US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous | Hacker News Reader

US Department of Justice has officially reclassified cannabis as less dangerous

bbc.com

165 pointskaycebasques204 comments

This is ultimately a good thing, but as a country we also need to talk about the effects of cannabis use on neurodivergent folks. Its not as harmful as other drugs but also isn't really a good coping mechanism. Especially if you're neurodivergent and deal with depression. What I've seen being in/out of partial hospitalization programs is that people just don't realize that heavy cannabis is actually causing/prolonging some of the problems they use cannabis to escape from.

Everyone needs to make their own health decisions for themselves but we really do need a mature conversation about cannabis.

This is absolutely true, but it's also difficult to square the legal restrictions around cannabis while alcohol is freely available (and significantly more dangerous and habit-forming), and nicotine use is on the rise again thanks to vapes and Zyn.

(To be clear, they're all drugs, and they should all be used responsibly if at all.)

Anything that impacts sleep like habitual alcohol or weed use. Nothing more important than sleep quality for health.

Coffee?

Caffeine and alcohol affect mine way worse than cannabis

That’s the crux of it for me. I don’t use weed but I enjoy a small amount of alcoholic beverages, like a really good beer once a month or so. I can’t go along with any law that allows me to enjoy my intoxicant of choice but throws someone else in jail for enjoying their less dangerous one.

Multiple large studies and metanalysis show very little support for the notion that marijuana treats most mental health conditions, such as depression and anxiety. It's definitely not the "cure all" that a lot of folks think it is.

In a significant fraction of users, there is a risk of marijuana induced psychoses. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

I am hippy among hippies and the only people who ever talk about it as a 'cure all' are the people really far gone. People who think crystals can cure sicknesses. Those type of people. It's literally a god send to people with stomach problems, it can help you go to sleep but I would bet everything I own it's not as deep and good a sleep as sleeping sober. I've heard people say the ointments can help with certain pains. That's about it.

You say it's just people who are "really far gone", but when I look at the type of marketing at CBD stores, it's marketed for nearly everything, so I suspect a lot more people are falling for this than you might suspect. Plus, any individual doesn't have to believe it's a "cure-all" - they just have to believe it cures their specific random ailment. I've seen it marketed to help with sleep, anxiety (despite it causing anxiety in a lot of people), depression, any type of pain you can think of, nausea, hoarders of chronic conditions, etc.

I agree with the top comment - I think it's great that we're starting to deal rationally with cannabis, but we need to be realistic about. It can be beneficial but can also cause real harms, especially in children and young adults, and cannabis use disorder is a real thing.

I think there exists enough evidence of placebo benefits that it shouldn't be all that surprising. Moreover, regardless of any study or anecdote to the contrary, Those people will exist and see actual benefits, realized or not.

Again, I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use. I also don't know a single person who would argue that there no health negatives from smoking pot. The reason we haven't had a rational conversation about it is because the governments position has been to classify it as literally the same as heroin. That is what has prevented real research and real conversation.

I agree with the idea that we haven't had a rational conversation about cannabis due to the government's "reefer madness" madness. But I also think saying "I don't know a single person advocating to make it available for children for recreational use" is a strawman. You don't need to advocate for children to use it, but I think a lot of people felt (I feel like this sense "peaked" in the early stages of legalization) that pot is essentially harmless. That is, that it may not be great to binge on it, but a lot of people thought there were little, if any, long term negative effects. That general belief certainly filters down to young people.

My understanding of the most recent research is that weed is especially harmful when it comes to long term brain development for adolescents (and, ironically, that it can, though research is definitely not conclusive, have protective cognitive benefits for people who don't start weed until their brain is fully developed).

I hear this kind of talk relatively frequently and do not generally have "far gone" friends.

Here’s something I’ve not understood. A major argument for legalizing is that studies can be done. But I regularly hear that studies have been done. What’s the reality?

As someone who abused cannabis in my 20s and had my fair share of issues I can only agree.

> we also need to talk about the effects of cannabis use on neurodivergent folks.

"Neurodivergent" lacks a well-defined meaning. What is it about someone for whom you would define as neurodivergent that makes cannabis more harmful than someone someone for whom you wouldn't label as neurodivergent?

I think a significant portion of this has to do with the absolute insane levels of THC that is being circulated these days. ~20% minimums of THC is bonkers

This isn't meant a as a challenge to your point. I'd be curious for your opinion about what constitutes an excessive and a proper amount of THC in milligrams. I see the measurements on drinks and such at the gas station but I don't have any personal gauge for what would constitute a large amount.

It's heavily tolerance dependent, and tolerance grows quite quickly with any kind of regular use, so it's really hard to come up with one number.

I agree, though if the end result of this change is that people use cannabis at concerts and clubs instead of alcohol, I believe that's a harm reduction.

Not a harm reduction to the olfactory though =p

this is what gives me pause about this issue

it's easy to just look at the upside of something that doesn't hurt you and you just have an extra choice, but knowing that it can and does wreck the lives of many, I feel that it's a painful thing for me to vote for, or against

There's a general and larger question than just "weed for autists" that needs to be discussed - and it touches on large amounts of the population and "freedoms".

We've seen from the gambling legalization, drug legalization, and even things like loot boxes, etc, that there is a subset of the population who just cannot handle these things at a level most people would consider "responsible". We last had this nation-wide conversation around drinking, and prohibition had its problems, but we're going to have to support this group somehow, or let them be exploited by advanced companies as if they're subhuman.

Unfortunately, you'll never get it to where people aren't going to become addicts to these things. You can only reduce harms by regulation and social support.

Gambling is a decent example of where we've lost touch with this in the last decade. In my state, it used to be that if you wanted to play games of pure chance, you had to go to a physical casino, present an ID, and be subject to the rules and regulations of the state which were enforced by actual state LEOs who were always on-premises. If you wanted to, you could sign an affidavit that would ban you from the casino floor on the risk of a misdemeanor trespassing charge.

Now, you can open an app on your phone and place sports bets. There's no harm reduction at all. The apps are designed to be as addictive as possible, minors can sign in under their adult guardians' accounts, and there's no way to ban yourself from the apps. It's destroying people's finances from a very young age.

That's what happens when you don't regulate on the rationale that regulations keep line from going up.

Yes, previous regulation was built on the principle that we actually did understand the risks, as rational adults, and so we would have reasonable protections but in for people around those.

Today's regulation seems to be dependent on the principle of not talking about risks at all.

Today's regulations are solely "deregulation". Corporations are racing to maximize exploitation before the deregulation snaps back to reality.

Deregulation is not necessarily a bad thing.

Best example of this is NIMBYs in the Bay Area abusing hearings to block affordable housing, or making it as expensive as possible to replace single family homes with denser construction.

And all of the passthrough towns between LA and SF who have gummed up the high speed rail in court because the state kneecapped its own eminent domain rights through well-meaning self-regulation.

Regulations or the lack thereof aren't good or bad in themselves, but its easy to see why people on all sides of every issue want to make it so; saves them from having to actually argue the merits and demerits.

And nothing is ever simple - the second and third order effects of both regulations and deregulation are hard to know, let alone argue about.

"If you wanted to, you could sign an affidavit that would ban you from the casino floor on the risk of a misdemeanor trespassing charge."

Let's help people by criminalizing them so they have a harder time getting a job and all that...

Voluntary precommitment measures like this need some kind of teeth to be effective. The point isn’t incarceration, it’s the ban from the casino. If they can return without consequences then it’s not really a ban.

It’s likely that they will be turned away rather than arrested, unless they try to force their way in or sneak in.

Remember, this is voluntary. It’s for people with a problem who want to cut themselves off because they can’t control themselves any other way.

The "misdemeanor trespassing" is understood by everyone - basically, you're choosing to be banned, and if you come back the cops will give you a nice little ride to the station and then let you go.

Similar things in the digital world would be the ability to lock your iCloud account so you couldn't download gambling apps, and if you want to be unlocked you have to send a notarized letter to Apple and wait and reply to a confirmation letter. This adds delay and makes it so you can choose "not to be tempted" in your right mind, and when you're desiring "the fix" you can't get it right away.

These affidavits aren't used to penalize the individual, they are used to protect the casinos from nuisance lawsuits when they escort the individual off the property. Basically, if you sue claiming assault, you are opening yourself up to a criminal charge. It's an effective deterrent.

A casino doesn't ever need to call the cops to deal with you, they have their own private force.

Getting trespassed from an Indian Casino can technically be an international incident; it happens now and then - the sovereignty of tribal nations is a real thing, even if not what you might expect.

Some casinos have public law enforcement, depending on the state. They don't need an affidavit to trespass someone (likely at the summary offense level depending on state), especially since it's all recorded. You shouldn't be able to sue someone while committing a trespass due to the clean hands doctrine, depending on state.

And gambling is such a prevalent thing in my home country(brazil) that it pisses me off, my mobile phone provider sends me gambling adverts whenever I top up with some prepaid value. In Germany I also see tons of sport betting places, there's almost more than bakeries.

12 Step recovery and adjacent programs fill this niche quite well, and new communities are popping up all the time to deal with more modern addictions, like internet/technology addiction.

I'm sober and have been in that world for several years now, and the most important (and hardest) part of getting sober was accepting that I had a problem and needed help. Macro policy decisions can help with access to an extent, but addicts fundamentally cannot make better decisions for themselves until they first realize they have a problem. And as prohibition taught us, once the demand is there, it can't just be regulated away.

That's certainly part of it - but there's some distance between prohibition and infinite alcohol dispensaries in everyone's pocket (which is what gambling has become).

I completely agree. Fundamentally, prohibition showed that legislating morality ultimately fails. As immoral as mobile gambling is (and I firmly believe it is), people are going to do it. And when you start coming up with top-down technology solutions to stop people from gambling online, you realize that there isn't a workable solution that privacy advocates would support en masse.

Increasing awareness and creating programs to help people seeking treatment are the way to go.

> legislating morality ultimately fails

But yet murder is illegal ;)

I think everyone agrees you can legislate morality, just they disagree where that line is (even the Oldes™ like Aquinas, who argued that prostitution is immoral but the state shouldn't outlaw it because the alternatives are worse for the state).

The major benefit of legalization of something like marijuana is that you nix a lot of criminality associated with the drug being illegal. You also wind up with a better quality product, labels that help with dosage, potency, etc.

The no-holds-barred legalization of gambling apps has none of these benefits, and almost everyone I've talked to, no matter how libertarian their instincts, seems to agree we've gone way too far. I think (and hope) we'll see a backlash on the gambling stuff that pushes legal gambling out of the insanely public and accessible places where it currently lives.

> The major benefit of legalization of something like marijuana is that you nix a lot of criminality associated with the drug being illegal.

These days, if you exclude ‘possession’ and ‘selling’ from weed-related crimes, there’s almost nothing left. Weed is commoditized and is one of the few products that has gotten cheaper over the last 6 years.

There’s very little violence in the weed trade, the profit margins aren’t high enough for people to murder each other like they are for cocaine, heroin, and meth.

agreed - s/marijuana/dangerous drug of your choosing/ - the point is more about the differential between the purported benefit of legalization / decriminalization of "sinful" activities and the actual outcome in the specific case of gambling

12 step recovery is just bullshit christian religionism wrapped in some psychobabble. Id much rather have a program that doesnt use "scary man in the sky" doing bad stuff to you.

Here's the steps. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program

     We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
     Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
     Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him
     Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
     Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
     Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
     Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
     Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
     Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
     Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
     Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
     Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

That's a common criticism that doesn't hold up. Anyone with program experience will tell you that you get to determine what your higher power is and how you define it.

> God, as we understood Him

AA is 90 years old, practiced all over the world (in many non-Christian countries) and has helped millions of people get sober. It's not for everyone, but I'd ask for an example for a more successful and long-lived organization that has saved as many lives as AA. I struggle to think of one.

I disagree, as someone who doesn't practice any religious faith.

The fact is, many people in AA and related programs do have faith, and the program is wise to engage with it and help those people orient themselves in a way that compliments that worldview and strengthens their resolve to get sober.

For the members who don't have faith, my experience with the program has been that it does not impose any Christian worldview onto the actual practice. There's no imposition for non-believers to conform to that belief.

I've never left a meeting and felt like I was being pushed a religious agenda. The vague talk of a "higher power" is a way for believers and non-believers alike to articulate a personal spirituality that will bolster their likelihood of success in the program.

I've been to many meetings over the years to support friends and am heartened by the nature of AA as an organization. It's been a wonderful experience. I often leave joking that I wish I had a problem so that I could come back more often and participate with the community and the program.

I have a lot of positive things to say about the program, but they're beyond the scope of this comment.

> I often leave joking that I wish I had a problem so that I could come back more often and participate with the community and the program.

HN Anonymous.

Hello, my name is bombcar and I have 50,903 karma.

I've known more than a few atheists who successfully used this program.

If reality and your theory differs, it's not reality that's wrong.

Prohibition has its problems is a big understatement.

After almost 40 years of war on drugs the problem with hard drugs is bigger than ever in the US (and other places). Meanwhile countries that have a more relaxed approach are doing much better.

I'm not saying legalize everything always but prohibition also ain't it.

Correlation doesn’t imply causation. The US has one of the most relaxed opiate policies imaginable until about 10 years ago. You could walk into many doctors and walk out with an opiate script. It didn’t end well.

But also has some of the harshest penalties for illegal opiate usage. We didn't get 25% of the worlds prison by not aggressively arresting and jailing drug users

Of course just relaxing everything is not the point - you have to address the structural and economic reasons why people become addicts in the first place. Few if anyone wants to be an addict

It's a good way to frame the discussion, with the caveat that for some things that subset is 5% of the population, and for other things that subset is 95%.

Is there a threshold? Can we define a principle that covers the entire range?

It seems clear that in the ideal scenario, people's freedoms should not be curtailed merely because there exist other people who would do unproductive things with that freedom. And on the other hand it seems clear that "freedom" to engage or not engage with deliberately targeted highly addictive things is not meaningful, and "individual responsibility" as an organizing principle of society only takes you so far.

We have somewhat gravitated to be "the division is 18 years old (21 in some cases)" - but I'm not sure that's foundational. Perhaps certain "freedoms" (however you may define that word, Magna Carta or Bill of Rights or Universal Declaration of Human Rights or Bible or whatever) are only really applicable at 18 or 21, but I suspect it is much more granular than that.

And so many things now are "the freedom to sell yourself into digital slavery" in various forms, why is that a freedom we need? Not arresting Bob for a garage poker game doesn't mandate that we legalize Draftkings.

I've never actually touched weed, but I would see this with my friends in high school and college.

In the better case, they just become insufferable and pseudo-intellectual because they started watching Alan Watts and Carl Sagan while stoned and would become convinced that they know everything about physics and philosophy.

In a lot of cases though, and this is more obvious in hindsight, it feels like they were using weed as a means of dealing with the fact that they were deeply unhappy and depressed people. Instead of confronting their problems and seeing a therapist/psychiatrist or any of the other things that they could do to actively improve their life, they would spend their evenings and weekends getting high.

I don't inherently have an issue with people using recreational drugs; I've gotten drunk before [1], but it should be done in moderation.

[1] I never did it that much and I haven't had anything to drink at all in years.

On the opposite end of that is the plethora of psychiatry/psychology professionals whom are terrible at their profession and are likely causing more harm than good.

I see it along the same lines as brands, your typical Great Value psychologist will greatly underperform the Kirkland psychologist who will greatly underperform the ... and so on.

Then there's the subset of the population whom have been abused in the most horrific ways by psychologists.

Not to counter your point, just as additional discussion.

Sure, I've had my share of issues with therapists, but I think the solution is to fix the therapists, not to YOLO it by self-medicating with weed.

Great, how does one fix the therapists? Or is this another one of those tricky systemic generational problems that means that I'll have to YOLO something for my own life before they're fixed?

I'm not claiming I know how to fix it, but I am quite confident that the solution to fixing issues with depression, focus, or any other number of psychological issues is not reading a Reddit post about weed and/or mushrooms and pretending you understand enough about pharmacology to fix these problems.

Therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists require training and as such will still be considerably more likely to help you than weed. Obviously there are bad professionals; I've hired bad electricians before but that does not imply I should try and do all the wiring in my house myself.

You seem to be assuming that everyone can afford a therapist.

No, I would say making therapy affordable would be part of fixing it.

If only there were some sort of system where everyone who had money gave it to some organization, percentage based so rich people gave more, and then this organization used it to pay for therapists, and everything had access to therapy and other stuff like that? Totally insane crazy idea, I know. It could never possibly work. But just imagine if it did! Everyone would be able to get the therapy and help they deserve. What a world that would be. Alas.

On the other hand I and a lot of my friends who were unhappy did it, grew out of it, and found some happiness.

Meanwhile I know many people who did the therapy rout and are still there decades later. Not sure their path was better.

Just because you can name counterexamples doesn't really undermine my point. I know people who were alcoholics in college and then stopped being alcoholics later but that doesn't mean we should encourage people to be alcoholics in college.

I am not trying to undermine your point. I just don’t think the current obsession with therapy is doing any favors.

You don’t have to be neurodivergent. Weed is bad. Not going to jail is one thing, actively pushing it is another

Just one data point, but I'm neurodivergent, and suffered with depression from childhood.

A few years ago I was prescribed medical cannabis to treat chronic pain, and aside from being great for pain - wow, it's changed my life!

The right cannabis strains can do wonders for my mood, but it also makes me feel... less autistic, for want of a better way of putting it; suddenly I can understand why somebody said something, or how something I said could be taken the wrong way. For the first time in my life, I can really try to see things from someone else's perspective, and I'm thinking about other people far more than I ever have - I feel empathic.

Over time, cannabis has also allowed me to analyse and think on the past, which, has greatly helped me. For the first time in my life, I would no longer describe myself as having depression (it may come back if I stopped cannabis treatment, so maybe I should say I'm in remission).

Cannabis use may of course pose some risks for a small percentage of the population, but I'd wager it's in general far less dangerous than alcohol. And of course, my experience will not be universal.

Benzos do the same thing for me, they slow the brain enough so you’re not overthinking everything.

I've had diazapam prescribed a few times, but it doesn't help my mind, and I don't feel like it makes me any more empathic.

> The right cannabis strains can do wonders for my mood, but it also makes me feel... less autistic […]

Is it the same strain(s) for everyone, or does each person need to figure out which ones work for them?

It's a bit of a mix. Some strains affect most people the same way, while others don't - in particular, neurodivergent people often seem to have a different experience.

And some strains are better at different times of the day too - some can be stimulating, for example.

I'd say it's best for individuals to experiment and find what works best for them, to treat their specific symptoms.

There's a general vibe to the strains that's the same between people but you won't know which one you like or which improves your life until you try. It's more some-sizes-fits-most but not one-size-fits-all

I am suspicious that strains are much beyond marketing terms. Both in the literal sense that people will sell the exact same crop under different brand names. Or sell different crops under the same brand.

I'm also generally dubious that you can maintain consistency in a crop across seasons and growing cycles.

It's theoretically possible that there are growers using clones and exacting greenhouse conditions to replicate the same product over and over. But it's way easier to slap a brand on something so that's what people will end up doing.

Strains are a marketing term, and also a set of "expectations". Same with indica/sativa distinction. They aren't true, but they set an expectation. What actually drives the high, is a mix of the terpenes and other cannabanoids in the flower.

Terpenes (the smell and flavor compounds in the trichomes) will guide you toward a feeling. Limonene (citrus smell) is uplifting, just like kitchen cleaner. Pinene (pine needles) is another uplifting scent/flavor. Myrcene (musky smell) is a sedating terpene. And many others.

Then there are the other cannabinoids: CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC. CBD will modulate THC effects. CBG is almost non-existent in most commercial crops, but new strains are being bred to increase this as it gives a focused high. CBN comes from the degradation of THC, and it potentially causes couching and sedation (though might be myrcene).

Now as for harvest-to-harvest differences, this is true, which is why every harvest is tested and you can get the CoA of any harvest that will give you the full breakdown of the cannabinoids in the flower.

Cannabis is not typically grown from seed, it is grown from propagation off trimmings from mother plants. They are all the exact same plant genetically. So the harvest will be VERY consistent from harvest to harvest at an industrial scale since almost all of the environmental variables are accounted for and controlled.

Strains are very real and the general concept exists in not only many other farmed plants as well, but domesticated animals, like dogs. All members of the same species, specifically bred for a certain phenotype through manual selection.

Now some people might say that X strain is good for sleep, Y strain is good for anxiety, Z strain is good for creativity, etc… That type of “phenotype” is much harder to quantify and I agree a lot of that type of stuff could be mumbo jumbo, though there could be something to it. But overall high THC strains (more stimulating) vs high CBD strains (more relaxing) have a clear difference.

However flavor is also a big differentiator among strains and that is much more easily quantifiable through the terpene/flavonoid profile, and plain old smelling and tasting. And people have been breeding plants for specific smells and tastes for thousands of years, so it’s not like this is some new concept specific to cannabis.

Same as with everything else in life, the people doing that are going to run the gamut, from the lazy basically con artists to the OCD mfer that's a pain in the ass to work with because they're so meticulous about everything. One trip at the store isn't going to tell you if which of the two extremes (or somewhere in between) the grower of a particular strain is, but repeated use of a particular strain will either be consistent, or not.

Look into terpene profiles if you’re open to learning.

You can get a lot of mileage out of making the indica/sativa distinction. Regardless of strain, inidca heavy tends to chill people out, while sativa heavy strands give energy and more anxiety. Everyone is different and ymmv.

> Over time, cannabis has also allowed me to analyse and think on the past

There is danger in attributing something broad like this directly to drug use. Can you only reflect while high?

It may be that the initial psychedelic sessions helped break through some mental/emotional patterns you were suffering from (positive impact), but that continued regular use has an overall negative impact on mental health. That's been my experience with psychedelics and how I've seen them work on those around me, at least.

I have a very different experience with psychedelics so its very hard to make generalized statements here. Not saying your experience is not valid but these diagnoses should be done by someone who knows the person _very_ well.

> Can you only reflect while high?

Personally, yes; at least effectively.

> It may be that the initial psychedelic sessions

I had a few experiences with mushrooms in my youth, so I know what you mean - but cannabis isn't psychedelic.

The terms here get kinda vague and smushy. I wouldn't necessarily call cannabis psychedelic, but i would call it a hallucinogenic. And very high doses of weed, especially edibles will give you closed eye visuals and auditory hallucinations. It's certainly not the same as LSD, but it's not entirely separate either.

Unless perhaps you've got other problems, cannabis certainly is not hallucinogenic at any sensible dose, even for edibles (which I use daily in combination with flower).

I've been discussing therapeutic use of cannabis here, not huge "recreational" doses.

Cannabis is psychedelic to the extent that the term means anything. It's not a "classic" psychedelic like acid or shrooms, but there is no obvious category difference between microdosing shrooms vs. smoking a joint vs. having a proper trip vs. greening out, and so on. It's all spectrums of psychedelic experience caused directly by something you ingested.

The opposition to the term likely has more to do with proponents and lobbyists wanting to distance weed from the "harder" psychedelics that are known to fry people.

> The opposition to the term likely has more to do with proponents and lobbyists wanting to distance weed from the "harder" psychedelics that are known to fry people.

I don't know about any of that - my own opposition is because I've tried psychedelic substances a few times during my youth, and cannabis isn't remotely like that.

Like with every drug it depends on set setting and dosage.

Personally I get very anxious if I smoke too much (and in the wrong setting); it helps me a lot with other issues if I only consume a small amount occasionally.

Also it matters a lot if I mix it with tobacco (then its a lot harder to consume responsibly).

So I think both you and GP have good points.

And yes its a million times better than alcohol, that stuff is literal poison for body and mind.

Yeah, smoking week is basically guaranteed to cause anxiety for everyone if you smoke "too much". I used to hang with lots of stoners and basically everyone had stopped because while it was fun as a teenager, the anxiety slowly crept back into lower and lower dosages until the only time it was doable was if you're alone at home playing video games. Then the social circle fragments and disintegrates until everyone grows up enough to realize that that sucks and we'd like to hang outv again please. Similar cycles can be seen with friends groups based around pretty much any other drug besides coffee and cigarettes i'd assume

Strain matters for anxiety/panic too - in particular, strains high in the terpene terpinolene can cause anxiety (these tend to be sativa-dominant strains). Even now as a seasoned patient, I have to be careful with high-terpinolene strains!

Which strains, if you don't mind me asking?

This is a big topic, but here are a few random bits:

Pretty much any strain will make me feel more empathic to some degree.

In particular "orange" strains work well for me during the day. They're slightly stimulating, and not too sedating; they clear my mind and allow me to focus on a task; I get good muscular and neuropathic pain relief; I feel much more empathic, better able to understand subtleties of spoken and body language, and just better able to understand other people in general.

I find strains with myrcene and ocimene best for pain.

Strains with alpha-pinene are very relaxing.

Some high limonene strains can cause me anxiety even worse than terpinolene-based ones. Maybe it depends if they also have enough of other, calming terpenes such as myrcene, alpha-pinene, caryophyllene and linalool.

I try to avoid strains with limonene at night, as they can keep my mind going when I'm trying to sleep.

Very interesting. I'll have to try them out. Thanks for sharing.

This, listen to this guy, not multiple psychiatric committals guy. But I appreciate crisis guy incorporating HN in his therapy regime, you are heard bro!

Super curious what strains do the trick for you and which ones don’t.

This is a big topic, but here are a few random bits:

Pretty much any strain will make me feel more empathic to some degree.

I find strains with myrcene and ocimene best for pain.

Strains with alpha-pinene are very relaxing.

I try to avoid strains with limonene at night, as they can keep my mind going when I'm trying to sleep.

Much love to you, brother.

Perhaps now that the government no longer claims it to be as dangerous as heroin, we can start realistic public education efforts that distinguish responsible use from abuse. Not sure we’re there yet, though.

Point out the neurotypical people, I’ll wait. Your brain isn’t that special.

Agreed. The same scrutiny applied to alcohol and nicotine should be applied to cannabis. A positive about this DOJ change is science labs can now legally start dissecting the plant to create CBD, CBN and/or CBG products.

Agreed, I don't use it myself but my brother is a heavy user and it's done more harm than good for him.

No.

Let adults do what they want.

A much better argument could be made for banning corn syrup. This cheap fake sugar is behind so many health issues.

Even just a switch to real sugar would do wonders. However I don’t believe the government should ban it.

I'll bite.

Corn syrup represents a derivative of a necessity for life and is not psychoactive. Either of these is sufficient to classify it completely differently from cannabis and break your analogy.

Also, apologies for attacking your character, but it's necessary for continuing the discussion in context. Your comment is the exact brand of "immature" that they're saying is wrong. Their comment, to which you are replying, is simply a plea for exactly what your comment is not: relevant, informative, and practical discourse.

It’s a moot point since prohibition doesn’t work regardless.

Adults are going to do what they want.

I just realized that you think the comment we're talking about is advocating for restricting access to cannabis?

You're part of the problem, bucko

Agreed. What was largely lost is nuanced discussion around the topic. Usually, the way it progresses, you get strong detractors and strong proponents each with wildly incompatible ideas on what it is. Proponents are ignoring the risks. Detractors are ignoring the benefits. It gets us, collectively, nowhere.

I mean the issue there is the intense need for a coping mechanism in the first place because our society is horribly set up for accommodating neurodivergent people's needs, and there is a general lack of really good, readily available options to deal with the situation.

Only cannabis that is prescribed medically or in an FDA-approved product:

> Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Thursday changed the classifications of products containing marijuana that are covered by the Food and Drug Administration or that have received a state medical-marijuana licence. They will move from a Schedule I narcotic like heroin to a Schedule III drug - on par with Tylenol with codeine.

> He also called a hearing to consider reclassifying all marijuana.

Still boggles my mind the previous administration had the power to do that and did nothing.

Biden is/was extremely pro-cop. Cops love weed legislation because it's an easy way to stop citizens.

The prison system also loves weed legislation. So many folks are/were behind bars for weed.

There has still been a major decline in federal prosecutions for marijuana in the US, something like -50% since 2020. The vast majority of weed prosecutions happen at the state level.

Biden also mass pardoned minor weed possession charges https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-marijuana-simple-possess...

State vs federal unfortunatly doesn't change the math behind the "if we do W then union X will not support us and then voting block Y will vote against us at a predicted rate of Z%" math upon which most of these political decisions are calculated.

That is true. Plus DEA doesn't want to lose any power and they'll have the presidents ear.

Could have had so many easy W's and just didn't.

Politically, it has to be a calculated move.

Some people oppose it, others support it. I think most people here are pro-cannabis and liberal, and I think most will see legalization as a "win", but politically, is it really? Will your vote change depending on the result? If you don't your voice don't matter as much.

Those who matter are at the fringe: pro-cannabis leaning conservative, anti-cannabis leaning liberals, etc... Legalizing cannabis may win the first group, but lose the second group. Timing is important too. Did a big cannabis-related news broke out lately, can it be used to divert attention from other matters, like an unpopular tax.

To me, cannabis seems to be very strategic in partisan politics. Like gender identity, sex work, etc... These are subjects where people has strong opinions and unlike other subjects like economics that are highly dependant on external factors and governments have little power in practice, these can go either way without causing too much disruption.

I can’t imagine a scenario where the Democrats legalize cannabis and it hurts their elections. You think there are more anti-cannabis liberals than pro-cannabis conservatives?

I think that actually, if Democrats just did what seems clearly good for most of the country, they’d have much better electoral outcomes than their current Kafka-esque strategy.

No, but it may push people on the fence away. The “liberals” will never vote republican anyway.

for real, I was kind of thinking they would pull an October Surprise out of the hat like "Surprise, weed is federally legal!"

Joe Biden to rich donors: “Nothing would fundamentally change” if he’s elected

https://www.salon.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-to-rich-donors-no...

I had no confidence in any mealy-mouth things Biden said. And for that matter, after watching Obama make campaign promises and then completely backing out, I had no confidence for him either. (But elections arent always about voting for. Sometimes its voting against.)

Trump's worse, by a LOT. However to his credit, he did completely unban delta6, delta8, delta10, HHC, THC0, and a whole lot other THC based drugs federally. He did do a hell of a lot more than any other democrat or republican, just with a single action.

I don't think this is a completely fair characterization:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_policy_of_the_Biden_a...

Your link does nothing to address OP’s claim. Reclassifying marijuana requires only the stroke of the president’s pen. Biden chose not to do that.

Apparently not, or Trump would have done it earlier, too.

There were investigations into just what reclassification would mean for other regulations, laws and treaties. These were begun during the Biden administration and are now being finished. If you just say "weed's schedule III now", without any other modifications to policy, you'll have confusion over just what that means to a bunch of different federal, state, and local agencies.

Also, you don't want a President just doing things with the stroke of a pen. Actually, that's our biggest problem right now, letting an autocrat piss all over separation of powers as a treat.

Biden didn't want to reclassify it because there's really no point in reclassifying. It's still illegal to possess for recreational use and requires a controlled substance prescription from a doctor.

It would take a law to remove it from the control substances scheduling, no president can do that. Which is also why Trump didn't do it. (It's now schedule 3 instead of schedule 1)

Poor Biden, couldn't do anything, but Trump fired thousands of government employees, killed USAID, is about to close the department of education.

People really have to stop saying this, he could have done it if he wanted, he and his team choose not to.

Surely the SCOTUS stopping everything Biden did and approving everything Trump does doesn't have anything to do with it.

No, it requires more than a stroke of the pen, and the stroke of the pen that was required happened in 2024. It's been DEA foot-dragging ever since, which is what Trump's executive order last year addressed.

Common russian disinformation talking point. I'd rather have elected bodies representive of the people within the states to decide rules for the country, not the equivalent of a post-it note with a possible 4yr expiration date to shove through your own agenda and trample over the will of the people. Fixing the system is correct, using inappropriate measures to take shortcuts for short term wins to fool voters on progress is a fools errand. Biden took multiple steps in his terms to correct this, no need to frame it intentionally dishonestly.

That's not true. Biden started this process, and it has continued into the Trump administration.

Biden did start the process, but Trump actually just cancelled that process and started a totally different process.

Don't give him credit for solving a problem he created.

They did. Biden did the "right" thing by starting a 4 years long re-certifying process. That's how "locked down" marijuana was... It was in the same class as heroin. You cant just "sign a piece of paper". (And its worth remembering hemp/marijuana has been locked down for literal centuries for silly reason. First because it was affecting the rope industry, and then later as a tool to suppress minorities and hippies and the counter-culture anti-vietnam movement in the 60's. Cant have black panthers running around with guns, But how can we criminalize them? Well... you make something they all do illegal.... like smoking weed. There's a reason the incarceration for weed-related offenses is VASTLY BLACK.

I mean... you can just EO this.... but there's rules you're SUPPOSED to follow. Biden did that.

This is simply Trump reaping the rewards of that effort without (of course) giving any acknowledgement to Biden.

Oh and BTW, why didn't Trump do this in his FIRST administration in 2016-2020?

Oh, and remind me which party consistently voted AGAINST rescheduling over the past 30 years?

The private prison industry is affected by this HARD. When you deregulate, all those marijuana criminals (who are mostly black btw) go away. Thats less heads in jail, which is less money to the private prison corporations. My guess is now that this current administration is sending immigrants and americans to immigrant concentration camps, their headcount will be a wash when the marijuana convictions fade away.

And guess which party the private prison industry donates to?

Ruling by executive order is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.

Eh, relax... One good hit of the kush would do wonders for reducing your stress level.

I have trouble not believing the 'theory' that it's the carrot that gets some percentage of voters out to vote for you. Actually solving it removes the carrot.

And with most presidential elections actually being quite close, and only ~70% of the population voting at best, even getting 3-5% voters, who otherwise don't care at all about politics and wouldn't bother voting for any cadidate, to vote for you simply means you win.

There was a bill introduced during Biden called STATES 2.0 that would have descheduled it entirely, but it was never voted on.

Regulating human consumption of anything that grows from the ground is absolutely ridiculous. It’s an affront to the natural order. At the minimum, nobody should have the ability to tell me I can’t buy seeds and grow a plant for my own personal consumption.

what is the logic behind that anything that can be homegrown should be legal? it makes enforcement harder, but it doesn't make any potential damages any better or worse

Human consumption of potatos is also strongly regulated. You can not just grow and eat potatoes, without paying taxes!

Is there a potato-eating-tax I didn't know about? I better call my accountant...

It produces CO2. We cull millions of cows for this reason!

Because they eat potatoes?

No, they are loosely regulated.

> Regulating human consumption of anything that grows from the ground is absolutely ridiculous.

As always, it depends. While I agree wrt marijuana, everyone would be an opiate addict if poppy wasn't regulated - it's just that good.

> While I agree wrt marijuana, everyone would be an opiate addict if poppy wasn't regulated - it's just that good.

That doesn't match my experience at all.

It didn't used to be regulated. How do you explain the fact that not everyone used to be an opiate addict?

Because we regulated it when it got bad. Other countries have had opioid epidemics and they’ve had to intervene. China is a very famous example because the British didn’t like the crackdown as it affected other trade

We regulated it as a means to police certain communities.

Hell, Billie holiday suffered from addiction but that bastard Harry Anslinger ordered doctors to not treat her and not provide her with methadone. She died with police stationed at her hospital room door. The FBI also harassed her over songs about lynching.

Nixon is literally on tape saying to go after weed and heroin more harshly as an excuse to arrest more anti-war protesters and civil rights protestors.

I'd argue "cracking down" has done little for controlling drug abuse and has primarily been a method for selective policing. Particularly in the states.

But how do you explain the fact that, before it got bad, it wasn't /already/ bad. You've gotta have some model for why there was a change if the rate wasn't previously at 100% and the claim is that the number "should be 100% unless it was regulated"

History disagrees

if opium was treated like every other plant we wouldn't have the fentanyl crisis. opium has been used for millennia.

This smells like psychological projection.

We'd probably be better off if people were grinding and smoking poppy seeds. Even Heroin.

We as a society somehow keep making the whole opiate addiction thing worse with increasingly stronger versions. I've read that Heroin overall was a much more enjoyable drug, and harder to OD on. Then Opioids became big, the sackler family got rich, and now you just have a super cheap, super strong drug that isn't even enjoyable. Fentanyl just knocks you out and makes overdosing easier.

I do wonder what a safety minded policy around opioids could look like, as they're not exactly a new problem in the scheme of human history.

> At the minimum, nobody should have the ability to tell me I can’t buy seeds and grow a plant for my own personal consumption.

There should be some exceptions, like banning invasive species, but in general, you're absolutely right.

The asbestos lobby is really getting creative here.

>The asbestos lobby is really getting creative here.

You could get pulled over with a brick of asbestos in your trunk in all 50 states and not have problems. And this was true 20yr ago as well. The regulations around asbestos are/were primarily restrict commercial manufacture, processing and interacting with it so I suppose they could contrive to get you for "processing" if you consumed it.

A whole brick of asbestos? Buddy, we've got you for intention to sell. Why don't you step out of the vehicle.

Aren’t there laws regarding the transport of hazardous materials?

Try not to think about poppy flowers I guess.

I don't know how anyone could disagree with this.

As a rule, strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding.

Is it less dangerous though? I was a heavy user for a year and it thoroughly destabilized my life and really negatively impacted my mental health. The funny thing is recalling how much of a cannabis advocate I was at the time, too.

Cannabis did not belong in Schedule 1. Yes Cannabis use comes with risk, but compare it to Fentanyl which is Schedule 2.

Cocaine and crack are also Schedule 2.

I believe cocaine is schedule 2 due to it having some limited medical uses.

Marijuana is one of the most effective things we have for some types of chronic pain and nausea.

sounds like crack should be schedule 1

This has been a long time coming. Now let's tax it, and use that money to pay for drug and mental health treatment, much in the same way that the lottery is used in places to pay for education.

expected Oregon to leap all other states in education with the marijuana taxes over a decade ago and just no results

Honestly, I have zero issues with legalizing marijuana (I'm not an expert on the effects), but I just don't like how the smell really travels and overwhelms local areas nowadays. Fair or not, I think it smells stronger than cigarette smoke (which smells more like a neutral smoke maybe?) so has a higher annoyance factor.

So over time, I've gotten more in the camp of "completely ok with the gummies being legal, not so sure about the smoking part anymore" - anyone else feel that way?

I fully agree. I personally think it should be at least socially unacceptable, or potentially ticketable, to smoke/vape anything in such a way that it someone that doesn't want to smell it can smell it. If someone wants to smoke on their land in the middle of nowhere I don't care, but if you live in society you can get your marijuana/nicotine fix without bothering everyone in your vicinity.

Yeah, the smell is sticky. Manhattan and Las Vegas seem to be full of stoners, if my nose is to be believed.

It makes me wonder how undetectable we really were when we smoked up when we were kids. I mean dang, I can smell the weed half a block from Chipotle after 9pm.

I have some neighbors who smoke weed...and you know Seattle rains most of the year but when late spring/summer comes we have to sometimes close our bedroom window at night and turn on the AC because the neighbors decided to just sit out in their backyard and smoke weed until 2 AM. Thankfully it doesn't happen super often.

I am thankful to live in a town with a full ban on public smoking; weed and tobacco are legal to buy, just not to smoke or vape in the city center.

It's a clear and rational line - do unto yourself if you must, but keep the air clean and don't force others to share your nasty habit.

Here's my $0.02 to all those who express confusion here:

76th Rule of Acquisition: Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.

I see a lot of people pushing weed as being safer than alcohol. There's a huge difference in the available data for both of these, not to mention the risk gradient of each based on dose and frequency. There are more known risks with alcohol, but it's not an apples to apples comparison based on the data. The final verdict is that neither is a "safe" choice based on the data, even if the risks differ somewhat between them.

Alcohol is one of the more dangerous drugs on most scales, so it's kind of a low bar?

The drug to beat would be safer than nicotine probably.

"Alcohol is one of the more dangerous drugs on most scales"

Can you provide those scales?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HarmCausedByDrugsTab...

"Note that alcohol (despite being legal and used more often than the other drugs) is by far the most harmful; not only is it the most damaging to societies, it is also the fourth most dangerous for the user. Most of the drugs were rated significantly less harmful than alcohol, with most of the harm befalling the user."

Thanks! Yes, a legal drug that is more widespread and more studied has more aggregate impact. Another sentence in that link specifically calls out legal and cultural impacts on harms. This is also in the UK, so it's worth noting there could be differences with the US. This does not negate my statement and in some areas bolsters it (data discrepancy claims).

Quitting an ethanol addiction cold turkey can often be deadly. There aren't very many other drugs that can do that.

I thought pretty much any barbituate, benzo, and some opioid based drugs would can also do that.

Wouldn't it be more meaningful if the DEA officially reclassified it? They set up the drug schedules.

I wish he had gone further! I am also deeply frustrated with past President's who alluded to legalization but never delivered anything, except empty promises at election time.

Marijuana is one of those political dog whistles they only talk about at elections, which funny enough we're nearing, but at least finally someone did something instead of just saying they would...

And this is how you win the mid-term!

There's a lot of discussion about these kind of issues being used as carrots to get people to the polls, but I'm not sure this is going to be one of them. Enough states of legalized at that..it may have lost its high. Certainly some will vote favorably because of this but .. I don't think it will be the same had someone had done this in 2015.......

don't do drugs, life is beautiful.

Every so often the Trump administration seems like they might actually care about getting my vote. A recent executive order making it easier to do research on psychedelic therapy is another example [0]. A policy shift to reform IRB review for social and behavioral science [1] would be really targeted at me.

I know politics is hard to talk about, but I generally think that we underappreciate the importance of being agentic in politics. Obviously I prefer that our government follow the law and uphold the constitution. But the many ways in which the current administration got things done by being quick, by "flooding the zone" [2], and by using tactics that apparently no one noticed before [3-4] are worthy of study and emulation.

I know the obvious response to this is to note that a lot of what they're doing is illegal, and again, I think that's bad. But they really make the current Democratic leadership seem out of touch and old [5] by comparison. Combined with policy positions that are far from the median voter's [6], it doesn't make for a winning look/platform.

[0] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/04/acce...

[1] https://www.cspicenter.com/p/its-time-to-review-the-institut...

[2] https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/02/tr...

[3] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/27/russell-vought...

[4] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/03/16/the-unmaking-o...

[5] https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-democrat...

[6] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-median-voter-is-a-50-someth...

I agree as a political science grad. In hindsight, the only surprising thing about Trump's rise to power was that WE were surprised. Trump was doing the #1 thing politicians are supposed to do; tell the people what they want to hear. Our establishment is just so out-of-touch with reality and in love with the status quo that they can't change.

While I agree that Dems have a long history of being dithering and feckless, and I like the cannabis and psychedelic changes, those wins just seem so incredibly small compared to the insane amount of corruption, incompetence, and maliciousness from this administration.

The spiteful killing of so much research funding alone dwarfs all of their minor wins. Wrecking clean energy projects are total self sabotage for the country. The utter lack of pollution enforcement will cause untold cases of cancer and other disease in Americans. Trump's family has stolen billions for themselves while destroying hundreds of billions of dollars in value with this idiotic Iran war they can't even articulate a plan or theory of victory for.

This is far from an exhaustive list. Trump is good at making minor high profile moves seem like a big deal, but it can really distract from the orders of magnitude worse decisions he's making elsewhere.

See also: not having to take your shoes off at airports, killing the penny.

"Trump administration finishes Biden administration effort to reclassify cannabis as less dangerous" would be a more accurate headline.

Now the next Democrat presidential candidate can't run on "legalize it." Might have to develop real strategy.

Which prospective candidates were you expecting to run on "legalize it"?

If the Democrats run on legalization they have already lost. Quite no one literally gives a shit about this besides the marginalized people it's going to affect negatively the most.

Can we move on to more important and substantive topics? Something something files.

I think "legalize it" in the platform is more likely to help a democratic presidential candidate than hurt one. Specifically, I think it might attract more liberal voters to the polls in swing states with illegal weed such as GA, NC, and WI.

I agree that I would expect a serious candidate to come with much bolder ideas, but it can fit into a platform in the same way "no tax on tips" fit into the 2024 election. One of many good ideas that will motivate a certain niche of voters.

> Can we move on to more important and substantive topics? Something something files.

Oh no too many of the powerful establishment democrats are friendly with the esteemed bankers, politicians and business leaders in those files.

It was Biden who initially ordered the reclassification of marijuana to schedule III in 2024: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/08/29/2024-19...

Trump is basically just pushing that order across the finish line.

Stoners probably don't vote (it's too much work), but dispensary owners do. And now they can start the process for allowing dispensaries into the banking system.

How that will work will be unclear, because technically marijuana is still a controlled substance. That said, pharmacies can bank, so at some level dispensaries can bank. Maybe only medical dispensaries can bank, and the recreational ones will piggyback off of them?

As a stoner, I vote :) My local growers club has a newsletter and we discuss pro-cannabis politicians, and the importance of voting for them. What inspires me - to a degree - is how diverse our group is politically/socially, but this is one issue we agree on.

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