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Comment by mrcartmeneses | Hacker News Reader

Relative to alcohol this is probably a good thing but I think most people grossly underestimate the negative impact of daily cannabis use. I’ve seen many people slowly deteriorate. Cannabis psychosis is no fun at all

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The increase in traffic fatalities after legalization is also well documented, e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09553...

I dunno if alcohol is so much worse than weed in the grand scheme of things. A lot of Europeans, especially up north, are downright alcoholics by US standards, and yet their societies seem to be doing just fine, quite flourishing really.

For example Ireland has the highest GDP/Capita in EU and Finland has the best educated school students in the EU.

Not promoting alcohol consumption, but from my POV here in Europe, traditional alcoholic societies seem to have developed further than traditional stoner societies.

Just a shower though.

Which societies do you consider "stoner"??

Tool/Cypress Hill audiences could qualify.

Well there was one at university that pretended to be about hill walking.

India and Jamaica come to mind, but one had their GDP drained from 23% to just 4% of global GDP by British colonialism and the other is a former slave colony so those examples might have rather more significant downward pressure on productivity other than cannabis

The probability of being hurt or even just disturbed by someone else due to them being high on cannabis is far, far lower than the probability of being hurt by someone due to them being high on alcohol.

Work in a public facing role, especially at night or on weekends. Or even just drive around at night to see the difference.

Irish society being held up as a shining example to argue a point. I think the Irish could double their drinking and it wouldn't bring any more tech companies to the country. They're there for tax status, this is common knowledge especially in this part of the world.

It is common in family/small types businesses to start drinking at the office after lunch, this is Sweden/Norway/Denmark/Finland. It is dark and is sucks, what else you gonna do?

"common" is a pretty big exaggeration.

What are a few examples of "traditional stoner societies," especially on a country scale?

The picture is murky: both addictions co-exist (i.e., there are now two addiction issues), but for the overlapping group, combined use may lead to more alcohol consumption [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8855954/]. There's only a moderately positive effect if cannabis use doesn't grow further, and substitutes alcohol abuse.

What does this look like?

There are lots of factors in life that can cause psychosis, reading philosophy can do it via triggering an existential crisis? Right? Obviously other traumatic events cause psychosis.

I wonder if these require multiple things to happen, a life event + regular usage.

Or if it really is a deterioration is inevitable.

> reading philosophy can do it via triggering an existential crisis

if thinking about stuff deeply can cause psychosis, maybe the the problem isn't the text?

I’m becoming pretty alarmed at cannabis smoking/vaping causing endothelial dysfunction.

Alcohol is hilariously bad even relative to most drugs, but at some point we’re going to have to start examining cannabis on its own and it’s not that great. Edibles seem relatively inert though.

> Cannabis psychosis is no fun at all

What is "Cannabis psychosis"?

What it says on the tin: psychosis triggered by cannabis. Its rare, but not that rare, and well established scientifically and anecdotally. It's debated whether cannabis causes it, or just exacerbates it, but give 100 random people a super strong edible, a few will have a break from reality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/

https://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/step/early-intervention...

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/marijuana-induc...

https://www.brightquest.com/cannabis-induced-psychosis/

> well established scientifically and anecdotally

Those things don't go together.

(What are these downvotes, you all want your facts to be based on anecdotes?)

Scientists doing studies and people talking on forums can't notice the same thing? Seems pretty common in the healthcare field.

"Well established anecdotally" is like saying "poorly established".

Not at all. It’s saying that a lot of people have personal stories about it. This is in combination with scientific studies.

Why is it an argument for an effect being real that a lot of people have personal stories about it? For instance, a lot of people have stories about mentioning a niche interest while using certain software and that interest later appearing in Google results. That can happen for reasons related to statistics and confirmation bias. Consequently, a lot of people have stories. So what? Some software spies, some doesn't, the rumors aren't how we tell the difference, and "scientifically and anecdotally" is a terrible phase, as if those things were of equivalent merit. Lots of people have stories about bigfoot.

That’s cool. I’ll keep listening to my friends and family and trusting their word over some angry dude on the internet. Best of luck

The problem isn't cannabis, the problem is how it's dosed and flavored. Edibles are too strong, and taste too delicious.

> but give 100 random people a super strong edible, a few will have a break from reality

Give 100 random people 10-20 shots in a short period of time, and they will also have a break from reality.

The difference is that hard alcohol has a very clearly identifiable taste and causes stomach discomfort: If a child mistakes a glass of whiskey for a glass of apple juice, they aren't going to chug it.

In contrast, cannabis gummies (which I eat plenty of,) taste wonderful, and are often too strong.

When I made my own brownies, I would only have intense experiences if I ate a lot. In contrast, what appears to be a "normal" bite of a chocolate bar, or a handful of gummies, can end up being like an LSD trip.

> Give 100 random people 10-20 shots in a short period of time, and they will also have a break from reality.

Source? Remember that you are replying to a comment with 5 studies linked.

I watched plenty of alcohol abuse in college. People do weird things when they are blacked out drunk.

That is not a source.

With edibles, taking the right dosage is notoriously difficult. They are very prone to accidental over-consumption (e.g. becoming "higher" than desired).

The feedback loop is very slow. It can easily take 30-60 minutes after ingestion before you can start gauging how strong the overall effect will be and how it might peak.

A break from reality is a very mild way of saying THC induced schizophrenia

This must mean psychosis correlated with cannabis use in a controversial way, complicated by matters of genetics, environment, the use of other drugs, and pre-existing psychiatric conditions. It means schizophrenia, and possibly other forms of long-term psychosis but I'm not sure what those are. Delusions of persecution? But that isn't very different.

Agreed. It's understandable that people were fed up with the rampant misinformation around the dangers of weed, but I fear we may be overcorrecting in the other direction now. Some people like to pretend that it's completely harmless even as they struggle with dependency issues.

We need some actual fact-based education around weed.

Hopefully once it's rescheduled federally in the US, we'll get medical research rolling! Having it as Schedule I has really hindered progress.

Overuse is bad in any ways.

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