5 ms·

I am not an "older person" and I was smoking bud a few decades ago, thank you very much. Some of the stuff I got back then was categorically better than a great

I am not an "older person" and I was smoking bud a few decades ago, thank you very much. Some of the stuff I got back then was categorically better than a great deal of the dispensary bud found today. Some of the cannabis cup winning strains from the mid 90's to mid 2000's would beat the pants off of the vast majority of mega-THC, mass produced strains sold in your average pot shop in terms of pleasant qualitative effects. It's wonderful to be able to take a few hits and hit the perfect high.. you smoke less bud, experience more of the pleasant effects with less of the mind-numbing, paranoia, and other unpleasant side-effects. In the 70's (and still today with trash-tier cannabis) people had to smoke tons to get any effect. I have done this with Mexican brick weed (purchased in Mexico). It is just straight up an inferior experience, there is nothing more safe or beneficial to smoking a butt load of crappy weed in order to get high. Also, it's kind of a myth that cannabis was terrible back in the 70's. A lot of it was, don't get me wrong. But selective breeding and sophisticated indoor growing techniques were developing at that time, so it was possible to get pretty damn good bud if you happened to know the right people. There is still plenty of outdoor 'Mexican brick weed' going around these days just like it was back in the 70's, and it's pure trash. And there is plenty of mediocre bud masquerading as "top shelf" going around today (including strains in dispensaries advertising astronomical and dubious THC percentages). As ever it takes a lot of time, expertise, equipment, and capital to produce truly great bud. Now if you start talking about distillates and concentrates, that is one area in which I agree there is a notable difference in usage patterns and negative effects. It's kind of comparable to turning cocaine into free-base IMO. >I personally know someone in their early 20 who experienced a major psychotic event following regular heavy use of cannabis This is the classic timeframe for psychosis to develop. Despite millions of gov dollars spent trying to prove a connection, there is no evidence that cannabis causes psychosis: Cannabis and Psychosis: a Critical Overview of the Relationship https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26781550/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26781550/ >Evidence reviewed here suggests that cannabis does not in itself cause a psychosis disorder. Rather, the evidence leads us to conclude that both early use and heavy use of cannabis are more likely in individuals with a vulnerability to psychosis. I don't use at all anymore, btw, so I'm definitely not a cannabis evangelist or any such. Just throwing in my two cents.

arp242 3y ago
The link between cannabis use and psychosis is very real, although it's less clear if cannabis causes the psychosis. Other people have come to different conclusions than the paper you linked. At this point there it's hard to be sure one way or the other, but all things considered I feel there's enough to warrant some caution (also wrt. dependency and some other issues).
- dackerlunghack 3y ago
  [dead]
- bregma 3y ago
  Correlation is not causation. There are plenty of other drugs (especially alcohol) used for self-medication that are also linked to psychoses, as well as non-drug behviours that are strongly correlated to psychoses. The immediate jump to causation is mostly politically-based and not scientifically-based.
  - arp242 3y ago
    > Correlation is not causation. Yes, I believe I said this: "it's less clear if cannabis causes the psychosis". But thank you for your platitude. The only answer which can be given with any certainty at this point is "we don't know", which may optionally be followed by "but I think that [..]". There is no "immediate jump" to causation; the only such jump I see here is dismissing things out of hand on account of allegedly being "politically-based".
    - trevwilson 3y ago
      > The only answer which can be given with any certainty at this point is "we don't know" It might be a little more convincing if you shared whatever studies you're referencing to form this opinion, because while I don't have access to the paper linked above the abstract pretty definitively seems to be saying that we do know with some certainty: > Evidence reviewed here suggests that cannabis does not in itself cause a psychosis disorder. Rather, the evidence leads us to conclude that both early use and heavy use of cannabis are more likely in individuals with a vulnerability to psychosis. >Future research studies that focus exclusively on the cannabis-psychosis association will therefore be of little value in our quest to better understand psychosis and how and why it occurs.

arp242 3y ago

The link between cannabis use and psychosis is very real, although it's less clear if cannabis causes the psychosis. Other people have come to different conclusions than the paper you linked. At this point there it's hard to be sure one way or the other, but all things considered I feel there's enough to warrant some caution (also wrt. dependency and some other issues).

dackerlunghack 3y ago
[dead]
bregma 3y ago
Correlation is not causation. There are plenty of other drugs (especially alcohol) used for self-medication that are also linked to psychoses, as well as non-drug behviours that are strongly correlated to psychoses. The immediate jump to causation is mostly politically-based and not scientifically-based.
- arp242 3y ago
  > Correlation is not causation. Yes, I believe I said this: "it's less clear if cannabis causes the psychosis". But thank you for your platitude. The only answer which can be given with any certainty at this point is "we don't know", which may optionally be followed by "but I think that [..]". There is no "immediate jump" to causation; the only such jump I see here is dismissing things out of hand on account of allegedly being "politically-based".
  - trevwilson 3y ago
    > The only answer which can be given with any certainty at this point is "we don't know" It might be a little more convincing if you shared whatever studies you're referencing to form this opinion, because while I don't have access to the paper linked above the abstract pretty definitively seems to be saying that we do know with some certainty: > Evidence reviewed here suggests that cannabis does not in itself cause a psychosis disorder. Rather, the evidence leads us to conclude that both early use and heavy use of cannabis are more likely in individuals with a vulnerability to psychosis. >Future research studies that focus exclusively on the cannabis-psychosis association will therefore be of little value in our quest to better understand psychosis and how and why it occurs.