Marijuana needs to be reclassified off of Schedule I Status in the USA, so it can be more thoroughly studied. Schedule I category shouldn't include recreational drugs like marijuana, which has no overdose possibility and has limited withdrawal side-effects. This wrong classification, going back to ignorant viewpoints of the early-mid 1900's, has heavily limited our scientific understanding of marijuana's effects on health and society.

Imagine if we weren't allowed to study alcohol freely, if we had to jump through a dozen hoops to become qualified to do one of the few alcohol studies. We might not have so much knowledge about alcohol's toxic effects, and we might not have the current picture of "Marijuana is slightly healthier than alcohol" if Marijuana had been as thoroughly studied.

This much is clear. Scheduling MJ is extremely unwise. But I would also extend this to everything in the psychedelic / hallucinogenic category. They do no psychological harm and an increasing body of evidence indicates that they, in all likelihood, do a significant amount of mental good for responsible users.

An acute example of this is a psychedelic called “DMT”. This psychedelic is nearly everywhere in nature, including our own brains. When inhaled, it lasts less than 10 minutes, give or take. After that 10 minutes, a user is completely sober without any indication that they were not, and no physiological side effects. But during that 10 minutes? It is an acute spiritual and existential experience, possibly the most acute non-normal experience possible for a human being. A true exploration of altered states, and possible contact with a different form of life unbound from our reality.

And for some reason, this substance is scheduled. It does no harm to a user, to third parties, nor to society, is short lived, and offers true spiritual experience but it’s scheduled. The scheduling as a whole is archaic, oppressive, and if nothing else, misguided.

This is also in top of the fact that it discourages addicts from seeking real treatment due to fear of being criminalized.

> This is also in top of the fact that it discourages addicts from seeking real treatment due to fear of being criminalized.

Portugal decriminalized all drugs in 2000 and saw a huge reduction in harm associated with drug use, and did not see an increase in usage. They went from among the worst in the EU in terms of HIV infections to among the lowest. [1]

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/dec/05/portugals-radic...

Saying they do no psychological harm is quite am extreme statement and is just blatantly untrue. I tend to agree that these drugs should be dicriminalized, but you're doing the exact same thing thats been done with marijuana where the benefits of the drug are praised while the negatives are ignored.

Lack of guidance and cultural context leads to abuse of all sorts of substances. For all the ills of alcohol, there is at least (in the west) a degree of "acceptable usage" existing in society, something which almost every other recreational substance is currently missing.

I don't disagree, but that's not what was said.

My mistake. I meant physiological harm. Will edit.

Edit: cannot edit any longer. While I do not think they do cause psychological harm in the long term (I think they force confrontation with buried psychological issues in order to transcend them), they most certainly can cause short term psychological distress and issues for people unprepared, approaching with the wrong mindset, or using in an otherwise problematic set or setting.

I was going to post something v similar about psilocybin. The war on drugs has had such awful consequences and repercussions and costs, it boggles the mind.

To suggest that there is no potential for psychological harm from psychedelics is naive. I've personally suffered long-lasting psychological harm from a bad mushroom trip and I have at least a couple of friends/acquaintances who have, as well. You can quibble over the details of why and how adverse effects happen but it doesn't change the fact that they do.

I meant physiological harm, definitely a mistype on my end.

That said, psilocybin is highly sensitive to set and setting, especially to other neural nets and especially to others also on it. There is a massive host of issues in partaking with friends or around anyone else for that matter. It will amplify hidden untruths or other sort of otherwise “benign” sober psychological distress and make them acute.

What people call a “bad trip” I call an important lesson. We can choose to react negatively and label it accordingly, or visit it in a sense that a very advanced mindset was indicating a problem. When done this way, bad states cease to exist and it becomes clear the “bad trips” were just bad other things that needed some conscious attention.

All this to say: go get lost in the woods and trip with some plants & with people who hang with that setting, they will take care of you and it is a much better setting to do the work on self.

Your comment was sort of aimed at both me and the GP, but FWIW I'm not saying nothing bad ever happened to anybody on hallucinogenics. My main point is that the war on drugs has stymied our ability properly to study and understand these substances which incontrovertibly have some real benefits.

I agree with your point.

The problem is that if you or your family have a history of schizophrenia, psychedelics can make things much, much worse. But so can ADHD stimulants.

> It does no harm to a user, to third parties, nor to society,

Except it opens doors in people's minds which allows them to think differently for themselves. This results in them behaving less like sheeple. Why would that ever be scary for society?

My experience is it opens the door to not thinking much at all, but your mileage may vary. Is there anything more "sheeple" like than a bunch of stoned people sitting around not motivated to do much?

Sure, not all mj users may experience it this way, but a lot do! I certainly wouldn't be arguing it opens the door to a bunch of usefully profound thinkers in society.

MJ on its own has certainly ruined some people, especially daily users. I would argue, however, significantly less so than alcohol. It also has a much lower harm fact on others than alcohol.

MJ used more sparingly, and especially when used on someone with exposure to a psychedelic (not simultaneously but maybe the weekend after a trip)? Entirely different ballgame. It can awaken an internal symphony of inspiration and thinking.

Everything can be abused. Eat too much if anything and you will suffer. But when used appropriately, very magical experiences can be had that enable routes of thinking and problem solving that seem to come from out of this world.

In general, my recommendation to anyone is to try these things while simply meditating or hiking a safe & easy trail. Your mileage will vary but when done correctly, you will acquire otherworldly inspiration applicable towards your skilled professions and hobbies.

And if nothing else, even falling short of that result, this possibility should be enough for legality.

Parent's quote refers to the psychedelic DMT, not to mj.

Marijuana is very different from psychedelics in this regard.

To paraphrase Bill Hicks, if you think marijuana/drug use has never had a good effect on society, take all of your favorite music and throw it in the trash. All of the musicians recording that music were "reaaaaalllll fucking high".

Cannabis opens my doors alright. Not any more or less independent thought doors, mostly the doors related to eating pizza and grilling.

> This wrong classification, going back to ignorant viewpoints of the early-mid 1900's

It "goes back" to Nixon needing a tool to criminalize the anti-war and racial justice movement.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...

By the time Nixon came out with that policy, multiple commissions around the world had concluded that pot was largely harmless and should be decriminalized. People in his own administration - who he ordered to come up with a "damn strong statement" - concluded the same, infuriating him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Richard...

Reagan, however, was the one who really ratcheted up the criminalization aspect: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11325750/nixon-war-on-drugs

The anti-cannabis groups started in the 1930's with Hearst and loads of yellow journalism

quote from https://gizmodo.com/anti-marijuana-laws-were-based-on-racism... :

-----------------

Harry Anslinger, the first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (an early predecessor of the DEA), was one of the driving forces behind pot prohibition. He pushed it for explicitly racist reasons, saying, "Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men," and:

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

The main reason to prohibit marijuana, he said was "its effect on the degenerate races." (And god forbid women should sleep with entertainers!)

-----------------

That tells me all I need to know about this whole situation. We would rightfully cancel/hold accountable someone saying that now. Why aren't we viewing the laws in the same light in which they were made?

I've tried doing deep dives into drug criminalization a few times before, and I've never been able to find a simplistic explanation for it. Keep in mind, this is something that every country in the world went forward with around the same time, even when they were adversaries who couldn't agree on much else. This was also something that nations often did on their own. A lot of these movements start much earlier than people think; look at Mexico's moves against cannabis in the late 1800's early 1900's. Or even the Gin Craze of the 1700's for a precursor.

There seem to be a few threads I've found that are worth pursuing:

1. The general increase in state power in various domains of life .

2. The decline of traditional communities and move toward urbanization creating a disconnected group of people that worried the upper classes.

3. The tendency of geopolitics to follow social trends/fads.

Okay so explain all the other countries with harsh drug laws that don’t have Nixon or minorities to oppress? Japan, Singapore, Sweden, etc.

You could take a swing at it and see how it goes. The person you're replying to has said what they believe the cause is. You're free to propose other ones for other countries.

My explanation would be that the US drug war was aggressively international.

>My explanation would be that the US drug war was aggressively international.

Ha! Ever tried to get a Swede to do something he or she doesn't already want to do?

He proposes a causal mechanism, it’s fair to point out that it doesn’t explain why other countries are strongly anti-drug, without offering an alternative hypothesis.

The US drug war is international with respect to a few drug producing countries, but had very little influence elsewhere, such as in Asia. In my home country of Bangladesh the recent proposal is to make the death penalty available for drug traffickers and dealers. Nixon had no influence in Bangladesh (and in fact is strongly disliked because he supported Pakistan in the independence war).

Anti-drug sentiment arises out of cultural attitudes. Drug use is viewed as anti-social, because it often makes you less suitable for work, and degenerate. Some cultures are less forgiving of this than others. This is true in America and other highly religious countries, like Bangladesh, Iran, and the Philippines. But it’s also true in certain countries that aren’t highly religious but place a high cultural priority on industriousness, such as Sweden and Japan.

So I suspect you’ve got the Nixon anecdote backwards. Nixon didn’t cultivate anti-drug attitudes out of racism. The harnessed a reactionary sentiment against 1960s liberalism—which included trying to normalize drug usage—to stoke existing Puritan attitudes against drug use. His racism was in treating drug use as an issue especially relating to Black people, as opposed to being a vice common to white people and Black people alike.

It indeed is. Harsh drug penalties were introduced in India under US pressure.

Furthermore, this attitude persisted well into the Reagan & Bush administrations, with the "war on drugs" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance#Narcotics

>...It "goes back" to Nixon needing a tool to criminalize the anti-war and racial justice movement.

The alleged Ehrlichman quote is brought up every single time drug prohibition is mentioned but it should be taken with at least some skepticism.

The surviving members of his family don't believe he made the quote:

>...Multiple family members of Ehrlichman (who died in 1999) challenge the veracity of the quote: The 1994 alleged 'quote' we saw repeated in social media for the first time today does not square with what we know of our father...We do not subscribe to the alleged racist point of view that this writer now implies 22 years following the so-called interview of John and 16 years following our father's death, when dad can no longer respond.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ehrlichman

This is a very explosive quote - if Baum had included it in his book in 1996 I am sure it would have garnered a huge amount of attention for the book. Instead Baum did not include it in his book, but instead would wait for many years before making the claim when Ehrlichman was no longer around to dispute the quote.

If the quote was actually said by Ehrlichman, it isn't a very accurate description of the overall drug polices of the Nixon administration. While Nixon is remembered for "war on drugs" rhetoric, the actual substance of his policies is a bit different than what people think it was:

>...I have been fortunate over the years to discuss the distorted memory of Nixon's drug policies with almost all of his key advisors as well as with historians. Their consensus is that because he was dramatically expanding the U.S. treatment system (by 350% in just 18 months!) and cutting criminal penalties, he had to reassure his right wing that he hadn’t gone soft. So he laid on some of the toughest anti-drug rhetoric in history, including making a White House speech declaring a “war on drugs” and calling drugs “public enemy number one”. It worked so well as cover that many people remember that “tough” press event and forget that what Nixon did at it was introduce not a general or a cop or a preacher to be his drug policy chief but…a medical doctor (Jerry Jaffe, a sweet, bookish man who had longish hair and sideburns and often wore the Mickey Mouse tie his kids had given him).

https://www.samefacts.com/who-started-the-war-on-drugs/

>..."Enforcement must be coupled with a rational approach to the reclamation of the drug user himself," Nixon told Congress in 1971. "We must rehabilitate the drug user if we are to eliminate drug abuse and all the antisocial activities that flow from drug abuse."

>The numbers back this up. According to the federal government's budget numbers for anti-drug programs, the "demand" side of the war on drugs (treatment, education, and prevention) consistently got more funding during Nixon's time in office (1969 to 1974) than the "supply" side (law enforcement and interdiction).

https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11325750/nixon-war-on-drugs

>Reagan, however, was the one who really ratcheted up the criminalization aspect:

To say Reagan "ratcheted up the criminalization aspect" ignores the structure of the US federal government. The president does not make laws, the president can merely sign or veto laws made by the legislature. Unfortunately the drug policies of the 1980s were a bipartisan affair. The real bipartisan push for harsher penalties in the US came in the 1980s after basketball star Len Bias died of cocaine overdose.

>…Immediately after Bias's death, the speaker of the House of Representatives, Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., from the Boston area (where Bias had just signed with the Celtics), issued a demand to his fellow Democrats for anti-drug legislation. Senior congressional staffers began meeting regularly in the speaker's conference room as practically every committee in the House wrote Len Bias-inspired legislation attacking the drug problem. News conferences around the Capitol featured members of Congress extolling their efforts to clamp down on cocaine and crack.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2006/06/24/u...

>...It became the sole focus of legislative activity for the remainder of the session on both sides of the aisle. Literally every committee, from the Committee on Agriculture to the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries were somehow getting involved. Suddenly, the Len Bias case was the driving force behind every piece of legislation. Members of Congress were setting up hearings about the drug problem and every subcommittee chairman was looking to get a piece of the action...

https://www.salon.com/2011/06/19/len_bias_cocaine_tragedy_st...

If you want to go back further, a good person to start with is Harry Anslinger who headed the Federal Bureau of Narcotics:

>...Prior to the end of alcohol prohibition, Anslinger had claimed that cannabis was not a problem, did not harm people, and "There is probably no more absurd fallacy"[15] than the idea it makes people violent. His critics argue he shifted not due to objective evidence but self-interest due to the obsolescence of the Department of Prohibition he headed when alcohol prohibition ceased - campaigning for a new Prohibition against its use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger

A difference with Nixon is that he was one of the first to try to greatly expand drug treatment and also reform sentencing in at least a small way:

>...the mandatory minimum sentence in a federal prison for marijuana possession was 2-10 years until Nixon slashed it to 1 year with a judicial option to waive even that sentence. No federal mandatory drug sentence would be rolled back again for 40 years (in the Obama Administration).

https://www.samefacts.com/who-started-the-war-on-drugs/

You posted this after a direct Anslinger quote had been posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30602134

>I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana.

> But the risk in 50 years of people saying "we should have known better" seems really high

The problem with lead was that it was everywhere. Walls, gas, water, air. As long as society chose to use, we all had to ingest it. That's not so much the case with narcotics. I wouldn't expect anymore of a reckoning with MJ as there has been with alcohol.

MJ definitely increases aspects of my intelligence.

Said no one ever about lead.

You’re really not telling the story correctly based on evidence you linked below, to quote:

> Fig. 3 shows that, among adolescent-onset persistentcannabis users, within-person IQ decline was apparent regardlessof whether cannabis was used infrequently (median use = 14 d)or frequently (median use = 365 d) in the year before testing. Incontrast, within-person IQ decline was not apparent amongadult-onset persistent cannabis users who used cannabis in-frequently (median use = 6 d) or frequently (median use = 365 d)in the year before testing.

So more specifically smoking weed while your brain is developing seems to be correlated to a decline in IQ later in life. While those who start smoking, even copious amounts, as adults don’t have a permanent decline.

I am cannot find reference to support your claim that people are consuming it younger than before.

If you’re going to cite studies, you could at least represent the findings honestly. Also, it’s pretty apparent you’re trying to sell a narrative to others to induce fear of marijuana… this is a post about lead poisoning after all. Quite the leap, IMHO, to compare it marijuana use…

The paper you linked below and incorrectly summarized for anyone curious: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1206820109

I agree with some of this in the abstract, but I think it's worth noting that "regular use" in academic studies of marijuana usually entails dosing lab animals with quantities that a human being couldn't physically consume, or surveying the (much smaller) population of people with psychological addictions to marijuana.

OTOH, and this is anecdotal, I worry about how potent a lot of "normal" marijuana has become and how rapidly we've normalized high-dose delivery mechanisms for it (like waxes and tinctures). It's hard to predict the future given how "primitive" marijuana consumption used to be, in contrast.

I agree 100% with the potency concerns. Many of the studies showing negative impact were using standards like "10 joints a day" which was easy to dismiss as that was an unreasonable amount of weed for most people. Now with wax, tinctures and 20%+ THC strains becoming the normal it seems really easy for many people to be hitting those previously unrealistic dosages.

I'm curious, because I have not heard of wax or tinctures, do you think those are things that more people will use, vs people who would have used some hard drugs anyway?

What I mean is, there will always be some hard drug users, now from the discussion I understand some "hard" THC products exist, will this result in any kind of demographic change like the OP worried about, or is it just a new drug of abuse?

Just because these things exist, I don't think it automatically follows that they will get used by most people, or even more people than would have found some other destructive thing to do in their absence

This is all anecdotal but I have multiple friends who smoke regularly for years. I would consider them heavy smokers, think 5+ joints a day. Once their states had recreational or easily obtainable medicinal marijuana and the retail shops that come with it they quickly started moving into the concentrates and waxes. Now they regularly are going through grams of concentrates and going back to their previously "heavy-use" of 5 joints a day would barely scratch their itch.

The availability of vape pens also makes it REALLY easy to end up smoking way more than you would otherwise and as an easy way to start smoking in general. I smoke and enjoy the convenience of pens but they are perfect tools for increasing cannabis consumption in a population.

It is almost as if flower based cannabis is a gateway drug to these concentrated forms and I think it is really easy to go down that path as an already regular user. It's more economical, potentially better for you (less smoking) and now very easy to obtain.

I think the "overton window" of cannabis use is being shifted to the heavier end. Casual users will probably stay about the same but regular and heavier users will all shift to more or higher potency consumption.

Just anecdota of course, but waxes and tinctures are routinely promoted and offered in discount deals at virtually any legal weed dispensary in the USA. They are IMO increasingly mainstream, as they often work nicely with tools like vaporizers which more and more young people use to consume.

Technology has massively changed how people consume cannabis - many people today may have never rolled or smoked a traditional joint ever. You can buy it in ready to load resin cartridges powered by a LiIon battery. Many of these things produce cold vapor that makes it staggeringly easy to smoke an enormous quantity. At least with a joint, there normally comes a point one's throat will probably not thank you for continuing... The cold vapor from many vaporizers is almost odor free too, meaning people can consume in places they couldn't previously.

They are very common - "vape cartridges" are the preferred intake mechanism for a lot of people because it's much more discrete (almost no smell, can pass for normal vaping) and convenient (small size). And those cartridges can be upwards of 90% THC.

They are pretty heavily in use and available at most locations that legally sell marijuana. Estimate they are 15 to 20% of sales, perhaps more. Even common flower now is 20% thc.

Dude, literally millions of people are dabbing wax and vaping 95% purity THC all day every day in just the US. Millions. Not just in legal states, and not just delta-9-THC. There's all 50 states legal hexahydrocannabinol carts from hemp, delta-8,10 THC and THC-O acetate widely available. Not sure though why an article about lead exposure turned into a Reefer Madness spook campaign. If one were looking for parallels I think one would lean towards something like widespread use of PFAAS chems or something. Smoking plants is up to an individual.

But we still do have studies that compare cannabis users to non-users.

The concern for marijuana is less about the toxicity of it as a substance, and more the psychological effects of being high.

And the psychological effects of consuming a taboo substance.

I started smoking pot later than a lot of my peers. All through high school I was cringy and weird and judgemental and adversarial and entitled.

Then I started smoking pot. And I experimented with a ton of hard psychedelic drugs. And it absolutely took a toll on my cognitive abilities. But it had a much more profound effect on my personality. A positive effect. Especially LSD.

It was like a light switch went on in my personality. I suddenly was much more "tuned in" to the world around me. I became mindful and considerate. My judgement faded. My outlook had changed to one that was seriously more healthy. Today I don't drink or do hard drugs. Just Marijuana. And I'm happy with myself.

I don't know what to make of that but I do know that I've seen things and felt things and understood things from perspectives that people who have never taken drugs can literally not imagine. You couldn't even dream the things I've seen.

I believe there could be clinical uses for taboo things like psychedelic drugs. I hate to think that without them I probably would have eventually been red pilled or turned into a fascist. It was that much of an eye opening experience for teenage me.

So while it probably did cost me about 15% of my cognitive ability, it also gave me 100% of my critical thinking ability.

A lot of that could just as easily be attributed to you growing up, though. Teenagers are generally cringy, weird, judgmental, adversarial and entitled, each in their own ways.

I personally had horrible experiences on LSD, and I've seen even worse bad trips and panic attacks as a trip dad, but I know it helps quite a few of my friends figure themselves out. Which is why studies on these drugs is crucial.

It might make more sense to first have a similar reckoning with alcohol. It is a far more dangerous intoxicant and exacts a large toll on individuals and society.

We can do both.

Can we? Everything I understand about the public tells me otherwise.

It does seem weird to me that about 5-10% of a grocery store is bottles of alcohol.

Fluids consume large amounts of shelf space by volume regardless of what fluid it is, not much we can do about this, so a large amount of shelf space does not mean a large percentage of the store's total items, in theory. By percentage of total items, it's likely very small for most supermarkets.

See also the large amount of shelf space typically required to stock bottled water and soft drinks.

The variety of alcohol on offer does seem a tad perverse, in a way that status quo bias renders difficult to perceive. How many brands of bottled water do you usually see? Half a dozen, tops? And much of the volume in that aisle is occupied by huge 16-packs and giant carriers. Meanwhile the average wine aisle has hundreds of different brands, nearly all no more than 75cl, and might even stretch to two aisles in a large supermarket. It dwarfs the available selection of any other category of product. And that's before we get into the bafflingly endless rows of spirits.

Is this a healthy relationship with what is, in the final analysis, an intoxicating drug? If there were an aisle in every supermarket with 10 times as much cannabis as you'd currently find in the average dispensary, would we regard that as equally normal?

Perhaps the difference is I am not baffled; Alcohol is enjoyable in moderation and it is one of the few high margin items in the store. Fluids are popular and take up much more shelf space as noted. As for bottled water, my local Safeway easily carries in excess of 20 brands before we count the huge number of soft drinks too?

I suspect you have not been in a dispensary recently if you think a supermarket would stock 10x as much; the range of products in most US dispensaries is truly enormous now across edibles, waxes, flowers, tinctures etc. I would strongly argue we would see a smaller range of products in the supermarket, should it become legal to sell there. This is exactly like alcohol too, where dedicated booze stores often have a wider range. It would still be significant in size though - lots of people like weed.

I can already barely manage the scented tide in the store. MJ in a grocery store? Stinky.

I don't think the number of brands on offer has any effect on our relationship with booze. It doesn't matter how many brand of yellow mustard are on the shelf, I'm buying it at the same rate. Where I live now, very few super markets have beer/wine and none have spirits. I know I buy less booze now than I did when I lived in places where you could get beer pretty much anywhere, at gas stations, super markets, convenience stores, etc., and it's probably for this reason.

That depends on where you're from. Some states don't allow the private sale of liquor.

Interesting to see where the U.S. stands in this list - https://www.abbeycarefoundation.com/alcohol/alcoholism-by-co...

According to [0] peak marijuana usage was in the 70s. I don't think with a smaller/more stable subset of the population partaking there's going to be many more people saying "we should have known better" than there currently are.

https://www.mlive.com/resizer/G7WZuDwdu5D2eCujzIi_RYGWYkc=/7...

I wasn't there in the 70s, but from what I understand potency of the 70s wasn't nearly what it is today. I have no source for this, but I've been in countless circles with long time smokers who all correlate the same story; that modern day mids was literally the best quality Marijuana you could find in the 70s. So that's probably about 10% THC compared to 30% THC which is not uncommon today.

I don't smoke cannabis nearly as much as I used to. When I was a daily user it didn't have any intellectual effects so much as emotional ones. I would have been baseline mildly depressed and weed made it so much worse. That's not going to be a surprise to any objective observer.

When I do have it today I make sure to seek out the weakest stuff I can. It's annoying that you might just have one option below 15%. Of course edibles are a far superior option in legal states. Easy dosage and no damage to your lungs. I'd also suspect that the milder (but longer) highs are easier on the brain.

When you smoke with people these days, they only take a couple of hits. In the 90s when we smoked it was joint after joint after joint.

It's basically the cigarette filter thing; people know where they want to get, and they'll keep going until they get there, no matter how weak you make it. Which is what made filtered cigarettes worse for your lungs than unfiltered ones.

The calculus would be different if you were talking about edibles, because they actually sneak up on and can surprise you.

I wish we could go back to that. Personally I find most weed I smoke these days to be way way too strong.

If it’s a matter of dosage then who knows how many joints they smoked in the 70s vs how many hits today?

As a long time marijuana user I am leaning towards that view and I've ceased using it but largely "permanent" is wrong and its the same thinking that lead to war on drugs.

In large doses, it can bring about negative effects especially in people with ADD but the bad parts are almost always gone after cessation.

I don't think it

It's that when you are in your teens and you start smoking marijuana, the risk is big but I see many grey markets happy to sell you marijuana to people still going to high school.

I find both sides obnoxious, the Singaporeanesque fear mongering about "permanent damages" based on curated and manipulated data and the Western panacea attitude that it be used for everything.

Trying to tie lead exposure to marijuana is just asinine.

Smoking (anything) is bad for your lungs, throat too.

Plenty of ways to use cannabis without smoking (combustion). Examples include edibles, vaporizers, suppositories, and topicals. You’ve heard of the nicotine patch but did you know they have THC patches?

Not a huge problem when we die from diabetes or heart disease first.

Something being bad for your lungs is presumably going to be very bad for your heart.

Marshmallow leaf is often used as an alternative for those seeking to quit tobacco, and does have known health benefits:

https://www.real-leaf.com/blogs/realleaf-blog/smoking-marshm...

Although certainly any combusted plant will produce tar, and this is well known to cause pulmonary issues which will indeed place more stress upon the heart.

>We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence, memory loss, motivation, and mental health.

I can maybe believe it but I am yet to see a convincing Meta-Analysis or at least a large RCT. In general, people seem to recover from a lot of drug usage if they stop for long enough and weed isn't one of the heavy ones. Can you share what studies you are referring to?

The study in the linked article found that lead reduced the IQ of exposed Americans 3-6 IQ points.

A New Zealand study found that persistent cannabis users had a 6-8 point decline, even if they had given up cannabis: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1206820109

Here's a meta review that found a 2 IQ point drop across a wider range of usage types: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...

There's a lot less known about cannabis at this point, but what we know so far isn't very positive.

That's not actually what the study found.

  Further, cessation of cannabis use did not fully restore neuropsychological functioning *among adolescent-onset cannabis users*.

They did not find a 6-8 point decline for folks who gave up cannabis if they started later in life. In fact they found no decline in IQ whatsoever for folks who started later in life - both when using it and after stopping.

   In contrast, within-person IQ decline was not apparent among adult-onset persistent cannabis users who used cannabis infrequently (median use = 6 d) or frequently (median use = 365 d) in the year before testing.

> There's a lot less known about cannabis at this point, but what we know so far isn't very positive.

... for adolescents. Both your studies only show impact in youth.

I don't think my summary was unfair. I was only asked if there was evidence for persistent effects. There clearly is, even if just for adolescents.

It's also important to point out that for the adult-onset group they only looked at 1 year back. This doesn't preclude the possibility that longer periods as an adult find different results.

Sorry, no, your claims and summary were definitively and unquestionably false.

There is a large, large difference between 'Americans' and 'adolescents'. Vast.

Your summary missed a critical piece, which is that it is just for adolescents.

I don't think, even within the marijuana community, that there is any debate that marijuana use in adolescents is harmful. I regularly see /r/trees comments telling teens to stop until they're at least 18 and their brain finishes developing.

Sorry, I took a look at the study and I couldn't tell - what is an adolescent? Like, 10-18? 14-25? I know what the word means, but for a scientific study I assume there's a specific range they're referring to.

I hadn't seen the meta-analysis, thanks. 2=3 IQ points drop is pretty significant and enough to be worth consideration but it's not too worrisome.

I see your point, but just want to draw a line between something you ingest willingly that affects only you, and something foisted semi-secretly on the entire public by a special interest (basically to make cars and/or fuel more marketable) despite their knowing, almost from the beginning, how toxic it was. (One of many great examples of humans using technology because they can, without giving due consideration to whether they should.) I would rather the law protected me from the actions of others, and let me be the one to worry about what I do to myself.

[Edit: Which isn't to say there couldn't be a very persuasive weed marketing campaign or something, that influences people to use it and hides the negative effects. Just as there was a campaign to squelch public debate about the negative effects of tetraethyl lead. Nonetheless, being able to individually decide to reject inhaling lead, like you can with pot, would've been a welcome privilege.]

Not sure what "current" generation means, by the way. I'm currently alive, and currently, I'm in the same generation I've always been in. (I'm not mad, just teasing you a bit.)

Exposure to marijuana and marijuana derivatives is optional. Exposure to lead is almost never optional.

Second hand smoke is not optional. It is the same reason we banned smoking in various buildings.

True, but this was for tobacco, and the ban was mainly to protect non-smoking workers (and more recently the patrons) in restaurants and bars who started suffering with long term health complications usually attributed to smokers. The lawsuits would have crippled the industry, so the change was largely financial in nature, such is the basis of most public health legislation.

https://newscenter.lbl.gov/2013/08/01/secondhand-smoke-in-ba...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29870518/

For controls on residential buildings, we would need better standards in shared housing construction and perhaps also we could take a look at better airflow and particulate filtration methods. I expect it will be some time (and perhaps another airborne pandemic?) for that to be addressed seriously.

> I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana.

There might be such a reckoning, just not at the same level or with the same impact.

Water is simply a necessity, and marijuana is not. Quite literally 100% of Americans ingest water in some capacity and/or means. Also, brain development delay and interference, caused by contaminated water, would be present in children, who are not, by default, marijuana users.

Cannabis will probably never be legalized for children, outside of some extreme medical conditions -- or CBD, which is not psychoactive. It is clear that THC is not good for a developing brain.

It is also likely that cannabis is generally less harmful than alcohol or even acetaminophen, and unlike those, considered fairly non-toxic. Consider that cannabis metabolites can be detected in your body for up to a month after consumption. It's apparently not that high of a priority for your body to purge it. Cannabis does not need to be combusted. The resins will readily vaporize at temperatures well below the point at which the plant matter actually burns.

I no longer consume alcohol, but occasionally consume cannabis. My personal decision comes from a lot of experience with both, the way my body feels after consuming them, and studied risks associated with each. I exercise responsible moderation in my consumption and strongly believe that cannabis is the safer choice.

This conversation is more about the extent to which we need to protect adults from their own adult decisions, and/or protect the antiquated and partially racist underpinnings behind how and why cannabis was initially made illegal. To that end, I'm not sure it bears much, if any, similarity to lead exposure.

Perhaps if the typical American was paid better and had more hope for the future then less would use such things to escape from reality.

When saying things like this, I think you should intuitively consider the corollary of your sentence. If people are using drugs to "escape from reality" presumably because have insufficient money to do nicer things, then the implication is that people who have lots of money would use drugs at a substantially lower rate.

And so this is pretty easy to test. I did a quick search for 'marijuana use by rate by income' and the first paper that I came upon [1] showed there is indeed quite a strong correlation between substance use and socioeconomic status - in other words, the richer or more privileged individuals were (in terms of coming from wealthy family backgrounds), the more likely they were to use drugs.

So unless there is some confounding variable that we may not be considering, it seems fairly easy to reject the hypothesis that people are using drugs because of a lack of money.

[1] - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3410945/

>t seems fairly easy to reject the hypothesis that people are using drugs because of a lack of money.

To most people hope doesn't mean more money, it means a better future. These are not the same.

You were the one who mentioned “paid better”. Don’t shift the goal posts.

>Perhaps if the typical American was paid better and had more hope for the future

There isn't a period after better.

It doesn’t matter, if you didn’t want people to discuss pay, you shouldn’t have mentioned it.

It’s more than that. High paid people in very demanding jobs also turn to it and drinking so they can “turn off” work for a bit.

Of coursr, all the wealthy and successful people absolutely do not partake in recreational drugs.

You missed "had more hope for the future"

>I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with...

I thought that sentence was going to end with "Covid".[1] Research was just published yesterday which indicates that even mild cases have resulted in damage to the brain. Meanwhile, over the last few months we have just accepted that everyone is going to get it eventually. Who knows what the long term impact will be of us all giving ourselves a little brain damage?

EDIT: It is funny that the HN community's commitment to moving on from the pandemic has gotten to the point in which linking to research that suggests maybe getting Covid is bad is downvoted.

[1] - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04569-5

To be fair there are also studies showing alcohol has similar effects on the brain. I saw one just yesterday:

"A large study of more than 36,000 high-quality MRI brain scans has found that drinking four units of alcohol a day – two beers, or two glasses of wine – causes structural damage and brain volume loss equivalent to 10 years of aging."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5

I always said I would never smoke marijuana because my brain is my biggest asset and I wouldn't want to do anything to decrease its value to me. Now it looks like I need to take a good hard look at my alcohol consumption. I just can't square it with my values anymore.

I don’t think it should come as a massive surprise to anyone that alcohol isn’t exactly good for you.

You'd be surprised. I don't know many people who understand it's actually a carcinogen. And I was unaware it's doing permanent damage to my brain.

It's just so ingrained in society, many don't even question it at all. But it's one of the more dangerous drugs. It destroys a lot of lives.

>We are already seeing studies that show regular marijuana use is correlated with permanent decreases in intelligence

When used at very young ages. Important caveat. The other things you mentioned are highly speculative and I typically discount anecdotes as mostly useless.

> I typically discount anecdotes as mostly useless

This is fair. I mention it because it was only in hindsight that it was so obvious how many smokers were getting emphysema and lung cancer, and that these were not actually common diseases.

Well to be fair vapes and edibles are much more common now and that would greatly reduce those kinds of risks.

It seems like the biggest and most present problem with marijuana is that most don't understand that smoking marijuana is just as bad as smoking cigarettes[0]. Of course, that's obvious - smoking anything, even herbal theater cigarettes, are extremely bad for your health[1]. However, after years and years of the pro-marijuana lobby claiming that marijuana has no negative side effects and can't kill you, it would make sense if teens today were confused by the logical contradictions.

Until we transition over to non-smoking marijuana consumption, I don't see an easy for the anti-marijuana lobby to make any claim about marijuana that the pro lobby wouldn't be able to refute by simply pointing to the smoke as the root problem. I agree that the reckoning will come but it will come in the form of anti-smoking ads (in favor of edibles or whatever else) rather than anti-marijuana ads.

[0]https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/smoking-facts/health-effec...

[1]https://www.everydayhealth.com/stop-smoking/herbal-and-natur...

> It seems like the biggest and most present problem with marijuana is that most don't understand that smoking marijuana is just as bad as smoking cigarettes[0].

Where in that article does it say that smoking marijuana is just as bad as smoking cigarettes? Marijuana smoke is not good for the lungs and it contains carcinogens, but that doesn't mean it's as bad as tobacco. For example, another source[0] says: "Whether smoking marijuana causes lung cancer, as cigarette smoking does, remains an open question."

[0] https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana...

>I have a strong worries that our current generation will have a similar huge reckoning with marijuana.

I think "Cannabis" is the prefered term nowadays. The word "Marijuana" has negative cultural connotations which we would do well to escape when discussing this issue.

The problem is that the research into the risks of exposure to both of these substances was/is not exactly at the top of the list due to various factors.

That said, I'd take my chances with a bong over a car exhaust *or drinking water pipe. At least you have some choice over what goes into (and, consequently comes out) of the former.

>> But the risk in 50 years of people saying "we should have known better" seems really high.

Well, we are just about 100 years after alcohol was legalized. We have lots of data on how horrible it is for out bodies, how many accidents and premature deaths it causes. But I hear absolutely nobody in North America talking about curtailing alcohol in any way. (The UK medical bodies have spoken out against alcohol use in recent years.) In fact I see advertisements for alcohol virtually everywhere. So no, I do not believe we will have a reckoning in 50 years about pot.

Anecdotally I know a good amount people that now smoke all day, every day now that we work from home. At least among the people I know, there's no stigma - they tell me it "helps them think". I don't think this is the case with alcohol without a lot of people calling you out for having a "drinking problem".

Consuming cannabis everyday all day will also results in dramatically less consequences in your life than consuming alcohol the same way. The abuse factor of cannabis is really low all things considered and gets even lower if you avoid smoking.

Unless it clearly provides any medium to long term benefit I guess I'm going to avoid it. Plus it is expensive. Same for alcohol amd cigarette, I avoid them as much as I can. The only thing I need is caffeine but I'm tricking myself by drinking decaffeinated most of the time. I hope one day I can remove that too.

The societal risks are the same with additional worse effects for non participants with alcohol and they have been known for a long time. If society is OK with those risks, then I cannot see cannabis being an unacceptable risk in 50 years. Can throw in refined sugar too.

> The societal risks are the same and additional worse ones with alcohol

I don't think this is correct, personally.

(I'm pretty sure you'll find studies arguing for both sides, so we can only go on personal wisdom.)

Would you rather deal with someone high on cannabis or drunk on alcohol?

To collect data, visit all the hotels, restaurants, bars, police, security guards, and entertainment venues in your area and ask all the front line employees this question. Or even who you would rather drive around.

I guarantee everyone would rather deal with someone high on cannabis, who might ask for extra snacks or drive slow and be unlikely to go on a belligerent tirade or get physical.

In terms of other societal risks, I have not heard of a cannabis addict beating their spouse or children yet.

But omg cannabis users get so lazy and have no motivation... /s

Nobody's arguing that.

It's not even comparable. You an ignore the fact that far more people use Alcohol regularly, that it has countless other deleterious health affects and just look at pure death rates directly attributable to Alcohol. It's just not even in the same universe.

>(I'm pretty sure you'll find studies arguing for both sides, so we can only go on personal wisdom.)

This is blatantly false. Find me 1 study that shows definitively that MJ is worse than Alcohol for society.

You're being aggressive. Please stop.

I wouldn't contest that more people die from alcohol than marajuana. That wasn't the issue under discussion. The issue is, which is worse for society.

Part of why I find your comment so aggressive is because you're being very sharp with me, but you don't realize you aren't talking about the same thing.

> This is blatantly false. Find me 1 study that shows definitively that MJ is worse than Alcohol for society.

Having worked in academia as a researcher, I don't actually believe studies can reliably be understood by anyone other than those who conducted it and their immediate peers in the field.

A weaker form of that, which I also agree with, would be, "studies are rarely definitive." But you're asking for a definitive study. That doesn't seem fair.

Anyway, it isn't incumbent on me to do the work for you that you are asking me to do.

>You're being aggressive. Please stop.

If my comment is what you consider to be overly aggressive maybe you need to get out more.

All research is BS therefore opinion is king is one of the weakest arguments I have ever heard.

BTW your not so subtle digs are uncalled for.

Flagged.

> I'm pretty sure you'll find studies arguing for both sides, so we can only go on personal wisdom.

Without opinion on the relative damage of both, I'll note that considering this a logical statement is really flawed.

You can pretty much always find "studies arguing for both sides" on an issue, but that doesn't mean much in and of itself.

> Without opinion on the relative damage of both, I'll note that considering this a logical statement is really flawed.

I can't understand what you are saying here.

> You can pretty much always find "studies arguing for both sides" on an issue, but that doesn't mean much in and of itself.

Just trying to cut off the expected "studies show X" comments before they get started. Because if studies aren't definitive, which they rarely are, there isn't any point in raising that. And a simpler way to explain this is "studies conflict."

> I can't understand what you are saying here.

My point was that you are actually very rarely in the case that studies are in conflict to the point that the best you can do is personal experience. It's the exception, not the rule.

To paraphrase Churchill: science is the worst system we have for understanding these sorts of things, except for all the others.

> My point was that you are actually very rarely in the case that studies are in conflict to the point that the best you can do is personal experience

I didn't make my point very clearly, but my actual view is that only the researchers who perform a study and their immediate scientific peers are able to determine whether a study is reliable and what conclusions can actually be drawn from it. I say this as someone who worked in academic research.

> To paraphrase Churchill: science is the worst system we have for understanding these sorts of things, except for all the others.

Preaching to the choir, there. I'm not arguing against science.

> But the risk in 50 years of people saying "we should have known better" seems really high.

Is there any evidence this happens with alcohol and if there is what was societies response? I suspect it alcohol does similar damage and we tolerate it due to the perceived benefits.

Kids aren't smoking weed when they're eight. Or four, for that matter.

Second-hand smoke?

I doubt SHS would ever cause the effects described, unless the exposure was truly massive. The complaint about marijuana affecting intelligence re: brain development hinges on the central effects of THC itself, while lung cancer from SHS typically involves DNA damage caused by contaminants in the smoke (ranging in size from nitric oxide to benzopyrene). DNA damage is typically considered with a linear-no-threshold-model[1] because any incident of DNA damage can have long-term effects on cancer risk, but neurotransmitters likely do have a threshold for long-term damage, because the rate of neuronal receptor activation has a natural range of variation, and disturbances within that range are unlikely to cause any kind of long-term effect, because they simulate the natural conditions.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model - I should add that the way we deal with the LNTM in radiation protection is quite similar to the neuron model I just laid out: we look at the natural variation of radiation exposure and don't worry (much) about exposure less than that range.

I was at my 3rd grader's outdoor field trip and saw a puff of vape come up from a trio of kids. Someone had gotten a small juul cartridge and they were puffing away on it. The dispenser makes it much easier to hide, but it is not a new phenomenon. My mom started smoking cigarettes when she was 10 years old.

Way bigger problem of super obese food-addict children who don't even have a chance to play normally and develop self-efficacy. High predictor of depression later on.

I worry more about the covid vaccines

Interesting. What about porn abuse?

Overblown.

I’m against legalization. I thought it was just going to be a humane alternative to putting people in jail. But instead we’ve just broken down the social norm against drug use. Parts of DC now smell strongly of weed during the middle of the day.

Be thankful it's just marijuana; here in Seattle, we're so enlightened that addicts using fentanyl and meth on buses (https://komonews.com/news/local/king-county-metro-drivers-fr... a big issue.

Is that your strongest argument? A smell?

If anything broke down the social norm against drug use it was the heroin and opioid epidemics.. Which started shortly after Afghanistan.

Probably the trillions of dollars pumped into feeding terrorism instead of going on free school lunches and the like pushed people into drug use as well.

Seriously, I don't know how people can miss the mark this far. Yet apparently many in DC do, and it's getting REAL OLD.