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Comment by reedf1 | Hacker News Reader

I take it mostly as an anti-pyretic (fever reducer). For which it is extremely effective. It's my drug of choice for colds, flu, etc.

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Well, it doesn't work for high fever (> 39-40 Celsius). For that, I alternate Ibuprofen and sodium metamizole every 4 hours.

For pain release, paracetamol it's very modest. Some effect for light head pain, zero for strong pain. Zero effect for strong back pain. Ibuprofen works better in all these cases but comes with stomach damage if taken for long.

Paracetamol is nicely synergic with all known painkillers. For example prescribing it with morphine leads to less morphine consumption.

Also: it's a terrible rule of thumb to take an NSAID routinely for general infectious symptoms like fever.

Prescribing cannabis for pain also leads to less morphine consumption.

The safety profile of paracetamol is orders of magnitudes higher ghan cannabis though. It is still one of the, if not the, most heavily used and appreciated drug and can be taken at any age

That is untrue. Did you read the OP article? Just 10 standard 500mg tablets of paracetamol in 24h will cause irreversible liver damage.

It’s the exact opposite of what you claim. Cannabis is orders of magnitude less destructive to the body than paracetamol.

If you honestly believe what you wrote, you need to check your sources. There is a lot of drug war propaganda still out there.

indeed I have not been specific enough: I meant "at therapeutic dosage". Thank you for keeping me in check!

Acetaminophen indeed has a shitty therapeutic index and cannabis in any (natural) form has basically no acute toxicity.

But i'd take 1g of acetaminophen daily for the rest of my life starting at age 1 instead of taking 1 cannabis joint equivalent every day. And that's even if we're talking edible form or vaping (i.e. not considering tars).

What about you?

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