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Comment by beenBoutIT | Hacker News Reader

The idea that any drug is capable of permanently transforming a sane individual into a psychotic lunatic is pure bullshit. If there was a substance capable of such magic it would have been weaponized long ago and political dissidents would all wind up insane as opposed to dead in places like modern day Russia, China, etc.

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I won't argue for or against marijuana, but I disagree with your argument.

Some drugs are capable of permanently transforming a "sane" individual into one with psychosis or other permanent mental disorders. Even alcohol has been shown to have this effect in some heavy long term users. It's even more common in meth users. It is not "pure bullshit."

As long as a drug's success rate in making someone psychotic is low enough, it will not be able to be weaponized.

Per https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/teens-who-smoke-pot-at-r... if you have marijuana while young and no other particular risk factors, your chances of becoming psychotic increase by 7/1000. The combination of you had to take it while young and this low rate make it a poor choice of a way to abuse dissident adults.

Sounds like bs to me. People with early psychiatric symptoms are probably more likely to self medicate with weed. In other words the arrow of causality is probably backwards.

> political dissidents would all wind up insane as opposed to dead in places like modern day Russia, China, etc.

I don't think it's safe to assume these regimes would favor chemically induced insanity over murder/assassination/execution. For starters, induced insanity wouldn't provide a supply of organs. For another, those in power might fear that the procedure could become reversible, or may have efficacy that wears off over time (these fears may well be ungrounded but still sufficient motivation.) This is to say, there is a finality to death that's hard to match. Furthermore, if it only works "naturally" on a small segment of the population then it's not a forgone conclusion that Putin could snap his fingers and have it weaponized such that it's effective on everybody.

Also keep in mind that inducing insanity reliably can already be done today using very primitive technology. Prolonged sensory deprivation, or even just social isolation, takes a hard toll on people. That's a pretty reliable mechanism from what I understand, and is considered a heinous form torture by many, yet these governments still choose kill people. They could also give people lobotomies or fry their brains [ab]using electroconvulsive therapy, but they still choose to kill people.

...if anything they would benefit more by making marijuana and other drugs legal and cheap, in order to suppress dissent. Surprised no one ever looks at it that way; people sitting around smoking a bowl are not likely to do much political protest

Anticholinergic OTCs like Benadryl can cause both acute and chronic psychosis when abused.

It's no joke, Benadryl gave me horrifying hallucinations when I was a kid. It happened because a careless caretaker gave me the adult dose rather than the children's dose.

Just to make sure I understand you correctly: you don't believe there exist any drugs which can permanently alter the psyche of an individual, up to and including psychosis?

I think a lot of the time, it is a side effect of lifestyle decisions (and/or misuse) that the drug in question can induce, not necessarily the drug itself. For example, amphetamine is prescribed to millions of Americans for ADHD (see, Adderall/Vynanse). However, if one were to for example, have poor sleep hygenine as a result of miuse, the chance of psychosis is high from not getting enough sleep.

There are definitely neurotoxic substances that can induce psychosis or other problems (such as parkinsonianism) but these tend not to be very usable either clinically or recreationally. I think overall, the chance of cardiotoxic or repository depression is more of a common problem with most common recreatioal drugs at common doses.

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