Comment by landl0rd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by landl0rd | Hacker News Reader

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I have a family member who has never been alright due to moderate psychedelic and heavy marijuana use in college. Maybe some people are fine, sure, and maybe this is even a rare outcome, but the denialism bothers me when I personally know that they can, at some unknown rate, turn someone schizophrenic and ruin his life. I wish we could get him treatment but he's not high-grade enough to be involuntarily committed but paranoid schizophrenics who hate and distrust their family don't respond well to "hey we should get you treatment."

I have a friend from college who smoked too much marijuana during lockdown back in India. Thankfully the insanity cleared up after a few weeks to a month clean of it, but not all are so lucky.

The denialism and propaganda campaigns bother me. As pro-legalization as I am, I personally have never and will never use drugs. They are dangerous and unnecessary, and I resent those who would influence others' decisions to do something high-risk and potentially very damaging because they want to get high.

I will up front say that while I advocate taking mushrooms to depressed people, and said so elsewhere, I would not recommend them to _young people_.

But I think you might be missing the forest for the trees: unlike mushrooms, there is a _ton_ of research on pot specifically that illustrates that heavy use in the young is extremely detrimental to their mental health, especially young men. The studies on psilocybin/psilocin do not show this.

That said, Michael Pollan has a quote in one of his books that foes along these lines: coming to psychedelics in old age, when you are set in your ways and everything is locked in, helps you break out and reconsider things, but young people don't have those things, so the value is mostly absent.

While I respect your opinion, I disagree mostly by observing the people I've known for decades.

Folks with maladaptive coping strategies tend not to age well, and it is unrelated to the specific pharmacological recreational preferences they have chosen.

Some people refuse help, and will despise folks for trying. =3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG4qp-2O3hs&list=RDjG4qp-2O3...

> I have a friend from college who smoked too much marijuana during lockdown back in India. Thankfully the insanity cleared up after a few weeks to a month clean of it, but not all are so lucky.

I would love to meet one of these people that lose their minds in such a short time on drugs. I know they exist but I just want to see the reality of it.

Some have genetic vulnerability to addictions, and others latent disorders do manifest.

Very common side-effect for people that try strong hallucinogens and or use malformed neurotransmitters.

The find-out part happens later =3

Many people with psychiatric challenges (both acute or chronic disorders) will often seek self-medication options. Marijuana is indeed a mild hallucinogen, but you are correct in that many hard drugs can trigger a psychotic episode. Often illegal dealers lace the stuff with addictive compounds that cause severe problems during withdrawal.

Having a family member with active untreated disorders can tilt the odds out of ones favor, but those with intellectual gifts also tend to be more resilient to such situations.

>The denialism and propaganda campaigns bother me

Understandable, after a few years people see the same excuses, exploitive scams, and rhetoric. The Sackler family ruined a lot of lives to capture that money, and I guess a few psychopaths saw a business opportunity.

Best of luck =3

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