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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

It seems clearly safer in some respects, and I agree with you on the policy implications, but I think the apples-oranges safety comparison that gets made between MJ and (alcohol, tobacco) is misleading and a little dangerous. MJ is not purely benign. There's some evidence that it reacts very badly with a small subset of the population. That's obviously true of alcohol too, and if you want to argue that it's "as safe as alcohol" I'll concede the point (while retaining my nerdy irkedness over the imprecision of the statement).

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Shellfish, tree nuts, pumpkin, soy, and lots of other things very clearly react very badly -- indeed, fatally -- with a small subset of the population.

To the extent that we let this affect policy at all, its not to ban the products, its to make sure that (1) they are clearly identified when present in a composite product, (2) we very narrowly (usually as a matter of policy of particular facilities, which may be public policy to the extent that those are public facilities) restrict their use in circumstances where there is particularly high risk that extremely sensitive people might be subject to dangerous passive exposure.

Sure! I think I just wrote poorly in the previous comment. I definitely think we shouldn't have cannabis prohibition.

I just don't think it necessarily follows that cannabis is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, it's still not OK with me if my kids are using it.

I just don't think it necessarily follows that XXXXX is safer in all situations than alcohol or tobacco. Legal or not, I don't want my kids using it.

EDIT: Also, I presumably wouldn't want anyone under 18 to use it, same as alcohol and tobacco (basically, considering college, the drinking age is 18).

I'll go one further--it's clearly safer (in all respects) than either alcohol or tobacco.

My only fear with legalization is that it will get pulled from the grassroots production into industrial methods, and that in turn will lower its safety (as was the case, for example, with cigarettes and the additives in the paper for them).

The biggest safety problem with MJ is (as the original article hinted) the tendency in some people (especially teenagers) to increase the probability of them developing psychosis. This is why it is so apples to oranges. Yes, there are carcinogenic problems as well but the main problem is the increased risk of psychosis.

I'd be more concerned about its interaction with anxiety disorders, which are very common and underdiagnosed.

I'd throw in a LOT of anecdata for this one. For agitating full blown psychosis, few things are better than the array of legal highs. Where MJ (alone) has negatively effected the people I've known, it's always been down to some anxiety disorder.

If I were to start armchair theorising, I'd say it is because of cannabis' effect on the "linguistic center" of the brain. Couple this with nicotine - similar effect to cocaine in that it reduces the activity of neurotransmitter depletion enzymes - and you have serious potential for wild ideas that could interact with underlying issues to create disturbing problems. From the reclusive shut in, to the raging paranoiac, I've seen it all and I've often thought that the prevailing notion that the drug is benign is downright wrong. It is a drug. A very powerful drug. One to be respected and used wisely, and left the hell alone if it doesn't 'work' for you. But I agree wholeheartedly that it should not be criminalised.

Schizophrenia is another one that can become exacerbated by marijuana use.

To reply to the comment below also.

The substance of the cannabis-schizophrenia claims is largely based on Nordic research (given the extensive surveys carried out as part of Armed Forces programs). Typically (or at least in the study I have read), the association is based on around 10 cases in 10,000. Note that these are only the people who tested positive in their bloodstream, not those who (sensibly) stopped taking drugs a few weeks before joining the army.

After controlling for various factors, they found a significant association between marijuana use and later diagnosis of schizophrenia. I believe they used linear regression, rather than something more appropriate like survival analysis.

The interaction with anxiety disorders I am much less familiar with, can you provide some links (preferably to the original papers, even if they're paywalled)?

I don't mean to sound like a jerk here, but can you link the relevant studies?

We've had over half a century of malicious and premeditated disinformation on the topic of drugs--especially marijuana--and so forgive me if I'm skeptical of a claim which does reek somewhat of "think of the children!".

Just the first few results from Google Scholar.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0890856709...

http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/180/3/216.short

http://www.bmj.com/content/325/7374/1195.1.short

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395607...

None of those demonstrate causality, just that cannabis use is associated with, or predicts depression / psychosis. Is cannabis use causal? If so, how does cannabis cause psychosis? Or, are depressed kids more likely to try drugs? Some psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists opine that some people's drug use is the person's attempt at self-medication.

Causality is a notoriously hard thing to prove. I challenge you to find a study or two that demonstrate a similar relationship proving causality beyond any doubt.

Working in psychiatry research myself, I definitely don't trust a single study out there that claims to have found a simple relationship between such incredibly complex things as moods, bioactive substances, person's environment, genetics, etc (same goes for nutritional science, environmental science, economics, and so on).

To me much more compelling evidence are anecdotal cases from my personal life. I know people who have smoked all the time since their teenage years and who lead happy lives, but I have also seen how people can get really messed up from pot and how it goes away when they stop (although occasional episodes and mood swings can persist long after stopping). Other huge factors no one seems to talk much about are interactions between everyday stress and smoking, between coffee consumption and smoking, alcohol and smoking. The list goes on forever.

>Causality is a notoriously hard thing to prove.

That doesn't make it okay to invoke Chewbacca. The authors made the strongest argument they could. Some take that and bolster it as if it were concrete proof. If they really want to strengthen the connection, show some studies that reject the self-medication hypothesis.

>I have also seen how people can get really messed up from pot and how it goes away when they stop (although occasional episodes and mood swings can persist long after stopping).

People sometimes get really messed up without any drugs at all. As far as personal anecdotes go, I know more people who are recreational cannabis users whose lives are just fine than I do users whose lives are in turmoil. Of the recreational users I know who have suffered due to their drug use, the suffering can often be attributed or related to some punitive drugs policy.

I share the same fear about legalization: Phillip Morris will swoop in and start mass-producing packs of joints or find crafty ways to put small grow-ops out of business.

I think the "medical" route is the best way to go. Yes, it is a bit of hassle to go and get a green card, but I hope it will help slow the corporate industrialization of marijuana.

Furthermore, I think that marijuana's proper position in society should be that of a medicine, not as a general intoxicant.

It would be the same as the beer industry. There will be a couple Budweiser type brands that are mass produced, mass marketed, cheap, and consumed by 90% of the population. Then there will be craft brands that produce high quality small quantity products at high prices for the connoisseurs. There will also be hobbyists that want to produce their own.

Bring on full legalization, regulation and taxation. It is overdue.

Bring on full legalization, regulation and taxation. It is overdue.

Again, that's the trick here. Legalization and regulation could still end up banning production at home or anywhere but crazy high-grade pharma labs and greenhouses--especially if, for example, you are now suddenly on the hook for tax stamps or whatnot.

Be careful what you wish for.

Food coloring also reacts very badly with a small subset of the population, but we aren't banning M&M's

Who said we should ban M&Ms?

Why you of course! "...we should ban M&Ms" -tptacek

In the past it has been banned in quite a few countries (including my own) due to concerns over the food coloring agents used.

The blue ones were banned for a while, but that was because they give you super-powers.

edit: Sorry, it was the red ones that were "banned" for a short time. The public was frightened of red dye, even though according to Mars, they did not use the red dye that was suspect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M&M's#Color_changes_summarized...

HFCS reacts badly with the majority of the population, inducing adiposis. So does MSG. Don't forget about the pesticides you chow down on with every meal, or the chloride in your water, or the phthalates in your soda, or the BPA in your nalgene, or...

The US is terrible for substance safety. Dire. Awful. Hell, on the note of colouring, you still use bloody anthracine red, which has been banned for decades in the rest of the planet, as its carcinogenic.

MSG reacts badly with the majority of the population? Source?

It's unlikely they'll find a good one. (For the thread): The initial studies on "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" seem to have conflated overconsumption of sodium with MSG. MSG has the misfortune of being known primarily by an acronym, which makes it sound scarier than it actually is (ie, not remotely scary).

Yeah, that's why I asked. As far as I know, the idea that MSG is somehow bad for you is entirely an urban legend. But, as always, I could be wrong.

I might be wrong about MSG. IIRC animals produce the D- entantiomer (MSG is chiral), and industrially produced stuff is D- and L-, and apparently L- can be harmful.

The studies that rebutted the MSG connection in Chinese Restaurant Syndrome used industrial products, like Ajinomoto MSG.

So, I was a little unclear: I offered two arguments against the CRS/MSG connection: first, that MSG is a scary-sounding name for a chemical that plays a central role in our metabolism and nervous system; second, that studies have attempted to isolate MSG as a cause of CRS and failed to find a link.

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