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Comment by treis | Hacker News Reader

I cut out alcohol a year and change ago. I was starting to get bad heartburn and I wasn't bouncing back the next day like I used to. Not just physically but emotionally. Kind of a dead to the world/not firing on all cylinders sort of thing.

Even with essentially a 1:1 replacement of alcohol with weed I feel much better. I don't have the heartburn I did and even if I get super stoned on night I wake up normal the next morning.

It's just kind of obvious in retrospect. Alcohol is a substance that will kill you if taken in a dose 2-4 times what people drink. Not shocking that those sub-lethal doses have side effects.

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Someone I know replaced alcohol with THC edibles recently and had the same experience. She loves it.

For the rest of us looking in, she has become more irritable, anxious, and depressed when she doesn't have the drug, and has become effectively dependent on it to socialize. There was also one study I saw that attributed an 8-10 point IQ drop with long-term weed use.

The effects of weed on your body are a lot less noticeable to you, but they do exist and are harmful for you over the long term. The systems that weed targets (particularly your long-term reward and habit forming systems) are not the same as other drugs, but they change in response to the drug nonetheless.

There are definitely a lot of people whose “casual” weed use is uncomfortable and not fun

One day we will be able to call them out the same way we do to alcoholics

Right now there is a hysteria towards people that are prohibitionists, and anyone pointing out moderation is overfitted into prohibitionist

So this is total anecdata but I have never been assaulted by someone that was stoned, and never seen someone become sexually aggressive or belligerent when stoned. I'm sure they exist, however those type of folks seem to be much less frequent that people who exhibit this behavior when drunk on alcohol.

I think it really comes down to the fact that weed was originally made illegal through disinformation and policies motivated by racial discrimination, when in reality it is at absolute worst, just as bad as alcohol. We need to stop policing people from themselves, especially when it is so hypocritical because of the massive alcohol and tobacco industries. Why do we need to keep wasting money on this?

I think your response is based on assuming what I would advocate for regarding moderation

Just like with alcohol its not a role of the government to say “thats too much, get help”. We can absolutely shame people into moderation, just like we shame people into limiting drinking till after 5pm, with limited discretionary exceptions. People are worried about breaking those social conventions at work functions, they’re worried breaking them socially, they’re worried about doing it by themselves knowing the cautionary tales of those who normalize the behavior.

We can maintain that peer based moderation with regard to weed consumption, and right now we don't have those conventions at all. Its all or nothing at the moment, where most people can read the room and use discretion, other people are getting high the same as people would take multiple daily coffee breaks, alongside coffee in the morning, and other intervals. A mental security blanket they think helps them with X, Y, Z while the rest of us see a degraded stupid human that is missing stimuli for a good chunk of time, and then making silly decisions after.

> also one study I saw that attributed an 8-10 point IQ drop with long-term weed use.

Cite? I definitely have not seen long-term effects from consumption starting in adulthood as the consensus/proven in the literature.

IIRC the only smoking gun effect of consumption starting in adulthood is a significantly higher risk of developing schizophrenia.

Please google things instead of saying "cite" if you are curious, since a lot of scientific studies show up, but here are the receipts on IQ.

Here's an old one where I got my original number: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1206820109

Here's a recent one showing an average of 5.5 points: https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.pn.2...

No, if you claim you bloody well cite. It's not on us to fill in your omissions.

Given that, your 2nd paper is interesting and supports you. The first seems (emphaisis: seems) to back up findings that most damage is done to the adolescent developing brain with cannabis, but still reading it.

Edit: 2nd paper doesn't seem to ask when cannabis use started so it's quite possible the damage was done in adolescence, not adulthood:

"Cognitive tests were conducted at ages 7, 9, and 11 using the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised and again at age 45 using the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV. Additional neuropsychological tests were administered to measure the participants’ verbal learning, attention, memory, processing speed, and more"

so tested as pre-teens then at age 45. That seems a very big gap between them.

Yeah no, I am going to ask for a cite if you reference a study.

Looks like the first study is for adolescent-onset usage of cannabis and they were unable to show any long term effects for adult-onset users after cessation of use, even in this observational study.

This tracks with my general understanding of the literature, and it seems like this does not really apply to an adult who has substituted cannabis for alcohol.

Can you cite a source for your understanding of the literature?

At least a few studies disagree with you about adult onset, and it does appear that adolescent use amplifies the effects, but is not the only factor:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

https://www.nature.com/articles/tp2015201

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352250X2...

The last one is a review article.

Not in a position to respond longer right now, but that last study you referenced is actually one of the ones I had in mind, in that there is not evidence in this literature review for long-term effects after cessation.

The first study there shows some evidence of performance decline after cessation, but they do not eliminate adolescent users. The second study was unable to distinguish brain structure for users that had ceased consumption from normal brains.

I definitely was not trying to suggest that there are no cognitive impacts on current users.

Oh, ok. I think we are in agreement - I didn't mean to suggest that there were long-term effects years after quitting, but that there are long-term effects of use - which perhaps I should have described as "effects of long-term use."

I agree that the jury is not in yet on whether there are long-term effects years after cessation except for adolescent use (and - by the way - old people: if you are over 70, smoking pot does appear to retard dementia and cognitive decline).

Yeah, my point wasn't that weed was harmless. It was to show that alcohol is so bad that even replacing it with another vice was a massive improvement. Don't dispute that weed prevents me from being my physical or mental best.

My personal experience strongly differs from yours to the point that I am willing to doubt your ability to self-analyze, at least if the discussion is happening in a public forum.

Alcohol is bad. But smoking weed on a daily basis was worse for me. After a good while a sense of general anxiety settles in, you’re dumber, head is always in a fog. I’d much rather moderately have alcohol. Weed is great if you don’t have anything to do and can just hang out in life though. Weed in moderation is probably the best but it’s hard for me to smoke weed only a couple of times a month. It’s all or nothing.

To each their own! I would much rather moderately have weed.

It tends to make you stupid, and seriously degrades short-term memory after prolonged use.

I think all of those things have really only been shown for continued prolonged use, ie. not after cessation for a few months.

I agree that smoking weed is harmful, my addiction is causing me quite a lot of mental issues, but if I had to compare it to heavy alcoholism, it's night and day ...

Definitely no comparison to alcoholism. But even having two drinks a day works for me over having any amount of pot everyday.

Be mindful of your liver enzyme test results at your annual physical (as part of a metabolic panel). That’ll give you an indicator that you’re exceeding the budget of your liver and headed towards cirrhosis (which you most definitely don’t want). Your doctor may also order an ultrasound. Have it done if ordered.

(not medical advice, talk to your doctor)

I think for infrequent users it is a very strong drug, but when you use it all the time it doesn't do much.

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