Comment by senttoschool | Hacker News Reader

Comment by senttoschool | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how much my experience with weed matters here. I've never tried psychedelics.

But with weed, I tried it in 2021 because it was "legal" so it must not be so bad. At first, I just used it socially. Eventually, I started using weed every single day, from morning to evening. This was made easy by WFH and boredom due to covid lockdowns. After lockdowns, I still used it - even more.

I justified it because it was "legal" and I felt like it was better than alcohol, which poisons the body and increases aggression in men.

Weed made me unambitious, scrape by at work, ignore family and friend messages, stop working on tech side projects, fat, lazy, dumb.

Weed slowly consumed my life. It wasn't sudden. Unlike alcohol addiction, weed felt harmless at first. Alcohol addiction has clear downsides immediately. Weed addiction is slow. Next thing you know, your whole life could be based on it.

I finally saw the negative effects of weed and made a decision to quit forever. Never again.

I'm not a mentally weak person. I have a fairly clean background. I never smoked cigarettes. I never drank alcohol by myself. Never tried other drugs.

Weed consumed 2 years of my life. I basically did almost nothing except get fat and scraped by work. If I continued, I'm sure I would have lost my career and I was prepared to be ok with it just so I can continue to get high everyday.

In the past, I was pro-legalization of weed because of all the things I read about jail times and the criminal injustice. Today, I'm not so sure anymore. In this case, I do not wish for California to legalize anymore drugs until we are absolutely 100% sure of its effects on society and that it's better. Let other states or countries try it first and then analyze the data.

It’s pretty well known that people can develop psychological dependence on cannabis.

Psychedelics have anti-addiction effects, and it might’ve helped you quit cannabis sooner, even give you insight into why it happened in the first place (potentially numbing of some underlying emotional pain)

"I do not wish for California to legalize anymore drugs until we are absolutely 100% sure of its effects on society and that it's better."

So should alcohol be illegal? Because it's manifestly clear its effect on society is horrendous.

I can't answer that question. It's well above my expertise. I'm also biased because I had a weed addiction and thankfully was able to see it and quit. I never had alcohol problems.

But let me ask you this, should cocaine be legalized?

"should cocaine be legalized?"

Every drug should.

The War on Drugs has been a failure and an absolute disaster on every level. It causes untold suffering that could be alleviated by making currently illegal drugs legal and regulation them, just like ordinary pharmaceuticals are regulated.

Hard disagree.

I do not want my kids to have easy access to drugs that can destroy a person.

I'd probably avoid sending them to school then - I never had an easier time finding drugs.

Imagine if we legalized all drugs. How much easier would it get and what message would it send to kids?

I'm pretty sure the way we treat the earth should send the message to kids that they need to get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames. If that means they want to do some drugs, I don't see much of a problem with that.

Better they end up in jail when they finally do try some illegal drug I guess? Because that’s what you are proposing.

Yes.

It's legal to drink bleach. Does that make it not harmful?

What are you implying? Help me understand. I'm a recovering weed addict and my IQ hasn't come back to normal yet.

You should always read about things you put into your body I wanted to write. It's called harm reduction.

I see. You could have just said that.

But bleach isn't advertised nor meant to be consumed by the human body. Weed is meant to be consumed and advertised as such. I don't think it's an apples to apples comparison. In fact, I don't think there is a comparison to weed.

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