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Comment by coffeecoders | Hacker News Reader

Meanwhile daily or near-daily marijuana use has increased by 269% from 2008 to 2022.[1]

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/611714/marijuana-use-dur...

I wonder how much of that is honesty in reporting? No doubt the wave of legalization has increase usage massively, but I sure as shit wouldn't have told a random poll in the 2010s about my illegal marijuana use. I didn't even tell my doctor for fear of it ending up in a chart somewhere.

It’s a more effective misery suppressant per dollar than a drink, and is much less likely to result in humiliating or violent outbursts when overconsumed. Little surprise it’s supplanted booze, then, when fewer each year can afford the romanticism of a cocktail bar.

> I didn't even tell my doctor for fear of it ending up in a chart somewhere.

Keep not telling them, by the way. All evidence I've found is that (US) life insurers can still refuse to cover you or rate you as less healthy if you admit to cannabis consumption even when it's state-level legal, and you have to sign papers that authorize doctors to disclose EVERYTHING to them to get a policy issued (at least you do once you're old enough that life insurance becomes more important).

During COVID, I was somewhat down and my GP prescribed a tiny dose of Lexapro, which did nothing but give me diarrhea so I quit immediately. But that "being treated for depression" or whatever, once disclosed, caused my next life insurance renewal to be far more expensive.

So that's why I "have never consumed any cannabis."

Lying on those things voids your policy entirely though.

True, but I still sleep well at night knowing that I've lied to an insurance company about such a triviality, and keeping it out of doctors' files means I won't be caught.

No doubt it is not a 100% accurate poll. But hard to think it hasn't gone up? If only from the legal sales numbers.

More, you'd be surprised at how many people would have told pollsters, even in 2010s, that they were doing things like this.

> you'd be surprised at how many people would have told pollsters

Yeah, when my son was in middle school, they ran a poll. I was surprised by how many kids at his school had artificial limbs. Terrible carnage, just terrible.

Well we are leaving a massive microbrewery/winery bubble where everyone had a cousin opening a brewery in the 2010s. At the same time marijuana usage is slowly becoming legal. So I might expect the relative change to be quite large.

shh, you are going to upset people that think drinking is evil and cutting it has no draw backs

No deaths have ever been reported from an overdose on Marijuana [1], and about 10k people a year die from DUI deaths in the US [2]. There is no safe level of alcohol consumption [3] [4]. There is strong evidence alcohol use leads to cancer [5].

[1] https://www.dea.gov/factsheets/marijuana

[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/risky-driving/drunk-driving

[3] https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...

[4] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.10.21256931v...

[5] https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/a...

>It's impossible to overdose on Marijuana, and about 10k people a year die from DUI deaths in the US.

It's definitely possible to overdose on edible marijuana, and it's not even that difficult to do.

Comment was edited to reflect no reports of death from overdose. You might have an unpleasant experience, but you aren't going to die.

So what's the safe level of driving on Marijuana? If people just switch from one drug to another that's no improvement.

The Effect of Cannabis Compared With Alcohol on Driving - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1080/1055049090278693... | https://doi.org/10.1080/10550490902786934

Medical cannabis and automobile accidents: Evidence from auto insurance - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hec.4553 | https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4553

I do wish that this was something talked about more, I know there have been studies supposedly showing there is not a correlation but that doesn't make any sense to me. I know there have been several times that I have been stoned enough that I would not want to drive.

Doesn't mean it should not be legal or anything, but I also don't think we should disregard it.

It’s not evil, it’s just bad for you. A 5 mg edible a couple times a month is going to be a way better for someone than drinking multiple times a week.

I find it so weird to make up a comparison about which is healthier and then have differing frequencies of usage.

A 5mg edible a couple times a month is going to be way better for someone than multiple 5mg edibles per week.

There are a whole lot of everyday pot smokers out there.

> drinking is evil and cutting it has no draw backs

This but unironically

– A lifelong teetotaler and son of an alcoholic

Hence the virginity rates. Weed replacing alcohol is a tragedy. Lonelier people in healthier bodies with rotting brains.

Alcohol causes more brain damage than cannabis, if that's what you are talking about. And I doubt lowering inhibitions so that people have sex they wouldn't normally have had seems... Bad.

On the other hand, if this was supposed to be funny, carry on!

I’m not sure I buy this, from anecdotal evidence of friends who have 1-2 drinks a day vs those who have let’s say a similar amount of weed a day… the friends who drink are vastly more functional.

Arguably the friends who drink are indistinguishable from people who don’t aside from maybe some weight gain if it’s all beer. My weed friends though, you can tell they’re not doing as great, on or off weed.

Yeah weed will have another pendulum swing in 5 years.

Arguably, drunk bad decisions were the only thing keeping the population up, and now they're not. Kinda like AI data centers and the stock market.

Now Our Benefactors will have to figure out ways to make people want to reproduce, or just deal with the low population and racial demographic shifts (just kidding, they'll probably find ways to force people to reproduce).

> in healthier bodies

We must live on different planet

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