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People tend to get defensive at even the most vague insinuation that cannabis may have potential negative health effects. Comment section already has evidence o

People tend to get defensive at even the most vague insinuation that cannabis may have potential negative health effects. Comment section already has evidence of this. Edit just to clarify: I'm generally in favor of legalization and I don't believe in restricting responsible use by adults. I've just noticed really strong reactions to this kind of discussion.

SoftTalker 2y ago
I have to believe the effects of smoking cannabis are similar to smoking unfiltered cigarettes. The difference being that most people don't smoke 20-40 a day.
- fnord77 2y ago
  I know someone who basically chain smokes pot all day long. And somehow managers to remain productive. So yeah, some people are smoking the equivalent of 20-40
  - nikkwong 2y ago
    Saying they “remain productive” shouldn’t ring in as an endorsement. We don’t have the counterfactual to know how much more impressive they would be otherwise.
    - roughly 2y ago
      I broadly agree, and - a great many people who smoke to that degree are self-medicating for various mental health issues, so the counterfactual isn't quite as cut and dry as that.
      - nikkwong 2y ago
        My problem is more-so with the individuals with no ailments who have been lulled into believing that marijuana is benign or even something that can act to enhance cognitive performance. We have a lot of scientific evidence to the contrary, and the anecdotes like "they're still doing fine" is reductionist and undermines the salience of my point for many people.
  - SkyPuncher 2y ago
    To be fair, there are functional alcoholics who basically have to drink all day to function..
    - Ekaros 2y ago
      Also I have heard some stories of what seems functional opiate users. Functionality seems rather fluctuating bar. Some people are not functional even without any drugs and some manage well enough with drugs...
      - asveikau 2y ago
        > Also I have heard some stories of what seems functional opiate users. This is an important story that gets lost in public discussions of fentanyl. Street opiates are difficult to dose correctly and you don't know precisely what you're getting, so overdoses are high and people are dying. In prior time periods, longtime users were more able to dose correctly and survive.
  - whateveracct 2y ago
    you only need to be Productive Enough to Keep Your Job, to be fair there's headroom to fuck around while working. weed and other things (e.g. video games throughout the day)
    - cykros 2y ago
      You leave my Oldschool Runescape out of this.
  - cykros 2y ago
    Ahh, but functional at what? Many people will functionally make use of marijuana throughout the day doing say, restaurant work, and if anything, will function better (YOU try putting up with hangry customers all day without something to take the edge off). But bring that habit into another role where speed and precision are important and the amount of people who can excel starts to dwindle.
    - fnord77 2y ago
      programming
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  The effects on intelligence are also pretty well-studied. Chronic use of Marijuana does make you dumber, and you are also less intelligent when high if you are an occasional user. Studies suggest this isn't permanent for users over 25 (or at least there's not enough data to say that), but it apparently takes years for the effect to wear off after chronic use and it might be permanent if you are a young user. This is not to say that I am against consenting adults using Marijuana, but the idea that there are no effects other than making you happy is ludicrous.
  - canjobear 2y ago
    I doubt this could possibly have been a controlled experiment.
    - quantified 2y ago
      Seems difficult to fully establish since no individual can both be and not be a consumer, else you could just measure their difference over life. I'd be surprised if minds aren't somewhat measurably altered by mind-altering chemicals. But maybe not in simplistic intelligence.
  - juanani 2y ago
    [dead]
- asveikau 2y ago
  Years ago I was curious about the discussion around vaping, so I found some articles claiming nicotine promotes cancer growth or makes existing cancers worse, but is not itself a carcinogen in isolation. I did that search again just now and it seems like people say that's not a huge concern.
- quantified 2y ago
  Most people don't toke their tobacco either. Then there's the pesticide and additive loads (presumably additive is 0 for cannabis, but it's a variable). Could be closer than just the difference in cigarette quantity.
hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago
But both sides of the argument have a tonne of propaganda. companies and governments have actively stigmatised and falsified information for decades, so people will naturally react with distrust.
JasonBorne 2y ago
I can see how people overprotect it. There's been a systematic campaign against it since the 1930's with reefer madness and more propaganda that's deeply rooted in racism. Many older generations still share a very negative sentiment towards marijuana. It seems that some people over defend it given their experience with the negative connotation. It's still considered a schedule 1 drug by the federal government with no accepted medical use.
- gedy 2y ago
  Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking, even the faintest second hand smoke or vaping is treated like it's this deadly killer, but smoking farmed pot is this totally healthy thing in their eyes.
  - tourmalinetaco 2y ago
    I think a lot of people have this funny belief that pot is somehow not just healthier than alternatives but they’re healthier for using it in general.
  - imiric 2y ago
    > Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking This is because we understand very well the harmful chemicals found in tobacco and cigarettes. We know that it is strongly physically addictive, and that it is the direct cause of hundreds of diseases millions of people die from every year. We even know very well its effects from second-hand smoke. On the other hand, cannabis is not physically addictive. The chemicals it contains have been found helpful in treating several health conditions. Most importantly: there are very few, if any, deaths directly linked to cannabis use in all of recorded human history. This is not just many orders of magnitude less than currently legal drugs; it is within the margins of a statistical error. Cannabis is not some miracle drug, of course. We desperately need more research into it, which has historically been difficult. But to compare it to tobacco is simply insane given what we know today. As for the study mentioned in TFA, it's not clear whether the cancer link is due to smoke inhalation or cannabinoids. I did find the other mentioned study[1] that links certain cannabinoids to tumor growth more concerning. I'm glad that more research is coming out. [1]: https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/26/11/2693/332371/Cannabinoids-Promote-Progression-of-HPV-Positive https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/26/11/2693/33...
imoverclocked 2y ago
I agree about pro-cannabis people getting defensive; It's so blatant that I tend to not listen anymore. Of course the stuff affects you in ways that are not good. Everything on the planet has side-effects. The next step seems to be justification which is often in the form of, "well, alcohol has negative side-effects too." Yup, there are a lot of parallels between the two drugs. Both of them do different things to you. For fun, let's throw caffeine in there too. All are legal in some fashion and are potentially addictive. Which leads me to the next talking point, "well, I'm not addicted to weed so it's not addictive." What's missing is "to me" at the end of that. Some people definitely become addicted to it just like any other drug. Also, some people don't realize they are actually addicted, just like other addictions. THC can be detected in urine for a month and is detectable in hair for much longer. I don't care what anyone says, if it's in your system for that long, it's affecting you (somehow) for that long. -- What I really want is for there to be a ban on public use of the stuff. I'm quite tired of going places and having to transit through a cloud of marijuana smoke during my morning run. Keep that crap in your home... just like alcohol.
- quesera 2y ago
  This is misleading. There is no evidence of cannabis or THC being physically addictive. Like anything else, if you enjoy it you might develop a psychological addiction. Like video games. Or running. But that is not addiction like your other examples of nicotine or caffeine. > What I really want is for there to be a ban on public use of the stuff Public intoxication laws exist. But it's legal to smoke cigarettes outside (in most places) so why should smoking legal cannabis be different?
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    It's true that it is not addictive through the traditional channels in the brain that tend to create addiction in other drugs. However, there are other physical pathways through which cannabis might be physically addictive, and it's clear that it is very addictive and tens of millions of users per year are addicted to the level that it affects their daily life. Several public health departments are now saying that marijuana is physically addictive, with hypotheses of new chemical pathways. No shade to any users, but this is a drug and it has the standard downsides of all drugs. The general misinformation is not helpful. It will neither turn you into a murderous zombie nor have zero effect.
bratwurst3000 2y ago
I live in germany and we have the most stupid pot smokers. here it is normal to smoke weed with tabacco. and if someone says something against it they are treated like idiots. I smoke without tobacco or vape sind 15 years and i have to listen to stupid potheads telling me things like „ it doesn’t burn without tobacco“ or „ i dont have the money to smoke so much weed without tobacco“ „ it doesnt get you high without“ … etc … people are sometimes stupid here. edit:// the reason for that is that in the 70s-90s hash was the dominant form of thc product here. because of marokko etc. and they did mix hash with tobacco… that habbit lasted and know people smoke weed with tobacco here…
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  I had heard about it beforehand but was still really astounded the first time I visited my cousins in Germany in my youth and they rolled this huge thing jam packed with tobacco. Made me nauseous.
quesera 2y ago
> People tend to get defensive Well yeah. More knowledge is good, but information that has great potential for being taken out of context and misused by dishonest people, can be bad. Additionally, this study has obvious flaws that make it especially well-suited for abuse. ... Acetaminophen has potential negative health effects. People can accept that news fairly calmly. But acetaminophen wasn't made Schedule I by bad people to serve an evil agenda, with the side effect of many decades of immense social and economic harm. The defensive people you're complaining about would welcome an honest and complete evaluation of cannabis. They just don't trust that one is forthcoming. ... In related news today, FDA has declined to permit MDMA for PTSD therapy trials.
treprinum 2y ago
I am strongly against legalization. Public parks in Germany became unpleasant as the heavy "scent" lingers for hours there. Kids are basically out of luck.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  There is a way to legalize it that doesn’t have this problem. Legalize all drugs for private use, but keep public use illegal. Easy peasy. Also advertising drugs of all kinds should be illegal. Sports will have to find some other way to finance themselves.
- ok_dad 2y ago
  Sounds like an issue with the park regulations or smoking regulations allowing it in public. Perhaps it’s not the weed, but rather the dickhead wielding it in a park to the detriment of others.
- johngladtj 2y ago
  Can I also ban anything I dislike seeing around in public? Or is this one of the "rules for thee, but not for me" things? I'm genuinely curious about what goes through people's minds when they propose these obviously flawed measures
  - sofixa 2y ago
    What obviously flawed measures? Many things are banned in public - depending on locale, some combination of nudity, sex, alcohol consumption, smoking tobacco, wearing religious head coverings, urination and defecation, etc.
    - johngladtj 2y ago
      Laws that are purely intended to enforce cultural norms, rather than having an actual societal purpose. What I see when someone proposed stuff like this is someone saying "my views on how you should behave should be forced on others through violence", a view that is flawed because by its very existence it fundamentally justifies the very opposite policy. If you can force your views on others purely because you are in power, then others are also legitimate in forcing their views on you when they are in power... But somehow I suspect that when you look at how a country like Saudi Arabian treats your preferred group like women or LGBT, your first reaction is not to say "they are right in treating them this way".
losvedir 2y ago
The thing that bothers me with the over-defensiveness is that a lot of people seem to even think it's okay to drive while high, or that they even drive better! (Narrator: they don't.)
- chmod775 2y ago
  They don't drive better, just safer compared to alcohol (which makes you overconfident). People under the influence of THC are very aware of their impairment and drive slower and more carefully rather than recklessly. Also generally effects with mild consumption aren't that pronounced: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/12/02/Cannabidiol-CBD-in-cannabis-does-not-impair-driving-landmark-study-shows.html https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/12/02/Canna...
  - lannisterstark 2y ago
    >compared to alcohol Yeah we're not comparing it to driving under the influence of alcohol, we're comparing it to driving sober - as you should.
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      Last time this conversation propped up, I decided to do some research (aka reading actual papers and not the 3 line executive conclusion written by DEA or DEA adjacent agencies). If I remember correctly, when controlling for gender and age, driving high had a marginal impact (and in some cases actually decreased incidents of accidents). The problem is, determining if a driver is “high” is extremely crude. If you used weed at any point in a week, it’s very likely that if you’re tested for weed it’s gonna show positive which inflates all sorts of statistics. Anyway the funny conclusion was driving while male was significantly more dangerous for the driver and society than driving while high.
    - chmod775 2y ago
      That's fine. I was just putting pants on a strawman.
    - 2y ago
amanaplanacanal 2y ago
It seems pretty obvious that inhaling any king of smoke is probably going to be bad for you. I would bet that ingesting it other ways would but have this problem. In other words, this is not a cannabis problem, this is a smoking problem.
casualscience 2y ago
While I agree with your general sentiment, this is not a great study. They did not control for weight, physical activity, drug use (other than tobacco and alcohol), socioeconomic status, etc.... When you take people who have substance abuse disorders, you have a grab bag of related behaviors that will be hard to correct for, and in this study they barely tried. In other words, what percentage of daily MJ users do you think have diagnosed cannabis use disorder and how do you think those people's lives look compared to daily users who are not diagnosed with this label? There are other meta-analyses on the same subject which suggest no correlation [[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003996915300418 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00039...)] [[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00508-023-02303-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00508-023-02303-3)]. The only really regular correlations I've seen in the literature are related to a type of testicular cancer (TGCT). I hope we can get higher quality research on this subject now that the legal issues are starting to be less onerous, it would be great for people to know the long term effects of MJ use.
ubnhgjt 2y ago
[flagged]
atlas_hugged 2y ago
Yeah, any topic that even remotely ventures near the topic of violating someone’s bodily autonomy should always trigger defensiveness in my opinion. Governments should have zero privileges concerning any human’s decisions about their own body. They should instead be vehemently upholding those rights. Funding education and scientific research to help people make those decisions and about the risks of their choices when exercising those rights is fine. That’s it. The right and the left are both historically terrible at this, but lately it’s been mostly the right. I swear the inmates are running the asylum over there now. I hope they can find their way back to sanity.
- imoverclocked 2y ago
  This isn't about rights to your own body. This is about rights to knowing as much as you can before taking action. Many people defend cannabis so hard that they can't even entertain the idea that it might have negative consequences. That misinformation is damaging to them and it's damaging to the people around them.
  - atlas_hugged 2y ago
    Reread my comment.
- charlie90 2y ago
  >Governments should have zero privileges concerning any human’s decisions about their own body. Well thats pretty absurd since the entire point of a government is to limit peoples freedom in the name of improving society. What happens when you dont pay taxes?
  - atlas_hugged 2y ago
    Go to google, type “what is the definition of bodily autonomy?”
- cykros 2y ago
  Mostly the right? Something tells me you've already forgotten about what happened across the planet from 2020-~2022 with mandated experimental vaccinations and mandated masking. The right does typically target drugs more (as well as abortion rights). The left tends to be the ones taking soda machines away, and much more okay with forced health measures otherwise.
rich_sasha 2y ago
How does cannabis smoke compare to cigarettes? It's usually unfiltered. Plenty of people seem to support banning cigarettes, but not cannabis (I don't much care, I use neither).
- cykros 2y ago
  I mean, these days, it's not even usually smoke. And I don't even just mean vapes; there's all the edibles and tinctures that have soared in popularity particularly with the rise of legalization. Then there's the older use of water filtration in bongs and bubblers (and hookahs, on the tobacco side). Curious how much tar is removed by passing through cotton compared to passing through water.
2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago
is it very difficult to understand for you why that is the case? maybe because people who are enjoying this relatively harmless little activity are marginalized, stigmatized and criminalized systematically?
cykros 2y ago
There aren't a ton of things where daily use is a particularly good idea. Even most exercise calls for days off. Water, sleep, bathing (though even there people argue about stripping too many oils). Shouldn't be too surprising. But as others are pointing out, given the demonization campaigns we've seen over the last 90 years since the Mariuhuana Tax Act there's bound to be some knee jerking. And in fairness, look at what happens any time you suggest coffee might not be an elixir of health...

SoftTalker 2y ago

I have to believe the effects of smoking cannabis are similar to smoking unfiltered cigarettes. The difference being that most people don't smoke 20-40 a day.

fnord77 2y ago
I know someone who basically chain smokes pot all day long. And somehow managers to remain productive. So yeah, some people are smoking the equivalent of 20-40
- nikkwong 2y ago
  Saying they “remain productive” shouldn’t ring in as an endorsement. We don’t have the counterfactual to know how much more impressive they would be otherwise.
  - roughly 2y ago
    I broadly agree, and - a great many people who smoke to that degree are self-medicating for various mental health issues, so the counterfactual isn't quite as cut and dry as that.
    - nikkwong 2y ago
      My problem is more-so with the individuals with no ailments who have been lulled into believing that marijuana is benign or even something that can act to enhance cognitive performance. We have a lot of scientific evidence to the contrary, and the anecdotes like "they're still doing fine" is reductionist and undermines the salience of my point for many people.
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  To be fair, there are functional alcoholics who basically have to drink all day to function..
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    Also I have heard some stories of what seems functional opiate users. Functionality seems rather fluctuating bar. Some people are not functional even without any drugs and some manage well enough with drugs...
    - asveikau 2y ago
      > Also I have heard some stories of what seems functional opiate users. This is an important story that gets lost in public discussions of fentanyl. Street opiates are difficult to dose correctly and you don't know precisely what you're getting, so overdoses are high and people are dying. In prior time periods, longtime users were more able to dose correctly and survive.
- whateveracct 2y ago
  you only need to be Productive Enough to Keep Your Job, to be fair there's headroom to fuck around while working. weed and other things (e.g. video games throughout the day)
  - cykros 2y ago
    You leave my Oldschool Runescape out of this.
- cykros 2y ago
  Ahh, but functional at what? Many people will functionally make use of marijuana throughout the day doing say, restaurant work, and if anything, will function better (YOU try putting up with hangry customers all day without something to take the edge off). But bring that habit into another role where speed and precision are important and the amount of people who can excel starts to dwindle.
  - fnord77 2y ago
    programming
pclmulqdq 2y ago
The effects on intelligence are also pretty well-studied. Chronic use of Marijuana does make you dumber, and you are also less intelligent when high if you are an occasional user. Studies suggest this isn't permanent for users over 25 (or at least there's not enough data to say that), but it apparently takes years for the effect to wear off after chronic use and it might be permanent if you are a young user. This is not to say that I am against consenting adults using Marijuana, but the idea that there are no effects other than making you happy is ludicrous.
- canjobear 2y ago
  I doubt this could possibly have been a controlled experiment.
  - quantified 2y ago
    Seems difficult to fully establish since no individual can both be and not be a consumer, else you could just measure their difference over life. I'd be surprised if minds aren't somewhat measurably altered by mind-altering chemicals. But maybe not in simplistic intelligence.
- juanani 2y ago
  [dead]
asveikau 2y ago
Years ago I was curious about the discussion around vaping, so I found some articles claiming nicotine promotes cancer growth or makes existing cancers worse, but is not itself a carcinogen in isolation. I did that search again just now and it seems like people say that's not a huge concern.
quantified 2y ago
Most people don't toke their tobacco either. Then there's the pesticide and additive loads (presumably additive is 0 for cannabis, but it's a variable). Could be closer than just the difference in cigarette quantity.

hsbauauvhabzb 2y ago

But both sides of the argument have a tonne of propaganda. companies and governments have actively stigmatised and falsified information for decades, so people will naturally react with distrust.

JasonBorne 2y ago

I can see how people overprotect it. There's been a systematic campaign against it since the 1930's with reefer madness and more propaganda that's deeply rooted in racism. Many older generations still share a very negative sentiment towards marijuana. It seems that some people over defend it given their experience with the negative connotation. It's still considered a schedule 1 drug by the federal government with no accepted medical use.

gedy 2y ago
Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking, even the faintest second hand smoke or vaping is treated like it's this deadly killer, but smoking farmed pot is this totally healthy thing in their eyes.
- tourmalinetaco 2y ago
  I think a lot of people have this funny belief that pot is somehow not just healthier than alternatives but they’re healthier for using it in general.
- imiric 2y ago
  > Sure, though what I find annoying is many of the same people are rabidly against tobacco smoking This is because we understand very well the harmful chemicals found in tobacco and cigarettes. We know that it is strongly physically addictive, and that it is the direct cause of hundreds of diseases millions of people die from every year. We even know very well its effects from second-hand smoke. On the other hand, cannabis is not physically addictive. The chemicals it contains have been found helpful in treating several health conditions. Most importantly: there are very few, if any, deaths directly linked to cannabis use in all of recorded human history. This is not just many orders of magnitude less than currently legal drugs; it is within the margins of a statistical error. Cannabis is not some miracle drug, of course. We desperately need more research into it, which has historically been difficult. But to compare it to tobacco is simply insane given what we know today. As for the study mentioned in TFA, it's not clear whether the cancer link is due to smoke inhalation or cannabinoids. I did find the other mentioned study[1] that links certain cannabinoids to tumor growth more concerning. I'm glad that more research is coming out. [1]: https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/26/11/2693/332371/Cannabinoids-Promote-Progression-of-HPV-Positive https://aacrjournals.org/clincancerres/article/26/11/2693/33...

imoverclocked 2y ago

I agree about pro-cannabis people getting defensive; It's so blatant that I tend to not listen anymore. Of course the stuff affects you in ways that are not good. Everything on the planet has side-effects. The next step seems to be justification which is often in the form of, "well, alcohol has negative side-effects too." Yup, there are a lot of parallels between the two drugs. Both of them do different things to you. For fun, let's throw caffeine in there too. All are legal in some fashion and are potentially addictive. Which leads me to the next talking point, "well, I'm not addicted to weed so it's not addictive." What's missing is "to me" at the end of that. Some people definitely become addicted to it just like any other drug. Also, some people don't realize they are actually addicted, just like other addictions. THC can be detected in urine for a month and is detectable in hair for much longer. I don't care what anyone says, if it's in your system for that long, it's affecting you (somehow) for that long. -- What I really want is for there to be a ban on public use of the stuff. I'm quite tired of going places and having to transit through a cloud of marijuana smoke during my morning run. Keep that crap in your home... just like alcohol.

quesera 2y ago
This is misleading. There is no evidence of cannabis or THC being physically addictive. Like anything else, if you enjoy it you might develop a psychological addiction. Like video games. Or running. But that is not addiction like your other examples of nicotine or caffeine. > What I really want is for there to be a ban on public use of the stuff Public intoxication laws exist. But it's legal to smoke cigarettes outside (in most places) so why should smoking legal cannabis be different?
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  It's true that it is not addictive through the traditional channels in the brain that tend to create addiction in other drugs. However, there are other physical pathways through which cannabis might be physically addictive, and it's clear that it is very addictive and tens of millions of users per year are addicted to the level that it affects their daily life. Several public health departments are now saying that marijuana is physically addictive, with hypotheses of new chemical pathways. No shade to any users, but this is a drug and it has the standard downsides of all drugs. The general misinformation is not helpful. It will neither turn you into a murderous zombie nor have zero effect.

bratwurst3000 2y ago

I live in germany and we have the most stupid pot smokers. here it is normal to smoke weed with tabacco. and if someone says something against it they are treated like idiots. I smoke without tobacco or vape sind 15 years and i have to listen to stupid potheads telling me things like „ it doesn’t burn without tobacco“ or „ i dont have the money to smoke so much weed without tobacco“ „ it doesnt get you high without“ … etc … people are sometimes stupid here. edit:// the reason for that is that in the 70s-90s hash was the dominant form of thc product here. because of marokko etc. and they did mix hash with tobacco… that habbit lasted and know people smoke weed with tobacco here…

cmrdporcupine 2y ago
I had heard about it beforehand but was still really astounded the first time I visited my cousins in Germany in my youth and they rolled this huge thing jam packed with tobacco. Made me nauseous.

quesera 2y ago

> People tend to get defensive Well yeah. More knowledge is good, but information that has great potential for being taken out of context and misused by dishonest people, can be bad. Additionally, this study has obvious flaws that make it especially well-suited for abuse. ... Acetaminophen has potential negative health effects. People can accept that news fairly calmly. But acetaminophen wasn't made Schedule I by bad people to serve an evil agenda, with the side effect of many decades of immense social and economic harm. The defensive people you're complaining about would welcome an honest and complete evaluation of cannabis. They just don't trust that one is forthcoming. ... In related news today, FDA has declined to permit MDMA for PTSD therapy trials.

treprinum 2y ago

I am strongly against legalization. Public parks in Germany became unpleasant as the heavy "scent" lingers for hours there. Kids are basically out of luck.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
There is a way to legalize it that doesn’t have this problem. Legalize all drugs for private use, but keep public use illegal. Easy peasy. Also advertising drugs of all kinds should be illegal. Sports will have to find some other way to finance themselves.
ok_dad 2y ago
Sounds like an issue with the park regulations or smoking regulations allowing it in public. Perhaps it’s not the weed, but rather the dickhead wielding it in a park to the detriment of others.
johngladtj 2y ago
Can I also ban anything I dislike seeing around in public? Or is this one of the "rules for thee, but not for me" things? I'm genuinely curious about what goes through people's minds when they propose these obviously flawed measures
- sofixa 2y ago
  What obviously flawed measures? Many things are banned in public - depending on locale, some combination of nudity, sex, alcohol consumption, smoking tobacco, wearing religious head coverings, urination and defecation, etc.
  - johngladtj 2y ago
    Laws that are purely intended to enforce cultural norms, rather than having an actual societal purpose. What I see when someone proposed stuff like this is someone saying "my views on how you should behave should be forced on others through violence", a view that is flawed because by its very existence it fundamentally justifies the very opposite policy. If you can force your views on others purely because you are in power, then others are also legitimate in forcing their views on you when they are in power... But somehow I suspect that when you look at how a country like Saudi Arabian treats your preferred group like women or LGBT, your first reaction is not to say "they are right in treating them this way".

losvedir 2y ago

The thing that bothers me with the over-defensiveness is that a lot of people seem to even think it's okay to drive while high, or that they even drive better! (Narrator: they don't.)

chmod775 2y ago
They don't drive better, just safer compared to alcohol (which makes you overconfident). People under the influence of THC are very aware of their impairment and drive slower and more carefully rather than recklessly. Also generally effects with mild consumption aren't that pronounced: https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/12/02/Cannabidiol-CBD-in-cannabis-does-not-impair-driving-landmark-study-shows.html https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2020/12/02/Canna...
- lannisterstark 2y ago
  >compared to alcohol Yeah we're not comparing it to driving under the influence of alcohol, we're comparing it to driving sober - as you should.
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    Last time this conversation propped up, I decided to do some research (aka reading actual papers and not the 3 line executive conclusion written by DEA or DEA adjacent agencies). If I remember correctly, when controlling for gender and age, driving high had a marginal impact (and in some cases actually decreased incidents of accidents). The problem is, determining if a driver is “high” is extremely crude. If you used weed at any point in a week, it’s very likely that if you’re tested for weed it’s gonna show positive which inflates all sorts of statistics. Anyway the funny conclusion was driving while male was significantly more dangerous for the driver and society than driving while high.
  - chmod775 2y ago
    That's fine. I was just putting pants on a strawman.
  - 2y ago

amanaplanacanal 2y ago

It seems pretty obvious that inhaling any king of smoke is probably going to be bad for you. I would bet that ingesting it other ways would but have this problem. In other words, this is not a cannabis problem, this is a smoking problem.

casualscience 2y ago

While I agree with your general sentiment, this is not a great study. They did not control for weight, physical activity, drug use (other than tobacco and alcohol), socioeconomic status, etc.... When you take people who have substance abuse disorders, you have a grab bag of related behaviors that will be hard to correct for, and in this study they barely tried. In other words, what percentage of daily MJ users do you think have diagnosed cannabis use disorder and how do you think those people's lives look compared to daily users who are not diagnosed with this label? There are other meta-analyses on the same subject which suggest no correlation [[1](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003996915300418 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00039...)] [[2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00508-023-02303-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00508-023-02303-3)]. The only really regular correlations I've seen in the literature are related to a type of testicular cancer (TGCT). I hope we can get higher quality research on this subject now that the legal issues are starting to be less onerous, it would be great for people to know the long term effects of MJ use.

ubnhgjt 2y ago

[flagged]

atlas_hugged 2y ago

Yeah, any topic that even remotely ventures near the topic of violating someone’s bodily autonomy should always trigger defensiveness in my opinion. Governments should have zero privileges concerning any human’s decisions about their own body. They should instead be vehemently upholding those rights. Funding education and scientific research to help people make those decisions and about the risks of their choices when exercising those rights is fine. That’s it. The right and the left are both historically terrible at this, but lately it’s been mostly the right. I swear the inmates are running the asylum over there now. I hope they can find their way back to sanity.

imoverclocked 2y ago
This isn't about rights to your own body. This is about rights to knowing as much as you can before taking action. Many people defend cannabis so hard that they can't even entertain the idea that it might have negative consequences. That misinformation is damaging to them and it's damaging to the people around them.
- atlas_hugged 2y ago
  Reread my comment.
charlie90 2y ago
>Governments should have zero privileges concerning any human’s decisions about their own body. Well thats pretty absurd since the entire point of a government is to limit peoples freedom in the name of improving society. What happens when you dont pay taxes?
- atlas_hugged 2y ago
  Go to google, type “what is the definition of bodily autonomy?”
cykros 2y ago
Mostly the right? Something tells me you've already forgotten about what happened across the planet from 2020-~2022 with mandated experimental vaccinations and mandated masking. The right does typically target drugs more (as well as abortion rights). The left tends to be the ones taking soda machines away, and much more okay with forced health measures otherwise.

rich_sasha 2y ago

How does cannabis smoke compare to cigarettes? It's usually unfiltered. Plenty of people seem to support banning cigarettes, but not cannabis (I don't much care, I use neither).

cykros 2y ago
I mean, these days, it's not even usually smoke. And I don't even just mean vapes; there's all the edibles and tinctures that have soared in popularity particularly with the rise of legalization. Then there's the older use of water filtration in bongs and bubblers (and hookahs, on the tobacco side). Curious how much tar is removed by passing through cotton compared to passing through water.

2-3-7-43-1807 2y ago

is it very difficult to understand for you why that is the case? maybe because people who are enjoying this relatively harmless little activity are marginalized, stigmatized and criminalized systematically?

cykros 2y ago

There aren't a ton of things where daily use is a particularly good idea. Even most exercise calls for days off. Water, sleep, bathing (though even there people argue about stripping too many oils). Shouldn't be too surprising. But as others are pointing out, given the demonization campaigns we've seen over the last 90 years since the Mariuhuana Tax Act there's bound to be some knee jerking. And in fairness, look at what happens any time you suggest coffee might not be an elixir of health...