I didn't think I could get addicted to weed | Hacker News Reader

I didn't think I could get addicted to weed

theguardian.com

36 pointsn1b0m42 comments

Ironically legalization has done more to reduce weeds popularity than any ad campaign. The old-school California medical system was honestly much better than what we see now though. Rather than moving marijuana to an alcohol type model, I wish they had moved alcohol to a medical marijuana one instead. Quick doctors appointment every 6-12 months on an opt in basis - just a check up to make sure you are partaking responsibly. America loves to make things a binary; all or nothing.

Devil's advocate: I don't need you to police my behaviors or protect me from myself. I know what I need better than you do.

This turns out to be false for addiction-class things like cigarettes, alcohol, and opium where a chemical dependency is statistically likely to form across an entire population. Oxycontin (for example) trivially overwhelms “I know my needs” and virtually the entire population is vulnerable, barring those very few of us with the anti-addiction adaptations (who then also tend to lack a working feeling of completion-success, which is a curse in its own right!). Most societies choose not to apply a Darwinian filter along those lines, as evidenced by the absence of addiction testing and culling at birth, so it doesn’t make much sense to consider that with adults, either — and as one of those few without the proper brain wiring for the rewards-addiction circuit, I have zero interest in a world populated exclusively by people with brains like mine. There are solidly good reasons we have these neurotransmitter systems and it’s a bad plan to winnow out those who don’t by applying an Randian ethos to drug policies.

Listing the three most addictive, dependency-inducing and mortally dangerous substances used by humans to temporarily achieve a stress-free mental state doesn’t mean cannabis belongs in the same neighborhood.

Simply denying regulatory authority over an intoxicant, as proposed by the devil’s advocate argument I replied to, is obviously incorrect: all intoxicants are intoxicating and intoxication carries a risk of addiction. Where to set regulatory hurdles versus illegalities is much less obvious, and worth considering, but it’s never ‘fully unregulated’ in a prosocial society; if one provides a substance of altered mind, then some subset of those altered will suffer addiction. That’s the downside of our relationship with poisons: sometimes they poison our willpower.

Too bad we live in the opposite of a "prosocial society"

That our society’s economic strategy is effectively “how close can we skirt the line to serfdom and slavery” has no bearing on the devil’s advocate proposal of wholly-unregulated intoxicants that I’m replying to. The state will tend to deregulate so long as the intoxicant leaves workers inefficiently functional when they’re at work, but to strictly regulate when it impacts the job market; yet, neither of these tendencies have any bearing on whether we should regulate or not, they’re just inherent biases to be aware of when discussing our society.

As well, take care not to assume that to regulate is to make illegal, make medical-only, impose punitive taxes, etc. Sometimes the outcome of regulation is refusing to get involved — but even then, you do generally (at least, if prosocial societal goals are given sufficient precedence) see societies tend to impose some kind of either age limits or mandatory mentor or religious process onto intoxicants with regard to however they define ‘minors’, so that teenagers have to work for it, can be statistically discouraged en masse without tripping their biological contrarian responses, can be chaperoned by wiser adults, etc.

Making substances completely illegal is the exact opposite of regulation, though.

I can construct many possible theories that underlie your claim but it would be rude for me to put words in your mouth and then reply to them. You’re welcome to offer an explanation if you’d like a second try. Though, I wouldn’t reply to ‘regulation has a special label at this one prohibitive extreme in specific’, which may save you a followup at least!

You can’t regulate the quality of things you don’t produce (or allow to be produced). You can’t regulate the sales of things you don’t sell (or allow to be sold).

It’s not so simple as ”intoxicant” being addictive.

Many ”intoxicants” are inherently not addictive and may even help getting rid of other addictions (ayahuasca / DMT / other psychedelics).

Many things are not ”intoxicants” yet are addictive.

Addiction is a feature of human physiology. More specifically, FosB turning into delta-FosB seems to be the generic marker of any type of addiction, and it directly drives addictive behaviors when overexpressed in the prefrontal cortex.

The physiology is a result of millions of years of evolutionary adaptation, and while it must have correlated with evolutionary fitness at some point(s) and in some scenario(s), modern humans are surrounded by so many novel stimuli and ways of self-stimulation that we simply have not yet had the time to physiologically adapt to the situation where some of our addictions are not actually conferring true increases in our evolutionary fitness.

but some people want to enjoy the recreational aspect who have no disability or strict medical need for the drug?

> Quick doctors appointment every 6-12 months on an opt in basis - just a check up to make sure you are partaking responsibly.

What would irresponsible partaking look like, and would doctors be able to actually detect it?

Nearly every prescription I've ever received has been pretty lax, with the only exception being one psychiatrist who prescribed me ADD medication - but only after I had both an EKG and an ECG done. Everyone else just asked me a few questions, and filled out the prescription.

Minor nit, but ECG and EKG are synonyms - the K is used because it is less likely to be confused verbally or in a written order... perhaps you mean EEG?

You know what, you're almost certainly right. One was a check to make sure my heart was ok, and the other one was a check to make sure my brain was ok.

What are you talking about. A. those systems don't make sure you partake responsibly, you even admit it yourself with the claim that legalization reduced popularity. and B. it's like so so so much better than alcohol or tobacco. Are you seriously suggesting that's where the bar should be for government regulation?

All drugs should be legal and we should have good programs to take care of you if you fuck up their use, it would be vastly cheaper and better for society than criminalization, especially if your claims about legalization reducing use are true.

>Quick doctors appointment every 6-12 months on an opt in basis - just a check up to make sure you are partaking responsibly.

I'm in a medical state that does this and it's just hilariously corrupt. That checkup to ensure responsibility is nothing more than a drug fee. There is nothing to it beyond a phone call where they ask you if you still want to be certified and you say "yes".

Even within the last ten years, in California, we were visiting. Went to a store. "Oh, we only sell medical", "Oh, sorry to bother you". They hand us a business card. "Just go outside the store, call this number, and they'll get your info, give them your card number (I want to say it was like $20?) then you can come back inside and will show up in our database.

"Do you have anxiety or trouble sleeping and do you think marijuana would help you with this?" "Yes I do." "Sounds good to me."

"As with other drugs, some people can be casual dabblers; other people, well, can’t." I think this is true. Unfortunately people (this article included) tend to talk about it as purely benign or unmitigated poison. I think the reality is that the dose, the frequency, and the role it plays in someone's life make it a positive or a negative. I wish we could get out of the hyperbole to be honest about the pros and cons.

Dose, frequency and role. Exactly like alcohol.

Like any intoxicant

There’s a guy from my parent’s generation who smoked. A lot. Extremely decent guy, one of the reasons I made it through my own childhood in one piece. He’s been clean for ten years. He tells me he can barely remember a 20 year stretch of his life.

Great guy, but not an advert for cannabis use.

I like South Park's take on this. If you smoke marihuana nothing will happen to you. 15 years later you will still be watching TV on your parents' living room couch :).

funny, because I started smoking marijuana and it actually got me out of my parents' house. I got my degree, got a career, got clean from everything else, got married and bought a house. i now work every day with other well-paid and well-regarded professionals and the preponderance of us that smoke weed every day just like Dr Dre ordered would be shocking to your sensibilities. maybe stereotypes aren't a good place from which to draw your worldview, because i think the primary driver there is less the truthfulness of the belief and more your comfort with it.

You obviously did not smoke / are not smoking enough!

About a hay bale’s worth a day should do them in!

Smoked a lot when I was younger, eventually decided that sitting around stoned was pretty boring, so I quit.

Quit sitting around?

No I still do that :)

This is so tired of an argument

Anyone can get behaviorally addicted to anything. Refined Sugar is currently the #1 drug in the world and people are dying and sick from it but nobody cares because people equivocate “sugar” from fresh mango and a nerds rope as the same

Addiction to cocaine alcohol or opiates are both behavioral and induce biological/chemical dependency

This is exactly the equivocation you see in practice:

“ Those withdrawing from heavy usage will experience a sharp decrease in dopamine release, which might encourage continued use. Studies have shown the risk of developing CUD is greater for those who start using before the age of 25, as Amy did, and for those who use heavily or have pre-existing mental health issues or genetic predispositions to developing addiction.”

> and for those who use heavily or have pre-existing mental health issues or genetic predispositions to developing addiction

Who would of thunk that those needing the medicine might overdo it?

But you are also equivocating:

>Anyone can get behaviorally addicted to anything.

This disregards the broad range of observed likelihood of a behavioral addiction to a given substance, and the magnitude of negative effects of such an addiction.

Likewise, saying 'nobody cares' about the amount of refined sugar in diet isn't even equivocating, it's just not true.

It's a psychological addition of being stoned and slightly detached from reality - no different to people munching pills every weekend at a rave or drinking enough to be tipsy (or wasted, if that's your thing)

It's escapism, pure and simple.

> Psychological addition [...] no different to people munching pills every weekend at a rave or drinking enough to be tipsy (or wasted, if that's your thing)

I can assure you pills and alcohol are much more than a psychological addiction.

The majority of people addicted to drugs have neurodevelopmental issues from childhood. A significant part have preexisting mental illness of one sort or another.

You can call it escapism because that would make sense to you if you were doing drugs, but for most addicts, it’s about being able to feel and act normal, like the others.

people think you can't get addicted to weed? What do they think potheads were

Just aggressively enthusiastic one-herb-cures-all medicinal enthusiasts?

As My co-worker once said: "I've been smoking weed every day for 20 years, and I'm still not addicted to it!!"

I have wine pretty much every week and I wouldn't say I'm addicted to it. Addiction doesn't just mean you do it a lot.

having one or two glasses of wine a few times a week is not enough to trigger any physical addiction. When looking at both pot and alcohol addicts I would assume abusing daily would be a requirement

I hate this narrative and hope people who push it have to be sober 24/7 for the rest of their lives. People will take this and use it to harass others with real world consequences. I used to respect The Guardian until it became a platform for Reddit journalism. Its now the favorite for conservative liberals.

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