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Comment by ErrantX | Hacker News Reader

You see, I have anecdotal evidence that this is the case (which is why I agrue we need to start real studies into the affects of pot before any decision can be made).

I have a couple of extremely bright friends (one of them was possibly the smartest guy I've met) who became pot abusers for all manner of reasons. One wanted (and had the skills) to be a stock broker. He spent the first summer of university trading and made a really strong start. But from the second year onwards his pot habit inhibited his learning/development and he now does door-to-door collections for a charity on minimum wage. He was probably my second closest friend at university so I am absolutely sure that cannabis was the cause of his decline.

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I have several examples like that in my circle of friends, but I could also point you to at least one guy worth about 60 million euros that is a heavy pot smoker and a few others that did very well.

I think it is about the person at least as much as it is about the drugs, some people can deal with things like this better than others.

I had a best friend throughout HS/College who was extremely smart. He scored 32 on his ACT on his first try, breezed through AP courses and started college with tons of AP credits and enough tuition assistance that he was being paid a significant wage in excess grant and scholarship refunds just to be an undergrad.

Unless he was just extremely awesome at hiding something from our circle of friends, for absolutely no apparent reason at all, by the second semester of college, he had all but stopped going to class, stopped doing homework, slept through early morning tests, etc, eventually losing his scholarships and failing out of school by his third semester. He was my roommate in the dorms, so I probably would have known if he was doing anything in excess that was directly interfering with his abilities to function, and we were enrolled in similar courses with similar course load, and I handled it fine. He just lost the motivation to continue college.

The point is, is that people fuck up, people get depressed, people change what they place value in, even without drugs.

I feel for your friends drop from his potential, but the fact remains he did this all the while it was illegal. The legality of the product changed nothing in his outcome. You cannot argue that making the product legal would have changed his outcome in any way at all, for he smoked his way to mininum wage illegally. He could have just as easily chosen bourbon to lose himself in, as thousands and thousands of people do each year. At least smoking himself stupid he was less likely to kill himself or someone else. Any police officer will tell you that drunks are a problem and stoners are not.

I can tell many similar stories of friends who lost their way with drugs and alcohol. Bad shit happens in this world, and being successful means not only hard work but avoiding temptations. You've got to do well in all aspects of your life : to me there is little difference between the person who won't but any effort in to study and accepts a minimum wage, and those that put effort into study but waste it all by being a drug addict.

> we need to start real studies into the affects of pot before any decision can be made

It seems that a decision has already been made: prohibition.

That your friend didn't fully realize his potential whilst becoming a pot smoker doesn't imply causation, it is just a correlation. There probably are all kinds of factors at play in your friend's case.

I'm readily agree that his could (or even is) an individual/specific case; but I am 100% certain that his decline was purely due to the drug (I lived with him during the whole period and we were extremely close).

It was mostly intended as a rebuttal of:

Anecdotally it has little or no effect on the ability of a person to "function."

further up the thread.

It seems that a decision has already been made: prohibition.

I think there is dialogue to be had. I suspect (talking realistically) I will see legalization of a number of drugs in my lifetime.

How many drunks do you know?

percentage wise; a lot less than the badly affected pot smokers :)

This is just from your personal experience.

I've got a large number of friends who smoke pot everyday. They're far from non-functioning.

Two of my closest developer buddies smoke all day long. Like, literally, all day long, smoking as soon as they wake up in the morning. That's about as extreme as you can get in the realm of the pothead.

They're fine. They've held their jobs for long periods, been promoted, given raises... all of the things you expect from a "functioning" member of society.

I don't really hang out with very many non-functioning member of society and I know a LOT of people who smoke pot... maybe you tend to hang out with a lot of non-functioning people for some reason? A rather larger percentage of people smoke pot around the world, so it would tend to cross a number of socioeconomic boundaries.

To me, this issue you have with perceiving that pot is making people in to listless sacks of flesh seems to be a personal problem and entirely subjective.

I agree it is somewhat subjective. However it was backed up by a study my ex-gf did a few years ago into drug use.

She interviewed hundreds cannabis users across the country and across various social strata - her general comment was that or the most part users did tend towards the slump. There were certainly a lot more "listless sacks of flesh" than high-functioning individuals (but she also noted that those who were "functioning" tended towards the extraordinary as opposed to just sticking on the normal curve).

I avoid using that as too much proof because it is entirely possible, and even likely, that cannabis is only a contributing factor in this and not outright cause.

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