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> 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 That is not at all cle

> 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 That is not at all clear. By "affecting daily life", do you mean negatively? What is the effect and who is evaluating its positive or negative measurement? It remains my understanding, and you have not contradicted it with your statement, that there is zero evidence of physical addictiveness of cannabis or THC. There can certainly be a cannabis use disorder, but the same applies to any activity of choice. Some people definitely have addictive personalities and find things they like, and allow them to disrupt their lives. > No shade to any users, but this is a drug and it has the standard downsides of all drugs This does not make sense. Anything you ingest or inhale or inject is a drug, and there is no such thing as a standard downside. "Drug" is not a magic word that makes a thing bad. You seem to have fallen into that semantic trap, which makes it impossible to reason about objectively.

pclmulqdq 2y ago
> This does not make sense. Anything you ingest or inhale or inject is a drug, and there is no such thing as a standard downside. I'm sure you would agree that lettuce and carrots are not drugs. It sounds to me more like you are trying to confuse the semantics because you don't like the conclusion. Marijuana appears to be as bad for you as alcohol, tobacco, or excess sugar consumption. And yes, there is plenty of recent evidence of physical addiction. Here is the Canadian health department on the subject: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/health-effects/addiction.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medica...
- quesera 2y ago
  Tolerance is not addiction. And government health recommendations are not medical research. (And, uh, historically not at all trustworthy in this area!) The ingestion of carrots causes a distinct biological reaction. Carrots are absolutely a drug, or a cocktail of drugs. Lettuce is basically water and cellulose, so I'll mostly give you that one. Chocolate? Absolutely a drug. Sugar? Yep. Coffee? Yep. ...for any meaningful definition of "drug". > Marijuana appears to be as bad for you as alcohol, tobacco, or excess sugar consumption You made that up. The personal and social harm index for alcohol is absurdly high and well beyond the rest. Tobacco is mostly personal harm, and reasonable to compare to smoked cannabis (so don't smoke cannabis). Sugar is an active area of research, but yeah it looks bad. Cannabis (ingested) would index well below any of the above.
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    > And government health recommendations are not medical research. (And, uh, historically not at all trustworthy in this area!) You can literally Google this and find studies on it. You can also look at the sources the Canadian health department linked to. My guess is that you did neither. The scholarship on this is actually mostly recent, so if your reading on the subject happened more than 5 years ago, you are behind the times. Also, Canada is pretty good on the subject of drugs - the US health department is hopelessly biased. More broadly, this tactic of trying to demand higher and higher levels of proof is called "sealioning" and is a classic form of bad-faith argument. I understand it's common on the internet, but it's really a bad practice if you want to convince people of things. > You made that up. The personal and social harm index for alcohol is absurdly high and well beyond the rest. Tobacco is mostly personal harm, and reasonable to compare to smoked cannabis (so don't smoke cannabis). Sugar is an active area of research, but yeah it looks bad. You made all this up, too, especially the "comparative" nature of personal and social harms. Let's not forget the made-up fact that carrots are a drug, too. Who is to say that the loss of intellect that is well-documented to follow long-term cannabis use isn't a "social" harm?
    - quesera 2y ago
      It's probably true that we're both finding supporting evidence of our preexisting or intuitive beliefs. But "food as drug" is not really controversial. What is a drug, except a substance that promotes a specific set of biological and biochemical reactions? Some drugs are psychoactive (chocolate), some are exclusively active on the physical plane (aspirin). Not all drugs, and not even all illegal drugs, have "standard downsides", which was your assertion which I challenged. As for comparative harm, I'm drawing from the results of a study summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_drug_use#Drug_harmfulness And specifically graphed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg Which corresponds to my (extensive and broad) experience with the community. Note that the chart does not discriminate between inhaled and ingested cannabis.
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago

pclmulqdq 2y ago

> This does not make sense. Anything you ingest or inhale or inject is a drug, and there is no such thing as a standard downside. I'm sure you would agree that lettuce and carrots are not drugs. It sounds to me more like you are trying to confuse the semantics because you don't like the conclusion. Marijuana appears to be as bad for you as alcohol, tobacco, or excess sugar consumption. And yes, there is plenty of recent evidence of physical addiction. Here is the Canadian health department on the subject: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medication/cannabis/health-effects/addiction.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-medica...

quesera 2y ago
Tolerance is not addiction. And government health recommendations are not medical research. (And, uh, historically not at all trustworthy in this area!) The ingestion of carrots causes a distinct biological reaction. Carrots are absolutely a drug, or a cocktail of drugs. Lettuce is basically water and cellulose, so I'll mostly give you that one. Chocolate? Absolutely a drug. Sugar? Yep. Coffee? Yep. ...for any meaningful definition of "drug". > Marijuana appears to be as bad for you as alcohol, tobacco, or excess sugar consumption You made that up. The personal and social harm index for alcohol is absurdly high and well beyond the rest. Tobacco is mostly personal harm, and reasonable to compare to smoked cannabis (so don't smoke cannabis). Sugar is an active area of research, but yeah it looks bad. Cannabis (ingested) would index well below any of the above.
- pclmulqdq 2y ago
  > And government health recommendations are not medical research. (And, uh, historically not at all trustworthy in this area!) You can literally Google this and find studies on it. You can also look at the sources the Canadian health department linked to. My guess is that you did neither. The scholarship on this is actually mostly recent, so if your reading on the subject happened more than 5 years ago, you are behind the times. Also, Canada is pretty good on the subject of drugs - the US health department is hopelessly biased. More broadly, this tactic of trying to demand higher and higher levels of proof is called "sealioning" and is a classic form of bad-faith argument. I understand it's common on the internet, but it's really a bad practice if you want to convince people of things. > You made that up. The personal and social harm index for alcohol is absurdly high and well beyond the rest. Tobacco is mostly personal harm, and reasonable to compare to smoked cannabis (so don't smoke cannabis). Sugar is an active area of research, but yeah it looks bad. You made all this up, too, especially the "comparative" nature of personal and social harms. Let's not forget the made-up fact that carrots are a drug, too. Who is to say that the loss of intellect that is well-documented to follow long-term cannabis use isn't a "social" harm?
  - quesera 2y ago
    It's probably true that we're both finding supporting evidence of our preexisting or intuitive beliefs. But "food as drug" is not really controversial. What is a drug, except a substance that promotes a specific set of biological and biochemical reactions? Some drugs are psychoactive (chocolate), some are exclusively active on the physical plane (aspirin). Not all drugs, and not even all illegal drugs, have "standard downsides", which was your assertion which I challenged. As for comparative harm, I'm drawing from the results of a study summarized here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_drug_use#Drug_harmfulness And specifically graphed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTable.svg Which corresponds to my (extensive and broad) experience with the community. Note that the chart does not discriminate between inhaled and ingested cannabis.
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago