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Comment by rkozik1989 | Hacker News Reader

rkozik1989

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.

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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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

> 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?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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