Weed Became the New OxyContin | Hacker News Reader

Weed Became the New OxyContin

tabletmag.com

Lots of denial and sarcasm in the comments here. A person close to me had many of the experiences described in this, including the psychotic episodes that I had to help them through. Try to imagine how frightening and difficult it is to see someone you care about experience that, from a substance that's portrayed as safe and harmless and fun. they are still working to get back to a healthy place after years of cannibis abuse.

And cannabis was the only substance they were using? Were they using cannabis as a substitute for some other medicine, that they're now currently on?

It hardly seems fair to say "I know a guy..." to justify comparing a drug that is widely considered safe to one where people have been convicted of widespread fraud for claiming safety when they knew that it was not.

I am sorry for your friend, but based on the very limited data you have given it, it sounds like there could easily be other circumstances that make even that one data point uninformative.

The burden of safety falls on those who want to sell a product, not the other way around. From the article, all the beneficial effects and safety studies for the drug have been done on a much lower THC dosage than you see today.

Everything that we know as dangerous today was thought of as benign at some point in time. Cigarette smoke was safe until the harmful effects were so obvious that they were impossible to ignore. Pain-killers were safe and non-habit forming. And on and on.

With legalization, there are billions of dollars to be made, and a lot of businesses are being snapped up by big Tobacco. How dangerous it is will only be known well out into the future, and there's no real incentive to discover the dangers. People are making money and enjoying consuming the product.

I personally think it should be legalized but I do worry about moneyied interests in the field and the strength. I think its definitely harmful to young people (teenagers). Long term use is almost certainly not good for you as well as very high concentrates (dabs, edibles, etc). And driving while under the influence is dangerous as well but widely disregarded.

I don’t know how to deal with these kind of articles. As someone that uses these high potency cartridges often, and knows tons of people that do also, I’ve never seen anything even remotely like what is described in this article. I’m open to marijuana being dangerous, but I’ve never really seen it. Now mixing it with meth, shit like that seems like a horrible idea.

My best friend was ruined by high potency marijuana. It’s taken him nearly 2 years to recover from his cannabis hyperemesis. We even recently went for a walk near the Shoreline Ampitheatre and the secondhand smoke from a group of teens caused him to start vomiting all over. That was likely psychosomatic to some degree but the pendulum has absolutely swung too far in the “pot is harm free” direction.

This doesn’t change my opinion on legalization or drug policy but I try to not ignore data points that are contrary to my currently held beliefs.

It's definitely not harm free. The dose makes the poison to a large degree, and individual physical and psychological variations another large degree. From a sympathizer to responsible self-medication.

Weed destroyed my life and left me with crippling anxiety. That was 2 decades ago. IMO - it shouldn’t be legal. And if it is, it should at least have giant warnings all over it.

I've had personal experience of someone going to Amsterdam, consuming too many edibles, and spending the night in the hospital hallucinating. Definitely buy the anecdotes of thinking they're in the Matrix or the God of Thunder. Also buy that these hallucinations might cause people to harm themselves or others.

Do not buy pretty much anything else in the article. Schizophrenia is not caused by marijuana and the correlation there is likely Schizophrenics self medicating. Very unlikely there's a causative link there. Although I'd buy that THC is a poor choice of medicine for Schizophrenics and that there might be some exacerbation going on.

There are studies that linked marijuana use with psychiatric disorders. If you have some criticism of the studies or have refuting studies to cite, do so, but saying "I've personally have never seen this" is not helpful.

> Several studies have linked marijuana use to increased risk for psychiatric disorders, including psychosis (schizophrenia), depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders, but whether and to what extent it actually causes these conditions is not always easy to determine. Recent research suggests that smoking high-potency marijuana every day could increase the chances of developing psychosis by nearly five times compared to people who have never used marijuana. The amount of drug used, the age at first use, and genetic vulnerability have all been shown to influence this relationship. The strongest evidence to date concerns links between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders in those with a preexisting genetic or other vulnerability.

https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana...

> "Cannabis has by far the highest conversion rate to schizophrenia of any substance"

Quick, somebody call Deleuze and Guattari! /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoanalysis

"Tabletmag" is very clearly not a trustworthy source.

> One out of every 20 daily users can expect to develop schizophrenia if they don’t quit

Oh, really?

Green is widely used as a pain treatment by NFL players despite the fact that it is prohibited and thus under the radar. Meanwhile OxyContin is regularly prescribed to treat pain yet it is disliked by at a least a few vocal NFL athletes.

Maybe that's a good thing if people wean off OxiContin into weed. Weed has potential for abuse and abusers shell do it regardless but it's a lot less destructive than OxiContin. I heard stories of potheads who quit and it seemed to have been easier than it is with opiates.

This is...amazing writing. Am I missing something here?? This guy has written some equally amazing stuff over on his blog.

* https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/anthony-fauci-has-b...

* https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/the-lumpenbourgeois...

* https://leightonwoodhouse.substack.com/p/the-heretics

I can't believe this 1920s reimagining of Refer Madness was actually published. I guess Tablet, some source that indeeds seems reputable enough to hire this guy to write for them, is a fine place for it. Bravo.

Reads as literate pearl-clutching to me, but I skimmed.

Pointing out excesses of "good intentions" is shooting fish in a barrel. Without examining the subject as a whole (history, prior mistakes, lessons learned, etc.), it's just pandering to fear and anger.

News flash: drugs can be abused!

Compared with all the deaths drunk people inflict on each other, seems like a good deal. We kill and maim each other with cars pretty often too.

I can't believe something like this was published. In my opinion this is borderline misinformation.

It is well on the other side of that border. What a crappy hit piece.

Big pharma’s moves into the cannabis industry are to be watched, but painting this broad stroke is just ridiculous.

> If you experience that paranoia and keep smoking on a regular basis nonetheless—especially with today’s high-potency THC products, and especially if you’re young—there’s a good chance you’ll eventually suffer a full psychotic break; 35% of young people who experience psychotic symptoms, according to another study, eventually have such an episode.

This is such a crappy article. This reads like "You experienced paranoia, you're going to have a psychotic break", but all these articles and studies are people who already have pointers towards instability, or addictive struggles.

I'm having a really really hard time believing this is more addictive than opioids.

Don't believe it, it ain't true.

Agreed on the crappy part.

But proponents (including myself) do need to acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns with abuse and the possibility of harm to certain individuals.

I advocate for the legalization of all drugs, but that has concerns too. That doesn't mean it shouldn't happen, just that there are negatives to address as well.

Is this satire?

No, it's hyper-focused on modern moral failings. Nuggets of truth wrapped in dismissiveness.

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