to the crazy amounts of sugar in these edibles.
    - spywaregorilla 4y ago
      Is it really more than a can of coke?
- dfxm12 4y ago
  Is this in the US? What state? I've only seen menus in NJ, IL, and most edibles are like 5-10mg per piece and seem to top out at 25mg per piece, but those tend to be big pieces that look like they are meant to be broken apart (like a Hershey bar). I think setting national standards around this would be just one benefit of legalizing recreational use at the federal level.
  - PaulHoule 4y ago
    NY
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      mmm yeah I've seen those in Washington Square in NYC We don't have anything that high in California also edibles are practically a different drug after being processed by the liver, we should study them completely separately we should have high quality studies for specific use cases, just like corporate designer drugs that go through the FDA but we currently have... whatever this is.
  - yonaguska 4y ago
    You can get gummies like this in IL, but just not from the dispensaries. Plenty of people make the drive from Michigan to sell to their friends here.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    I know that michigan has a law that allows for private transactions between medical smokers and licensed "caretakers". These caretakers are basically unregulated, so they can have a huge greenhouse operation with just a couple patients. People in Chicago drive to michigan to get the caretakers "extra" product.
  - fuzzer37 4y ago
    Last time I went to the dispensary near me in Michigan, the budtender started off with the 100mg gummies when I said I was looking for edibles.
  - 4y ago
- zeroonetwothree 4y ago
  I get a strong effect from 5mg already. I can’t imagine what 150mg would do to me
  - colordrops 4y ago
    THC tolerance makes a big difference. 5-10 is all I need now. When I used to smoke a lot I could take much larger doses with similar effects.
    - redisman 4y ago
      I believe it metabolizes differently. Even as an daily smoker/vaper at one point who never ate edibles, 10mg would get me very high.
- _fat_santa 4y ago
  I live in Colorado and they limit edibles to 10mg per piece/100mg per pack max. 150mg for a single gummy is a bit nuts though. As someone who smokes a good amount of weed, my recommendation to people it to always stick to just flower. I've tried it all, vaping, vaporizers (different than vaping, you're superheating flower rather than using an extract), edibles, and regular pot. From my personal experience, edibles last the longest but don't hit right away, takes about an hour for it to pass through to your liver and from there I noticed that it was a "low grade" high for a few hours. Vaping is the polar opposite, the stuff hits you almost instantly. You also have to be careful and not puff to much, a monster hit will send you to another universe. I've also noticed that because of the high THC content (sometimes 90-100%) and virtually no CBD content, this is the easiest way to have a bad high. This also gives you the shortest high, seems to wear off quickest. Finally you have good ol' flower. This is what I usually smoke because it slots somewhere between vaping and edibles in terms of how high you get. I almost always smoke flower because I get consistent results. If I vape I might have a panic attack, if I have an edible it might last too long, but with plain weed I know how long I'm going to be up, what the experience will be, etc. Also this is complete pseudoscience but there's something that makes me feel better about smoking flower vs the other stuff. Vaping and all that other stuff is cool, but there's a certain safety in knowing the only modification a flower had was trimming the leaves away, no lab equipment, extractions, chemicals or any of that.
  - corrral 4y ago
    A lot of the concentrates used in edibles and vapes cut nearly everything but the THC, which may be part of the observed difference between those and flower. "Full spectrum" extracts that keep many of the other chemicals seem to hit very different for me—I don't get the stereotypical giggly-high effect on pure THC or THC+CBD, mostly just sleepy (which is often exactly what I want, so that's fine), but I do on full spectrum gummies. Could be psychosomatic, but the effect feels pretty different to me.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > Also this is complete pseudoscience but there's something that makes me feel better about smoking flower vs the other stuff. Vaping and all that other stuff is cool, but there's a certain safety in knowing the only modification a flower had was trimming the leaves away, no lab equipment, extractions, chemicals or any of that. Honestly, that is common sense not pseudoscience. There has been way too much shady shit going on especially in vaping [1]. [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/10/28/20936888/vaping-lung-illness-symptoms-death-cdc-report https://www.vox.com/2019/10/28/20936888/vaping-lung-illness-...
- aluminum96 4y ago
  150mg THC for a single edible is absolutely bonkers. If you only use ~1x per month, around 3mg is a common threshold dose, and 5mg can be rather strong. So that's 50x the naive threshhold dose!
- llIIllIIllIIl 4y ago
  This is messed up. Non-tolerant person dose for “stoned” would be like 20-30mg. I take 5 or 10 on a day i need to chill and i can feel it already.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
hericium 4y ago
Those high concentration THC extracts cause huge serotonin spikes. I'm on medicinal 19% THC flowers (190mg daily) and I'm doing my best to make it "extended release"[1] by baking edibles[2] instead of taking huge bong hits. Daily irritation of the reward system is a no-no. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_release [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29902972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29902972
- d82nsjk9 4y ago
  How did you switch from smoking to edibles? Or was it easy for you?
  - hericium 4y ago
    Haven't switched completely but limited it greatly around the time I quit cigarettes (not nicotine) few years ago.
dcolkitt 4y ago
Despite this, high-concentration cannabis is a huge public health risk. The deleterious effects from smoking comes from inhaling the smoldering organic compounds in dried plant material. That health impact scales with the volume of smoke inhaled. If you increase the concentration of THC, users can achieve equivalent levels of intoxication with substantially less smoke inhalation. 30 years ago, THC concentrations were 5% or less. Today, legal cannabis tends to average around 25%. That's an 80% reduction in smoke-related damage.
- whalesalad 4y ago
  Keep in mind there are a dozen different ways to consume cannabis that do not involve combustion of plant material. Teens are getting zooted because they are using concentrate pens, which are essentially e-cigarrette's but replace PG/VG with distillate.
- hestefisk 4y ago
  Let alone the mental health risk from permanent THC-induced psychosis.
  - hestefisk 4y ago
    Downvote? Seriously, hn? It’s a fact that hashish intake can cause psychosis.
    - ryandvm 4y ago
      You have any legitimate studies on this or are you just regurgitating 70 year old "reefer madness" propaganda?
    - GordonS 4y ago
      It is absolutely not a fact. There are a slew of papers on both sides of the argument, so it's definitely not settled. People with mental health issues are more likely to use cannabis because it helps them with those issues. And people with mental health issues are of course at higher risk of developing psychosis, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
actfrench 4y ago
When I lived in NYC almost every single one of my friends regularly smoked pot and it seemed pretty harmless to me except I’d occasionally have a friend who never really addressed their anxiety because pot was their go-to so that anxiety just got worse and worse. Years later, I joined Al-Anon because my partner was struggling with alcoholism and I was really surprised to see so many people there because a partner or child was addicted to pot and the very real emotional pain and problems they were facing from this. Their loved ones were basically checked out of their life and relationships.
- redisman 4y ago
  It’s a terrible anxiety medicine as probably the most common side effect is anxiety.
  - mtnGoat 4y ago
    i agree, its a terrible treatment for anxiety. ive had friends ask me for strain recommendations to help treat anxiety, my advice is always "none of them".
  - AnthonBerg 4y ago
    I’ve come to see cannabis in the way that it buries anxiety, and this buried anxiety then goes sour. Festers. There’s also a sense that something about cannabis turns people’s imagination against themselves. Long-term use. At first it seems to free up the imagination and enhance the sense of meaningful experiences and emotion. Then that slowly turns to fog and people tend towards these little micro-jumps to conclusions, conclusions which are trite and shallow. I speak from experience btw. (My own!) I found the world to be stupid. People were stupid. It was just my lack of imagination and impeded generation of solutions to life, which I imagined to apply to everything but me. It’s funny and super lame and quite sad imo. Seen it happen time and time again.
    - trixie_ 4y ago
      Same here and with many friends. It goes from time slowing down, to a few years of fun times, then anxiety, at which point many people stop doing it. Though I've seen people keep going and develop full scale paranoia, thinking that everything is a conspiracy.
mpfundstein 4y ago
I agree. We observe this in the Netherlands for quite a while already. The solution? Mix it with CBD flower. Unfortunatenly most coffee shops don't agree and still sell only high THC flowers with 0% cbd...
Mo3 4y ago
I live in the Netherlands where there is a "coffeeshop" culture, with some of these coffeeshops having a connaisseur-like focus - as in, they sometimes even offer extremely exotic strains that you've never heard about and aren't even on Leafly etc yet, sourced from god knows where 10000 miles away, and then carefully and passionately grown and cured - and I can 100% guarantee you that people are not necessarily getting sick from more potent strains or over-the-top breeding as a direct correlation to potency. With good potent strains, cleanly grown, you simply naturally smoke less while still enjoying the strains unique effect and flavour profiles. Are there people who get sick from being stupid and smoking half a dozen pure blunts in a row? For sure. I once almost hit two totally greened out Asian tourists who were vomiting onto the bicycle path in Amsterdam, and I've seen people just blacking out for a few seconds in the coffeeshops after smoking one blunt after another for hours on end. Teens in their endless, hormone-guided stupidity are probably getting sick from time to time too, and the higher potency very likely does not help, neither does having zero tolerance and not being advised about the strength at hand. However, I definitely beg to differ, and to not conclude that potency equals sickness. Stupidity or naivety does, and potency is definitely not a "public health risk". You probably wouldn't call Scotch a public health risk either simply for it being stronger than beer. The user determines the risk, education and controlled dispensing help mitigate it and even the most insane ultra-potent strain will not kill you, only deliver you a 1-2 hour lesson in personal responsibility. I don't smoke much any more, but I still like to visit every new coffeeshop I see and haven't been at before, so I have probably seen and smoked over a hundred different strains by now. They all have more or less different effects, flavours, potential medical applications, benefits and disadvantages, but exactly nil of them have/had a "making sick" property by default. In fact, with most of them, you only have to inhale one or two puffs to immediately notice how and how strongly they will affect you, and the only way to ever get sick is by ignoring common sense and forcing it. IF there is weed you can actually get dangerously sick from these days, it is unregulated and adulterated street weed, which is absolutely flooding Europe these days and people are consistently dying left and right from smoking it, but even that has nothing to do with the weed itself.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  Would love to see sources on deaths from unregulated weed. Are we talking the age old boogeyman of laced weed or something else?
mandmandam 4y ago
There's quite a lot of subtle, and not so subtle slant in this article. If you didn't know the background and the other side of the story, you 'd walk away with a very warped impression of the scale and scope of this issue. > Christina Caron is a reporter for the Well section at The New York Times, covering mental health and the intersection of culture and health care. Weird - because I've gone back over years of her articles and she doesn't talk about the biggest issues affecting mental health. It's all fluff. Yet she found the time to do three veiled hit-pieces on cannabis so far this year. If you ever wondered why the impressionable don't talk about systemic racism, violence, propaganda, exploitation and poverty as being major mental health issues, instead blaming cannabis (a great boon to mental health, overall!), or blaming themselves, it's because writers like this are given such a major platform.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  While I don't think anything in the article seems outright wrong - cannabis for teenagers and its increasing potency are things to be concerned about for parents and caretakers - I think it's fair to point out that the world is on fire and social media is also terrible for ~~young~~ all mental health.
photochemsyn 4y ago
This line has been reliably trotted out every few years since the 1990s at least: But experts say today’s high-THC cannabis products — vastly different than the joints smoked decades ago — are poisoning some heavy users, including teenagers. The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol - drinking one liter of beer, everyone knows, is not the same as drinking one liter of vodka. Concentrated hash products were also widely available in past eras. Imagine a headline like "Concentrated alcohol products cause vomiting in teenagers! It's not your parent's booze!" Regardless, THC negatively impairs learning, as does alcohol, particular when it comes to memory and retention. People who choose to use such substances recreationally should really moderate their intake and not engage in daily use. This doesn't apply to people who use cannabis for legitimate medical uses, such as an adjunct to opiates to manage serious chronic pain without crossing the addictive threshold with opiates (i.e. avoiding opiate tolerance, which leads to opiate addiction).
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  > The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol Eh, I don't believe that. Especially with weed there is not much to indicate dosage and the addiction is often to tobacco too which motivates people to smoke another joint. It is true that plants got more potent too. At least this is the case in Europe where weed is a bit different than in the US. But I guess the most immediate danger is that drugs are increasingly being laced with other stuff.
  - undersuit 4y ago
    I track my cannabis consumption. Every time I buy I record the weight, price, date, and strain info. My daily consumption in grams per day averages out to 1.5g. Yet there are days when I'm consuming 3+ grams, and if you look at my spreadsheet you can see that more often then not those heavy days fall in a row. I'm not having days where I intake more THC, I'm having days where I consume more cannabis than normal from an inferior batch that has a property like low THC, poor growth, or incomplete curing.
    - 4y ago
caymanjim 4y ago
Edibles are a real problem. The potency is completely unpredictable. Even the ones from supposedly-reputable medical providers are inconsistent at best. Some are total duds, some are far too potent for even experienced users. I'm sure some manufacturers are using some amount of science and engineering in an attempt to standardize, but I don't believe any of it is truly pharmaceutical-grade calibrated, or even close. If we're going to continue this charade of pretending it's medicine, then the FDA should be involved to verify the claims and improve quality assurance for dosage.
- GordonS 4y ago
  I'm a medical user in the UK, which had a highly regulated medical system. Potency of medical-grade THC oils here are completely consistent.
- yieldcrv 4y ago
  > If we're going to continue this charade of pretending it's medicine I consider them fun! I think edibles have their own audience, and the "experienced users" think their tolerance is in one place because of the low quality crap they simply used a lot off the street, but its really in a totally different place. (With other drugs, people often overdose for the same reason like they use a scale that was relevant 5 years ago and then OD because their tolerance changed and the drug concentration changed.) Edibles are also basically a different drug after it gets processed by the liver, I think some additional consumer protection should be done I am also 100% in agreement that FDA-level studies should exist, and that it is pathetic we just have random experiences from random jurisdictions.
steve76 4y ago
[dead]
eesmith 4y ago
The full title is "Teens Are Getting Sick From Products With High THC Levels", and NOT "weed" as the HN title uses. Eg: > This was not your average weed. The oil and waxes she bought from dealers were typically about 90 percent THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana. referred to later as "THC concentrates". BTW, the authorities have been saying for decades that level of THC in weed is much higher than it used to be, I believe as a way to convince older adults that their personal experience with cannabis is not trustworthy. For example, "Many people who have voted for legalization thought they were talking about the marijuana of the 1960s to 1980s when the THC content was less than 2%." from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ . But as https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/was-marijuana-really-less-potent-in-the-1960s/387010/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/was-m... points out, "incomplete government data encourages a pervasive pot myth." ... "it's difficult if not impossible to classify average potency in a way that can be tracked meaningfully over time. So while there's almost certainly more super-strong pot available today—if only by the fact that it's now legal to buy in multiple states—it doesn't mean that all marijuana is ultra-potent today, which is how the narrative about potency is often framed." > But there is little evidence to suggest these specific levels are somehow safer. Likely because of the illegality of carrying out those tests. > A recent study found that people who used marijuana had a greater likelihood of suicidal ideation, plan and attempt than those who did not use the drug at all. As the underlying paper at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781215?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2021.13025 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... points out, "Future research is needed to examine the increase in suicidality and to determine whether it is cannabis use or overlapping risk factors that increase risks for both.". Eg, people experiencing suicidal ideation could be self-medicating with marijuana, and w/o that option would self-medicate with alcohol and have a higher risk of suicide.
hprotagonist 4y ago
You can green out, like notable NYT columnist maureen dowd did, but I don't recommend it. You can also do shots of everclear, but I don't recommend it. There's trouble when the marketing and availability of legal cannabis in dispensaries is the equivalent to a situation where you go to a liquor store or grocery store and you are only able to buy 80+proof and the attitude is "well, consumers are smart, they'll just water it down at home", and there's probably some of that happening. That said, I've also seen a recent resurgence in THC/CBD mixed blends being advertised, specifically, like lawnmower beers are -- so certainly there's consumer desire for something that won't make you totally zooted, just kind of relaxed. Low-dose and mixed-dose gummies and edibles also seem very popular: 5mg THC/5mg CBD candies, for example. Hopefully the market notices.
- rglover 4y ago
  > green out > lawnmower beers > totally zooted Oh I like you.
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    - purplerabbit 4y ago
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lacker 4y ago
The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "normal". And you just won't get as much out of your life as you could get, won't achieve as much relationship success, professional success, or personal fulfillment.
- rs999gti 4y ago
  > The danger is simply that you will like it I like bourbon and gin, but I don't drink both everyday. As they say, "everything in moderation."
- iamdbtoo 4y ago
  This argument always pops up as if there aren't a wealth of very successful daily cannabis users.
  - margalabargala 4y ago
    That's because the existence of outliers doesn't disprove the existence of a trend. Saying that there are successful daily cannabis users and therefore chronic cannabis use doesn't have negative effects on one's brain, is similar to saying that you're holding a snowball and therefore global warming doesn't exist.
    - iamdbtoo 4y ago
      > That's because the existence of outliers doesn't disprove the existence of a trend. Yeah, exactly. Either way it proves nothing about a person or their life.
      - margalabargala 4y ago
        It means the person you originally replied to was correct to call it a "danger", because while it doesn't preclude the possibility of success as you noted, it does make it less likely for a given individual.
ellopoppit 4y ago
Is there any doubt that alcohol, or sugar for that matter, makes far more people (teens especially) sick than cannabis? In fact, cannabis is an excellent treatment for alcohol hangovers.
- AndrewVos 4y ago
  There is no doubt. This article is BS. One hundred percent bad faith. Maybe they should think to mention the millions of people on cannabis prescriptions who have had massive benefits.
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    Did they say alcohol and sugar aren't health risks? Are you calling them liars for pointing out the struggles of teenagers who are taking huge amounts of mind-altering substances? Did they say Cannabis doesn't have health benefits for people who take it for prescribed reasons? Did the article itself advocate or give voice to advocates of "re-prohibition" outright?
    - AndrewVos 4y ago
      I am saying they have an agenda.
- vkou 4y ago
  "Vodka cocktails are bad for you" doesn't logically refute "Weed can be bad for you." Both can be (and almost certainly are) true at the same time.
  - ellopoppit 4y ago
    And yet the lesser of the two evils is the one which remains federally illegal. The harm caused by this prohibition far outweighs the harm of some people feeling sick for a few hours after consuming too much cannabis. Articles like this which only focus on negatives of cannabis help perpetuate the even greater harms of cannabis prohibition.
snarfy 4y ago
Can't read the article. I'm guessing it's about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndro...
Reason077 4y ago
I dunno. I remember the stuff making me feel very sick when I tried it in my teens in the 1990s. Kind of put me off it for life, even though I've got plenty of friends who are still into it.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  Any reason to believe it wasn't K2? Or...moldy weed?
  - Reason077 4y ago
    Well I didn’t just try it once!
standardUser 4y ago
The way most Americans consume weed is basically a guaranteed overdose for anyone without a high tolerance. The regular "weed" we buy from dealers has been getting stronger for years because the consumers spending most of the money on weed demand it be strong. Once retail stores opened where I lived, I started buying weed with 10-15% THC instead of the standard 20-30%. It can feel like the difference between having a couple beers or 5 shots of tequila. Most of us can enjoy a few beers almost anytime, but rarely want to get shit-faced drunk. The black market, driven by heavy users, has been forcing us all to get far too high on weed because dosing a hit of weed at 25% THC is almost impossible. And we think this is normal. Most of the weed in retail stores is still too strong for me, but at least now I have options, which for me has been the biggest boon of legalization. I can finally enjoy weed again! But this same story plays out across many drugs, with consumers facing far more danger and uncertainty than is necessary because of our spectacularly ineffective drug laws.
- redisman 4y ago
  I’m sorry but why don’t you just put less weed in if it’s too strong?
  - bergenty 4y ago
    It’s kind of hard. As some one that used to smoke a lot but only smokes maybe once a year at this point, I have to put impossibly small amounts of pot in my bowl and it still gets me very high.
  - y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
    You'd think that would work, but it doesn't and I don't know why. Maybe because you still get the same % in the hit but it just doesn't last as long? For people that use vaporizers like mine, you also need to have a certain amount for the vaporizer to be effective otherwise you get nothing out of it which leads to inserting even more weed and suddenly you have more in your system than you meant to. The higher percentage stuff is an instant panic attack for me whereas the low percentage allows me to actually enjoy it. I have an extreme sensitivity to cannabis though, so this doesn't apply to everyone, but I'm also far from alone on this. I personally don't care if they sell high % concentrations as long as they make the lower concentrations available too for people like me. Unfortunately finding the low-dose stuff seems to be very difficult. I ended up growing my own low-dose strain though and it's been excellent so far.
Havoc 4y ago
>90 percent THC And here I thought I was being bold ordering 5% CBD oils...
tacheiordache 4y ago
I smoke casually just a tiny bit. I liken it to taking a shot. That's enough to get a slight boost of creativity. I hate getting drunk or high but just toking works wonders for me. Been doing this for 20 years and it hasn't impacted my life negatively at all. I actually stopped drinking altogether because of some eczema but I'll never stop indulging in pot this lifetime. I use a $20 bag for about a couple of months
asdff 4y ago
I'm currently doing a read of Manufactured Consent and I can't help but imagine these articles are the harbingers of really stupid regulations "for the children." Juul was banned today for the children in related news, after years of these sorts of pearl clutching headlines. All the more motivation to continue growing my own removed from potential overreach or all the overtaxation.
bitwize 4y ago
Now that weed has been largely destigmatized if not universally decriminalized, it's time for parents to step up and teach their kids responsible use, including non-use before a certain age. We do this with other recreational drugs like alcohol. Perhaps we can gradually introduce them to higher and higher potencies, like French parents do with wine.
officeplant 4y ago
"teens are getting sick vaping the strongest shit we've ever created" Well no shit. I'm an adult that has smoked weed for 15 years now and even in my late 30's I can't handle more than a few hits of concentrated wax/oils. How is this any different from 15 year olds sneaking their parents everclear to make some strong punch? Is it the drugs fault or the fact that we suck at keeping substances out of the hands of minors.
- alex504 4y ago
  Its the drugs fault. If the drug causes negative effects on a large subset of the people who use them, that is a problem with the drug.
  - officeplant 4y ago
    People who use them illegally and without caution in this case. Realistically its a lack of drug education. It isn't hard to understand high powered versions of a substance will be much stronger in effect. We see the same issue with people chugging down energy drinks with 350mg+ of caffeine and complaining of the end result. At some point people have to learn.
Maursault 4y ago
Weed is harmless, except for teens. Weed has always hurt teens. The hurt is subtle. It tends to steal their future and their ability to support themselves or contribute to society. But this really isn't about weed. It's about bad parents.
- SwanRonson 4y ago
  How are “good parents” expected to find this low-odor, marker-sized object without deeply invading their child’s privacy or ruining their bond and becoming “bad parents”? Gone are the days of finding a smelly bong in the back of the closet, this could be in their pocket or purse at all times. The side effects of weed could be found in every sober teen. Hungrier, more emotional, more distant from parents, etc. Are good parents supposed to treat their children like criminals until they no longer show signs of puberty?
  - Maursault 4y ago
    For one, Good parents don't submit their children to unreasonable searches. Also, if the parenting is good, the search is unnecessary, because there is nothing illicit to find. I'm not a parent, and I realize it is very hard to do well, but my understanding is it has to do with the right attention at the right times, mostly just being there, but also not shying away from correcting discipline. Parents that become their childrens' best friends and never correctly discipline them for fear of their hatred only produces narcissistic children. I think the family unit must be relied upon, separation and sacrifice of duties, with the mother the nurturer and the father the "whip," (i do not advocate for corporal punishment, whip is metaphore) usually kids turn out ok. When roles are mixed or when no one wants to do the hard work of being the bad cop is when kids learn they can get away with murder. the finest day i ever had was when i learned to cry on demand
loldk 4y ago
elif 4y ago
I wish journalists would learn to use obvious disambiguating terms like 'hash' and 'dabs' instead of needlessly conjuring up baseless fear about perfectly healthy flower use by lumping cannabinoid drugs into one umbrella term.
_hudj 4y ago
The NYTimes has a bad habit of hyperbole like this but in a world where 200 proof alcohol exists and prescription fentanyl is easily accessible it feels pretty well...boomer for lack of a better phrase. Weed isn't an issue and it never has been.
rgifford 4y ago
Can't help but think of Mac Miller's Tiny Desk performance of his song 2009 [1]. Mac started using weed heavily in his teens to cope with the stress of touring. 2009 was a big year for him: two major mixtapes, the cusp of fame and his intro to harder drugs. The song is celebration and acceptance and resignation, and totally unapologetic. He died of an OD two months after this performance at the age of 26. 1. https://youtu.be/QrR_gm6RqCo?t=699 https://youtu.be/QrR_gm6RqCo?t=699
dionian 4y ago
This guy doesn't sound like his problem was weed's potency. I don't follow this article's connection between the two.
elil17 4y ago
Over the past century, Americans have switched from eating whole foods containing many nutrients in one package to eating processed foods where each nutrient is extracted from a different plant and then recombined. The resulting food is dirt cheap and incredibly appetizing. Something equivalent is happening in the cannabis industry. Cannabis is a mixture of THC and various other compounds which potentiate it. Without those other compounds, the THC doesn't have the same psychoactive effects. Cannabis producers are growing high THC breeds, extracting the THC, and then adding in then extracting the other compounds from other breeds, other foods, or synthetic sources. The result: dirt cheap drugs that are more enticing to consumers.
kromem 4y ago
It's a serious problem that we're getting rid of the CBD in products. CBD is a natural antipsychotic. There's some very promising research on it alone as a treatment for schizophrenia even: https://academic.oup.com/schizbullopen/article/3/1/sgab053/6445173 https://academic.oup.com/schizbullopen/article/3/1/sgab053/6... And a large body of research on how it reduces the potential psychotic side effects of THC. But go into a dispensary and ask for a 1:1 or even a 1:2 THC:CBD product, and they will look at you like you have two heads. The plant naturally contains an antagonistic for the psychotic effects, we're selecting to eliminate that antagonistic from the products, and then have a surprised Pikachu face when an increasing number of users have psychotic effects. It's almost impossible to get cannabis products with a nice mix of CBD alongside THC unless explicitly asking for it and possibly needing to hit up multiple dispensaries to find it. That's really not ideal. And all too often ratio products dilute the THC per volume according to the ratio, which further discourages recreational users from selecting for the ratio products. If the THC only product has 10mg per serving, the 1:1 and 1:2 should also have 10mg THC per serving, with an additional 10 or 20mg CBD alongside it. Not 5mg or 3.3mg THC. This is a merchandising issue.
- efields 4y ago
  Louder, louder for the people in the back. The market controlling genetics in plant propagation has consistently lead to favoring bigger, more uniform, more shelf-stable, and this has always lead to less nutrition, over-consumption, and more waste. The same thing is happening with BOTH drug cannabis and industrial (CBD) hemp. The low threshold of .3% THC for hemp to be legal for any grower in the US is an arbitrary ass number, so by breeding to it who knows what’s getting lost in the genetic dustbin. Growing your own is liberating, if not still legally dubious in the US. Repealing the prohibition against growing would likely get more people inquiring about their cannabis, just like when you go to a farmers market and enjoy substantially better quality vegetables. You can learn what went into it. Of course the dispensary business is on the verge of becoming an entrenched lobby, and would likely rebuff any effort to legalize growing.
- monetus 4y ago
  To back up your point with another health anecdote - epilepsy forces me to take an acute preventative for seizures that cause a delirium, drugs like qulipta or a cbd heavy strain/blend of marijuana. The cbd is a necessary ingredient, it isn't medical for me otherwise.
jaqalopes 4y ago
Quantity, it's said, has a quality all its own. Anyone who wants to look at their personal unproblematic weed use and conclude that it's totally, universally impossible for today's weed concentrates to be a problem for anyone really isn't thinking straight. There is a difference between concentrates and flower. Once you're habitually using something that's 50%+ THC, "normal" weed just doesn't cut it anymore. You need to start upping the ante just to feel high at all. People call this "tolerance" but IMO that word obscures what's actually happening. Namely, you can only put so many feel-good chemicals in the human brain before you hit diminishing returns. Trying to keep the good times rolling may cause you to blow past your body's ability to metabolize the chemicals away without consequences. I've been a stoner for 12+ years and have had to learn my limits the hard way. I really feel for the girl in this article, and anyone else who's struggling with their weed use in a culture that repeatedly insists there is "no unsafe dose."
parkingrift 4y ago
People should be highly skeptical of distillates, vape cartridges, waxes, and edibles. This is a new frontier and largely unregulated. You never truly know what you're getting. Even at "regulated" dispensaries the QC is garbage. Dry herb vaporizing is the optimal way to consume. You can pick the strain and set the exact temperature with far less ambiguity. You can even control the supply by growing it yourself. It is changing the federal schedule is the best course of action. We are not benefitting by flying blind, and consumption won't go down simply because people would prefer it.
trixie_ 4y ago
A lot of people have the exact same story. First few times, time slows down. Next few years it's a good time, then after that you have a good chance of developing an anxiety disorder from weed. At that point people usually stop doing it because it doesn't get any better. If only some research was done on the long term affects before legalizing it. Instead now we're doing a population wide experiment.
oblib 4y ago
Teens have always done stupid shit. They'll drink till they puke at every party they go to until they grow up and get tired of it, or they become adult alcoholics. When I was a teen I watched my friends having contest to see who could take the biggest bong hits and "press" them the longest without coughing. I always declined to participate in those contests. I was well known to be a "lightweight", but that moniker never bothered me. Those who called me that were the same kids who'd chug whiskey they stole from their parents and then hug toilets while puking until they passed out on the bathroom floor. Edibles are akin to taking pills. You don't know how hard they're going to hit you until they do, and if it's too hard you're stuck with it until it wears off. Vapes are akin to big bong hits. When I was a teen I saw teens puke after taking a few too many giant bong hits. They were having bong hit competitions. It's very easy to regulate the effects of weed by taking a tiny puff and putting it down for a few minutes. So, it's not that weed is more potent. It's easy to sip a bit of whiskey too, but you can get just as puking drunk guzzling beer as slamming shots.
Hellion 4y ago
This article makes some incredible leaps. Marijuana addiction is an under-recognized problem, but the implication that a kid killed himself because he had a weed addiction is incredibly misleading. > After several stays at mental hospitals, the doctors determined that Johnny had a severe case of THC abuse, Ms. Stack said. He was prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, which helped — but then he stopped taking it. In 2019, Johnny died after jumping from a six-story building. He was 19. A few days before his death, Ms. Stack said, Johnny had apologized to her, saying that weed had ruined his mind and his life, adding, “I’m sorry, and I love you.”
- hirvi74 4y ago
  I would imagine if Johnny didn't have mental health issues in the first place, he wouldn't have abused THC in the first place.
status200 4y ago
I love cannabis, but i acknowledge that almost everyone who does dabs / resin / shatter / etc eventually turns into a zombie. As with everything, as soon as you concentrate the active ingredient(s), you can get way off course.
mythrwy 4y ago
Only teens it doesn't affect adults? Or is this just "think of the kids"?
escanda 4y ago
I might be biased since I have seen this before, but, the mother who lost her son should be ashamed of not doing enough and then pretend that the general public shall clap. Most of the time in suicide people those around them don't do shit. As harsh as it gets.
fleddr 4y ago
Just adding to the pile of warnings... About 20 years ago, in the Netherlands, two people from my small town. Both were heavy users. They would visit a coffee shop (our term for a weed shop) twice a day and stay for some 2 hours or longer each time. Dutch weed was already known to be strong back then, but I have no idea how strong. Probably still less strong compared to what is described in the article. I would estimate they smoked up to 4 full joints each day. Both developed a psychosis. One would start random fights with people. I saw him get arrested and in the police car kept bumping his own head to the door with full force. He lost his job and ultimately ended up in a mental facility. He had regular paranoia attacks about being followed and being hacked, and would ask random people to check his phone. He's been bouncing between the mental facility, the police and back again ever since. Already at the age of 25, he was a lost cause, as he had ruined every single aspect of his life. The truly sad part is that life goes on in this miserable state probably for several decades. As for prior conditions: I had known him for a long while before his detour. Had a steady job, full of life energy, never any aggression, no criminal record, clean as can be. The other guy started to attend the same prostitute, daily, whom he actually believed to be Madonna. The vast majority of his time though he spent driving between two specific dutch cities as a way to discharge excess electricity he believed to be in his car. I once was in his home where he picked up one of his mom's books. It was a cheesy doctor romance story. He starts reading out loud from the book but rather than literally reading the text, somehow this text got warped and transformed into his mind, and the output was some bizarre prophecy. As if he was effortlessly producing a brand new Bible on the spot. One of the strangest things I've ever seen anyone do. I don't know what happened to him, we lost touch. So yes, getting "sick" doesn't even begin to describe what weed can do when not taking care of dosage.
radicalriddler 4y ago
This is interesting, last time I was back home one of my mates was telling me that one of my other mates was throwing up violently after smoking weed these days. He's 23 now, been smoking everyday since 15. He was one of those guys who'd say weed had no real negatives. Nice to see an article on it. Definitely needs more awareness.
diebeforei485 4y ago
Just like with Juul, we're seeing bright colored flavored products (highly processed/refined) designed to hook kids. Legalize it (just don't saddle it with heavy taxes California-style) and regulate it. 90% products should not so be easy to come by.
zach_garwood 4y ago
> Each morning, she found students washing their bongs in the communal bathroom at 8 a.m. to prepare for their “morning smoke.” I guess kids are just more sanitary these days, but I would go like a month between cleaning my bongs in college. And I certainly wasn't waking up at such an early hour as 8am.
Der_Einzige 4y ago
I know some founders of 10K+ star GitHub projects who are also low-key massive stoners. They write lots of the code for their libraries stoned. Most of the people here don't realize that the majority of the cognitive impairment from weed is from the oxygen deprivation and nasty chemicals in smoke. Vaping or eating it has almost no impact on cognitive function once you have some level of tolerance. It basically turns into less nasty cigarettes for habitual users. You probably don't know when a lot of people are high around you, even if you think you do.
randomopining 4y ago
A little bit once in awhile for creativity, or at a concert. Like 1-3 puffs max. I have no clue how these people do strong stuff daily or multiple times a week. Life must just be a big nebulous cloud.
mrtweetyhack 4y ago

219 points by actfrench 4y ago

I know a cannabis entrepreneur who makes high-quality gummies standardized to 150 mg THC which is, I think, too much. As a cannabis experienced user I find these make me feel hosed for six hours or so. It may or may not be a good time, but I'm certainly not going to do more than lay on my ass. If I take half of one of those (75 mg) it is a strong intoxication, pretty consistently a good time, and I can go for a walk, do the dishes and otherwise be able to do most things. The local health department had complained about very strong products being for sale and I've talked with this guy a few times about it. He'd say that people can always cut them in half but I'd say that a lot of people don't know what they are doing, will take the whole thing, and probably have a bad time when they could have had a good time and become repeat customers. Despite the unit economics being worse he's recently come out with a 75 mg product.

newsclues 4y ago
Meanwhile in Canada the stores only sell 10mg and I need to eat a dozen to feel a buzz. Just give consumers choice
ecpottinger 4y ago
I have a friend who stopped eating gummies for the same reason. They found the chocolate bars easier to break into the smaller pieces since they are grooved that way.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  Gummies, being more sugar than fat, metabolize so much faster...not always desirable (who wants overpowering effects for 30min if they're eating an edible?).
corrral 4y ago
Sweet Christ. 150mg? Goddamn, I hope my tolerance never gets that bad. That'd be so expensive. 1/10 that at once is enough to get me fucked up enough that, if I had taken more, I'd just be asleep.
- geekbird 4y ago
  Seriously. I accidentally ate 1/4 of a 100mg THC chocolate bar, but it was not the right hybrid to keep me asleep, so I was in and out for hours. 25 mg is more than twice my preferred THC dose.
- notamy 4y ago
  > Sweet Christ. 150mg? Goddamn, I hope my tolerance never gets that bad. It's a nightmare. I'm a medical cannabis patient, so unfortunately, proper symptom management means my usage ends up being quite high. My tolerance got so high that I barely felt anything from 350mg+ in edibles or RSO[0]. Taking a tolerance break from that is an awful experience; my psychiatrist actually had to prescribe benzos (Klonopin) to make it doable. [0] https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-rick-simpson-oil https://www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/what-is-rick-simpso...
- tacheiordache 4y ago
  150mg is crazy. Im a causal smoker who tokes just a little bit and that not every day. 150mg would send me to ER
- genocidicbunny 4y ago
  Back before CA legalized marijuana, thus putting in the limits on edibles, you could get some super-strong ones if you had a medical card. I recall a friend of mine buying 1500mg edibles that would put down most experienced smokers for two or three days. Said friend was going through one of those edibles per day, but those edibles also cost less than a 100mg edible does these days.
ginko 4y ago
> He'd say that people can always cut them in half People who want a stronger buzz could always just take two..
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  The issue then becomes getting diabetes before getting high due to the crazy amounts of sugar in these edibles.
  - spywaregorilla 4y ago
    Is it really more than a can of coke?
dfxm12 4y ago
Is this in the US? What state? I've only seen menus in NJ, IL, and most edibles are like 5-10mg per piece and seem to top out at 25mg per piece, but those tend to be big pieces that look like they are meant to be broken apart (like a Hershey bar). I think setting national standards around this would be just one benefit of legalizing recreational use at the federal level.
- PaulHoule 4y ago
  NY
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    mmm yeah I've seen those in Washington Square in NYC We don't have anything that high in California also edibles are practically a different drug after being processed by the liver, we should study them completely separately we should have high quality studies for specific use cases, just like corporate designer drugs that go through the FDA but we currently have... whatever this is.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  You can get gummies like this in IL, but just not from the dispensaries. Plenty of people make the drive from Michigan to sell to their friends here.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  I know that michigan has a law that allows for private transactions between medical smokers and licensed "caretakers". These caretakers are basically unregulated, so they can have a huge greenhouse operation with just a couple patients. People in Chicago drive to michigan to get the caretakers "extra" product.
- fuzzer37 4y ago
  Last time I went to the dispensary near me in Michigan, the budtender started off with the 100mg gummies when I said I was looking for edibles.
- 4y ago
zeroonetwothree 4y ago
I get a strong effect from 5mg already. I can’t imagine what 150mg would do to me
- colordrops 4y ago
  THC tolerance makes a big difference. 5-10 is all I need now. When I used to smoke a lot I could take much larger doses with similar effects.
  - redisman 4y ago
    I believe it metabolizes differently. Even as an daily smoker/vaper at one point who never ate edibles, 10mg would get me very high.
_fat_santa 4y ago
I live in Colorado and they limit edibles to 10mg per piece/100mg per pack max. 150mg for a single gummy is a bit nuts though. As someone who smokes a good amount of weed, my recommendation to people it to always stick to just flower. I've tried it all, vaping, vaporizers (different than vaping, you're superheating flower rather than using an extract), edibles, and regular pot. From my personal experience, edibles last the longest but don't hit right away, takes about an hour for it to pass through to your liver and from there I noticed that it was a "low grade" high for a few hours. Vaping is the polar opposite, the stuff hits you almost instantly. You also have to be careful and not puff to much, a monster hit will send you to another universe. I've also noticed that because of the high THC content (sometimes 90-100%) and virtually no CBD content, this is the easiest way to have a bad high. This also gives you the shortest high, seems to wear off quickest. Finally you have good ol' flower. This is what I usually smoke because it slots somewhere between vaping and edibles in terms of how high you get. I almost always smoke flower because I get consistent results. If I vape I might have a panic attack, if I have an edible it might last too long, but with plain weed I know how long I'm going to be up, what the experience will be, etc. Also this is complete pseudoscience but there's something that makes me feel better about smoking flower vs the other stuff. Vaping and all that other stuff is cool, but there's a certain safety in knowing the only modification a flower had was trimming the leaves away, no lab equipment, extractions, chemicals or any of that.
- corrral 4y ago
  A lot of the concentrates used in edibles and vapes cut nearly everything but the THC, which may be part of the observed difference between those and flower. "Full spectrum" extracts that keep many of the other chemicals seem to hit very different for me—I don't get the stereotypical giggly-high effect on pure THC or THC+CBD, mostly just sleepy (which is often exactly what I want, so that's fine), but I do on full spectrum gummies. Could be psychosomatic, but the effect feels pretty different to me.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > Also this is complete pseudoscience but there's something that makes me feel better about smoking flower vs the other stuff. Vaping and all that other stuff is cool, but there's a certain safety in knowing the only modification a flower had was trimming the leaves away, no lab equipment, extractions, chemicals or any of that. Honestly, that is common sense not pseudoscience. There has been way too much shady shit going on especially in vaping [1]. [1] https://www.vox.com/2019/10/28/20936888/vaping-lung-illness-symptoms-death-cdc-report https://www.vox.com/2019/10/28/20936888/vaping-lung-illness-...
aluminum96 4y ago
150mg THC for a single edible is absolutely bonkers. If you only use ~1x per month, around 3mg is a common threshold dose, and 5mg can be rather strong. So that's 50x the naive threshhold dose!
llIIllIIllIIl 4y ago
This is messed up. Non-tolerant person dose for “stoned” would be like 20-30mg. I take 5 or 10 on a day i need to chill and i can feel it already.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

hericium 4y ago

Those high concentration THC extracts cause huge serotonin spikes. I'm on medicinal 19% THC flowers (190mg daily) and I'm doing my best to make it "extended release"[1] by baking edibles[2] instead of taking huge bong hits. Daily irritation of the reward system is a no-no. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_release https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_release [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29902972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29902972

d82nsjk9 4y ago
How did you switch from smoking to edibles? Or was it easy for you?
- hericium 4y ago
  Haven't switched completely but limited it greatly around the time I quit cigarettes (not nicotine) few years ago.

dcolkitt 4y ago

Despite this, high-concentration cannabis is a huge public health risk. The deleterious effects from smoking comes from inhaling the smoldering organic compounds in dried plant material. That health impact scales with the volume of smoke inhaled. If you increase the concentration of THC, users can achieve equivalent levels of intoxication with substantially less smoke inhalation. 30 years ago, THC concentrations were 5% or less. Today, legal cannabis tends to average around 25%. That's an 80% reduction in smoke-related damage.

whalesalad 4y ago
Keep in mind there are a dozen different ways to consume cannabis that do not involve combustion of plant material. Teens are getting zooted because they are using concentrate pens, which are essentially e-cigarrette's but replace PG/VG with distillate.
hestefisk 4y ago
Let alone the mental health risk from permanent THC-induced psychosis.
- hestefisk 4y ago
  Downvote? Seriously, hn? It’s a fact that hashish intake can cause psychosis.
  - ryandvm 4y ago
    You have any legitimate studies on this or are you just regurgitating 70 year old "reefer madness" propaganda?
  - GordonS 4y ago
    It is absolutely not a fact. There are a slew of papers on both sides of the argument, so it's definitely not settled. People with mental health issues are more likely to use cannabis because it helps them with those issues. And people with mental health issues are of course at higher risk of developing psychosis, so it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

actfrench 4y ago

When I lived in NYC almost every single one of my friends regularly smoked pot and it seemed pretty harmless to me except I’d occasionally have a friend who never really addressed their anxiety because pot was their go-to so that anxiety just got worse and worse. Years later, I joined Al-Anon because my partner was struggling with alcoholism and I was really surprised to see so many people there because a partner or child was addicted to pot and the very real emotional pain and problems they were facing from this. Their loved ones were basically checked out of their life and relationships.

redisman 4y ago
It’s a terrible anxiety medicine as probably the most common side effect is anxiety.
- mtnGoat 4y ago
  i agree, its a terrible treatment for anxiety. ive had friends ask me for strain recommendations to help treat anxiety, my advice is always "none of them".
- AnthonBerg 4y ago
  I’ve come to see cannabis in the way that it buries anxiety, and this buried anxiety then goes sour. Festers. There’s also a sense that something about cannabis turns people’s imagination against themselves. Long-term use. At first it seems to free up the imagination and enhance the sense of meaningful experiences and emotion. Then that slowly turns to fog and people tend towards these little micro-jumps to conclusions, conclusions which are trite and shallow. I speak from experience btw. (My own!) I found the world to be stupid. People were stupid. It was just my lack of imagination and impeded generation of solutions to life, which I imagined to apply to everything but me. It’s funny and super lame and quite sad imo. Seen it happen time and time again.
  - trixie_ 4y ago
    Same here and with many friends. It goes from time slowing down, to a few years of fun times, then anxiety, at which point many people stop doing it. Though I've seen people keep going and develop full scale paranoia, thinking that everything is a conspiracy.

mpfundstein 4y ago

I agree. We observe this in the Netherlands for quite a while already. The solution? Mix it with CBD flower. Unfortunatenly most coffee shops don't agree and still sell only high THC flowers with 0% cbd...

Mo3 4y ago

I live in the Netherlands where there is a "coffeeshop" culture, with some of these coffeeshops having a connaisseur-like focus - as in, they sometimes even offer extremely exotic strains that you've never heard about and aren't even on Leafly etc yet, sourced from god knows where 10000 miles away, and then carefully and passionately grown and cured - and I can 100% guarantee you that people are not necessarily getting sick from more potent strains or over-the-top breeding as a direct correlation to potency. With good potent strains, cleanly grown, you simply naturally smoke less while still enjoying the strains unique effect and flavour profiles. Are there people who get sick from being stupid and smoking half a dozen pure blunts in a row? For sure. I once almost hit two totally greened out Asian tourists who were vomiting onto the bicycle path in Amsterdam, and I've seen people just blacking out for a few seconds in the coffeeshops after smoking one blunt after another for hours on end. Teens in their endless, hormone-guided stupidity are probably getting sick from time to time too, and the higher potency very likely does not help, neither does having zero tolerance and not being advised about the strength at hand. However, I definitely beg to differ, and to not conclude that potency equals sickness. Stupidity or naivety does, and potency is definitely not a "public health risk". You probably wouldn't call Scotch a public health risk either simply for it being stronger than beer. The user determines the risk, education and controlled dispensing help mitigate it and even the most insane ultra-potent strain will not kill you, only deliver you a 1-2 hour lesson in personal responsibility. I don't smoke much any more, but I still like to visit every new coffeeshop I see and haven't been at before, so I have probably seen and smoked over a hundred different strains by now. They all have more or less different effects, flavours, potential medical applications, benefits and disadvantages, but exactly nil of them have/had a "making sick" property by default. In fact, with most of them, you only have to inhale one or two puffs to immediately notice how and how strongly they will affect you, and the only way to ever get sick is by ignoring common sense and forcing it. IF there is weed you can actually get dangerously sick from these days, it is unregulated and adulterated street weed, which is absolutely flooding Europe these days and people are consistently dying left and right from smoking it, but even that has nothing to do with the weed itself.

bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
Would love to see sources on deaths from unregulated weed. Are we talking the age old boogeyman of laced weed or something else?

mandmandam 4y ago

There's quite a lot of subtle, and not so subtle slant in this article. If you didn't know the background and the other side of the story, you 'd walk away with a very warped impression of the scale and scope of this issue. > Christina Caron is a reporter for the Well section at The New York Times, covering mental health and the intersection of culture and health care. Weird - because I've gone back over years of her articles and she doesn't talk about the biggest issues affecting mental health. It's all fluff. Yet she found the time to do three veiled hit-pieces on cannabis so far this year. If you ever wondered why the impressionable don't talk about systemic racism, violence, propaganda, exploitation and poverty as being major mental health issues, instead blaming cannabis (a great boon to mental health, overall!), or blaming themselves, it's because writers like this are given such a major platform.

unethical_ban 4y ago
While I don't think anything in the article seems outright wrong - cannabis for teenagers and its increasing potency are things to be concerned about for parents and caretakers - I think it's fair to point out that the world is on fire and social media is also terrible for ~~young~~ all mental health.

photochemsyn 4y ago

This line has been reliably trotted out every few years since the 1990s at least: But experts say today’s high-THC cannabis products — vastly different than the joints smoked decades ago — are poisoning some heavy users, including teenagers. The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol - drinking one liter of beer, everyone knows, is not the same as drinking one liter of vodka. Concentrated hash products were also widely available in past eras. Imagine a headline like "Concentrated alcohol products cause vomiting in teenagers! It's not your parent's booze!" Regardless, THC negatively impairs learning, as does alcohol, particular when it comes to memory and retention. People who choose to use such substances recreationally should really moderate their intake and not engage in daily use. This doesn't apply to people who use cannabis for legitimate medical uses, such as an adjunct to opiates to manage serious chronic pain without crossing the addictive threshold with opiates (i.e. avoiding opiate tolerance, which leads to opiate addiction).

raxxorraxor 4y ago
> The issue is that people adjust their consumption accordingly, just as with alcohol Eh, I don't believe that. Especially with weed there is not much to indicate dosage and the addiction is often to tobacco too which motivates people to smoke another joint. It is true that plants got more potent too. At least this is the case in Europe where weed is a bit different than in the US. But I guess the most immediate danger is that drugs are increasingly being laced with other stuff.
- undersuit 4y ago
  I track my cannabis consumption. Every time I buy I record the weight, price, date, and strain info. My daily consumption in grams per day averages out to 1.5g. Yet there are days when I'm consuming 3+ grams, and if you look at my spreadsheet you can see that more often then not those heavy days fall in a row. I'm not having days where I intake more THC, I'm having days where I consume more cannabis than normal from an inferior batch that has a property like low THC, poor growth, or incomplete curing.
  - 4y ago

caymanjim 4y ago

Edibles are a real problem. The potency is completely unpredictable. Even the ones from supposedly-reputable medical providers are inconsistent at best. Some are total duds, some are far too potent for even experienced users. I'm sure some manufacturers are using some amount of science and engineering in an attempt to standardize, but I don't believe any of it is truly pharmaceutical-grade calibrated, or even close. If we're going to continue this charade of pretending it's medicine, then the FDA should be involved to verify the claims and improve quality assurance for dosage.

GordonS 4y ago
I'm a medical user in the UK, which had a highly regulated medical system. Potency of medical-grade THC oils here are completely consistent.
yieldcrv 4y ago
> If we're going to continue this charade of pretending it's medicine I consider them fun! I think edibles have their own audience, and the "experienced users" think their tolerance is in one place because of the low quality crap they simply used a lot off the street, but its really in a totally different place. (With other drugs, people often overdose for the same reason like they use a scale that was relevant 5 years ago and then OD because their tolerance changed and the drug concentration changed.) Edibles are also basically a different drug after it gets processed by the liver, I think some additional consumer protection should be done I am also 100% in agreement that FDA-level studies should exist, and that it is pathetic we just have random experiences from random jurisdictions.

steve76 4y ago

[dead]

eesmith 4y ago

The full title is "Teens Are Getting Sick From Products With High THC Levels", and NOT "weed" as the HN title uses. Eg: > This was not your average weed. The oil and waxes she bought from dealers were typically about 90 percent THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana. referred to later as "THC concentrates". BTW, the authorities have been saying for decades that level of THC in weed is much higher than it used to be, I believe as a way to convince older adults that their personal experience with cannabis is not trustworthy. For example, "Many people who have voted for legalization thought they were talking about the marijuana of the 1960s to 1980s when the THC content was less than 2%." from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/ . But as https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/was-marijuana-really-less-potent-in-the-1960s/387010/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/was-m... points out, "incomplete government data encourages a pervasive pot myth." ... "it's difficult if not impossible to classify average potency in a way that can be tracked meaningfully over time. So while there's almost certainly more super-strong pot available today—if only by the fact that it's now legal to buy in multiple states—it doesn't mean that all marijuana is ultra-potent today, which is how the narrative about potency is often framed." > But there is little evidence to suggest these specific levels are somehow safer. Likely because of the illegality of carrying out those tests. > A recent study found that people who used marijuana had a greater likelihood of suicidal ideation, plan and attempt than those who did not use the drug at all. As the underlying paper at https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2781215?utm_campaign=articlePDF&utm_medium=articlePDFlink&utm_source=articlePDF&utm_content=jamanetworkopen.2021.13025 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... points out, "Future research is needed to examine the increase in suicidality and to determine whether it is cannabis use or overlapping risk factors that increase risks for both.". Eg, people experiencing suicidal ideation could be self-medicating with marijuana, and w/o that option would self-medicate with alcohol and have a higher risk of suicide.

hprotagonist 4y ago

You can green out, like notable NYT columnist maureen dowd did, but I don't recommend it. You can also do shots of everclear, but I don't recommend it. There's trouble when the marketing and availability of legal cannabis in dispensaries is the equivalent to a situation where you go to a liquor store or grocery store and you are only able to buy 80+proof and the attitude is "well, consumers are smart, they'll just water it down at home", and there's probably some of that happening. That said, I've also seen a recent resurgence in THC/CBD mixed blends being advertised, specifically, like lawnmower beers are -- so certainly there's consumer desire for something that won't make you totally zooted, just kind of relaxed. Low-dose and mixed-dose gummies and edibles also seem very popular: 5mg THC/5mg CBD candies, for example. Hopefully the market notices.

rglover 4y ago
> green out > lawnmower beers > totally zooted Oh I like you.

neonate 4y ago

https://archive.ph/wb5lB https://archive.ph/wb5lB

akpa1 4y ago
There's also this excellent browser extension: https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome https://github.com/iamadamdev/bypass-paywalls-chrome Despite the name, it also works for Firefox.
- Honest_Carrot 4y ago
  I can confirm this. I love this extension and am using Firefox.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  Or, if you don't want to install sketchy plugins in your browser, as soon as the page loads in a new tab, switch to it and press ctrl+p, you'll can create a PDF and read the page without the block or the ads.
  - purplerabbit 4y ago
    TIL
  - yuy910616 4y ago
    wow - takes some dexterity. I thought it didn't work because I was refreshing the page and hitting ctrl + p. But it really is you have to wait for it to load and switch to that tab and do ctrl + p. Cool trick!
  - slenk 4y ago
    Code is open source, you can decide if it's sketchy or not. It's not BTW, its been around for a bit
    - autoexec 4y ago
      Seems like it is infested with Google trackers at the very least.

lacker 4y ago

The real danger with cannabis is not that it'll make you sick or have some nasty side effect like this article describes. The danger is simply that you will like it, you'll end up using it every day, all different times of the day, and it won't really hurt your health as much as it will make you live your life in a somewhat dopey, detached, less-intelligent way. As time goes on it won't feel "fun" it'll just feel "normal". And you just won't get as much out of your life as you could get, won't achieve as much relationship success, professional success, or personal fulfillment.

rs999gti 4y ago
> The danger is simply that you will like it I like bourbon and gin, but I don't drink both everyday. As they say, "everything in moderation."
iamdbtoo 4y ago
This argument always pops up as if there aren't a wealth of very successful daily cannabis users.
- margalabargala 4y ago
  That's because the existence of outliers doesn't disprove the existence of a trend. Saying that there are successful daily cannabis users and therefore chronic cannabis use doesn't have negative effects on one's brain, is similar to saying that you're holding a snowball and therefore global warming doesn't exist.
  - iamdbtoo 4y ago
    > That's because the existence of outliers doesn't disprove the existence of a trend. Yeah, exactly. Either way it proves nothing about a person or their life.
    - margalabargala 4y ago
      It means the person you originally replied to was correct to call it a "danger", because while it doesn't preclude the possibility of success as you noted, it does make it less likely for a given individual.

ellopoppit 4y ago

Is there any doubt that alcohol, or sugar for that matter, makes far more people (teens especially) sick than cannabis? In fact, cannabis is an excellent treatment for alcohol hangovers.

AndrewVos 4y ago
There is no doubt. This article is BS. One hundred percent bad faith. Maybe they should think to mention the millions of people on cannabis prescriptions who have had massive benefits.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Did they say alcohol and sugar aren't health risks? Are you calling them liars for pointing out the struggles of teenagers who are taking huge amounts of mind-altering substances? Did they say Cannabis doesn't have health benefits for people who take it for prescribed reasons? Did the article itself advocate or give voice to advocates of "re-prohibition" outright?
  - AndrewVos 4y ago
    I am saying they have an agenda.
vkou 4y ago
"Vodka cocktails are bad for you" doesn't logically refute "Weed can be bad for you." Both can be (and almost certainly are) true at the same time.
- ellopoppit 4y ago
  And yet the lesser of the two evils is the one which remains federally illegal. The harm caused by this prohibition far outweighs the harm of some people feeling sick for a few hours after consuming too much cannabis. Articles like this which only focus on negatives of cannabis help perpetuate the even greater harms of cannabis prohibition.

snarfy 4y ago

Can't read the article. I'm guessing it's about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndro...

Reason077 4y ago

I dunno. I remember the stuff making me feel very sick when I tried it in my teens in the 1990s. Kind of put me off it for life, even though I've got plenty of friends who are still into it.

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
Any reason to believe it wasn't K2? Or...moldy weed?
- Reason077 4y ago
  Well I didn’t just try it once!

standardUser 4y ago

The way most Americans consume weed is basically a guaranteed overdose for anyone without a high tolerance. The regular "weed" we buy from dealers has been getting stronger for years because the consumers spending most of the money on weed demand it be strong. Once retail stores opened where I lived, I started buying weed with 10-15% THC instead of the standard 20-30%. It can feel like the difference between having a couple beers or 5 shots of tequila. Most of us can enjoy a few beers almost anytime, but rarely want to get shit-faced drunk. The black market, driven by heavy users, has been forcing us all to get far too high on weed because dosing a hit of weed at 25% THC is almost impossible. And we think this is normal. Most of the weed in retail stores is still too strong for me, but at least now I have options, which for me has been the biggest boon of legalization. I can finally enjoy weed again! But this same story plays out across many drugs, with consumers facing far more danger and uncertainty than is necessary because of our spectacularly ineffective drug laws.

redisman 4y ago
I’m sorry but why don’t you just put less weed in if it’s too strong?
- bergenty 4y ago
  It’s kind of hard. As some one that used to smoke a lot but only smokes maybe once a year at this point, I have to put impossibly small amounts of pot in my bowl and it still gets me very high.
- y-c-o-m-b 4y ago
  You'd think that would work, but it doesn't and I don't know why. Maybe because you still get the same % in the hit but it just doesn't last as long? For people that use vaporizers like mine, you also need to have a certain amount for the vaporizer to be effective otherwise you get nothing out of it which leads to inserting even more weed and suddenly you have more in your system than you meant to. The higher percentage stuff is an instant panic attack for me whereas the low percentage allows me to actually enjoy it. I have an extreme sensitivity to cannabis though, so this doesn't apply to everyone, but I'm also far from alone on this. I personally don't care if they sell high % concentrations as long as they make the lower concentrations available too for people like me. Unfortunately finding the low-dose stuff seems to be very difficult. I ended up growing my own low-dose strain though and it's been excellent so far.

Havoc 4y ago

>90 percent THC And here I thought I was being bold ordering 5% CBD oils...

tacheiordache 4y ago

I smoke casually just a tiny bit. I liken it to taking a shot. That's enough to get a slight boost of creativity. I hate getting drunk or high but just toking works wonders for me. Been doing this for 20 years and it hasn't impacted my life negatively at all. I actually stopped drinking altogether because of some eczema but I'll never stop indulging in pot this lifetime. I use a $20 bag for about a couple of months

asdff 4y ago

I'm currently doing a read of Manufactured Consent and I can't help but imagine these articles are the harbingers of really stupid regulations "for the children." Juul was banned today for the children in related news, after years of these sorts of pearl clutching headlines. All the more motivation to continue growing my own removed from potential overreach or all the overtaxation.

bitwize 4y ago

Now that weed has been largely destigmatized if not universally decriminalized, it's time for parents to step up and teach their kids responsible use, including non-use before a certain age. We do this with other recreational drugs like alcohol. Perhaps we can gradually introduce them to higher and higher potencies, like French parents do with wine.

officeplant 4y ago

"teens are getting sick vaping the strongest shit we've ever created" Well no shit. I'm an adult that has smoked weed for 15 years now and even in my late 30's I can't handle more than a few hits of concentrated wax/oils. How is this any different from 15 year olds sneaking their parents everclear to make some strong punch? Is it the drugs fault or the fact that we suck at keeping substances out of the hands of minors.

alex504 4y ago
Its the drugs fault. If the drug causes negative effects on a large subset of the people who use them, that is a problem with the drug.
- officeplant 4y ago
  People who use them illegally and without caution in this case. Realistically its a lack of drug education. It isn't hard to understand high powered versions of a substance will be much stronger in effect. We see the same issue with people chugging down energy drinks with 350mg+ of caffeine and complaining of the end result. At some point people have to learn.

Maursault 4y ago

Weed is harmless, except for teens. Weed has always hurt teens. The hurt is subtle. It tends to steal their future and their ability to support themselves or contribute to society. But this really isn't about weed. It's about bad parents.

SwanRonson 4y ago
How are “good parents” expected to find this low-odor, marker-sized object without deeply invading their child’s privacy or ruining their bond and becoming “bad parents”? Gone are the days of finding a smelly bong in the back of the closet, this could be in their pocket or purse at all times. The side effects of weed could be found in every sober teen. Hungrier, more emotional, more distant from parents, etc. Are good parents supposed to treat their children like criminals until they no longer show signs of puberty?
- Maursault 4y ago
  For one, Good parents don't submit their children to unreasonable searches. Also, if the parenting is good, the search is unnecessary, because there is nothing illicit to find. I'm not a parent, and I realize it is very hard to do well, but my understanding is it has to do with the right attention at the right times, mostly just being there, but also not shying away from correcting discipline. Parents that become their childrens' best friends and never correctly discipline them for fear of their hatred only produces narcissistic children. I think the family unit must be relied upon, separation and sacrifice of duties, with the mother the nurturer and the father the "whip," (i do not advocate for corporal punishment, whip is metaphore) usually kids turn out ok. When roles are mixed or when no one wants to do the hard work of being the bad cop is when kids learn they can get away with murder. the finest day i ever had was when i learned to cry on demand

loldk 4y ago

elif 4y ago

I wish journalists would learn to use obvious disambiguating terms like 'hash' and 'dabs' instead of needlessly conjuring up baseless fear about perfectly healthy flower use by lumping cannabinoid drugs into one umbrella term.

_hudj 4y ago

The NYTimes has a bad habit of hyperbole like this but in a world where 200 proof alcohol exists and prescription fentanyl is easily accessible it feels pretty well...boomer for lack of a better phrase. Weed isn't an issue and it never has been.

rgifford 4y ago

Can't help but think of Mac Miller's Tiny Desk performance of his song 2009 [1]. Mac started using weed heavily in his teens to cope with the stress of touring. 2009 was a big year for him: two major mixtapes, the cusp of fame and his intro to harder drugs. The song is celebration and acceptance and resignation, and totally unapologetic. He died of an OD two months after this performance at the age of 26. 1. https://youtu.be/QrR_gm6RqCo?t=699 https://youtu.be/QrR_gm6RqCo?t=699

dionian 4y ago

This guy doesn't sound like his problem was weed's potency. I don't follow this article's connection between the two.

elil17 4y ago

Over the past century, Americans have switched from eating whole foods containing many nutrients in one package to eating processed foods where each nutrient is extracted from a different plant and then recombined. The resulting food is dirt cheap and incredibly appetizing. Something equivalent is happening in the cannabis industry. Cannabis is a mixture of THC and various other compounds which potentiate it. Without those other compounds, the THC doesn't have the same psychoactive effects. Cannabis producers are growing high THC breeds, extracting the THC, and then adding in then extracting the other compounds from other breeds, other foods, or synthetic sources. The result: dirt cheap drugs that are more enticing to consumers.

kromem 4y ago

It's a serious problem that we're getting rid of the CBD in products. CBD is a natural antipsychotic. There's some very promising research on it alone as a treatment for schizophrenia even: https://academic.oup.com/schizbullopen/article/3/1/sgab053/6445173 https://academic.oup.com/schizbullopen/article/3/1/sgab053/6... And a large body of research on how it reduces the potential psychotic side effects of THC. But go into a dispensary and ask for a 1:1 or even a 1:2 THC:CBD product, and they will look at you like you have two heads. The plant naturally contains an antagonistic for the psychotic effects, we're selecting to eliminate that antagonistic from the products, and then have a surprised Pikachu face when an increasing number of users have psychotic effects. It's almost impossible to get cannabis products with a nice mix of CBD alongside THC unless explicitly asking for it and possibly needing to hit up multiple dispensaries to find it. That's really not ideal. And all too often ratio products dilute the THC per volume according to the ratio, which further discourages recreational users from selecting for the ratio products. If the THC only product has 10mg per serving, the 1:1 and 1:2 should also have 10mg THC per serving, with an additional 10 or 20mg CBD alongside it. Not 5mg or 3.3mg THC. This is a merchandising issue.

efields 4y ago
Louder, louder for the people in the back. The market controlling genetics in plant propagation has consistently lead to favoring bigger, more uniform, more shelf-stable, and this has always lead to less nutrition, over-consumption, and more waste. The same thing is happening with BOTH drug cannabis and industrial (CBD) hemp. The low threshold of .3% THC for hemp to be legal for any grower in the US is an arbitrary ass number, so by breeding to it who knows what’s getting lost in the genetic dustbin. Growing your own is liberating, if not still legally dubious in the US. Repealing the prohibition against growing would likely get more people inquiring about their cannabis, just like when you go to a farmers market and enjoy substantially better quality vegetables. You can learn what went into it. Of course the dispensary business is on the verge of becoming an entrenched lobby, and would likely rebuff any effort to legalize growing.
monetus 4y ago
To back up your point with another health anecdote - epilepsy forces me to take an acute preventative for seizures that cause a delirium, drugs like qulipta or a cbd heavy strain/blend of marijuana. The cbd is a necessary ingredient, it isn't medical for me otherwise.

jaqalopes 4y ago

Quantity, it's said, has a quality all its own. Anyone who wants to look at their personal unproblematic weed use and conclude that it's totally, universally impossible for today's weed concentrates to be a problem for anyone really isn't thinking straight. There is a difference between concentrates and flower. Once you're habitually using something that's 50%+ THC, "normal" weed just doesn't cut it anymore. You need to start upping the ante just to feel high at all. People call this "tolerance" but IMO that word obscures what's actually happening. Namely, you can only put so many feel-good chemicals in the human brain before you hit diminishing returns. Trying to keep the good times rolling may cause you to blow past your body's ability to metabolize the chemicals away without consequences. I've been a stoner for 12+ years and have had to learn my limits the hard way. I really feel for the girl in this article, and anyone else who's struggling with their weed use in a culture that repeatedly insists there is "no unsafe dose."

parkingrift 4y ago

People should be highly skeptical of distillates, vape cartridges, waxes, and edibles. This is a new frontier and largely unregulated. You never truly know what you're getting. Even at "regulated" dispensaries the QC is garbage. Dry herb vaporizing is the optimal way to consume. You can pick the strain and set the exact temperature with far less ambiguity. You can even control the supply by growing it yourself. It is changing the federal schedule is the best course of action. We are not benefitting by flying blind, and consumption won't go down simply because people would prefer it.

trixie_ 4y ago

A lot of people have the exact same story. First few times, time slows down. Next few years it's a good time, then after that you have a good chance of developing an anxiety disorder from weed. At that point people usually stop doing it because it doesn't get any better. If only some research was done on the long term affects before legalizing it. Instead now we're doing a population wide experiment.

oblib 4y ago

Teens have always done stupid shit. They'll drink till they puke at every party they go to until they grow up and get tired of it, or they become adult alcoholics. When I was a teen I watched my friends having contest to see who could take the biggest bong hits and "press" them the longest without coughing. I always declined to participate in those contests. I was well known to be a "lightweight", but that moniker never bothered me. Those who called me that were the same kids who'd chug whiskey they stole from their parents and then hug toilets while puking until they passed out on the bathroom floor. Edibles are akin to taking pills. You don't know how hard they're going to hit you until they do, and if it's too hard you're stuck with it until it wears off. Vapes are akin to big bong hits. When I was a teen I saw teens puke after taking a few too many giant bong hits. They were having bong hit competitions. It's very easy to regulate the effects of weed by taking a tiny puff and putting it down for a few minutes. So, it's not that weed is more potent. It's easy to sip a bit of whiskey too, but you can get just as puking drunk guzzling beer as slamming shots.

Hellion 4y ago

This article makes some incredible leaps. Marijuana addiction is an under-recognized problem, but the implication that a kid killed himself because he had a weed addiction is incredibly misleading. > After several stays at mental hospitals, the doctors determined that Johnny had a severe case of THC abuse, Ms. Stack said. He was prescribed an anti-psychotic medication, which helped — but then he stopped taking it. In 2019, Johnny died after jumping from a six-story building. He was 19. A few days before his death, Ms. Stack said, Johnny had apologized to her, saying that weed had ruined his mind and his life, adding, “I’m sorry, and I love you.”

hirvi74 4y ago
I would imagine if Johnny didn't have mental health issues in the first place, he wouldn't have abused THC in the first place.

status200 4y ago

I love cannabis, but i acknowledge that almost everyone who does dabs / resin / shatter / etc eventually turns into a zombie. As with everything, as soon as you concentrate the active ingredient(s), you can get way off course.

mythrwy 4y ago

Only teens it doesn't affect adults? Or is this just "think of the kids"?

escanda 4y ago

I might be biased since I have seen this before, but, the mother who lost her son should be ashamed of not doing enough and then pretend that the general public shall clap. Most of the time in suicide people those around them don't do shit. As harsh as it gets.

fleddr 4y ago

Just adding to the pile of warnings... About 20 years ago, in the Netherlands, two people from my small town. Both were heavy users. They would visit a coffee shop (our term for a weed shop) twice a day and stay for some 2 hours or longer each time. Dutch weed was already known to be strong back then, but I have no idea how strong. Probably still less strong compared to what is described in the article. I would estimate they smoked up to 4 full joints each day. Both developed a psychosis. One would start random fights with people. I saw him get arrested and in the police car kept bumping his own head to the door with full force. He lost his job and ultimately ended up in a mental facility. He had regular paranoia attacks about being followed and being hacked, and would ask random people to check his phone. He's been bouncing between the mental facility, the police and back again ever since. Already at the age of 25, he was a lost cause, as he had ruined every single aspect of his life. The truly sad part is that life goes on in this miserable state probably for several decades. As for prior conditions: I had known him for a long while before his detour. Had a steady job, full of life energy, never any aggression, no criminal record, clean as can be. The other guy started to attend the same prostitute, daily, whom he actually believed to be Madonna. The vast majority of his time though he spent driving between two specific dutch cities as a way to discharge excess electricity he believed to be in his car. I once was in his home where he picked up one of his mom's books. It was a cheesy doctor romance story. He starts reading out loud from the book but rather than literally reading the text, somehow this text got warped and transformed into his mind, and the output was some bizarre prophecy. As if he was effortlessly producing a brand new Bible on the spot. One of the strangest things I've ever seen anyone do. I don't know what happened to him, we lost touch. So yes, getting "sick" doesn't even begin to describe what weed can do when not taking care of dosage.

radicalriddler 4y ago

This is interesting, last time I was back home one of my mates was telling me that one of my other mates was throwing up violently after smoking weed these days. He's 23 now, been smoking everyday since 15. He was one of those guys who'd say weed had no real negatives. Nice to see an article on it. Definitely needs more awareness.

diebeforei485 4y ago

Just like with Juul, we're seeing bright colored flavored products (highly processed/refined) designed to hook kids. Legalize it (just don't saddle it with heavy taxes California-style) and regulate it. 90% products should not so be easy to come by.

zach_garwood 4y ago

> Each morning, she found students washing their bongs in the communal bathroom at 8 a.m. to prepare for their “morning smoke.” I guess kids are just more sanitary these days, but I would go like a month between cleaning my bongs in college. And I certainly wasn't waking up at such an early hour as 8am.

Der_Einzige 4y ago

I know some founders of 10K+ star GitHub projects who are also low-key massive stoners. They write lots of the code for their libraries stoned. Most of the people here don't realize that the majority of the cognitive impairment from weed is from the oxygen deprivation and nasty chemicals in smoke. Vaping or eating it has almost no impact on cognitive function once you have some level of tolerance. It basically turns into less nasty cigarettes for habitual users. You probably don't know when a lot of people are high around you, even if you think you do.

randomopining 4y ago

A little bit once in awhile for creativity, or at a concert. Like 1-3 puffs max. I have no clue how these people do strong stuff daily or multiple times a week. Life must just be a big nebulous cloud.

mrtweetyhack 4y ago