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Comment by erik_landerholm | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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...

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.

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.

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