Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars, Displacing Other Habits | Hacker News Reader

Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars, Displacing Other Habits

nytimes.com

138 pointsjohnny313168 comments

The thing that sucks here is the health issues have nothing inherently to do with THC and everything to do with vaping a black market product that has shitty ingredients in it.

I live in CA where it is becoming more and more regulated. I have a 'church' down the street where I can buy stuff at a steeeep discount (no tax, lower prices)... but I go to the regulated places the next town over (higher taxes, higher prices) that do lab testing and have their products sealed with a lab certificate.

As soon as I learned that the underground trap shops were buying, cleaning and refilling used cartriges with god knows what I stopped going to the churches.

I am not a doctor but from what I have been reading, consuming THC on a regular basis before 21 (the commonly accepted age for the latest stage of brain development) is definitely a bad idea, as it will prevent the endocannabinoid system to develop correctly. I would not dismiss teen smoking/vaping as a public health concern, it's not just about counterfeiting, I think we need better education about the risks and benefits.

What have you been reading? Can you share some of that data with us so we can come to a common understanding? I was under the impression that this was not a fact, just a supposition; I would love to be enlightened!

> The team found that persistent marijuana use was linked to a decline in IQ, even after the researchers controlled for educational differences. The most persistent users — those who reported using the drug in three or more waves of the study — experienced a drop in neuropsychological functioning equivalent to about six IQ points (PNAS, 2012). "That's in the same realm as what you'd see with lead exposure," says Weiss. "It's not a trifle."

> a number of studies have found evidence of brain changes in teens and young adults who smoke marijuana. In 2013, Rocío Martín-Santos, MD, PhD, at the University of Barcelona, and colleagues reviewed 43 studies of chronic cannabis use and the brain. They found consistent evidence of both structural brain abnormalities and altered neural activity in marijuana users.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/11/marijuana-brain

That's great, but what does that actually mean for someone? Does it mean that they are less happy? Does it mean that they earn less money? Does it mean they have less meaningful relationships?

I understand the mechanisms behind marijuana use, but what is the real effect on a person's life?

You can't really A/B test humans. Best thing that could be done is twin studies and even those have flaws.

By the way your line of questioning implies an agenda. I don't have an issue with that, but thought I'd highlight that for you.

Everyone has an agenda. What agenda do you think I'm pursuing?

Do you think it's one of harm-reduction? Or legalization in pursuit of business opportunities? Or legalization for recreation? Or for medicinal use? Or is my agenda that I have another product in mind that solves all of these things without the side effects of marijuana?

I can appreciate the perspective of "everyone has an agenda".

Some people attempt a almost a fact based conversation that is an exploration of a topic. Others have an opinion they want to push on others. I don't even try to figure out what someone agenda is. I look that there is one and stop focusing too hard right there and then.

I also suspect, I'm not the only one who operates like this.

If I have an agenda, it is to limit emotion in communication and make things more fact based.

This communication is likely to fail.

To reiterate, many people don't care to figure out what the agenda is and just ignore those who has one. Here i'm using agenda to stand for the typical partisan politics or other "normative" behavior.

From the linked article

> Heavy marijuana use in adolescence or early adulthood has been associated with a dismal set of life outcomes including poor school performance, higher dropout rates, increased welfare dependence, greater unemployment and lower life satisfaction.

Considering that Marijuana is illegal, this seems impossible to prove.

Show me the development of a teen in a society where open marijuana consumption is a non-issue to compare against.

Right - you can't use drug tests to unfairly weed people out of employment, then list drugs as the cause of unempoyment and poor life outcomes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RTY0LPO/

Given that they use IQ as a measure also goes to show how little they understand the effects at this point. So take this all with a grain of salt. The best evidence at this point is that adolescent use has some effect on long term memory formation, but even that needs much more study to be understood it. Nothing in the brain works on a simple better/worse scale.

Yeah, I’m highly skeptical that marijuana makes you legitimately more dumb. If I had to guess, I’d suspect that there are other factors that lead to this result. I’m skeptical because I have seen friends and acquaintances who were “dulled out” by drugs during this period of their life. While many of them were “heavy users” of marijuana, all of them were dulled from other psychotropic drugs(ecstasy being the big one), and most of them lost more than 6-8 IQ points. More like 20+ points.

If anything, I’d say that marijuana use tends to make the brain more doubtful, even of itself. In real life this is a mostly positive trait, but it is punished by the IQ test I think.

What are the side effects of this system developing incorrectly?

If you smoke heavily and quit, your endocannabinoid system underperforms by about 20% for two or three weeks. It basically dulls pleasure in everything, producing anhedonia, depressed appetite and irritability. It impacts sleep negatively too.

How long does it take for full recovery?

As he said, a couple weeks.

Each time I've quit for an extended period of time it's taken me about three weeks to feel normal. During those weeks I definitely feel more grumpy and irritable. I'm also curious as to whether THC or other chemicals in the smoke have any effect on the body's thermoregulation, because each time I've quit I've also woken up drenched in sweat every night for about the first week or so. Crazy dreams as well.

These have all been me going cold turkey after heavy daily use for extended periods of time.

I find sleep changes really noticeable, so so everyone else. Dreams become very vivid for couple of days to a point of discomfort.

When you smoke i never dream. When you stop body overcompensates.

I wonder if it's suppressing REM sleep like alcohol does

It does. My understanding is that THC inhibits REM sleep, and as a result the chemicals that are usually released during the REM phase that cause you to dream do not get released. Once you quit and start having REM sleep again, there's a "backlog" so to speak of the chemicals and more than usual are released, thus causing the extremely vivid dreams.

Those who use heavily in Adolescence can lose something like 6 or 8 IQ points, among other negative effects. Those who start as adults and stop don't seem to have the same effects[1], but it is unclear how much that reflects lower baseline IQ of users vs. the impact of marijuana itself.

[1] https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/mari...

I would like some perspective on what a 6-8 IQ point difference actually means in real life.

I know IQ is on a curve so if I'm on the lower end and dope up I might not qualify for the military against had I not doped up by such a margin window.

For an average person, what can the person sitting next to me do +8 IQ that I can't? What can the person sitting in front of me not do at -8 IQ that I can?

Granted I've encountered "slow" and "fast" people in my life, but I have little idea how to relate that to an IQ number besides "higher" and "lower" like a water faucet for temperature.

This is a genuine, honest question.

Based on my own reading of IQ and general heuristics I've developed from observing people (i.e. this is my folk wisdom, I am not sharing links), on a team of SDEs, the one SDE who is really really sharp, not just due to tenure, but generally just grasps things faster and earns the intellectual respect of his peers, is probably about 8-15 points higher than the average IQ of the SDEs around. Again, this is super heuristic, as IQ is non-linear.

A population average loss doesn't even mean that I'll deterministically lose 6 to 8 IQ points. But it's strong enough evidence that it severely fucks with the brain for me to stay the hell away. The direct effect of the loss of a few IQ points is not the issue.

It's a good question. Arguably more important, are the side-effects permanent? Or has this IQ drop only been measured during cannabis consumption?

The theory is that heavy use during adolescence leaves permanent changes in adulthood. Heavy usage that starts in adulthood doesnt' seem to have the same level of permanent effects.

100 is defined as an "average" IQ, yet I suspect everyone on this site is quite a bit above that, likely in the 110-120 range and skewed heavily upwards, and have not actually interacted constantly on a long term with someone who has a ~100 IQ, much less a ~92 IQ.

Fun fact: Ivy League students who attended public high schools hold sharply lower opinions of what "average people" are able to do than do students who attended private high schools.

To this end: I’ve astonished a number of peers who did the straight to a 4-year track with a anecdote about only 22% of my community college “Critical Thinking” class passing the first midterm, which covered very simple truth functions and negation. To this day it sticks with me.

It's actually somewhat amazing how isolated you can get from the average person if you stick to settings & persuits associated with "intellectuals". I recall ended up in a friend group of 8 people once that included 3 geniuses.

Sometimes you really have to take a step back and realise that you're not as normal as you feel. You can spend your time on hackernews feeling very insecure and then apply 5% of what people talk about here and then the average person will treat you like you invented fire.

Remember the 100 includes those with mental disabilities or borderline disabled. If you are in a building without people with mental disabilities then the IQ is likely some amount above 100.

So when you think of your highschool class you shouldn't think 100, but rather 105. So even though 100 is the average of the population it can be on the lower end in a professional or academic setting.

If we think in terms of a race -- an IQ of 100 puts you at the 50th percentile -- so half of the contestants are faster than you, and the other half are slower.

A loss of 6-8 points puts you at about at about the 35th percentile -- meaning 65 percent of the people in the race will be running more faster than you. Or (back in real life terms) be that much more likely to get admitted to college, get a decent job / spouse, and so on.

That is, to the extent that definitions of IQ are valid and can be measured accurately, and so on. But given the amount of research that has gone into this -- and we know a lot more now that we did a few decades ago -- it seems the risks (of heavy cannabis use) are potentially quite serious.

(BTW, as to how one gets from "6-8 points" to "35th or 40th percentile": it has to do with how the IQ scale is defined. By the traditional scale approximately two-thirds of the population scores are between IQ 85 and IQ 115. Meaning (on a scale from 1 to 100) 15 points of IQ equals a difference of about 33 percent. So 6-8 points is about half that, or very roughly 15 percent).

This is just my experience, but my endocannabinoid system is just flourishing. I, unfortunately, started smoking cannabis at age 16 and was using daily by age 18. I quit for 5 or so years in my mid-twenties and picked it up again in my early 30s.

I'm very much for pro-fact-based drug education. Not just for THC, but for the most common things that folks can come into contact with. No scare tactics, just answering questions like what happens to one's body, what "high" feels like, realistic methods of ingestion, and benefits.

Unfortunately, the greater public - the government at least - hasn't been so keen on such things because the focus is more on keeping drugs a scary evil. Even current drug education is such, though thankfully it isn't so "Drugs are bad, mkay?" as it was during the 'just say no' heydays in the 80's and 90's.

Indeed, we seem to have ample evidence that Tylenol seems to be strongly associated with autism[1] and weakly with ADHD[2], yet its use is not only widespread but unquestioned. The problem, of course, is that it's complicated; correlation isn't necessarily causation. So how to respond? Should all high school students be taught how to think critically of bioscience results? It's not easy to distill down to distinct usable facts. Suggesting at all that it is safe for teens to vape THC is a very dangerous proposition. I think you'd have to at least prove that it is safer than lead in gasoline, and that is not easy.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18445737 [2] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2017/10...

Your first source is a bad one but here is a review: [1] The association is really not strong but the authors do advice against indiscriminate paracetamol use.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29341895 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26930528

Tylenol/paracetamol use should be sparing to begin with just because of its harsh effect on the liver.

While the liver toxicity alone would seem to argue against indiscriminate acetaminophen (google tells me that is the same as "paracetamol" but that is a new name to me) use, I would expect common sense to argue against indiscriminate use of anything that is not simply food. I'd look to evidence like you provide to advise me as to how, exactly, I should discriminate. But indiscriminate use of most things seems inadvisable.

Is there any alternatives suggested for this medicine?

Naproxen is far, far better for pain, and doesn't have anywhere near the possibility of cooking your liver.

Umm NSAIDs like Naproxen have their own list of issues which may be worse than Tylenol. Another issue is that Tylenol is often used because it does not interact with other NSAIDs so if you are not sure if someone has taken medication with a NSAID in it, you can safely give them Tylenol, generally speaking, where as if you give them more NSAIDs you could potentially risk an overdose. So its not as simple as Napoxen is superior to Tylenol. IANAD,

Trying to compare Tylenol (Paracet) to drug education is silly. Few folks take Tylenol recreationally and we don't have decades of propaganda around it.

Others have already addressed the veracity of your links: But honestly, we already know of the dangers of tylenol. Liver damage with high use. But it isn't always so simple - it doesn't react with drugs as much as NSAID's do, and for some, it is really the only appropriate option for pain relief.

I'm not suggesting at all that it is safe for teens to vape THC either. I'm not sure where you got this information from my writing. Fact-based education would mean things like telling teens that it is probably best to wait until one is older to start smoking regularly, if one smokes regularly at all. At the same time, we could explain that it if one is going to make a habit of a drug, they could do worse. Alcohol and tobacco are both more difficult for most people to quit and alcohol tends to destroy lives at a greater pace (folks can still lead normal lives while stoned).

You can do all of this without proving that it is safer than lead in gasoline. I don't even know why this is mentioned as it isn't remotely the same category of things. Few folks are going to huff gasoline at the rates folks do other drugs.

Ok, I like your message and tone but I have to point out a couple of things where are not quite communicating. You are absolutely right that people can do worse than THC, e.g. alcohol and tobacco. (Although it is unclear if nicotine itself is worse. Worn as a patch it might be as harmless as caffeine.)

The potential dangers of Tylenol/Paracet is not about liver damage. There is an unexplored correlation with behavioral disorders in pregnancy that is not entirely explained away by assuming that people with behavioral problems take more Tylenol. Yet in the widespread population Tylenol is basically considered completely safe, as safe as apple juice.

My point is that drug education is not trivial and is full of unfinished threads, and there is plenty of room for abusing the messages.

Lead in gasoline is my benchmark for how hard it is to know that a drug (atmospheric lead) is having a negative widespread effect in the population (violence and IQ reduction). In that case, it took decades before the data was there, and decades more to build political action on the issue.

Yes, drug education is a good thing, but we also have to know that messages can and must change when data comes back. At what point is the data strong enough to put in high school literature? For example, the research showing a correlation between chronic marijuana use and testicular cancer[1]; should we put that in the literature? It is impossible to say at this point whether that is causal or simply related to a behavior that occurs when using marijuana, or perhaps even hormonal (people that like marijuana have a body chemistry that also maybe produces testicular cancer)? We simply have no idea. So yes, drug education is good, and we need more research on the effects of marijuana, and I don't think we can really speak authoritatively on its risks relative to nicotine or even alcohol. (No, not everyone can lead a normal life while stoned. Learning is most certainly inhibited, and a normal life involves learning things.)

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4642772/

Seriously, apart from just cultural ideas at this point, it would be so easy to at least start to study it in a more fact-based way by just removing weed from schedule 1.

The brain's corpus callosum continues developing into a person's mid 20's.

Pro-legalization activists always over-claim marijuana's safety which has led to the claimed safety entering pop culture and becoming widely believed. The truth is that there is little solid research into the question.

Hard to do research when marijuana is illegal.

>before 21 (the commonly accepted age for the latest stage of brain development)

Last I remember from my psychology classes, it was 25 to 28. 21 feels like a number picked to reflect law and cultural norms, not the science. But my information is a decade out of date and there could have been new findings since.

I thought 25 was chosen because that's when brain development is mostly completed.

This has become quite the meme lately as a pop-neurology fact, but its... clearly untrue the ways people try to apply it. It creates a sort of fatalism about being able to improve or change your mind that in no way reflects whats actually possible.

I haven't seen studies supporting 25-28. Most studies support a slightly lower number than 21, but not much lower.

25 to 28 is when the myelination of the brain finishes.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/...

>Further myelination of subcortical and cortical tracts continues in the posterior to anterior direction well into the third decade of life, consistent with the time course of maturation of cognitive functions in children and adolescents.

Mish Shoykhet, Robert S.B. Clark, in Pediatric Critical Care (Fourth Edition), 2011

> I am not a doctor but from what I have been reading, consuming THC on a regular basis before 21 (the commonly accepted age for the latest stage of brain development) is definitely a bad idea, as it will prevent the endocannabinoid system to develop correctly.

I've been smoking every day since I was 19 (currently 31), and my endocannabinoid system seems perfectly fine. Most of my peers have the same story, or have been smoking daily for longer. I think what you've been reading is incorrect. For future reference, I've noticed when people begin a sentence with "I am not a [lawyer|doctor|engineer]", they are typically incorrect.

Weed can trigger latent schizophrenia if used at a younger age. It is not a good idea to use before the brain is developed, especially if one is predisposed to mental illnesses like schizophrenia. It also alters testosterone synthesis, so there’s that too.

Leaving home to go to college can trigger latent schizophrenia too. So can a bad breakup with a girl or boyfriend. I’m not sure how useful that actually is.

Agree. Here's one:

http://m.pnas.org/content/109/40/E2657.full (2012)

"Persistent cannabis users show neuropsychological decline from childhood to midlife"

It's certainly not a good thing. Is it comparatively better than other risky activities associated with young adults, such as binge drinking? I think yes.

that oil-causing-lung-failure thing was no joke

But that wasn't from marijuana, it was from dodgy chinese carts

The deaths caused by the THC oil are definitely nothing to scoff at, but they are more reflective of cannabis' 70+ years as a black market product than they are of the effects cannabis has on the human body. The CDC has determined that a high concentration of Vitamin E was the likely cause of lung failure for the afflicted [1].

In my opinion, this reinforces how important regulatory bodies are when it comes to things that we put into our bodies. If we choose to continuously gravitate towards giving citizens greater bodily autonomy, it is extremely important that we ensure people know what's going into their body and the risks associated with it.

The deaths were caused because vitamin E acetate requires bile salts to be absorbed, which are not present in the lungs. It had nothing to do with THC.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780124166875/essentials-...

Looking back at my comment I see how my language wasn’t as clear as I thought. Thank you for clarifying, this is what I was trying to say.

THC/Cannabinoids weren’t the issue, contaminants in the oil were.

these are teens, it will always be a black market product for them, though. Even if you regulate it, no one should be selling it to teens period. There is no solution to this.

Give it to teens for free, sell it to adults?

If there is a regulated market for adults, then the black market for teens will source from that, and thereby benifit from the regulations.

Take alchohol for example. Teen drinking is a problem, but teen methonol poisoning isn't.

> the health issues have nothing inherently to do with THC

Daily smoker here and I think I'd disagree slightly. We've been hearing for decades that "today's weed" is stronger than the 60's or whatever. But my understanding is that modern extraction techniques made this something of a reality now that oil is so widespread; I've been continually shocked to discover the number of people I meet who own vape pens. Most of them use it responsibly, but the stories this summer described people who vaped hash oil all day long. Even if the cartridges weren't tainted, my guess is that this is qualitatively different than smoking flower all day long.

Still not even same ballpark as the opiate explosion after I graduated high school.

Smoking all day long is more common than some people think. How much are we talking? Used correctly this theoretically shouldn't be a big deal and almost exactly the same as dry bud. You just take one drag instead of needing to smoke a whole bowl.

If they're doing this a couple times during the day, then hitting it harder in the evening, it should be no big deal. Of course, there may be consequences to being stoned constantly, but that's true no matter what. The load on the lungs should be pretty tame; likely better than smoking. There's definitely the potential to become more tolerant though, due to the higher concentration, though.

when you have this tolerance you’re not high anymore you’re just buzzing for 15-30 mins at a time. before hand held vapes you would just keep your volcano on and repack the bags every 45 mins. you’re not hitting a vape 3-4 times a day it’s 3-4 times an hour 10+ hours a day

nothing inherently to do with THC

That's a bit of a stretch.

These people aren't vaping -- and suffering the negative consequences of it -- simply because it's "a black market product that has shitty ingredients in it".

They're doing it (also) because THC is psychologically addictive. And because it also (when used chronically and excessively) seems to impair judgement and cognitive development.

So actually - while it's not just about THC -- the issue is inherently related to THC and its intrinsic properties.

>Vaping of marijuana was at the root of a public health crisis that unfolded this summer

The fact that it takes the author two more paragraphs to elucidate that the illness was in fact linked to bootleg, vitamin E-containing cartridges is disappointing, but not surprisingly. That fact seems really material to the argument.

there's definitely a big push from entrenched industries that will suffer with marijuana's legality, and Boomer's treating it like a taboo.

the front runner for the LIBERAL party in America is anti weed ffs.

Most of the democratic party is conservative.

Your personal Overton window is likely extremely liberal/progressive and outside the mainstream.

Mainstream for who though? The Overton window for the United states is very different from Canada's even though they're right next to each-other. For a lot of countries, the United States democratic party is fairly far to the right.

On the contrary, yours is extremely conservative/reactionary, and even moreso outside the mainstream.

Politics are relative. There are also far more than two neat little dimensions on which to analyze political orientation. The 2 principle component vectors of progressive/conservative beliefs between, say, UK and US are not aligned if one reduces the political spheres to 2 space.

People really need to stop thinking inside of 2 little boxes, RvsD or progressive vs conservative. This reductionist thinking is really bad for society.

The investigation is ongoing, vitamin E is not confirmed as the causal agent.

Anyway, the problem is actually people inhaling random chemicals, a problem which vaping has gifted to us. There will be other cases of lung injury unrelated to vitamin E.

Frankly, even 1 more dead guy is too many, I support a total ban on vaping.

So I also assume you fully support prohibition of alcohol then? Since it kills 1,000s a year in the US?

This is a foolish argument. 1. Vaping is at the stage where it can be controlled, whereas alcohol is beyond that point. Public health is not best served by a logically coherent approach where every product is treated fairly. 2. Alcohol will not burn your lungs and kill you in a few days at recommended usage levels, whereas vaping random juice apparently will.

> Vaping is at the stage where it can be controlled

Strongly disagree, see: Prohibition

Drinking ISO alcohol will make you go blind. Drinking moonshine can kill you.

How do you suppose you would "control" vaping any more than you can control alcohol? Every idiot knows how to fill a vape cart now

Smoking also Vaporizes whatever it is you are smoking. I doubt replacing Vaping with smoking is going to be a public health win. Regulating what is in the vape liquid probably would be though.

No one is pro inhaling random chemicals. They are pro inhaling specific chemicals. The fact that there is contamination is a problem of quality control and regulation.

I'm not so sure it's just the bootleg products. Last time I went into a weed store, they had a big pamphlet with a list of recently recalled products and all were oils/concentrates. These are ostensibly legal products that were being sold in a properly licensed/regulated retail store.

It's funny because for years, as the opening of the article suggests, usual teenage vices (booze, drugs, and sex) have been dropping contrary to 80s teen movie stereotypes. FWIW, apart from the potential concerns with inhaling vaporized anything--something people skeptical of vaping point to although the science hasn't really established if it is harmful or not yet, weed is certainly the weakest of drugs (including alcohol) wrt harm for the body.

> weed is certainly the weakest of drugs (including alcohol) wrt harm for the body.

is the brain a part of the body?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3930618/

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2015/11/marijuana-brain

Your first source states in the abstract that causality between marijuana use and altered brain function was not determined

edit: if anything I think more research is needed to inform effective regulation. I'm astonished how little there is on this drug

Getting permission to do research on a schedule 1 drug is pretty tricky, from what I understand? Since marijuana is schedule 1 it's termed as having a) no medical benefit and b) a high potential for abuse, which puts you in something of a catch-22 situation: you can't justify the research on medical grounds because the drug has no medical benefit (or it wouldn't be sched 1), and you can't justify research for exploratory purposes because of the potential for abuse (or else it wouldn't be sched 1), and then it becomes hard to find research that says "Actually, weed has medical uses and isn't nearly as abusable as heroin" because no research can be conducted.

Edit: To clarify, that's not to say that marijuana _should_ be schedule 1, only that it _is_ schedule 1 and moving something out of sched 1 is challenging because the research position is tricky.

>> Since marijuana is schedule 1 it's termed as having a) no medical benefit

Eye. Roll. I always thought this was the most absolutely bullshit, patently false thing I'd seen in law for time.

The medical benefits of THC have been well-established for decades. The sheer idea that there were ever arrests related to this plant is a disgusting mark on how shitty humanity can be, and how unwilling it is to acknowledge when it is wrong.

Yeah, you can definitely look at the list of schedule 1 drugs and get a strong sense of "one of these things is not like the other".

Alcohol and cannabis are both detrimental to brain development.

I know people who are extremely dependent on weed, who will have anxiety attacks without it. It's less dangerous than most drugs, but there are people who are important to me that I wish could function without it. I'm talking grown adults, with families, who do nothing but play video games.

Their problems would exist without the weed, but it seems to play a part in their stagnation. I guess I just don't know that many people who will just occasionally smoke it, it seems to turn into a lifestyle as much as any other drug.

Not my experience observing others. Do you by chance live in a state where marijuana is not yet legalized?

"... who will have anxiety attacks without it."

Honestly, I've met many daily smokers in my life. Heck, I've been one off and on and tend to like to do it most weekends. I greatly prefer it to alcohol.Most folks can quit quite easily: At most, a few weeks of decreased appetite and trouble falling asleep. The worst effects wear off in the first week. The few folks I've met that have trouble without it have mental health issues, such as anxiety attacks. The worst thing about that situation is that one has to be able to find decent medical care and risk getting anxiety attacks - which I've read are horribly scary - to feel comfortable giving up smoking. And even then they might find that the smoking helps the best with the fewest side effects...unfortunately.

Also, most adults I've met who smoke regularly do all the family stuff just fine. They work, they play with their kids (more happily when a little stoned!), and so on. I mean, sure, it makes you more happy with a slightly messier house and more happy just being, but the other thing with that lowered happiness thresh hold is being happier when going on walks or playing boring kids games. Sure, happier with a slightly messier house but also happier to do the cleaning. Happier to eat more healthily, and so on.

I'm definitely not trying to blame weed, if people can use it responsibly I say great! The problem is people who have conditions like anxiety who become dependent on it to get by. Some people become alcoholics because they have stuff going on that they can't deal with, and that doesn't mean I think alcohol should be illegal. But just like them, I wish the drug wasn't a numbing agent that prevents them from dealing with the underlying problem.

How do you feel about people becoming dependent on prescription ADHD medications?

Oh, don't get me started on that. Not just ADHD, but antidepressants and anxiety medication as well. Of course there are people with legitimate needs, and boys who truly can't pay attention, but the over-prescription of these medications is negatively effecting way too many people.

Not working on your issues, and just masking them with a chemical should be a short term solution. These drugs are worse in my opinion, and I could ramble for a long time on my reasons.

The money they cost and dr's never having an exit strategy for the patient, are my biggest concerns. I've never heard of a dr informing a patient on how difficult getting off these things are. Presumably because they want you to take it forever, or they have no clue. And there are definitely too many boys who just don't get the attention they need, or have more energy than someone likes, so their behavior becomes a disease.

I drink sometimes, and have been known to do other things. But I feel like everyone should be striving for the ability to get through life without 'needing' chemicals. Sometimes people forget how wonderful you can feel when you are clean, eating right, and exercising. They start to think they are incomplete without some chemical. Of course we all fail at being perfect, but it's a goal worth struggling towards.

I don't see an issue. I also don't see an issue with folks going to therapists, taking SSRI's or other medicines, and so on. So long as the weed isn't doing undue damage to their health, go for it. Psychiatric medications often come with their own health concerns, sometimes you get the concern and sometimes you don't. Unfortunately, many folks make a distinction between those prescriptions and weed, but rarely say a word if folks pour their anxieties into over-exercise. To me, none of it matters if it makes their life better, if it is worth the consequences, and it isn't harming others (within reason).

It isn't like alcohol where doing it daily will absolutely destroy your life (legal issues aside). It doesn't have the same destroying effects on the family, friends, and so on.

And to be fair, if there is an underlying problem, it doesn't really prevent folks from dealing with it either. Lots of folks go to therapy while smoking regularly. If it doesn't need therapy, then it probably takes care of the issue... since it keeps the anxiety attacks at bay.

> I mean, sure, it makes you more happy with a slightly messier house and more happy just being

From my experience, this feeling comes from SSRIs and not cannabis. The former uniformly masks my anxieties whereas the latter only takes away the inhibition of thinking critically about your actions and their consequences... I find cannabis is a crutch for meditation.

Not many people would believe that you can be a better parent after consuming cannabis. I'm a much better parent after consuming cannabis. I listen more, play harder and can let go of the parental thoughts that silently occupy my brain when I'm sober and playing with my kids. Cannabis really helps me let go of parental world and enter theirs for just a little while..

Not many folks admit it, but yours isn't the first story I've heard with this. I don't personally have children, and have merely played with other people's children. I can definitely play longer slightly stoned.

Most folks aren't getting overly stoned with their children around anyway: More similar to having some wine with dinner, I guess?

This is the kind of thing I always read, but have never seen. I don't doubt you, or Joe Rogan. I've just personally never seen an adult who takes just a couple puffs every once in awhile. In my experience, it is a lifestyle of playing video games and sitting around smoking, unless they are someone who also uses other drugs and/or drinks a lot.

It may be anecdotal, but that is the reason it concerns me. It doesn't appear to be a positive for the numerous people I've known.

You've not met that many folks that smoke then. You know the few folks that meet a stereotype. Lots of folks sit around playing video games while sober, btw, and you are basically complaining that they aren't doing something with their life you approve of.

But more seriously, if you were... say... managing a retail store or a lawyer or some other professional position - how many folks would you let know that you smoke occasionally? The more folks you tell, the more chances you have of losing your job. You might lose your house and your children and everything you've worked for.

So which recreational drug would you say is safer than marijuana then and why? I could see making a case for psilocybin and psilocin. Is that what you're arguing? That the psilocybin and psilocin contained in magic mushrooms are safer than the THC and other cannabinoids contained in marijuana? I would agree with that. If not that, then which drug would you say is safer?

I'm an avid user for many years, and when I used vaping pens for a couple weeks, I felt the damage in my lungs, it was uncomfortable. Burning oil was a little better but it still felt like the hot air was burning your lungs, and burning wax had a completely different problem where I literally felt wax on my esophagus and lungs the more I vaped. Never had any of these problems smoking from a bong. I'll stick to what has been tried and tested for centuries if not millenia.

You may have been a bit paranoid, wax isn't actually wax it's just pressed weed so you remove plant matter. When you smoke it through water it you're inhaling a healthier product because you're not incinerating leaves and stems, and typically you're doing it at a more controlled and lower temperature.

This was wax/shatter inside a vape pen. I'm sure it was the correct use. Whether or not that is actual wax, it definitely left some kind of residue that I could detect just by breathing.

That may be a general big-tobacco vape pen problem. I had the same issue with a Vype pen. I had to go to an emergency service because I couldn't take deep breaths after using it for a couple of weeks. Before that I smoked cigarettes for 7 years(1-1.5 packs a day) and vaped (dual battery, large mods) for 3. Once I started using Juul type of vape devices for 2-3 weeks, that messed me up I don't know why. My theory is that these devices don't have air holes like normal vape devices have. So trying to suck air/vapor without any air holes may make your lungs go kaputt. They are convenient tho I will give them that.

The article starts with something that is, by most accounts, harm reduction among teenagers: “Teenagers are drinking less alcohol, smoking fewer cigarettes and trying fewer hard drugs, new federal survey data shows. But these public health gains have been offset by a sharp increase in vaping of marijuana and nicotine..." The statistics, unused in this article, are quite clear: alcohol, tobacco and hard drugs more harmful to personal and societal health than marijuana.

But then the NYT proceeds to whip up some nonsense about how harmful vaping marijuana is, staring, and really ending, as we have no clue how harmful this behavior is, with a quote: “'This is a very, very worrisome trend..."

This is fear mongering, pure and simple.

But are they vaping instead of those other things, or were we witnessing a decrease in the other things until vaping happened?

I doubt the data source can tell us this information. It asks students what drugs they have taken at what intervals, and does not seek to address the "why." Hence the pearl clutching by the NYT to provide the "why" for us.

Either way, we have no clue as to the harm that vaping causes us; we are rather certain of the harm alcohol, cigarettes and hard drugs cause us. The numbers in TFA are still pretty bad: ~17% of these kids have vaped THC in the past month where as ~50% had drank alcohol. Even if this was a tradeoff, it seems like a good one at this point.

it is clear that the NYT wants society to go back to the cocked up 80s

*coked

Here are the factors that come to mind regarding the popularity of vape pens.

1) Availability Bias - The weed pen can be on your desk or in your pocket. Coca Cola exploits this human misjudgement, and that's why you can have Coca cola all around the world. The takeaway is that you're more likely to consume because it is there.

2) Mobility - It's mobile, unlike a bong. Get high right before your favorite song at a concert. Whip out the vape pen.

3) Stealth A) (Form Factor) - I think these are becoming popular with teenagers primarily because, if a teenager wants to smoke in their parents house, and avoid detection from their parents, a vape pen is less obvious. The pen is objectively easier to hide than a flower setup.

B) (Stench) Vape pens don't smell as much. I've seen signs on businesses refusing service due to the marijuana stench on customers. People even smoke vapes in public and it's indistinguishable from vaping tobacco unless closely inspected or smelled. (The smell from vape pens exists, it's less noticeable than flower.)

4) Convenience - The steps to smoke a vape pen (push of a button and inhale) are simpler than the process of smoking out of a bong. We're dealing with stoners here! (Not all stoners are lazy, but many stereotypes are loosely based on truths.)

I don’t understand why everyone moved away from directly smoking the flowers so readily. I hated the idea of shatter/resin when I first heard it and there is no way I would use a vape pen.

Because lighting carbon-based molecules on fire creates thousands of carcinogenic components that are difficult to enumerate.

Vapor, on the other hand, (theoretically) contains only 3 chemicals: glycerin, propylene glycol, <nicotine/THC/active stimulant>. In practice though, vapor has probably thousands of compounds as well due to "flavors", additives, and side effects of the heating coil on those things.

It's all about perception though. Lighting something on fire and inhaling smoke is perceived as dangerous compared to inhaling "vapor" (which everyone does every day in the shower, right?)

vape flower and you cut out glycerin and propylene glycol.

I always thought rosin is the best since it sounds like the cleanest extract. Is that true? If you vape rosin, then you should eliminate even the carcinogens from the plant matter?

Nice mellow experience too. Recommend.

Combusting and smoking anything is a known carcinogenic path. The draw away from that is what's attractive about non-combustion consumption methods.

That said, induction-based direct vaporization of dry flower is the best of both worlds.

Vape dry herb directly and you can't lose :)

Does it smell?

Only for a pleasant instant

Yes

While everyone else seems to be pointing out the health benefits, here are a couple others:

No recognizable smell. You can carry a pen with you, hit it at your leisure, and there's no burning flower smell, no through the bag smell, etc. It's much more discrete, so it's easier to possess, use, and conceal.

Assuming legit products, it's often a better deal as you know what strength you're getting and how much mileage you get out of it.

They are extremely convenient. You can usually get away with smoking them even inside (jerk move though), and definitely in smoking areas. In order to get that kind of buzz with bud, you have to repeatedly hit bowls or joints. This requires carrying stuff that's less portable, and drawing attention to yourself.

It’s a way to sell a byproduct for a markup and the convenience factor of vaping also helped spread their use. I’ve noticed the quality of flowers has greatly fallen in the Bay Area over the last few years. I think less growers want to focus on growing an amazing crop and would rather just do a quick crop and press it for wax.

I agree. I felt that way when my friends started doing dabs and telling me how amazing it was. It kind of scared me to be honest. I've switched from smoking to making my own cannabis tinctures and have been using that for years. I've found that a minimal dose of cannabis in the morning really helps me dial the knob on my radio just right. They're really easy to make and so much more efficient than smoking.

This is great news. Vaping is far better for your health than alcohol or cigarettes.

depends on what you're vaping!

Maybe stay away from that vitamin E acetate.

It's a lottery, it doesn't advertise E acetate anywhere, the surprise comes a bit alter when the lungs stop working properly...

"Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars" is objectively not great news. Subjectively it might be great news if the vaping THC dose was low, but it is not.

There is no technology that makes alcohol 100X stronger for todays teen than what it has been historically. But that's not true for THC products. On a personal note, I lost my hearing in one ear immediately after trying a strong MJ product. I just assumed it was congestion at the time but 10 months later I still have 70% hearing loss. I don't share this story with anyone because speaking ill of THC is heresy these days and a sure way to get downvoted.

I've never heard of anything like that happening (and admittedly I'm skeptical) - can you expand on the event that caused you to lose your hearing? What did your doctors say about it?

I had perfect hearing in that ear, smoked a high THC joint, and felt immediately congested. Congestion usually makes hearing diminish temporarily. But the next morning I still felt congested and then spent several weeks trying to yawn it away and get my ear to pop. Three weeks later I went to the doctor who diagnosed me with "sudden nerve deafness". Medically there is no known cause for sudden nerve deafness and the doctor had no idea either. But I did have a cold the weeks before, so who knows.

So yes, it could be this was all just a co-incidence but the precise timing of it all should give everyone pause. I did Google for similar stories and I did find one person with a similar story who was immediately dismissed because no one ever heard of such a thing. I do wonder how many people restrain from reporting such effects since the counter-argument is to provide casual evidence or get a doctor to confirm which is often not possible.

For sure there is a gross disparity in tolerance these days and you should avoid sharing hits of THC with anyone if your tolerance is low. They'll be fine, you on the other hand may have an experience you weren't expecting.

By what mechanism would THC have affected your hearing, though?

Thanks for sharing, hard to tell what to make of that - I think it warrants some investigation though. I wonder if there's anyone who'd want to make an anecdotal report on something like this.

Yeah, I'd need to see some scientific evidence on how those events were connected. I've never heard of that before, and it's not really logical from what I can understand.

And at least we have regulation now, you're welcome to buy weed with less THC. :)

>> "Teen Marijuana Vaping Soars" is objectively not great news

Bullshit. Smoking is far worse for you than vaping and I'm extremely grateful to read this headline instead of it being meth, crack, or Fentanyl.

> I'm extremely grateful to read this headline instead of it being meth, crack, or Fentanyl.

How about the headline "teen drug use hits historic lows"? That would be a headline I'd like to read.

I'd like to see a world where "No one cares what you do to your own meat sack" is a headline. And not one from The Onion.

You can inhale alcohol vapors. That's way more than 100% stronger. The tech exists. People might not use it cause they don't want to die. That's different. Your conclusion about losing your hearing from TCH is just fucking bullshit. Prove it.

> You can inhale alcohol vapors. That's way more than 100% stronger.

That party trick is a placebo at best. You can't get drunk like that. The quantity of ethanol that will get into your blood with that trick is vanishingly small.

Sure you could. It's just that people don't. Probably because we have hard alcohol that's 95% pure. That's 1800% stronger than 5% beer. I suppose that would have been an even better way to point out the parent comment's ignorance and absurdity.

The volume of vapor you'd need to inhale to get yourself drunk means it just doesn't work.

Vaping is less bad, not better.

Marijuana extracts for vaping become legally available in much of Canada tomorrow.

Yesterday actually. My local dispensary had them in stock from Canaca already.

Where can I find out more about this?

Let them vape just like we, as a society, let people smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, and consume fast food and sugar. I feel like the trend to outlaw things like kratom and vaping is so hypocritical, I can only assume it's because they compete against big tobacco/pharma, not any kind of altruistic research.

Imagine how many people would still be alive today, how many kids wouldn't have lost everything to truly harmful drugs, if this ridiculous prohibition had never been in place.

The piece is built for fear mongering but I'm curious how the developing brain of an adolescent will be changed from constant marijuana use and compared to if it had never happened. I'm guessing how the drug is used would also be important in the longterm outcome because someone using it to help with anxiety might benefit compared to a developing brain under a lot of anxiety.

overview of studies https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3930618/ Every measurement of brain function decreased significantly with marijuana use, long term abstention seemed to clear up some problems, though physical changes in brain did not go away in users who started as adolescents, there were long term permanent changes to brain function.

Thanks for replying with that research. I'll check it out and I'm not sure why my comment is being downvoted for curiosity.

Two of the worst seem to be pulegone (mint flavour) and benzaldehyde (almond). The heating of the compounds is what causes the changes they are OK to eat but not heat and inhale.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/vaping-liquid-tests-1.5381363

http://archive.md/d62Cr

> The rate of overall marijuana use held steady for high school students who reported using it once or more over the past year, but there was an uptick in daily use.

Marijuana use has NOT increased and more teens are vaping instead of smoking, consuming it in safer ways than ever before. Sounds like great news. Too bad the headline is clickbait bullshit.

Maybe teen reporting of marijuana use has increased now it's more socially acceptable to be out the closet about it.

makes sense to me!

That's wonderful. It's the most dangerous form of vaping and the most dangerous use of cannabis (aside from DUI), finding popularity with one of the most at-risk demographics.

Vaping is the most dangerous use of cannabis? Can you share some citations on that claim?

I was referring to the whole vitamin E acetate fiasco. Smoking marijuana doesn't kill people, at least not directly. Of course this risk decreases if you're not using black-market products, but since marijuana is generally prohibited for teens, they're already guaranteed to be acquiring them through illicit channels. Placing responsibility for their safety in the hands of their drug dealers seems disingenuous.

Unlike other drugs (smoking, drinking) adults (at least the noisy ones online) very much want marijuana.

And because of that they are very poorly motivated to stop its use among teens.

So this isn't going to get better, it'll get much worse.

Adults also believe marijuana use is perfectly fine, and risk free, which may or may not be true for adults, but is not true for teens.

But because they believe it's risk free they aren't exactly telling teens not to use it.

And keep in mind: those adults who really want to use marijuana are the "nosiest" online, which is where teens get all their info.

It's very true on HN. Marijuana it's heavily promoted here.

Some promote the drug itself. Probably a lot more are behind the freedom to use what you want (and against the heavy criminalization). There are probably a fair number that would see the drug continue to be banned, but are just against the biased, fear-mongering, moral panic inducing "journalism" we see from once reputable establishments like the NYT.

> But because they believe it's risk free they aren't exactly telling teens not to use it.

Citation, please. My personal experience as a teenager two and a half decades ago and as someone responsible for the care of teens and pre-teens now is quite the opposite of this. The teens/kids I observe are being told very stridently not to use it, in the same terms and even by some of the same organizations (D.A.R.E.) that we were in the '90s.

While there might be a (strong, IMO) argument that teens are disregarding real, serious risks because they find out some of the bogeymen presented by D.A.R.E and similar are overblown and assume all of us are over-articulating risks, I don't think kids are being told any less to "just say no." As if that helped in the first place.

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