Since the article and the study are light on the details of "persistent" Here's the supporting data's in a bit more detail[0].
Overall this makes sense to me as an individually who personally enjoys it. The whole point of getting high is to be impaired (for me). So it's not really telling me anything new. Like drinking, I can't expect myself to be 100% functioning the next day so plan accordingly.
The question is how long is that persistence and how much does it affect? Permanent? Doesn't really seem to be answered in a way that I was hoping.
Wow, impairment is not my intention at all. But, to not impair myself takes careful moderation and preparation.
For cognitive benefits or "virtuous pot smoking", I need to have exercise, sleep, right intentions, a clean room and music. If I do it right, I have transformational ideas. If I don't write them down, they are gone.
The first hour is often a wash. I expect little. I often combine with coffee. Then, after an hour, I can work for 6 hours with true inspiration. It makes me care so much. Music is key. It's basically a spiritual work experience. Less is more-- if I smoke too much or too often (3+ times per week) I'm just stoned.
I've been working on moderate, prepared, virtuous pot smoking for years. It is still a challenge, but I know i'm not the only high functioning cannabis user.
>It is still a challenge, but I know i'm not the only high functioning cannabis user.
There are plenty of people that are highly functioning and regular smokers of pot that don't go through this level of ceremony about their usage, and I am somewhat skeptical this level of preparation is even particularly helpful in making someone a high functioning cannabis user in general.
Not saying it doesn't work for you, but this sort of story is something of a shibboleth on HN where someone claims that they do X process with Y substance or even just mental attitude and produce Z results.
I don't disagree that set and setting will impact things, but this isn't really being presented as a "If I do these things I am more likely to enjoy the experience", but rather as "I have to do all of these challenging things to make the experience one that meaningful and otherwise it's just a stoner getting a stoned, but this challenge is what makes me a high functioning user of marijuana"
To me, it's the distinction between "being stoned" and "virtuous pot smoking" and the connection being made between the latter being something that "high functioning cannabis users" do.
Lots of people just get stoned. That isn't what makes them high functioning or not - it's whether that impacts their ability to have a productive and fulfilling life. For me, and the many people I know that are regular users, the answer is not really. I imagine there are likely some trade offs, but I and the people I know have good careers, fulfilling personal lives, and do it because we enjoy it, the same way I partake in other hobbies I enjoy.
I'm a mathematician. Back in the day, cannabis was a source of impairment. Now, a minimum effective dose of Indica from a vape pen helps me sleep. Except when it doesn't.
We value disruption in tech industries but our normative language for concentration, "focus" is lethal to creative thought. Reading math or daydreaming about research, one wants discursive ideas to intrude. This tool could be used for that... One wants to see with a generality not found in the source material, not be a good little "Simon Says" player.
Daytime consciousness is cognitive impairment. I wish the middle of the night could last forever.
There's the old trope that cannabis simply makes us believe we're being fantastically creative. So what? We're creatures who need affirmation. Interest, not raw technical reasoning ability, is the primary driver for creative research. Cannabis in moderation enhances interest.
Have you ever tried going on a hike in a forest during one of the experiences? It’s there you can realize we are living at the bottom of a sea of air. The trees are like coral and everything feels so alive. It’s like exploring the planet for the first time.
This is fairly similar to my work day. I paint 5+ hours a day and use very small amounts of THC in liquid form with headphones. I get into a flow state where time either slows down or speeds up but I'm rarely "impaired" unless it's accidental. What's maybe a little different than some people is the music I listen to is anything but chill. Death metal, hip-hop, classical, IDM, etc.
I originally started doing this because I've got chronic pain and it helps replace the pain signal. The flow state is an added benefit.
this is exactly the kind of sweet spot of weed consumption that i’ve been trying to hit lately.
a couple of years ago, in my first year of university, i had developed an unfortunate weed addiction (it really is quite convenient for those who want to escape painful lives into fantasy), but after a couple years of cold turkey, i found myself missing the refreshing change of perspective that weed can genuinely provide when used responsibly.
these days, i try not to smoke more than once a week, and when i do so i try to make sure it doesn’t bleed into the rest of my life in all the same ways you do. clean room, coffee, music, notepad.
i am wary of relying on psychoactive substances to be creative, but whenever i’ve hit a dead end with a project, weed has a way of inspiring me to find new ways to solve a problem — be that aesthetic or technical design.
music is godly when high, and i have had many genuinely transformative moments listening to new albums under the substance.
for those wanting to “microdose” weed (as opposed to smoking blunt after blunt to get blitzed), i can highly recommend the DynaVap, an analogue weed vaporiser. the extraction of THC is significantly more efficient than combustion, and because the chamber is relatively small, it promotes consuming the substance responsibly.
(semi-tangent, but microdosing LSD has also been life changing, and i think delivers similar benefits to “microdosing” weed but with less brain fog, more clarity and more reliability)
I recently started infusing my own oils to then use sublingually for similar reasons and it's been a revelation!
You can know pretty much exactly how much THC you're getting and adjust / repeat as necessary. I haven't smoked in years but I've been vaping (with a Pax) for the past couple of years and attempted to "microdose" but it was very unpredictable and sometimes I would get higher than I wanted which is not good when using it for "work" purposes (programming, music, video editing, etc).
I've also recently come to the conclusion that for me, Cannabis definitely falls into the "less is more" category, and I limit regular doses (ie vaping to get high) to once a week. I can use the oils multiple times (at doses of roughly 5mg) to get into the zone without negative consequences.
When I overdo it with vaping I have the usual issues with forgetfulness (struggle to find words etc) and my motivation definitely takes a hit. Also I've found that tolerance grows very fast the more you use it and it becomes quite unpredictable.
Oh and for me it helps to mix it with a bit of caffeine as well. Slightly off topic but as someone sensitive to caffeine, the perfect "delivery mechanism" for me is a small shot of espresso in the morning and then a whole bunch of Sencha the rest of the day. Calm focus and good mood and still able to fall asleep :)
Hah fair enough. Whole bunch is usually is 2 pots of 4 grams, 3 infusions each. But some people (like my wife) can guzzle filter coffee (much more total caffeine than my single shot) all day and have no trouble getting to sleep. Which makes me jealous. It’s all relative I guess
Sounds similar to me! Cannabis makes me think in a significantly different way, often going down rabbit holes. When something in my life isn't ideal (overweight, disorganized, sleep deprived, etc.), my high mind will go down negative rabbit holes. But if everything's going well, my high mind will come up with fantastic solutions to work problems or give me insight into how I can be a better person.
That's crazy. I have a playlist I've been adding to slowly since I was a kid of songs I cannot listen to because the emotional response is too much, it makes my skin physically crawl all over my body and I can't contain my emotions.
What about a good scene in a movie that speaks to you personally, I had a friend who had a go to movie that left him sobbing that he would watch to remind him he’s human, because he didn’t react to music and was pretty muted emotionally in general. I thought that was a cool trick for him.
Not really. Really no. My wife will be crying during parts of movies and looks over and ask me why I am not crying. She doesn't like my usual response, "This is a movie. None of this is real. They are actors." Also, I don't like watching movies more than once (too much to do, too much to see, too much to read in our short lifetimes to do any of it more than once).
Are there specific "strains" or formats/consumption methods that work best for you? I find it to be quite impairing or sedating...and sometimes even confounding.
I can see how music can induce creativity. But even so I often find myself unable to get into the same intentional creative state that even green tea and natural motivation provides.
For me: Do it alone. Do the first 5% of the task to get the momentum. Vape it slowly while doing the task. Combine w caffeine. Psych youself up by saying "what if...". Use low temp vape so co2 and physical symptoms don't interfere. Use it to let your curiosity propel you. Use the smallest amount you can to achieve the effect. Try different strains and keep track. Sometimes a body strain can put you in touch with your body, pushing you to stretch/lengthen and that makes you more productive. Sometimes heady strains are too weird, but this varies greatly w indiv. Also exercising on weed can be very effective esp in nature... just dont push yourself past limits and stretch and roll after.
Minimum Viable Dose is how I look at it. I like blasting off to the moon once in a while, but a 1-gram dispensary preroll is often enough to knock me out and put me to sleep if I'm not careful.
I keep a weed vape, as well as different sized pipes. The big, fancy one is great for extended/shared sessions, but the smallest one (called a bat, I think. It looks like a straight glass tube, with a small 'pinch' near one end) is my idea of a perfect single serving. It takes a bit of practice, but gives me between 3 to 5 light hits.
I drink a lot of water and never eat until I want to come down. When I eat, I become mortal again. Really, if you can just avoid eating, it is a completely different high.
I definitely agree with doing it alone. I also use a fake cigarette "one hitter," as it is a minimal amount. It is always enough to work.
Also, yoga. Going to a Yoga class after a puff is just so healthy. Building health habits into drug use is a very good harmony of interests. Helps convince my wife that I'm not just getting stoned-- if I smoke, do work, work out, generate, etc—its hard to judge. (She also likes the sex—which Carl Sagan also talked about-- search for Mr x).
I believe Cannabis has a sort of state dependent memory. If you make an effort to fill cannabis experiences with lots of positive, productive, aesthetic events, it kind of "comes out" other times when you smoke. So, it takes practice! So, smoke before going to a museum, a concert or upon reaching the top of a mountain-- positive recreational use is another way to prepare for applied work-oriented use.
Never use it to escape. Use it to sensitize. And if you need it to solve your problems, that's a good sign that you might want to take a break.
Just curious, have you tried doing everything except smoking? Or maybe a conventional cigarette/something else you like. I just wonder when you have so much other 'theatre' (I don't say that putting it down) around it, how much can actually be ascribed to the cannabis.
Also, just listened to a few tracks from that, wow no way I could get anything done, I'd just drift off to sleep! (I've never used cannabis, but I imagine that would only make that more likely if anything, not less?)
I listen to much more 'up-beat' music while working sometimes; with lyrics but mostly that I don't understand. Ironically I started the playlist partly out of trying to learn the language (Hindi), but mostly it's too fast/advanced/niche for me to pick up much, so for this purpose it's roughly equivalent to not having lyrics I suppose. Except that I might mouth-along to particularly catchy bits even though I don't know what I'm saying usually.
Not parent, but if I could alter my state to be like-high without smoking weed, via sheer mental willpower or focus, I'd have probably started a cult by now.
If it was a teachable practice, I'm sure I'd have plenty of followers to boot.
No one starts cults any more. The lack of drug cults is proof! I'd love to go to some chill temple environment on the weekends and connect to ultimate reality.
I've been tossing around the idea of a primarily web-based cult for a few days, I'll let you know if we get any traction.
It's still in the ideation stage, and we don't have anything other than a few 'what-ifs', but this is tech, so it's not like we need to be fully implemented before we start taking members.
Your comment strikes me cause I’ve been doing the same with alcohol - not to get drunk but to impair some of the logical thinking and analysis in the evenings.
Funnily enough I started to deal with ADD/ADHD in my family recently and learned from the doctor that this kind of behavior is symptomatic in adults.
To cut it short, I think a tiny amount of alcohol can be a superb bargain. It allowed me to stay a bit neutral in parties (instead of crippled by anxiety and phobia). And being around people, even like a wallpaper had strange positive effect on my moral. I don't know if doing that long term (even tiny amount of beer) would harm your body, but having zero social life is also very very damaging.
Well, we are social creatures. Even the most introverted of us (finger points at self). So no surprise that being around parties/other people has a positive effect on moral.
The health benefits of the social contact almost certainly outweigh the negative health impacts of a tiny amount of alcohol.
A lot of drugs make you more social, but sadly they are all outlawed except alcohol. MDMA was used for years to lubricate psicotherapy sessions, until the FDA found out that some people was having "too much fun", banned the thing, and denied it has any possible positive effect. Only two years ago it seems that it is going to be reseached again.
Thomas Szasz has some books about drug history and the paths that turns a substance from legal to illegal. It only takes a high level guy to find the usage, made up some "facts", and illegalize it. Sadly, society is quick to buy those lies. E.g. someone claimed that some guys on LSD stared the sun for too long and got blind. It was a hoax, but so many media repeated the story that it got ingrained in the society that LSD is highly dangerous.
I am surprised to learn that Szasz was in support of any drug use in therapy, given that he went on to cofound CCHR, a branch of the church of scientology whose mission it is to ban psychiatry.
These are the people who claim "psychs" killed Kurt Cobain
Perhaps slightly TMI, but it's HN so let's share some fun ideas I have about this.
__Stress is most likely super linear__
Not a doctor, but from what I know, the biggest negative effects of alcohol occur with binge drinking. From a logical perspective it makes sense that the negative effects are super linear, because that is the case with many forms of stress. When it comes to stress, there is always some threshhold value that you need to reach. When it is just over that threshhold value, you hurt, but you hurt a lot more if you reach 1.5threshhold value because there is 0.5threshhold value to wreak full havoc on your body while 1*threshhold value is being occupied with your body. Obviously, this way of thinking is simplified, but I think that's the intuition as to why many (but not all) forms of stress are super linear.
__Effects of alcohol in small and large quantities__
I think I've learned this particular fact about alcohol in my psych classes though, I can't fully remember so I can't cite sources (!). Another thing that I have learned is that alcohol is an upper at low quantities (1 to 2 standard glasses of beer), it gets your heart rate up, etc. It is a downer at larger quantities (e.g. drunk people at 10 standard glasses of beer). If you don't drink much alcohol, then you are most likely experiencing it as an upper, it doesn't continue that way.
I like to drink 1 to 2 glasses as well because of what you said, but also because it's an upper. When I was in my drug experimentation phase a few years ago, I've noticed I like uppers more.
__How to create upper effects without alcohol__
You don't have to drink alcohol to create an upper effect, when you go to a party, try this the next time: exercise beforehand, like a 3 to 6 mile run (if you have the stamina for that otherwise build it up). That will also produce a mild upper effect like alcohol. Another trick you can do is to present yourself as a hugger at the party (well maybe not with corona) and hug everyone you meet, that will also produce an upper effect. Also, dancing at parties will produce an upper effect (any aerobic exercise really).
My workshop on partying is open again in the summer, applications are open :P I guess I miss that time of my life. Partying sober is something to get used to, but it's possible (before I started experimenting with drugs, I started experimenting with partying sober, I've seen both sides).
> Another thing that I have learned is that alcohol is an upper at low quantities (1 to 2 standard glasses of beer), it gets your heart rate up, etc. It is a downer at larger quantities (e.g. drunk people at 10 standard glasses of beer). If you don't drink much alcohol, then you are most likely experiencing it as an upper, it doesn't continue that way.
> I like to drink 1 to 2 glasses as well because of what you said, but also because it's an upper.
That's an awesome share! Thanks for mentioning it it.
More importantly, it's definitely not the case that that organization is real, it's merely fiction. And I definitely am not trying to thwart it by inticing people to drink one to TWO glasses.
However, if it were to be real, then one could say that my plan might be diabolical indeed.
> Another trick you can do is to present yourself as a hugger at the party (well maybe not with corona) and hug everyone you meet, that will also produce an upper effect. Also, dancing at parties will produce an upper effect (any aerobic exercise really).
This advice is not very productive for people who drink because they have social anxiety at parties though :-)
Normally people say exponential, but I think that's a silly term as it is quite a specific term since it means that the exponent is a variable (e.g. 2^x, 3^x, for every n, so n^x). For example, x^2 is super linear, but it isn't exponential. Yet, I'm fairly sure that I've heard people say that something is "exploding exponentially" but what they meant is that it's super linear since they got the faintest clue how much faster their projections are going compared to a linear projection.
Interestingly, this is the reason I decided many years ago _not_ to drink (or consume cannabis).
Like the parent, I don't find the reported results especially surprising - the part that would have been most interesting would have been how long after intoxication the observed effects last. Also, unfortunately, it's also clear that not everyone is as prudent with their cannabis consume as them, taking their performance even on the day after into account. I respect that sense of responsibility.
What was the treatment, I presume medication, but was anything preventative-proactive or non-medication prescribed or suggested first re: lifestyle changes like cleaning up diet etc?
Unfortunately, a lot of research is focused on children and and not a lot of things are being tested (due to safety of children research I presume), however this start to change and more adult-based reasearch is being made. While there is no golden bullet most of the proposed changes are non-intrusive.
What we're doing is changing our diet foremost. More Omega-3 acids, shifting toward protein diet and supplementing magnesium and vitamin D. We put a bowl with a lot of nuts (and small bits of chocolate) and it's disappearing astoundingly fast (we were eating nuts before, but by making it more accessible it's just "the stack" and because there are like 8 varietes in the bowls + chocolate chips no one complains about it being bland). ADD/ADHD has a lot of comorbidity with gut issues, so fibre is important too.
And there is more and more and more. Making sure that physical activity is present (as it's great dopamine booster), keeping track of sleep patterns (sleep deprivation is common as many ADD/ADHD are light sleepers), recognizing activities with hypnosis like effects, so to not get too drawn in and so on.
But in the end there's a lot of knowledge that is power itself. ADD/ADHD has ~70% (lately I heard 76% figure from one doctor) transmissibility, and thus being able to work with it better makes for better family life and parenthood. Family member had a burst of anger this year during Christmas like pretty much every year prior. Few years back? Everyone were scared of escalation and sat in silence for 2 days. This year - everyone shrugged it off as a brain explosion and we went on with holiday celebrations.
I would really recommend getting tested if you just as suspect that you or those close to you might be affected by ADHD. ADD/ADHD in adults (and women!) is somewhat new discipline so it might be hard to check oneself out (especially since in some countries it's trivialized by general practitioners as a simple gateway towards stimulants). Worst case you spend some money but the best case you get a portal to a wealth of self knowledge.
Another view, is that, except for the extremely strong willed, getting used to a serene state of mind is addicting and kind of counter productive.
Perhaps, addictive is not the right word. But it seems to me (purely from a human nature perspective) its similar to obesity (Eating food is not "addictive", but there is a definite element of "craving" and inability to overcome that craving).
All in all, such substances are not natural and, with unchecked use, might put a whole society in danger. This is the reason I am ambivalent about the whole movement to legalize it.
But they are natural, aren't they? No less natural than the watermelon we are all eating (it might be cultivated), and I don't see anyone wanting to criminalize eating watermelon. Weed, tobacco, alcohol, coca leaves, poppy, they are all natural.
Also, even if it's natural, it has nothing to do with its dangerousness, so I don't follow your argument.
With regards to legalizing it, I'm on the side that if alcohol and tobacco are legal, weed should be legal, too. They are all bad for you in some sense, but we need to balance that with freedom and individual choice, and to me, they are pretty similar.
By natural, I meant, natural for regular human consumption. Not as in natural from mother earth.
Alcohol and tobacco are extremely dangerous and detrimental to any society.
What blows my mind is young teens, barely out of education, harping and celebrating the ability to drink. To me, that's insane. Why does a young person need to drink alcohol? When studies after studies have show how it affects human life in general. From health issue to societal problems to relationship issues.
In my view, alcohol should be shunned and should never be glorified.
When you bombard a child with images, videos, movies and acts of drinking day in and day out, you normalize it. And that is terrible.
I think there is a cultural aspect. As a kid in Italy (>10yo), it was "ok" to have a glass of something like beer+sprite or wine+sprite during a meal. Maybe 1-2% of alcohol, it was cool and would obviously not get you drunk nor tipsy.
Having a glass of wine during a family meal, or a beer with your pizza with friends, was likewise pretty common and done mostly because of basic gastronomic pleasure.
This is _very far_ from the binge drinking/getting wasted culture which has been prevalent in the anglosphere for a while, and that has sadly expanded to a large part of the world since.
It's not drinking that should be shunned, but getting drunk.
Exactly on point. In Portugal, another southern-europe country, the rituals are quite similar. Drinking is normal.
Getting drunk though, used to be very not appreciated and shameful. Actually it is not very "macho" to be drunk because then you look vulnerable; out of control. The contrary of the cultural form of macho. This goes to the point that there used to be a thing where people who got drunk knew they should either quietly leave or just be very quiet. Hell even I still follow that. The downside of that is that alcoholism in Portugal is a very private matter and often not properly treated. Families break apart, but nobody from the outside sees it. When drunk, leave or shut up.
One thing I have a bit of a difficulty in Poland is that generally people have a very fast drinking rhythm that I know will lead me to drunkenness pretty fast and i come out as a wuss or not a jolly guy, because I reject such rhythm. On the other hand people look at me sideways when if I drink regularly a glass of wine or beer at meals. One of the things that got me a bit sad was losing the ability to drink a beer(20-0.33cl) beer at work break lunch as this is illegal here and very frowned upon. Another thing is the drinking and driving. In Portugal and quite a lot of countries in Europe(Germany for example) the blood-alcohol limit is 0.5, which allows for a single glass of wine or a 20cl beer, but in Poland it is 0.2 which means one is effectively banned from drinking at all if driving. Truth be told I believe the 0 drink and driving is the way to go. I know of too many situations where people start with good intentions and get carried away. Nowadays when i go to Portugal I feel be guilty if i even touch a drink at a meal and drive afterwards(very common due to the restaurant culture).
In Portugal, nowadays there is a normalization of the drunkenness in younger people as a way to signal one is having fun, but it feels an imported thing. Binge drinking is also on the rise, with day to day drinking falling.
They are not "natural" in the sense that humans don't consume ethyl alcohol to survive, in fact it is often quite damaging to biological systems. Apart from some microbes I'm not aware of any other organisms that use alcohol as their energy source.
Alcohol/thc/caffeine/nicotine (you name it) do not fall in the "natural" diet of humans. Most psychoactive substances are metabolites which plants/fungi store in them to deter other animals from eating them.
Still we are not hamsters - hamsters can take 20x the amount of alcohol per body weight as humans, because for them it IS natural to base their diet on fermented fruits from their stashes. Humans are not like that.
Your argument is absurd. Sure, some caveman consumed alcohol that happened to occur naturally a gazillion years ago. So? You think huge factories producing alcohol and all the issues associated with it are justified?
By what you say, if whole of humanity consumed only naturally fermented fruit, I would half-heartedly agree.
> You think huge factories producing alcohol and all the issues associated with it are justified?
Humans also don't "naturally" need to be writing fictions, or draw pictures or make movies. And conversely, murder is pretty natural - take a look at how often it happens in nature!
Whether something is "natural" or not is a bit irrelevant - the big question is whether the action should be acceptable for humans to do. Drinking alcohol affects the person drinking it, but it gives them some comfort, or happiness. As long as they don't drink so much that it harms another person, i say they can do what they wish!
For thousands of years humans routinely (e.g with every meal, even children) consumed low alcohol beer/wine), because it could be safely stored for extended periods, unlike water.
Sure, just like lacto-fermenting foods to preserve them. However stored water could always be boiled? I have always thought it was funny that the most obvious "health benefit" of tea-drinking was boiling water to prepare it (yes, I realize not all teas are brewed so hot, and there are plenty of interesting compounds in there, but still...)
Is anybody in this discussion advocating alcohol as a staple food?
A staple food is something that makes up a dominant portion of one's diet; it's beyond a mere common or everyday food.
A staple food, food staple, or simply a staple, is a
food that is eaten routinely and in such quantities
that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard
diet for a given person or group of people, supplying
a large fraction of energy needs and generally forming
a significant proportion of the intake of other nutrients
as well
I would certainly agree with you that alcohol is not a very safe choice for a staple food!
SSRI's or Benzodapines have severe side-effects, yet relying on them to survive isn't seen as disruptive to society. There may be an argument against self-medicating with Alcohol or Cannabis, but them being un-natural isn't it.
Sure, but what if you tripped and sprained your ankle? Yeah it hurts in the moment, but would it cognitively impair you the next day? It certainly might; maybe when you're thinking about something while in the shower, you put too much weight on the ankle and the pain makes you drop your train of thought. I think the point that GP was going for was (or what I read at least) that there are many human experiences which cause some form of cognitive impairment; it's more important to see how deleterious the impairment actually is to the individual and to society before judging it.
Maybe. It may be worth considering, however, that the reactions humans/other animals have to these substances are not necessarily accidental. Mammalia is young, plants are old, and have tamed us in many ways.
> unchecked use, might put a whole society in danger.
So you mean that if, for example, over 50% of the population was using a known mind-altering drug, society might go to shit?
Do prescription psychiatry medicines count?
You might want to take a look at what % of the western world has such a prescription. Between opiods, amphetamine, and anti-depressants, I think the US passed the 50% mark some time ago.
When my wife and I were dealing with our daughter spending 9 months in the NICU at the childrens hospital, any time my wife would cry the nurses would “tattle” on her and the psychiatrist would contact her trying to give her antidepressants. She’d be extremely irritated each time. “My child is very ill and could die, the way I’m reacting is precisely the correct response and I wouldn’t want to blunt it or negate it in any way”. It just felt like we lived in the land of the Lotus Eaters or something.
Absolutely. What ever I have read or heard about those drugs (most of it from peoples experiences on reddit and all), it is clear to me that they don't actually solve any issue, and simply make the mind numb. In some cases, perhaps that is required.
But why is it that the worlds richest country need to keep 50% of its population on drugs?
That is a societal flaw, and worryingly a self sustaining one at that.
I also attribute it to the hyper-velocity lifestyles, lack of stable marriages, excessive consumption of media in general and social media in particular. And most importantly, a materialistic point of view where the whole purpose of life is for pleasure, partying and enjoyment.
That’s a very reactionary attitude… you’re simply blaming all the “unknown” “new stuff” for everything negative in life.
I bet people blamed excessive reading of books, or “a materialistic point of view” during the Romans, the Middle Ages… modernity… hey, who coined the phrase “o tempora! O mores!”
If we agree that there is a mental health crisis (I'm on the fence on that honestly, but if), then it becomes natural to consider the causes of it. And where else would we find the causes than in the "new stuff"? A useful question may be what "new stuff" is more and less likely to be the cause? Trying to think of something new that is definitely not the cause might be interesting.
> But why is it that the worlds richest country need to keep 50% of its population on drugs?
100% of humans on earth are on drugs. Everything we consume is mind-altering. Sugars are just as addictive as drugs if not moreso. This is not an exaggeration, it's a change in perspective; wrestling back control of our subjective experiences from those who would outlaw what they don't understand (or for more nefarious reasons...). We have to start looking at food especially food consumed for non nutritive purposes in this new lens too. Heck even singing and dancing have been used the world over to illicit an altered state.
We also need to stop pining for a perfect self that is drug free. What does one gain by keeping oneself "pure"? It's not even possible but many limit the scope of what they consider mind-altering until the goal post matches their current state.
Once you accept that and embrace the idea that our minds are simply faucets of sensory experience that we subconsciously keep at a slow trickle of manageable info, you can start enjoying the turning of the spigot. You can start to appreciate the different subjective experiences that all things provide.
As an added bonus, we can all collectively change our tendency to look down upon those who've used and this energy can integrate others and prevent abuse. You don't have to look hard to find stories of reduced or eliminated drug enforcement bettering society.
The fact that this research starts by calling it "impairment" tells you that they have come prepared with their rose-tinted glasses. I don't want to belittle their work but I fear they've already aligned themselves with the classic anti-drug ethos.
In me, it's partially a coping mechanisms, and a method to to silence the brain demons. It's interesting that you brought up food, because I'm an emotional eater too.
I've had them under control for a while now, but the emotional eating is a struggle sometimes. I need to trick myself into not doing it.
For weed it's less of a struggle because I genuinely notice the "persistent" effects (no more than a few days in me), which effect my mental performance and emotional state.
Also, after quitting the binge I had withdrawal (I'm told for weed it's very mild, but it's horrendous nonetheless). More details to this in this video https://youtu.be/7u_cm5b1s7Y
I now smoke weed when I plan/want to for fun, and it's very occasionally...
I used to drink a litre of brewed coffee a day, when I worked at home. I drank it from 9AM to 4PM. When I resumed office work, that fell to about 3 shots a day (espresso equivalent), all by itself. No withdrawal.
Now I'm retired. I drink one strong coffee in the morning, with occassionally a shot later, on te rare occassions when I pass my fave coffee shop.
None of these changes required any effort, or even any intention; they just happened. There were never withdrawal symptoms. By comparison, I have withdrawn from both alcohol and nicotine; nicotine calls loudly, but alcohol withdrawal is really horrible (and dangerous).
That's interesting! I never heard of caffeine withdrawal before, but it makes sense when I think about it. I know a lot of people who say they that can't function with caffeine.
I'm not a big coffee drinker (and usually mix it with decaf, because too much makes me feel weird). So I'd probably be okay on that front.
How much coffee do you drink daily? I drink maybe one cup, and that's mostly for the taste (hence the decaf).
Caffeine withdrawal is very very unpleasant. If it's a daily habit and you abruptly cease consumption (aka "cold turkey") you're going to be in hell for at least a day. Usually more.
Occasionally you'll hear people talk about quitting this way with zero withdrawal. They may or may not be telling the truth. But I suppose outliers always exist. Definitely not the norm though.
I know a lot of people who say they that can't function with caffeine
Yeah, because of the withdrawal. They could function fine without it, once they got past the withdrawal.
Of course, there's really no need to suffer painful withdrawal. It's pretty easy (at least physically) to just taper it down to 0mg per day over the course of ~5-7 days.
the problem with caffeine is, that once you are clean of it, you quickly get hooked on it again (due to socializing).
Every meeting revolves around drinking coffee or tea or cola.
Interesting to hear that experience. I've never really felt like there was social pressure to drink caffeinated drinks whatsoever. Seems like there's always more people not drinking caffeinated drinks. Particularly executive types. Just my experience.
Tolerance builds quickly. At one point I could down a Red bull (about the same amount of caffeine as a strong cup of coffee) half an hour before bed and go straight to sleep.
Caffeine withdrawal is very individual and affected heavily by how much tolerance you've built up and dose, but worst case it's a week long hell of headaches, cold sweats and diahorrea.
For my part I tend to get maybe 200mg or so a day.
Unless incredibly severe I think the consequences should not impact it’s legality.
People will use it legal or not. If it’s legal you can charge taxes and spend that money on addiction prevention and treatment. Help people with addiction problems instead of putting them in jail.
Addiction is often a symptom of underlying mental health problems, you don’t solve those with punishment.
And that’s even disregarding the amount of crime and violence illegality creates.
Being legal adds a whole lot of marketing push and general acceptance in the population, especially young ones.
Time and again I see so many stories of young people fucking up their lives, and wasting so much of their lives trying to correct mistakes. Something which should have been guided by elders and well-wishers. But US society is neck deep into "individuality" at their own detriment.
A society that is taught from day one to be "independent" will discover that generations after generations will keep making the same mistakes. Same debt traps, same drug problems, same unhealthy choices.
As the others mentioned; Advertising should be banned.
I do agree though that general change is needed.
Imo it comes down to education on drugs, facilitating safe use, and treatment of mental health issues and addiction.
"Don't do it, but if you do; do it as safe as possible. If you get into trouble; get help." is imo the only sensible drug strategy.
It's one thing to say "drugs are bad mkay" another to actually explain what the risks are and just provide basic practical tips on how you can reduce risk if you do take drugs.
Things like not using too much of anything at once, getting drugs tested, making sure you do it in a safe environment, not mixing drugs, clean needles (although really don't do those types of drugs), etc etc.
Also make sure people know the difference between weed and for example heroin, meth and fentanyl. Not all drugs are equal, weed is relatively harmless.
Lastly testing; It should be facilitated. Here it's quite common to get your pills and powders tested. It's free and facilitated. It saves lives as you make sure people don't OD on pills that contain fentanyl instead of whatever the user expected it to be. Same for legal weed btw, I believe in the US the quality is much better because of legalization. These things work, they literally save lives.
You can prevent so much pain and suffering by simply accepting the fact that people will use drugs and adjust your policies based on that fact.
It sounds like you've identified the thing that should be illegal. Unfettered capitalisation on any product that can harm the population is generally a terrible idea, and the product frequently has nothing to do with it.
It should be the same for any potentially dangerous drug. Legalize it, tax it and ban advertising it completely. This should be applied to alcohol and tobacco as well. Advertising beer, wine or smoking should be forbidden.
"Natural" in an ambiguous that is impossible to define properly, yet it casts some morality on behaviour.
Anyway, the need for intoxicating itself seems to arise in more animals that have high developed cognitive abilities, Dolphins get high on passing around poisonous fishes, monkeys rub centipedes over their body and there are many more examples.
Mushrooms, smoking, fermented fruits and grains have been part of human lives for hundreds of thousands of years.
It seems that animals with high cognitive abilities feel the need to turn it off at times.
"Appeal to nature" isn't a logical fallacy, it just assumes some things about how things should be. You might disagree with those assumptions, but you, too, have beliefs about how things should be.
In which case it would be much more honest to say "I think this is good or bad" or "these are my values and they are not subject to debate" rather to propose that thing you like is the natural state of affairs and offer that up as if it were a proposition that you were debating. Or worse, the null-hypothesis from which some nebulous burden of proof is assumed for the opponent.
In other words, it is a dishonest strategem which relies on the other party making the logical fallacy that the natural state of affairs must be good, or that a burden of proof lies with them, instead of recognizing this as the sleight-of-hand that it is.
So I think GP was just being polite by calling it a logical fallacy :)
So don't smoke. There are other ways of consuming with out inhaling the aftermath of burning. Yes, I know the effects are different in how one is affected. The smoking of anything has always been a curious "ritual" to me as it is so against everything the body is made to do.
I have developed this pet theory that humans have grown fond of fire and will feel secure in its presence. How do they know they're at a fire instead of just basking in the sun? When they are inhaling, I mean smelling, its fresh smoke of course!
I don't find it far-fetched to assume that an affinity to fire was selected for over the last millennia. Why, we even have a mutation that makes us less susceptible to carcinogens in smoke compared to other mammals. That would make smoking, and smoking indoors, an activity that replaces the open fires we're accustomed to.
Standard disclaimer for evolutionary theories: They are ill-suited to determine social policy.
That's some theory. Personally, I don't buy in to it. The concept of a burning end of a ciggy replacing an actual fire is just too far out there for me to accept in some far reaches of the human psyche is out there.
Smoking is an acquired taste. As is alcohol. We learn to like things that make us feel good, and learn to dislike things that make us feel bad (poisonous or spoiled).
Yes, it's almost as if society has developed firmly established norms about substance use which are so irrational as to be totally incoherent, and ITT you can find people reflexively confabulating justifications for those norms or trotting out the same tired old bromides to reassure themselves that the topic is being debated and that everything is fine.
Or maybe my drug-addled brain is just seeing pink elephants everywhere ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Given the amount of alternative “medicines” building on that heuristic, I fail to see where it is useful other than for scam artists.
Sure, there are biological inventions we can copy and refine for possibly even better inventions - but those are useful not because they originated from nature but because evolution found a locally optimal solution to a problem.
Well, being able to identify potentially locally optimal solutions without having to go through an entire optimization process yourself is a pretty powerful heuristic in my book.
Out of curiosity: How does any argument become more or less logical depending on its context?
Your comment reads to me as if the concept of logical fallacies is only useful or valid within the framework of rhetorical competitions – or alternatively that logically invalid reasoning is useful if you're only interested in making a decision, rather than making a correct or well-informed one.
You can’t just throw out the word “human nature” and expect anyone to accept it. “Human nature” just means “this thing we all know about how the world and people work, come on… now don’t be difficult”. It means nothing.
We are biological beings and our biology determines our diets, neurology, endocrinology, and multiple other factors about our lives. Whether people like it or not, we do have a biological human nature that shapes many aspects of our behaviour and culture.
> except for the extremely strong willed, [...] addicting
Addiction isn't about willpower so much as psychopathology and genetics. It's a coping mechanism.
> getting used to a serene state of mind is [...] kind of counter productive
What is suspect about serenity? Is religion equally problematic as a source? How is it counterproductive?
> such substances are not natural and
A naturalist argument is usually invalid. We can't expand upon the rules of the universe. Plastics are just as natural as anything else. Cannabis also doesn't induce any foreign states in our brains.
Even using the narrow definition of "can't be found in the wild": cannabis is a plant, so it very much does exist in the wild. So do alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, psilocybin ("magic mushrooms") or ergotamine (LSD).
When applied to brain chemistry: to my knowledge, drugs don't do novel things to our brains. They promote infrequent states, but that doesn't make them unnatural. Especially not if you consider how alien dream states, meditative and transcendental experiences feel.
> with unchecked use, might put a whole society in danger
Adding a slippery slope to it doesn't improve your line of reasoning. It does tend to whip the masses into a frenzy, like its cousins "Won't somebody think of the children" and "Why should we help those who won't help themselves?".
It also doesn't conform to reality. Have California or Colorado collapsed because weed was legalised? Have the Netherlands?
> I am ambivalent about the whole movement to legalize it
Decriminalisation seems obvious to me as a solution, if coupled with a sorely needed investment in mental healthcare (across the West). The latter is necessary regardless of how we consider drugs - see homelessness, domestic violence, suicide, burnouts, etc. Decriminalisation works (cf Portugal's results), dries up income sources for the cartels, allows quality controls to be put in place, reduces stigmatisation for users, lowers the threshold for seeking therapy, keeps people out of prison for victimless crimes, creates a revenue source for the government through sales and other taxes...
The alternative to decriminalisation is telling the population "we know best". Looking at the so-called war on drugs globally, it's also an endeavour that's bound to fail, strengthen drug cartels, escalate violence and cause more damage than it prevents.
I've seen some people using Cannabis in the way you describe over longer periods of time. In the short term there is no difference. Over the longer time (say a decade) the effect is noticeable to the point that they were no longer able to function in a job that they held down with ease beforehand.
These are pretty heavy users though. I don't have any heavy user in my surroundings that was not affected like that, but the sample size is small enough that this could easily be coincidence.
Personally, I have been a heavy user for well over a decade and I'm attaining not only promotions including greater responsibility at work in tech but high educational achievements as well so YMMV
Nearly all my friends who smoked it didn’t have any major issues until about 20 years in. YMMV also. Do not assume that short term trends apply in the long term.
People can be quite different neurologically. Some may see issues while others see benefits. I'm not neurotypical and I actually get a great degree of benefit from my cannabinoid use.
Best way to look at this is to wait until you’re at least 50 and compare with your peers who used it regularly for the last 30 years or so if you didn’t. There’s a 100% correlation on what you suggest.
The people I'm talking about are in positions where being smart isn't optional. One poster here provides a nice datapoint to the contrary, and there are probably others. But the interesting thing to me about the people that I know is that they themselves are not aware of it. They attribute their changes to a host of other factors but never to their Cannabis use.
Well there’s smart and there’s smart. It seems to drive obsessive and paranoid tendencies in people which can be a positive impact on work and a negative impact on social behaviour at the same time.
I have seen the same lack of association before as well. A friend’s relationship has broken down due to his paranoia but that according to him doesn’t come from the 25 years of smoking cannabis but her behaviour. She doesn’t smoke and is perfectly normal in any way and I feel really sorry for the poor woman.
I use it as a sleep aid via CBD pills with an equal amount of THC. THC just knocks me out. Dosage is consistent and there’s no smell. I don’t enjoy the high from THC vs alcohol, so I just sleep through it. THC’s high feels like my brain is being “underclocked” which isn’t a pleasant experience for me personally.
I’ve tried living without it during the lockdowns since working from home saves hours. From eight months of not using it, I’ve found that I lose about 2-3 hours of sleep per day which drastically affects my performance. I’ve tried melatonin and I consistently workout every week, but nothing is as good as a sleep aid for me as THC
Melatonin to put me deep under and keep me from waking up 5 hours in and not being able to fall back asleep.
Best sleep of my life. Wish I'd found the combo years ago. Had trouble falling asleep since I was a little kid. Prescription sleep aids I've tried (or, god forbid, alcohol) don't work as well and make me feel shitty in the morning. That combo? Feel like a million bucks. It's great.
I worry about the long-term effects, but they'd have to be pretty bad to be worse than years and years of chronic bad sleep.
Anecdotal, but as a lifelong stoner I would say it takes about a week after sustained heavy use for the cognitive impairment to fully go away. I always quit for a little while when I have something important I need to do in my life.
A persistent high can be achieved by living mindfully with kindness and regular meditation (speaking from direct experience). Hence, I'm not surprised that any high induced with a substance instead, impairs the brain as brain starts depending on the induced experience, without having developed its own mechanism to have such an experience.
Many people, especially the young, can not find a peaceful time or place for meditation. The demands placed on them by western society take up too much of their energy.
For them, drugs are a must because otherwise they will grow up without any spiritual life at all.
Them, not me. I gladly meditate about 2 hours per day since I have the peace, the time and the place to do so. But it took me many years to get all three of these ingredients for my spiritual fire.
I guess it depends on your goals... for me, it's more about pain management without nausea... just being able to sleep through the night. As I'm now no longer working for a banking institution or govt contractor, it's an option that I prefer.
Overall this makes sense to me as an individually who personally enjoys it. The whole point of getting high is to be impaired (for me). So it's not really telling me anything new. Like drinking, I can't expect myself to be 100% functioning the next day so plan accordingly.
The question is how long is that persistence and how much does it affect? Permanent? Doesn't really seem to be answered in a way that I was hoping.
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