Anecdotally I've seen multiple friend's mental health deteriorate while smoking weed consistently. In more than one case, they had a history of mental illness in the family.
This could just be a correlation.
This could just be a correlation.
I used to smoke weed. I’m older now and it makes me antisocial, so I stopped. But I always was (and remain) pro-legalization, but I’ve reflected on its danger as an abusable substance and can now recognize that its addictive — even if just in lifestyle.
I have suffered from insomnia my entire life. Then two years ago, my job got significantly more stressful and I began having panic attacks. I was perscribed Lorazepam in case of future attacks, but the potential side effects were terrifying (you may just suddenly die in certain circumstances), so I was scared to take it.
Enter medicinal marijuana. I’m now part of the “smoke weed every day” lifestyle, except with edibles because my apartment doesn’t allow smoking. 20mg CBD, 5mg THC, about 2 hours before I want to sleep. Accept that I’m not going out for the rest of the night, work on some side projects, watch some TV, and then go to sleep waking up refreshed, no hangover or grogginess.
Only real detrimental effect I’ve observed is a reduction in my short term memory. So I started keeping a proper notebook and calendar to compensate for that. After a couple of days of not consuming, my memory seems to return to normal, so I’m not too worried about long term effects there, but I would absolutely love to see more clinical trials around it.
Saying that a therapeutic doze of lorazepam is going to make you "suddenly die", is a great exaggeration. Panic attacks are best fixed with a combination of drugs and CBT. So maybe try adding CBT to your drugs to wean off of it.
Rather what you tend see in daily smokers is a attitude of mild delusional distrust, often leaning towards conspiracy theories, anti-authoritarianism, etc. Since many are not aware of any unreasonable thought patterns, it may be seen as a mild form of psychosis. It goes away only 1-3 days after stopping consuming it though.
But I think it's worth keeping an eye on, in this day and age, we really don't need more people following misguided errands.
Almost every article here on hn is about how some entity is spying on you, hacking you, or selling your data.
Just because I'm paranoid, don't mean they're not after me.
If it were legal, like alcohol, people would better be able to deal with it.
Even if not 100% harmless, prohibition is not helpful, for (almost) noone.
I personally use weed and it makes me relax, helps with my insomnia and lack of appetite.
It's similar to World of Warcraft: Weed isn't the problem. It's the easy escapism that is the problem.
Also don't be so quick to assume there's a legitimate correlation... it could be sampling/observational error.
I specifically mean smoking weed, watching TV and living a more "relaxed" lifestyle (which isn't inherently bad) over doing things that might me seen as productive, both in a traditional sense (school, work) and in a personal development sense (hobbies, friendships, health).
I know that there's a very big chance that it's just a correlation, and not a causation. In these specific cases, it really did feel like weed did make things a lot worse. There were long stretches of time where one of my friends in particular would stop smoking (conscious decision) and mental health stuff would get better.
Note: I'm pro legalisation.
I remember reading somewhere that it can trigger latent mental illness in some individuals.