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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

The big question remains: is this downside worse than the innumerable and absolute known downsides associated with alcohol? If not, this is a purely acedemic issue.

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I support the legality of cannabis and alcohol.

However, on an individual level, I think people need to know about the psychosis risks. It undoubtedly can trigger schizophrenia and make it much worse once it exists.

I know more than a few people who have severe alcoholism problems in their families, and just chose to never drink alcohol. I think a similar choice may be wise for cannabis if there is a history of psychosis.

On a public health level there was a theory that people would substitute cannabis for alcohol. But unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be bearing out.

Previous studies have shown that young adults who are susceptible to schizophrenia are more likely to develop it if they were heavy cannabis users at a younger age. As they get older it is less likely to develop, or they are better able to keep it from developing. My brother-in-law smoked cannabis in high school and college and was hospitalized for schizophrenia when he was in college. It wrecked his life and he still has schizophrenia at age 65. I don't think it is just an academic issue.

There are practical reasons to understand the effects of both cannabis and alcohol. It’s not like we can only care about one of them at a time based on which is winning the social harm olympics.

I don’t see how your conclusion follows. I quit heavy weed use because of noticeable cognitive and social problems. The warning is useful for users to know about regardless of the problems associated with alcohol.

alcohol is proven to kill tens of thousands every year — obviously much worse than a few people who develop mental issues.

Regardless in a free society people should have agency over what they do with their bodies.

Education about these substances is the most important thing.

"Education about these substances is the most important thing."

Indeed.

"obviously much worse than a few people who develop mental issues."

So maybe start by comparing the average heavy weed smoker, to the average non drug user, to see if the issue with cannabis is really "just some people developing mental issues"

(Disclaimer blabla: I always was pro legalisation and am happy, it finally is legal in germany now)

History has shown that _bad_ education about substances doesn't work, as most kids know that pot rarely turns you into an axe wielding homicidal maniac. Educate using the truth - pot probably won't turn you crazy, but it might cost a lot of money and waste a lot of time.

For what it’s worth education sees alcohol as a much less harmful substance than weed (for example in Germany since you brought it up) - it’s completely acceptable to drink heavily every weekend to the point of almost landing in the hospital, while heavy weed use is seen as very deplorable (lazy etc).

So while weed is not without harm i think alcohol has a magnitudes worse impact on society

Oh for sure, the first time I vomitted from alcohol was when I was 14 on a catholic winefestival - the wine was given to us as a present from the official organisators.

But it has been some years and I believe (and hope) at least that changed a bit. Otherwise alcoholism is epidemic. But stoners, or well, people combing both and meth and whatever is a thing as well.

Either way, also weed on its own is not harmless either, easily abused and your comment gave me the impression it is no big deal. Just like it was introduced to me as a teenager from the cool kids. And this is dangerous.

I think we are on the same page here. I just want to emphasise that for example alcohol and tobacco are magnitudes more abused than any other substances, 10x to be exact:

Results: Alcohol was the most frequently used substance, with a 30-day prevalence of 70.5% (36.1 million people), followed by non-opioid analgesic drugs (47.4%; 24.2 million) and conventional tobacco products (22.7%; 11.6 million). E-cigarettes were used by 4.3% (2.2 million) and heat-not-burn products by 1.3% (665 000). Among illegal drugs (12-month prevalence), cannabis was the most frequently used (8.8%; 4.5 million), followed by cocaine/crack (1.6%; 818 000) and amphetamine (1.4%; 716 000). Rates of problematic use among the study participants were 17.6% for alcohol (9.0 million), 7.8% for tobacco (4.0 million), 5.7% for psychoactive medications (2.9 million), and 2.5% for cannabis (1.3 million).

From https://www.aerzteblatt.de/int/archive/article/226333/The-us...

So yes weed is dangerous but alcohol is more than 10 times as dangerous- this nuance is often lost in public debate

"but alcohol is more than 10 times as dangerous"

That is quite subjective and not solid data. At least I am not aware of a scientific consensus in that regard.

Alcohol is just more widespread because it was legal and part of the culture, so more abuse there. But this context here is about how that might change with the legal status.

From Bundesgesundheitsministerium:

Laut dem Alkoholatlas 2022 des Deutschen Krebsforschungszentrums ( DKFZ ) starben in Deutschland im Jahr 2020 rund 14.200 Menschen (davon 10.600 Männer und 3.600 Frauen) an Krankheiten, die ausschließlich auf Alkoholkonsum zurückzuführen sind.

That are 14200 deaths solely due to alcohol in Germany every year — the only figure I found for cannabis was about 1-200 - so it’s more than 100 times more dangerous if you only look at official death statistics — this is as solid as the data gets.

Sure things might change with legalisation— but looking at the Netherlands the opposite is most likely the case.

So yea I retract my earlier statement— alcohol is not 10 times more dangerous, it’s >100 times more deadly.

This doesn’t even account for all the accidents and other injuries related to alcohol.

By that logic fentanyl is quite harmless in germany, because there are allmost 0 deaths so far. But that is simply because it is not widespread (yet).

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