I'm not anti-pot whatsoever and would absolutely switch from booze to weed if given a chance but isn't it flat out wrong to say "little to no long term harm"?

I'm not arguing that it's better than alcohol or xyz but it does have side effects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis

That wikipedia page lists more than a dozen potential side effects; many of them are quite devastating. I will never understand why a majority of the younger generation views this kind of Russian roulette as something to be celebrated. Perhaps someone in this forum, who is so inclined, can explain their reasoning on this? Why do something that can so easily ruin your health?

There are two parts to answering your question:

1. The message that it's less harmful than some regularly consumed things (eg, alcohol, cocaine, heroin) got smeared in to not being harmful.

2. A lot of those studies have serious faults -- either in not controlling the population that they're studying and confounding effects (eg, there might be a correlation between mental disorders and drugs because people prone to disorders are prone to seeking out drugs, not because drugs cause disorders; people who smoke both marijuana and cigarettes in lung cancer studies without adjusting for whether people also smoke tobacco) or they test at levels of consumption which most people don't partake in (ie, alcohol is really bad if you're a heavy alcoholic, but most people don't have to worry about that).

I don't think that marijuana smoking is harmless, but I think the degree of harm is obscured because of a lack of study, particularly long-term studies. (And, well, let's be honest: some of the research put out about marijuana came out of what are effectively government propaganda labs -- there was very little chance that they wouldn't find it was 'dangerous', in order to justify the scheduling.)

> Why do something that can so easily ruin your health?

Do you drink alcohol? If so, you're already consuming a harder drug than marijuana. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_harmfulness

Look at the leaflet that comes with ANY prescription drug. Even something over the counter. Side effects can be serious, that doesn't make them common. If the more serious side effects to regular marijuana use were common, with the number of users there are, we would know. Also, think of it in terms of alcohol. There are people who have a few beers on a Friday night. Then there are people who have a 6-pack (2-3 liters) every night. The latter will experience more side effects than the former. I'm all for drug legalization but the attitude that you can/should use every day (and that is not really frowned upon) is the part I find that could be dangerous.

I can only speak for myself but it was lots of fun and I didn't got any harm from it. After a couple of years, it got boring and I stopped, but if you consider weed 'russian roulette', then alcohol is Russian roulette with a semi-automatic pistol.

Why do anything?

People clearly feel that they enjoy the high more than the potential side effects, long term or otherwise.

It's the same reason humans consume a great range of drugs.

I can't speak to all of it, but some of it is the result of people's day-to-day experiences being different than a wikipedia page.

Beats workin'.

I'm not going to speculate on whether this is good or bad, but it's not exactly as simple as trading one buzz for another.

Many drink alcohol because they enjoy the taste of what they're consuming, plus any other positive associated feelings of consuming any beverage. Drinking alcohol is embedded deeply into human social behavior and in many cultures goes hand in hand with eating and other social activities. In fact, in many contexts, the fact that alcohol induces drunkenness is more of a liability than a benefit for many people.

Psychosis sees to be greater in long term users

Is it possible that psychotic people tend to self medicate more with it?

Yes, there's complex two way links. But we're pretty sure that there's a causal action too.

Having said that, alcohol misuse causes pretty severe psychosis too.

Here's a nice article: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/000486741559801...

There are more recent articles describing the mechanism that causes people with psychosis to smoke much more tobacco than the general population.