1) How do you know you wouldn't have done better had you not smoked starting in high school? You can't go back in time and A/B test yourself
2) Your personal physiology may be fine with marijuana use, but that's not a guarantee that the same applies to everyone else. I'm sure plenty of HN readers (myself included) knew people in high school who did suffer from marijuana-related focus, effort, and studying problems
Also to be fair, I was an awful student. However i was always the type that if I didn't want to do something, nothing could get me to do it. Yet when I want to do something, I tend to have pretty positive results. I still think I would have been a terrible student even if I didn't smoke weed. Who knows!
It's a pretty well supported statement though. This comment is better applied elsewhere in the thread however.
It's just high school :) if GP passed and moved on, who cares? High school success becomes more and more of a boolean outcome as you get further away from it imo. And tbh even boolean is generous.
"I wish in the past I had tried more things 'cause now I know that being in trouble is a fake idea."
What? The parent comment is asking: how do they know they wouldn't have done better for the past fifteen years if they hadn't started in high school.
A truly enlightened individual doesn't need any drugs, but I'm not there yet. Maybe in time. For now I think the weed is a net positive.
One of the odd things about drugs is that if you do use them as a crutch (and I certainly do), then you are forfeiting recreational value.
I smoke to feel "normal" and to avoid nightmares (it turns off dreaming, which is quite useful). That means I can't get "high" like non-potheads can. When I haven't smoked in a while, I get giggly and have the munchies and every idea is mindblowing, and that's truthfully quite a lot of fun and is the reason most people start smoking weed.
Unfortunately, if I don't smoke after work, I can't really feel like my work day is over, and I'll keep thinking about work until I exhaust myself. If I don't smoke before bed, there's a good chance I'll have horrible nightmares and wake up in a cold sweat. These aren't symptoms of withdrawal that go away in time, that's just how I lived my life before discovering weed, and that's how I feel daily even if I take a months-long break from smoking.
I would love to not need weed as a crutch, both to be healthier and so I can occasionally get a giggly-munchies-omg-this-music-sounds-amazing type of high.
The problem is, if I quit smoking, I feel less mentally healthy, and all of the psychiatric drugs that could possibly help are worse in health and effect than weed.
When people call it a crutch, it's so disparaging and judgmental. I think if it makes your life better (like it clearly makes yours!), why associate guilt with the benefit?
Maybe in a vacuum, "crutch" _is_ a good term. Literal crutches help people after all! But there is definite stigma attached with the mindset.