I would love a case study or two to corroborate their story, you know?

Thanks for posting.

It's no surprise that heavy marijuana use could be harmful to some people. Too much of anything is likely to be unhealthful.

The estimates are based on responses to the 2022 U.S. national drug use survey from people who reported any cannabis consumption within the previous year. The results are especially stark among 18- to 25-year-olds: More than 4.5 million use the drug daily or near daily, according to the estimates, and 81 percent of those users meet the criteria for the disorder.

“That means almost everybody that uses it every day is reporting problems with it,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who was not involved in the analysis. “That is a very clear warning sign.”

The rehab industry has successfully diluted the meaning of substance abuse to make just about anything you like to do a ‘use disorder’.

Including flakiness, mood swings and paranoia. I remember him being a happy go lucky kid. As an adult, from one day to the next, you never know if you're going to get Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. As a result, he's damaged nearly every one of his relationships. Apologists will excuse daily use as a "lifestyle" and/or "means of coping." However, when you'd rather get stoned than visit your older brother who's in a coma in the hospital, you've got a "lifestyle" and/or "means of coping" that's going to burn a lot of bridges during your lifetime. Call it what it is - Addiction.

You and I think a lot alike.

I mentioned she needed to cool it on smoking and do something with her life send she hadn’t spoken to me since January. When I smell it on people I know I know they are addicted. She has always been one who gets depressed and blames her problems on our Mother who used alcohol to make her feel better. But she was always there for us regardless.

"When I smell it on people I know I know they are addicted." is a ridiculous criterion for determining addiction.

When I talked with the person.

Today's marijuana is yesterday's tobacco.

Lots of people just consume edibles. I have no idea how that can be considered stinky and filthy.

So anyone you encounter that has that smell about them is an addict? That is a ridiculous statement. If I smoke once a month and happen to be near you on one of those days you would determine that I'm an addict?

Weed isn't addictive.

Weed is absolutely 💯 addictive.

Why would ANYONE continue to spend thousands of dollars a year on any drug if they aren’t addicted to it?!

Talk to people who try to stop smoking or eating cannabis and the first thing they say is they cannot handle life without it because of the anxiety.

People think they self medicate with weed to help their anxiety. They try to quit and get anxiety. Helloooooo! Anxiety is a side effect of stopping.

Your statement that people "can't handle life without it" when they try to quit is pathetic and ridiculous. Weed is not addictive.

Would you say someone who smokes weed once a week (as I do) or once a month (as my son-in-law does) is also an addict? You're laughably wrong about all this.

You answer your own question.

There are people who wake up and hit their bong before getting out of bed. Just like there are people who take a swig of alcohol before getting out of bed.

You seem to think that because you’re not a weed addict that no one else can be. Stop lying.

I am 100% in favor of legalization. In my life, I know very few people who don't partake. Most don't find it to be a problem.

I also know several who are deathly afraid to quit or even take a short break. Not weekly or monthly users.. people who have the habit of using near constantly. Like, at the level of refusing to visit family in states where it's not legal, or even refusing to fly because that's too long to go without self medicating. I have literally been told those exact words "I am afraid to stop, I don't think i can handle life without it"

I think the question of physical addiction is still open. By observation, it doesnt seem to be in the classic sense, but 30+ years in as a heavy user, who knows what parts of your system have adapted to the presence of those chemical aids and will throw some things into chaos if you abruptly quit.. however, psychologically.. it 100% can be addictive. Not for everyone, not under all circumstances, but anyone who says it can't happen is either uninformed or lying.

Some people spend thousands of dollars on Caribbean vacations, and they help to relieve anxiety. If you stop them from taking their vacations, they can feel the anxiety return. They can't imagine life without these vacations.

So, taking Caribbean vacations appears to meet your definition of addictive behavior.

What in your opinion is the definition of addiction then?

When someone is much too defensive about this subject it screams: addict behavior.

Not saying you’re an addict but the defensiveness is definitely a clue.

I did not define addiction, but merely tested the definition that you posted. Thusly I have no burden of proof.

Additionally, I don't believe you can characterize my mild skepticism as being "much too defensive". Skepticism can be just that and not necessarily a defense of a position at all, let alone an excessive one.

I have no idea what "arguing just to argue" means or why you would lead with that. It sidesteps the claims and flirts with the ad-hominem fallacy.

Have a nice day.

There is plenty of information out there showing the risks associated with consuming too much cannabis and also the addictive nature of it.

You may proceed to gaslight your own self though.

Last edited Tue Oct 8, 2024, 12:36 PM - Edit history (3)

"I have some concerns!" - check
"We need more studies!" - check
"We need more regulation!" - check
Projecting about gaslighting - check

Sorry, this is all a bit too MAGA for me. Thread trashed.

alcohol if they weren't addicted? Or video games? Going to sports events?

Now, I don't hate the cannabis (though it stinks to high heaven), but I think at the least, something like this should trigger closer scrutiny, and potentially, regulation.

I know a lot folks here love the weed, but it shouldn;t be a surpruise that ingesting smoke and/or a mood-altering drug regularly might affect health, eepcially when the regulatory landscape is the Wild West.

We should be interested in learning the truth, not justifying our preconceived notions.

People assume they can eat several edibles or brownies or smoke an entire joint.

There is not enough regulation and education to explain to people that marijuana can cause schizophrenia in people predisposed to it. In others it can cause cannabis induced psychosis.

Just making it legal without educating people is bad. And my experience is not anecdotal. Because of my loved ones who now have a life long disease caused by marijuana I have done a lot of research. And almost every drug rehab now has a specific category called “drug induced psychosis”. It is common! And a lot of the homeless people who walk around talking to themselves probably started with smoking legal weed.

Pot dispensaries should be required to give pamphlets to their customers explaining that consuming too much can cause serious side effects. For starters!

It helps with pain and cuts down on oxy and other opiates. Hubs has progressive neuropathy and pot helps a great deal. It should be completely legal.

If you read the entire article, you'll see the anecdotes.

this part is hard to believe
The estimates are based on responses to the 2022 U.S. national drug use survey from people who reported any cannabis consumption within the previous year. The results are especially stark among 18- to 25-year-olds: More than 4.5 million use the drug daily or near daily, according to the estimates, and 81 percent of those users meet the criteria for the disorder.

“That means almost everybody that uses it every day is reporting problems with it,” said Dr. Wilson Compton, deputy director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who was not involved in the analysis. “That is a very clear warning sign.”

Uninformed. Of course massive use of any drug is likely to cause adverse effects. Ever heard of water intoxication? Yep. You can literally drink enough water to kill yourself.

Anyway, heavy use of marijuana in people with mental illness CAN and DOES worsen symptoms- even causing a psychosis that causes a break with reality. Its well documented and no, I’m not going to go cite a bunch of articles. You can easily find them.

Smoking marijuana multiple times a day is bad for the lungs. Inhaling any particulate in large quantities over time causes lung issues. Bakery workers get white lung. Coal miners get black lung. Asbestos eeirkers get asbestosis.

To think that you can use a highly bioactive substances heavily and daily without any adverse effects is just ignorant.

My wife had that as a side-effect of a new med.
She was at the LL20, which means her sodium level was so low, that 20% of people who hit that number die as a result.
If you ingest too much water, the osmosis causes sodium to leave the blood stream into the digestive system & interstitial water in the body. Sodium level goes way up in the urine, way down in the blood.
Can be very dangerous.
She said she felt "loopy" which we could easily interpret as intoxicated. She also felt very weak, nauseous & overall rotten. Lasted 2 days, until I discovered it was a side effect of the meds. I demanded they take her off it, put her back on the original 2 this replaced, or she would refuse to take any meds & I'd bring her stuff from home and give them to her myself.
8 hours later, her urine sodium was down, blood sodium, up. The next morning, her levels were almost normal & she was ready to go home.
Putting valve keys on the faucets where you worked seems a very wise idea.
BTW: when the psych who prescribed that drug saw us again she said to my wife "You're lucky you married a scientist." Yeah, she actually said that! I did her job & my wife was "lucky". My wife changed to a different doctor.

Who kept getting cramps a few years ago. He decided to hydrate extra well before practice and drank two gallons of water. It killed him.

That's what 2 gallons weighs. I get he was just a kid, but why would someone think carrying and extra 17# of liquid would be helpful in an athletic activity?
Given how close my wife came to tragedy, I really feel for his family, though.

She wouldn’t drink her water which she needed to regulate her sodium after a botched brain tumor surgery. Her sodium levels would go so high she seemed inebriated. And she almost died several times as a result. In the end she did pass away from a different side effect from the original botched surgery. May she rest in peace. She suffered a lot.

It is her two sons who smoked marijuana and gave themselves cannabis induced psychosis. One of them later progressed to schizophrenia and lived on the streets and with me intermittently until he took his own life.

I could go on but I'll stop myself. That last paragraph is one for the books. Lucky? Doc is lucky he didn't get a malpractice notice in the mail.

The psych was a woman.
I didn't care for her before this happened, but my wife was ok. The "lucky" thing flipped my wife & she immediately started looking for a new doctor.

mental health worker. Pot can and does worsen symptoms in some people with major mental illnesses. There are other cases -- far fewer -- where pot helps keep them stable. "Psychosis" is, by definition, a break from reality, rather than causing a break from reality.

I would not recommend it for people prone to schizophrenia or someone who has it.

I remember one of the effects of pot was "loose associations". It was fun, but for people with schizophrenia it's an everyday thing, It doesn't need to be enhanced. I also would get slightly paranoid, but some people who would get more paranoid.

You've listed a couple key points. While anxiety is more common, pot can cause a sense of paranoia in people. And especially in teens who are predisposed to schizophrenic disorders, those "loose associations" can be the start of symptoms of the disease. Both of these are important factors, that show why pot is not for everyone.

People can't handle the truth.

From high potency cannabis. It needs more regulation.

... year in and year out.

Let's deal with some substantive problems first, shall we?

I dismissed it, too, until I saw it. This led to meeting others who had also seen it. Many sad stories.
With what was on the streets in the 60s, I'm surprised we all made it through. This is different stuff.

It's easy to spot when others are doing it, but much more difficult when it is yourself.

It is a fact that marijuana can cause harm, but it can also improve wellness. Whether the ratio of helpfulness to harm is acceptable to society or not starts as a statistical problem. A billion humans or more have experimented with marijuana over the past 3000 years. While this isn't a controlled experiment per se, we basically know the range of outcomes and the likelihood of them by now. So, it is fallacious to weigh a single anecdotal data point heavier than all the other data. Personal experience is indispensable in some scenarios but can lead to bias with problems like this.

I'm a believer! If it didn't make me eat everything in the house, I'd be there every night. And I started a long time ago when it was what, a nickel bag for something about the size of a peanut butter sandwich?

What I am talking about is a serious, documented, well-recognized fairly recent phenomenon in the medical community that not all pot is what it used to be, and there is an increase of certain reactions, particularly in younger people. Particularly if they've had early childhood trauma (which is becoming more and more common with more guns etc. and all the things that have happened since I was young, societally) and a history of mental illness in their family. But not always! It's hard to get it connected to whether it's weed sold on the street or the dispensaries, but from what I have personally witnessed it was not from dispensaries. And when you reach a level of psychosis, with paranoia, you don't want to buy from dispensaries because they are "the government" and it's more sensible to trust the guy on the street you've never met before.

But I digress.

I could look up all the articles I have read and saved, but what I am saying is that something is different. And people can dismiss that. It's just another headline that flies by once in a while. Then? It happens to someone you know? And then suddenly all that research comes flying in and it's a case of, "Oh. It's not just happening to XXX. It's a trend." And then all that research makes a lot more sense.

Just anecdotal? Yeah, just anecdotal. Personal anecdote opening deluge of research you've dismissed as being fascistic or at least anti-fun? Chicken. Egg. But speaking for myself, shit got real when it hit home. I don't need anyone to validate that. It was my reality and I have the receipts.

I wish it upon no one else.

But I can say that you haven't made the case for "increased regulation".

I responded to a comment about needing to pay attention to things that are "substantive." My belief is that this is substantive. I perhaps went on a tangent. I thought we could do that in a conversation.

research with it.

One thing has been lack of research because it was regulated the same as heroin. You cannot do studies on heroin, but you can do studies on morphine. But heroin = morphine. The main difference between the two are dirty needles, contaminated product, dosage issues. Same with cocaine. Cocaine used to be available as a topical anesthetic in the ER for certain abrasive facial wounds. I don't know if they still use it, but I assume the regulation status of cocaine has not changed in the past 40 years. I imagine a few plastic surgeons still use topical cocaine. Even LSD and ecstasy were studied at one time. Pot has never been studied. With the exception of peyote, the rest of the schedule 1 drugs are synthetic. (Peyote is endangered, so abuse is not an issue)

Pot was Schedule 1. Apparently, it's been moved to Schedule 3 via executive order.

... maybe I should give up my cancer treatments, vaccinations because of the possibilities someone else may get ill. Don't drink milk, buy a jar of peanut butter .....

I am not advocating a prohibition of any sort, and I don't think the OP was, either. I apologize if I offended you. It was not my intention.

I go for the cheap stuff. It works for me.
But what do I know?
I'm 69 and been smoking since 1970.
Does anyone ask for the $100 a shot stuff at the bar?
Cannabis is the same. I will take the well.

Bipolarity, depression, etc. I have a friend who CANNOT use THC in anything because the 2 times she did smoke what she called "ditch weed". she has had psychotic breaks. I use FECO everyday to maintain my cancer free situationship, ( ). Trust me, I don't smoke it. I ingest the concentrated extract. The people who have the same issue that K.E. does can't even THINK about using what I do, which is a gram a day right before bed & I use medical grade Indicas. She just took 5 puffs off of the joint. She ended up in a hospital for observation for 2 days.

with pre-existing mental health problems may choose to self medicate with cannabis, and some of those people may make their problems worse by doing this.

It would be interesting to know how cannabis self medicating for various conditions compares to pharmaceutical treatments.

My husband self medicated with cannabis and alcohol for most of the 50 years I've been with him. Life was a roller coaster. The first time he stopped using cannabis he had a psychotic bi-polar break. The manic episode was truly frightening. I wasn't permitted to use the phone because the FBI was listening in and were coming to our home to rip the walls down. He barked at people passing by our property to "get out of his yard" and spent extravagantly on various things. He was aggressive and hostile.

He was put on meds and he mellowed out somewhat, and then he took himself off his meds because he claimed that he was "better" and started vaping and drinking again.

Recently he had to come off all substances because he needed mitral valve surgery. He detoxed in the hospital. After a few months, he entered a profound depression that brought him to the ER because he told me and our PC physician that he was suicidal. We found a psychiatrist who has prescribed Wellbutrin and Abilfy. He became a person I never met - it's taking time to adjust to this new person.

As of two days ago he took himself off of Abilfy (that prevents Manic episodes).

So....... bottom line: Yes the pot and booze did help him with his issues - for HIM. The psych meds made him a reasonable sane person who can relate to everyone, not just himself. If only there were fewer side effects.

ok

when he stopped using cannabis is when he had the psychotic break. He was a highly functioning alcoholic and didn't stop until right before his surgery. He was not a "drunk" who got wasted on booze.

was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, while working as an RN (40yrs).
She immediately quit her job and started THC OIL treatments under a cannabis caregiver.
That was 9 years ago, and she died last month - after her cancer dr. told her 4 months in 2015.

And also, the article says

But there is zero incentive for pharma companies to do this research, so the funding for a serious research effort will have to come from somewhere else.

People should be able to choose for themselves.

were excluded. 11 (just under 10%) were disqualified because of the presence of CUD at the start of the study. Those are the very people the NYT article suggests are the most likely to be impacted by marijuana use.

Not to mention that a study of 57 people (without a true control group - e.g. the control group did not receive the same imaging as those assigned for immediate initiation of therapy, not to mention that the main difference between the control group and the test subjects was the control group had to wait 12 weeks to start their medical marijuana therapy) isn't much of a study.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2823671?resultClick=1

Most people don’t appear to understand the difference.

Yawn

It is always annoying when 'research' is cited to be always right like what we ingest or inhale is a one size fits all argument. It is to laugh. Not everyone who has a glass of wine will have a problem. Not everyone who drinks a glass of milk with suffer digestive distress.

One size does NOT fit all and I agree with your point about 'reefer madness'. It is to laugh.

...everything in moderation.

But this is America, where excess is pretty standard fare.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

It’s all gray, or at least on a curve. The poison may be in the dosage. Having experience in addiction, my test is, can you stop? Can you put it down for a few weeks with no problems?
It does have medical applications, that doesn’t make it safe and harmless, just like all medication. I think you have to look at the curve and weigh the cost benefit of one’s use.

...reading it felt good.

I can also stop for days/weeks at a time. Never been a problem. Some of the stuff they've cooked up in the lab is so powerful it's rather absurd. I stay away from that, but wonder how many drivers out there are really high? Trusting in the wisdom of strangers isn't a very good bet, from my experience.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/

That didn’t work. Sometimes I fell asleep other time it kept me awake. Is it the drug or me. Dosage? Never the same.
I really don’t like it being legal. Takes all of the fun out of it for me.

In dispensaries, there is practically no such thing as a true indica or sativa these days. You buy a purported indica only to get anxious and active, you get a purported sativa only for it to make you sleepy. Almost everything is a hybrid these days. Summa dis, summa dat.

Maybe once it's legal nationwide, we can streamline and get back to some reliable strains, although I'm afraid that cat escaped that bag long ago.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/

They usually deteriorate. Especially patients that are diagnosed with Bipolar disorder.
My simple answer to my patients/ Everything is not for everyone. Some people can’t eat fish or nuts without serious complications. Same here, some people cannot use marijuana without risk of complications.

I am completely against it being promoted as safe for everyone.

That's what they've been told and what the media promotes. It seems to bother people when I point out that there isn't any real scientific evidence that it does anything for pain. The latest idea is that it distracts people from their pain, that could be part of it.

What's also interesting is that doctors don't like to talk about it, when discussing symptoms etc. Probably because they have no training or guidance to rely on, so they don't know how integrate pot use into patient care.

“The available data indicate that there is some credible scientific support for the use of marijuana in the treatment of pain.”
— FDA review

https://www.painnewsnetwork.org/stories/2024/1/15/fda-finds-credible-scientific-support-for-use-of-marijuana-as-pain-reliever

My friend with MS is on lots of meds for pain but still has pain. I bake marijuana cookies for her and she takes tiny bites throughout the day. Her pain is definitely higher when she runs out of cookies.

In most states that have medical use, MS is very near the top of the list as a qualifier.
Here in Illinois it's #4, after Chemo, AIDS related wasting, & ALS.
That's how I got my card. I've had MS (very mild case) since 1995. It took the doctor 3 seconds to say he was going to approve the card & there was a 99.99% chance the state would ok it.
My symptoms are so mild I don't really need it. I just enjoy it once a day.
But, as you said, pain is pain. Pot helps my wife with the pain in her back, and her ability to function normally is clear & obvious. Her doctor will NOT prescribe opioid, so pit is a working option.

Note that it's not the thc, cbd that's providing pain relief, it's a certain set of terpenes. Eventually research like this will lead to new medications where they extract the terpenes from the plant and put them in pill form.

UofA Link

I am a little surprised at the defensiveness the article has generated here.

bag to get a buzz....those days are over

The tiresome panic over ‘it’s too strong’ just ignores how people use it.

I smoke a small amount of some of this beautiful CA wees and it does the trick. Not a whole preroll aka joint.

I have always hated the taste of alcohol in anything. So, I never drank it.

I never smoked, and always choked when trying joints handed me in college (plus, they stank). I must have inherited some evil gene mutation from my mom, since she “confessed” to me that she smoked marijuana with a jazz band she played with in the 1940s, but never got high from it. I once got fed some hashish-laced brownies in my second year of college, and was the only one in the room who felt nothing, where all the rest of them were high as a kite.

So, while I acknowledge that this is an important subject for millions, as long as some driver next to me on the road isn’t impaired by alcohol, cannabis, or even a large cheeseburger in his left hand while trying to drive, I’ll be reading about this subject from the observer gallery.

The first few packs really suck. You really have to be committed to the idea to power through and become a smoker. Chewing tobacco is even worse.

Spicy food can be this way, to build up your heat tolerance you have to torture yourself for a while.

Ethanol as an ingredient is really not great tasting. It does complement other flavors in the right proportion, but the burn is really where it's at (not unlike capsaicin).

Mild Szechuan or Thai curry (red, not green), but not chimchee style. I can’t taste a thing for two hours after eating that stuff.

It does something weird to my blood pressure.



Thanks for the heads up though. Pun intended.

❤️

ditch weed for your ‘20 years ago’ sample.

There were strains of excellent cannabis back in the 70’s that would sit you right down after a few hits. There was also a lot of crappy weed. The huge difference now is that you know what you are getting.

maybe I was spoiled

We've been seeing this claim for at least 40 years. The problem with it is, eventually cannabis is going to get so strong you won't have to smoke it - being within a mile of that weed will get you high.

We've been seeing this claim for at least 40 years. The problem with it is, eventually cannabis is going to get so strong you won't have to smoke it - being within a mile of that weed will get you high.

And there is enhanced flower above 40% thc.

Standard commercial from way back, 80s let's say was probably less than 10%.

Eta I just noticed that no one has mentioned using pot as a sleep aid. It's works quite well and I recommend "Paris OG" in vape form.

It was vastly potent. As I noted elsewhere, there were high potency strains of cannabis back then too. Lots of shit weed, but also you could get really strong pot. What basically nobody knew was the specific THC content of anything. It was all 'try it and see'. Now you can just look at the label. How that is a bad thing escapes me.

About 10-15 years ago there was some Lebanese blond going around Phoenix. It was "disguised" as rolos, the whole package, and each piece was wrapped in gold foil. Stuff was unreal. I nursed my little piece for like 6 months, lol.

It was a smokable liquid thc concentrate.