Does THC deprivation last a life time?

[Gothproxy]

I still think SEX is the answer.

Wait...

...what was the question?

 

[cynicalsaint1]

1) There is no measurable chemical addiction. Addiction to weed is in almost every way equivalent to addiction to videogames. There are real problems, but they have to do with habituation and the inherent draw of pleasurable activities, not specifically addictive chemical properties of the drug. Think of her going on and on about how she wants to do it again in the same way as you might go on and on after playing a game you haven't played in a long time for a bit and suddenly remembering how much fun it is.

This.
You don't go through a withdrawal when you quit smoking weed the way you would with say nicotine, alcohol, or heroin. You go through "Man - I really wish I was high, right now".

That's not to say that its not addictive - just that you don't form a chemical dependence on it. You can still get addicted to it the way you can get addicted to anything that makes you feel good. It's still hard as fuck to quit when you are addicted - it just isn't going to make you physically ill when you try.

That's also not to say that constantly smoking pot won't cause health or mental issues. Its all about moderation, and if you can manage that - getting stoned once in awhile probably isn't going to be a big deal for you. If you let yourself become a total stoner and try get high as often as possible it will destroy your life just like any other addiction.

 

[Rapamaha]

if someone gets addicted to pot, its mental, friend of mine smoked quite alot of weed and since its illegal in my country he couldnt get it every time he wanted, so he started smoking reqular tobaco, he had gotten used to smoking so much that he NEEDED to smoke something when weed wasnt aviable

 

[Zykon TheLich]

THC deprivation does not last a lifetime. The desire to do something you like generally does though.

 

[The Gnome King]

I'm not exactly an expert on the subject at all. When I was a sophomore in high school I finally gave into peer pressure of my friends and tried weed. I gave it no more then 4 or so tries until I decided it wasn't for me, I didn't enjoy it at all.
Anyway my girlfriend quit smoking before we even started going out, which is over about a year and half ago. I hate the idea of her doing it and it's a huge turnoff for me, but now all of a sudden after at least 2 years after the last time she smoked she's going on and on about how she needs to smoke again. I thought marijuana was not addictive, am I wrong? Even if it was, shouldn't it like cigarettes go away in the first 24 hours, let alone 730 days? Am I going to have to keep her from it for as long as we're together?

1) You can't really stop somebody from doing what they want to do, and I believe marijuana to be a relatively harmless habit for some - not all - people. It's practically legal in the state where I live (Colorado) and I know many high-functioning people with jobs who simply choose to smoke pot instead of drink when the recreate. SHE needs to decide if it's a problem for HER - does she find herself exhibiting addictive or antisocial behavior on the drug, or is she able to use it casually and in an entertaining way like a (non alcoholic) social drinker?

2) Perhaps she just wants to do something. I like sex. I think about having it sometimes, with my wife or partner. I'd miss it if it were gone from my life, but I don't consider myself a sex addict. Not everything we enjoy has to be harmful for us.

3) If it's enough of a turn-off for you that you can't stand it both of you need to make a gut check. Is it worth the weed to keep her in your life? Do you really belong together if your spouse enjoys a hobby that you despise? For example, I don't like drinking much myself. My spouse and partner do. I don't mind that they do it, but I don't particularly find it a turn-on or the smell of vodka-breath attractive. However, drinking isn't harming them in any way and so I get over myself and allow them to have their drinks when they feel like it.

Your behavior sounds a little controlling; even your language is troubling. It's not really your choice what your girlfriend does with her life - it's her own, and you need to make a choice if you want to share in her life or not.

Peace.

 

[The Gnome King]

On topic: It's not physically addictive

Wrong. Even pro weed sites agree its physically addictive. The chemicals are long lasting in your body and if you were a serious user then there are very serious withdrawal symptoms.

And OP, cig withdrawal doesn't go away in 24 hours either.

She is however now just dealing with mental addiction. She has lost her escape and hasn't found new ways to deal.

Here's a pretty good article on it:

http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/19/is-marijuana-addictive-it-depends-how-you-define-addiction/

Time magazine isn't "pro" or "anti" pot. And a quote from a former surgeon general, from the article:

Former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders characterized marijuana succinctly on CNN recently, while declaring her support for legalization: "Marijuana is not addictive, not physically addictive anyway."

So the jury is actually still out on that. As somebody who has worked in the drug rehab field, I can tell you that marijuana is NOT physically addictive in the sense that you can die from withdrawal symptoms, like you can from, say, a benzodiazepine drug - which are handed out like candy by doctors for anxiety and the like.

From personal experience, I can tell you that it was much easier for me to quit smoking weed cold turkey after *years* of heavy use than it was for me to kick two prescription drugs, oxycodone and Xanax. Both of those prescribed medications, used as my doctor directed, had actual physical addictive symptoms.

Just wanted to clarify that for some people. Weed may have some mild effects that people consider physically addictive - such as not having an appetite or being unable to sleep well after heavy use - but actual documented medical journals and articles showing true physical dependence as exist for drugs like Xanax do not exist.

If weed is physically addictive in any way - and again, it depends on your definition of that - it's the mildest of all physically addictive drugs I have ever encountered in years of working with addicts. Alcohol can kill you if you quit cold turkey; marijuana cannot.

The only way that marijuana can be dangerous is if you attempt to drive or operate heavy machinery on it, or if you have a pre-existing heart condition there are some studies that point to a casual link between marijuana smoking and heart attacks... but the studies done on this show that smoking MJ is about as dangerous for these people as, say, walking up a flight of stairs would be and with equal risks.

I hate to see misinformation spread about marijuana or any other drug.

 

[The Gnome King]

I too have done a lot of research on pot myself. Here are some highlights:

In the late 1800's when congress 1st proposed making marijuana illegal the Surgeon General at the time testified before congress that he couldnt think of any significant medical reason for making it illegal, not only did they ignore him but took his words out of context and actually made it seem that he thought it was a good idea to prohibit it. 120 years later there is still little medical evidence to suggest that marijuana is any more dangerous than other LEGAL substances. Other than short term memory loss that goes away when you stop using it, and lung damage from the smoke, which can be avoided by using a vaporizer or eating it. What are the horrible heath effects that justify this drug's legal status?

There is no known lethal dose for marijuana. That does not mean there isnt one, just that it must be very, VERY hard to reach that point. Meanwhile, everyday people (mainly teens and 20-somethings) die of alcohol poisoning.

You can litteraly DIE while detoxing off of alcohol. My BF is a nurse and he's told me how he's administered perscription beer and IV alcohol to patients in a risk of dying while trying to detox. This is a legal drug! We even tried to make it illegal. That only made it so people died from poorly made alcohol, put money in the pockets of organized crime, and turned ordinary citizens into criminals who when caught had their lives ruined and became a drain upon society rather than a benefit.

Now we sit and ponder whether or not marijuana should be legal. People's lives are destroyed when they are caught and put into already overcrowded prisons pushing out perhaps criminals that really should be serving their ENTIRE sentences,and criminals are the ones that profit from selling it.

And, the worst you can say about marijuana is that it is as addictive as porn, fastfood, and gambling?!

I wonder how many people have visited the Safer Choice site?

It's an excellent resource and touches on many of the points you mentioned:

http://www.saferchoice.org/

I view the anti-marijuana crusade like I view the abstinence-only crusade. Would I rather my kid not smoke pot? Sure, but if I have a child that is going to recreate with a substance - and no society since the dawn of time has eliminated this behavior - Portugal actually has the best system in place now with all drugs decriminalized and rehab assistance easy to get ... anyway, if I have a kid who is GOING to recreate with a substance I would much rather they choose marijuana over alcohol.

In a similar vein, I would rather my children not have lots of promiscuous sex, but if they are going to do so; I would want them to make the "safer choice" of having condoms and getting regular STD testing, etc.

When alcohol was illegal, people died from poorly made alcohol - not to mention, a lot went blind from poor production techniques. On a similar vein, I like knowing now that if I drink it's the alcohol that's going to kill me, not the shoddy production of said alcohol. Marijuana only gets really scary if what you're smoking isn't marijuana, or is sprayed with pesticides, etc. - reasons to legalize it and regulate it on a government level, I think. If my kid drinks a bottle of booze, please let it not be made from some bootleg still.

Again, because I think the site is so important:

http://www.saferchoice.org/

 

[The Gnome King]

The difference between those things and ones that unnaturally alter the way your body processes things is that your ability to cut back on such things when they become an excess isn't impaired by the very thing you're doing, and that is an important distinction.

Actually, have you heard of the chemical dopamine? It's produced when you have sex, gamble, or do cocaine. Or pretty much anything pleasurable. It's the brain's "pleasure reward" chemical, so to speak.

Some people with dopamine regulation system problems CAN be impaired by doing the very thing they are doing, because they get a rush of that chemical - I suspect it's why many people who medicate themselves with food become overweight. Eating releases a chemical chain of dopamine, serotonin, or both for them; and the brain becomes desensitized to this after time requiring more and more food to get the same effect.

Most root causes of addiction, save the physical ones (mostly anticonvulsant class drugs and benzos like Xanax, which is actually a weak anticonvulsant...) are pretty similar, actually, be they addictions to drugs, sex, gambling, food, or what-have-you.

And interestingly, do you know one of the most successful rehab programs ever involves a psychedelic drug?

http://addictionblog.org/body/ayahuasca-can-psychotropic-drugs-play-a-role-in-spiritual-recovery-from-addiction/

Googling "ayahuasca" and "rehabilitation programs" will give you a wealth of information on this.

 

[The Gnome King]

Weed, especially the higher strength weed you get nowadays, is almost always cut with tobacco, which contains nicotine. Nicotine is physically addictive.

This is a Europe/UK thing ONLY. In the US, marijuana - especially high grade marijuana - is almost *never* cut with tobacco.

And now we're talking about two different drugs entirely; tobacco being by far the more dangerous of the two.

Just wanted to clarify. I see some Europeans and Brits assume that everyone "cuts" their weed with tobacco but in the US that would be considered akin to heresy, like ruining a high quality red wine by pouring Kool Aid in it.

 

[The Gnome King]

The effects of marijuana withdrawal typically last no more than a few months though, although the chance of some genetic perk (I've seen someone who didn't break down THC in their body, and thus remained with THC in her blood for weeks on end if smoking, instantly getting highly addicted) altering that timespan is never completely ruled out. In your case however I would say it's more a longing for an activity and the emotion she felt at the time, than something caused from withdrawal.

I don't mean to be rude, but that is medically impossible. There is not a single medical documented case of any mammal not being able to metabolize THC, in the world. Things like this just spread urban myths; even for the anti-drug crusade it just causes people to lose credibility. Here's a good link to the facts on THC metabolism, notice it's a medical text and not a pro-or-anti pot site:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/ledain/ldc2d.htm


THC is extensively metabolized in humans, primarily in the liver, but also in other tissues, including the lungs, and the various metabolites are excreted in the feces and urine. Little or no free or unaltered THC is eliminated from the body. Although much of the administered THC is almost immediately bound to lipoproteins in the blood plasma, 338,643,669 metabolism apparently begins nearly as soon as the drug enters the body, and metabolites have been identified in plasma within minutes after administration. The major THC metabolites are mono- and clihydroxy compounds. Deriving from these primary metabolites are a large number of secondary Metabolites. THC is progressively metabolized. primarily by non-specific oxidases in the microsomal enzyme system in the liver. This may be a significant factor for drug interaction considerations, since many other drugs are metabolized by the same system.

In man, studies of radio-labeled materials suggest that about one-half of the THC metabolites are excreted within a few days, and most are eliminated within a week, although small amounts may be retained for longer periods.

The fact that children who use it suffer permanent brain damage in the hippocampus and amygdala, inducing permanent damage to the memory both short and long term, and damaging the ability to concentrate, as well as lessen the control over emotions, possibly leading to overly agressive behaviour.

Many doctors would disagree with you:

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20030701/heavy-marijuana-use-doesnt-damage-brain

In addition, marijuana induced mental disorders do not go away. Once a person has gone into a psychosis because of marijuana use, they will never achieve the same amount of mental stability as before. All the more true for schizophrenia triggered by marijuana, if that happens to you, you're basically fucked for the rest of your life. Mental stability can only be achieved back through the use of rather nasty anti-psychotic medication with many heavy side effects and a lot of regulation on a person's daily life.

I worked in the field of drug rehabilitation for years and I never saw a single case of "permanent marijuana induced mental disorders" - there is a casual link between schizophrenia and marijuana use in that there is a belief among some - not all - medical doctors and scientists that marijuana use might trigger pre-existing schizophrenia; not cause it.

Again, it's fine to be anti-drug but get your facts correct.

And in addition to that, smoking marijuana causes several times more lung damage than smoking tobacco.

Inhaling burning organic material of any kind is not good for the lungs; many people vaporize it or eat it for this reason.

Saying that it is more dangerous than tobacco is misleading, though. They are dangerous in different ways; marijuana appears to be less carcinogenic over long term use, in fact. Most studies done linking marijuana to lung cancer except one single NZ study show that there is no increased risk of cancer with marijuana unless mixed with tobacco.

I don't smoke marijuana, but I do try to be factually correct when I discuss it. Scaremongering isn't a really good tactic, sane and lucid education is.

The final argument is of course that there is no reason for drug abuse. No healthy person needs marijuana, and nobody needs marijuana for it's main effect.

Well, no healthy person "needs" anything but food, water, and shelter but that doesn't stop us from seeking out activities that light up reward centers in our brain - no healthy person needs video games. No healthy person needs gambling. No healthy person needs sex. See where this is going?

You must know that is not true. THC poisoning is something which is very real. In animal testing, a dosage as low as 29 mg per kilo of body weight already proved to be fatal. To compare: that's just 2 grams of THC in a person weighing 70 kilos. And considering the high THC content of many modern marijuana plants, smoking 6 grams may already induce this potentially fatal dosage.

This is perhaps the most erroneous statement you have made. Again, from a medical text; not a pro-pot site:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_overdose.htm

According to which US Government authority you want to believe, the lethal dose of marijuana is either about one-third your body weight, or about 1,500 pounds, consumed all at once.

In summary, enormous doses of Delta 9 THC, All THC and concentrated marihuana extract ingested by mouth were unable to produce death or organ pathology in large mammals but did produce fatalities in smaller rodents due to profound central nervous system depression.

Again, that's a pretty safe track record considering the MILLIONS of people who use marijuana and have used it over thousands of years; not a single recorded ability to produce death OR organ pathology in any large mammals. It's among the safest of all drugs.

http://www.saferchoice.org/

Also, there have been four documented deaths in the US alone from the THC-based pill Marinol.

Which is one reason medical patients are reluctant to take the pill as opposed to using a plant with a proven safety record:

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/does-the-pot-pill-work-a-look-at-marinol/

And let's not forget that even a non-lethal dosage can turn out very nasty if you get a bad trip. And once in it, there's no way out, and that person gets to enjoy up to two straight hours of intense agorophobia, among other effects.

I absolutely agree with you here. Marijuana can cause panic attacks in certain users. So can most drugs.

Not before ingesting a massive dosage of alcohol. Alcohol is less poisonous than THC.

Not in the amounts commonly ingested, it's not. And I don't even think I need to compare alcohol related deaths vs. marijuana related deaths in countries where both marijuana and alcohol are legal - ask any Dutchman or citizen of Portugal. Or doctor. Not internet scare article; doctor.

And most alcohol related fatalities are not in children, but in the elderly. Mostly this is caused by an external factor that makes a person drink. Pensioners for instance are liable to start drinking because the daily rhythm and structure of their occupation is lost.

Do you work for an alcohol company? I don't mean to be rude again but alcohol is actually one of the LEADING causes of fatalities in teenagers and young adults. Mostly from car accidents, but occasionally from overdose as well.

http://www.adolescent-substance-abuse.com/binge-drinking-underage.html
http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa68/aa68.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/alcohol.htm

And this one actually shows that most alcohol fatalities happen in the middle aged, not the elderly:

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh27-1/110-120.htm

If you're going to claim that, you must also be honest about the fact that this is only the case in elderly patients suffering from heavy addiction. You're talking about drinking heavily for at least ten years.

This is false. You can suffer from acute alcohol withdrawal symptoms at any age, and doctors often prescribe drugs like Valium and Xanax to help with alcohol related seizures, etc.

And it's not even the alcohol that kills, it's the withdrawal, because many bodily functions were geared towards taking a beating of a high dosage of alcohol every day. They're given alcohol to smooth the transition, just like addicts on other drugs receive methadone or other drugs to lessen the impact of withdrawal.

Again, do you work for Budweiser, friend? This is also false. There's a medical code explicitly for "accidental alcohol poisoning death" - (ICD?9 code: E860, for those in the medical field) ... there is no such code for "accidental death by THC" even in countries where marijuana is legal.

From another government study:
The annual average number of deaths for which alcohol poisoning was listed as an underlying cause was 317, with an age-adjusted death rate of 0.11 per 100,000 population. An average of 1,076 additional deaths included alcohol poisoning as a contributing cause, bringing the total number of deaths with any mention of alcohol poisoning to 1,393 per year (0.49 per 100,000 population). Males accounted for more than 80 percent of these deaths. The rate was lower among married than unmarried people (i.e., never married, divorced, or widowed) and was inversely related to education. Among males, the alcohol poisoning death rate was higher for Hispanics and non-Hispanic Blacks than non-Hispanic Whites. Among females, racial/ethnic differences were small, but Black women had higher alcohol poisoning death rates than White or Hispanic women. Alcohol poisoning deaths tended to be most prevalent among people ages 35 to 54

I just hate seeing misinformation spread. Alcohol poisoning happens. Not extremely frequently, but frequently enough. "THC" poisoning doesn't happen from marijuana, the plant. Not a single.case.ever of a person dying from "THC intoxication" ... think about it.

Alcohol is a dangerous drug that ruins lives and causes deaths every day; mostly through drunk driving but also through overdose and withdrawal. To say that marijuana is more dangerous is just... ridiculous, from a medical and a rational standpoint.

Do you know what the standard treatment is for a marijuana-related "emergency room visit" ...? It's watching the patient and giving a sedative like Xanax until the panic attack passes.

For an alcohol related visit it often ends much more sadly.

 

[Terminal Blue]

This is a Europe/UK thing ONLY. In the US, marijuana - especially high grade marijuana - is almost *never* cut with tobacco.

That strikes me as a little dangerous. Moderating the dose of the extremely psychoactive drug you're taking, at least the first time you buy from a given source, strikes me as a good idea.

And now we're talking about two different drugs entirely; tobacco being by far the more dangerous of the two.

In what sense?

I know two people who have been sectioned after suffering psychotic episodes while high, and at least one more who should have been sectioned (who happens to be my brother). I've seen people's personalities change radically overnight, I've seen one of the most genuinely intelligent people I have ever met reduced to a husk who struggles to get through a conversation.

I've also had people die due to tobacco related illness. Don't let me play down how unpleasant it is to die of lung cancer, but it's a different risk.

Sure, we can suggest that those people might have had pre-existing psychiatric disorders. I personally don't think that's terribly relevant, I have a psychiatric disorder myself so I know very well how difficult it can be for either yourself or others to perceive that you have one before you start to display symptoms. However, it's not an excuse, if someone dies or suffers physical consequences due to mistreatment of an undiagnosed condition, we don't just assume it's okay because they would have died anyway, we acknowledge the risk associated with particular behaviours for particular groups who probably don't know who they are.

I'm not anti-drug, I avoid them myself because I know that I am in an at-risk group, I still know a few people who smoke and one or two who take hard drugs, and I don't mind that as long as they know what they're doing and have something to talk about outside of that, but as you might imagine from these experiences I have real trouble with people claiming that marijuana in particular is harmless or of such negligible harm that we can't talk about the risks without being accused of scaremongering.

You don't know whether you're in an at risk group, if indeed it is a matter of at risk groups. You can smoke with no problems for a very long time without realizing that you are. I don't think that's a problem, but it's a risk worth accepting, if nothing else because the people around you probably don't want to see you have a serious psychotic episode, or to live with the after effects which might result. I could have done without it, to be honest.

 

[Collymilad]

It all depends on the person.

I know plenty of people who have smoked weed. Whilsts smoking, it screwed some of them up. Others were perfectly fine.

Same goes for when people quit really. Some people just stop whilst others have a really hard time doing so, regardless of time spent smoking in my experience.

 

[The Gnome King]

That strikes me as a little dangerous. Moderating the dose of the extremely psychoactive drug you're taking, at least the first time you buy from a given source, strikes me as a good idea.

Most people I know who smoke purchase their marijuana legally through medical supply stores; the common way it is purchased in Colorado and California. By law they couldn't adulterate it with tobacco, a substance that has no known medical benefits; unlike marijuana - which has many medical applications.

Tobacco can be more dangerous by far as it tends to constrict blood vessels, which is the opposite of what marijuana smoke does - marijuana tends to dilate them. Giving tobacco to a person with a heart condition or high blood pressure can be extremely dangerous while some people in that category can easily tolerate marijuana.

A better way to "moderate your dose" is to take a very small amount of *pure* substance and wait to see the effect before you take more, as opposed to adulterating it with a different drug to "cut" it. As I said, it's simply not done in the US. In fact, I don't think I know a single marijuana smoker here who also smokes tobacco - I'm sure there are many, I just don't know any.

And now we're talking about two different drugs entirely; tobacco being by far the more dangerous of the two.

In what sense?

In many senses:

http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/marijuana-info/marijuana-vs-cigarettes/

http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6891

That having been said, I don't recommend smoking anything - it's not good for the lungs, period. Even without marijuana smoke causing lung cancer it can cause bronchitis, etc. Most people who I know that use marijuana vaporize it (a much cleaner way of getting it into your system) or eat it, for these reasons.

I know two people who have been sectioned after suffering psychotic episodes while high, and at least one more who should have been sectioned (who happens to be my brother). I've seen people's personalities change radically overnight, I've seen one of the most genuinely intelligent people I have ever met reduced to a husk who struggles to get through a conversation.

First of all, how are you quantifying a "psychotic episode" -? People throw that term around a lot without knowing what it means. I've heard people refer to an extreme panic attack as a "psychotic episode" - and I know far, far more people who *act* psychotic after ingestion of alcohol - up to and including violent behavior - than I know people who act "psychotic" on marijuana.

Marijuana CAN seem to cause an acute psychosis in people, but not actually as commonly as alcohol seems to. If you know two people who have suffered true acute psychotic episodes in your lifetime you have my sympathy; I've worked with drug rehab patients for many years and I've been around in my life and I've never met a single person who suffered from a psychotic episode from pot - though I have hand-held through my share of panic attacks.

Honestly, even the risk for schizophrenia and pot isn't well defined in the medical community:

http://mentalhealth.about.com/od/schizophrenia/a/potsz.htm

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2005559,00.html

My opinion on it is that if you have schizophrenia, you should probably avoid smoking pot. The first link basically says the same thing.

I've also had people die due to tobacco related illness. Don't let me play down how unpleasant it is to die of lung cancer, but it's a different risk.

True. I'd rate nicotine's ability to cause acute psychosis as less than that of alcohol OR marijuana; practically nil and I don't think it's ever happened that I know of. Anything's possible in this wide world.

Sure, we can suggest that those people might have had pre-existing psychiatric disorders. I personally don't think that's terribly relevant, I have a psychiatric disorder myself so I know very well how difficult it can be for either yourself or others to perceive that you have one before you start to display symptoms.

It's a risk vs. reward strategy - with less than 1% of the population suffering from schizophrenia and even less of that as a percentage suffering psychotic episodes from pot, many people perceive this to be a very acceptable risk in consuming a relatively physically harmless drug.

People with schizophrenia probably shouldn't engage in quite a few activities, but that doesn't mean they are unsafe for the entire population.

I'm not anti-drug, I avoid them myself because I know that I am in an at-risk group, I still know a few people who smoke and one or two who take hard drugs, and I don't mind that as long as they know what they're doing and have something to talk about outside of that, but as you might imagine from these experiences I have real trouble with people claiming that marijuana in particular is harmless or of such negligible harm that we can't talk about the risks without being accused of scaremongering.

I'm fine with discussing the real risks - such as the extremely small chance of acute psychosis - as long as people back up their risks with actual medical data and references instead of "I saw a guy once who..." or "That shit is bad news because..." or "I once knew somebody who was a genetic engineer who now lives in a cardboard box down by the river because they smoked a joint!" - etc.

If you're going to try and restrict the activities of another person, particularly an activity that is *very likely* harmless to them or that even has potential medical benefits; one should be well armed with facts and medical statistics.

Take smoking cigarettes, for example. I hate them. I think they're a scourge on society and they're proven to kill millions - but I don't think we should tell children that cigarettes cause psychotic episodes. I also don't like alcohol, it makes many people become violent - but I don't think we should say that everybody who drinks socially is a domestically abusive alcoholic; etc.

A lot of life boils down to choices; personally I feel that for recreating marijuana is a relatively harmless choice. Look at the countries that have legalized it - not too many reports of problems. Also here in my city of Colorado Springs, we're a "sleepy little town" of under 500,000 people south of Denver and there ain't much of a problem with the thousands of medical marijuana patients we have, or any of the clinics you see *everywhere* in this town. In fact, most city business leaders and medical professionals will tell you that they're happy the pot is safe, regulated, people know what they are getting - etc. Getting "marijuana" on the street that could be laced with something MUCH more potent than regular pot is much more risky for causing true psychotic episodes... I *have* seen that happen, people ingesting things like cocaine or amphetamine laced pot when they think it's just pot, etc can be life threatening.

www.saferchoice.org is based in Denver and is a very worthy organization, and a great website to read a bit more on the best marijuana based research we have here in the US, medically backed facts and sanity-laced bits.

Would I ever tell anyone that marijuana has NO risks associated with it? No, but it's probably a lot less risky than, say, getting into a car and driving 10 miles during rush hour, statistically even accounting for number bias.

 

[The Gnome King]

And just a few interesting quotes to add to the thread:

"My surmise is that smoking marijuana is more risky than eating it but still safer than getting drunk."

Dr. Robert S. Gable, PhD
"The Toxicity of Recreational Drugs: Alcohol is more lethal than many other commonly abused substances"
The American Scientist, the Magazine of Sigma Xi, the Scientific Research Society, May-June 2006



"It's true, you don't hear about people smoking themselves to death like you do with alcohol.?

Bob Maust, University of Colorado Standing Committee on Substance Abuse
The Daily Camera, March 17, 2005



"Cannabis differs from alcohol in one major respect. It does not seem to increase risk-taking behavior."

British Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
August 2007

I trust all of the above more than random internet opinions from non-medical professionals.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

Which is why I referenced TWO dictionaries, not just one. Multiple sources stated both definitions upon additional research, and therefore it is most likely true. There is certainly more evidence to support that it has those definitions than there is that it doesn't have them.

To list more sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ad+hominem - This one notes that while the definition is true, the particular meaning is falling out of style.
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ad+hominem?region=us - This one not only lists the definition but gives an additional definition the others didn't have, likely more eccentric.

So, there you go, four sources that state the definition exists vs. your opinion that it doesn't, citing referential inaccuracies. Therefore it would seem that the existence of that additional definition has a lot of support towards being a true thing. There's some insight at least as to why you might not have heard of that particular definition before, that one source partially agreeing with you that it is not considered useable in that context in today's English. THE MORE YOU KNOW!

You more or less completely missed my point. Ad hominem is a technical term - the dictionary entries you're citing are treating it as though it is not. If dictionaries all had incorrect definitions for some legal term, that would not change the meaning of the legal term. You can look at almost any source for information on debate and see that it is virtually never used to talk about anything other than arguments that conflate the character of an interlocutor with the issue at hand (when the two are genuinely unrelated). Wikipedia has a nice overview of ad hominem if you'd like to see something a bit more substantive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem (because I know this is going to come up if you look at that, note that circumstantial ad hominem only applies when an argument is based on accepted premises, the problem here is that we're talking about extremely subjective qualities - if the argument was over, say, "is alcohol toxic?" and he said "I bet you don't drink", that would be circumstantial ad hominem because there's no degree of subjective uncertainty involved).

But this is mostly just an irrelevant argument over lexical semantics. My main point was just that arguments involving people, emotionsm, etc. are not inherently fallacious - you still have to show how that the argument is actually irrelevant to the issue at hand. Fallacies like ad hominem are categories of fallacious reasoning, not formulae for finding illogical arguments. Imagine you collect butterflies and you have a system that sorts them into two groups: those with orange on their wings and those without. When you see a bird with orange on its wings, the fact that your system tells you which group to put it in does not mean that the bird is a butterfly.

Actually, you can use the same logic to argue that one who has used the substances cannot form an unbiased opinion as to whether the substance should be used or not, either, swayed as they are to the benefits of the use of their product. And I'd still call that argument ad hominem and flimsy, full of assumptions.

Actually, you can't. The point is that, having not experienced them, you cannot make an informed argument about the subjective effects of a drug. The logic that this introduces bias because people who have taken the drug are more likely to advocate for it is actually circumstantial ad hominem. My point isn't that you're simply more likely to advocate against the drug because you haven't taken it, it's that a lack of personal experience with the subjective effects represents a faulty premise when arguing about the pros and cons of marijuana since that subjective experience constitutes the main pro. Taking the drug can't create a bias toward the pros, since the experience of the drug is the pro. Having taken the drug might present an independent bias leading one to mischaracterise the cons, but that line of argument would, again, be fallacious.

And yet this statement you've made does not support the idea that your sources that claim support on your side of the issue are in any way better than mine. Only that "LOL SOURCES CAN BE WRONG!" I can easily just say that as a kneejerk statement towards any evidence you attempt to produce, and that gets us nowhere.

I'm not really sure what you want me to produce. There are countless review articles talking about the problems with most of the early published work (the overwhelming majority of work suggestive of harmful effects is quite old). But given that I highly doubt you're an expert in the field or know many people who are, you don't have any real way to discover which positions are commonly assumed and which aren't beyond looking at the papers themselves, which quickly produces a very circular problem.

Did you completely miss the part where I pointed out I have drank alcohol multiple times? I think you have. So yes, that would be a denial, and your 'confirmations' are invalid. And it STILL has not contributed anything worthwhile to this argument.

I agree with you entirely that the issue of whether or not you're a teetotaler is pretty orthogonal to this discussion. The question is whether you've tried marijuana in particular, however, as that question contributes to the issue of whether you can make an informed argument, is more relevant.

What is this 'overwhelming consensus' everyone keeps referencing? I've seen nothing of the sort. Every non-biased resource I've looked at says the scientific community is completely at odds with themselves in this issue. I can at least acknowledge that my views aren't fully backed up, yet I'm the one that's biased and poorly researching information? For every one article I can pull up saying it doesn't do any harm, I can pull up one that says it does. There. Is. No. Scientific. Consensus. If you think there is, you're fooling yourselves, or simply reading the things that validate your viewpoint and dismissing anything that doesn't.

The problem is that you have more or less no way of knowing which sources are non-biased and no way of directly gauging the level of consensus. Again, volume has nothing to do with it - in this case it's primarily a result of the structure for funding in research into marijuana. It might be telling however that a lot of reports that you'd expect to be biased against it have come out in favour of it (for sources that are easier for non-experts to get their hands on: almost every single report ever commissioned by the US government for instance).

And I'm not acknowledging that my views aren't backed up because my views are backed up. The problem is, like I said, the only real way to know about the scientific consensus here is to have some means of actually accessing the relevant scientific community. So the thing that makes me confident about the consensus is something that, given your posts so far, I assume you unfortunately do not have access to. I can't back up any claims to personal involvement over the internet, so I understand that this is not in any way reassuring about my position, but hopefully it will at least give you an idea of where I'm coming from.

 

[Jaime_Wolf]

A few minor issues perhaps worth clarification:

That having been said, I don't recommend smoking anything - it's not good for the lungs, period. Even without marijuana smoke causing lung cancer it can cause bronchitis, etc. Most people who I know that use marijuana vaporize it (a much cleaner way of getting it into your system) or eat it, for these reasons.

Actually, most modern research calls the lung cancer thing very much into question. I'd still personally avoid smoking since there's no real reason not to avoid it, but, as it turns out, when you actually control for smoking of cigarettes and other drugs in your studies, you don't see any significant effect on lung cancer. The other problems with smoking, like decreased lung capacity or bronchitis, are also temporary and eventually disappear after cessation of smoking (not that they're really very pleasant to have temporarily - another reason to avoid smoking).

True. I'd rate nicotine's ability to cause acute psychosis as less than that of alcohol OR marijuana; practically nil and I don't think it's ever happened that I know of. Anything's possible in this wide world.

It can at extremely high levels, but that's almost always from bizarre situations involving tremendous overuse of smoking-replacement therapies.

It's a risk vs. reward strategy - with less than 1% of the population suffering from schizophrenia and even less of that as a percentage suffering psychotic episodes from pot, many people perceive this to be a very acceptable risk in consuming a relatively physically harmless drug.

The research into triggering of schizotypal disorders is into people with underlying disorders using it regularly starting in early childhood (as an aside, one imagines that people in this situation might have a few nuisance variables worth worrying about). There's very little if any evidence involving usage by these people beginning in adulthood. Your acceptable risk point is also very apt.

The rest of your post is really nice too, probably one of the best in the thread.

 

[The Gnome King]

The research into triggering of schizotypal disorders is into people with underlying disorders using it regularly starting in early childhood (as an aside, one imagines that people in this situation might have a few nuisance variables worth worrying about). There's very little if any evidence involving usage by these people beginning in adulthood. Your acceptable risk point is also very apt.

The rest of your post is really nice too, probably one of the best in the thread.

As somebody who has worked in both rehab and medicine, I tend to err on the side of caution with the schizophrenia issue; but I agree with you that a definite risk between marijuana and schizophrenia has not been established. It's currently a much higher risk to get schizophrenia by being MALE than it is for overall pot users accounting for females, for example.

I've seen drugs do horrible, horrible things - mostly alcohol, as most medical professionals will tell you. In all my years of working with people, though, the worst issues I have seen with marijuana are psychological addiction and perhaps a lack of motivation; but playing too many video games can also cause psychological addiction and a lack of motivation. I've never seen somebody's life ruined due to pot; despite internet scare stories.

A Colorado medical marijuana site - I won't say which one because I don't want to advertise for one over another or even mention personal sites on this forum - states this about medical risk for even very sick patients; we're talking chemotherapy patients, AIDS patients - generally those very unhealthy to begin with:

Side effects from medical cannabis include:
* Dizziness from lowered blood pressure. Be sure to tell your caregiver if you have blood pressure issues and monitor the effects of cannabis closely that you take.

* A decrease in coordination and cognition. Short term memory loss may occur while medicated with certain strains

* Heart rate and/ or blood pressure may initially increase which may effect patients with severe anxiety or heart conditions.

Effects will vary between individuals and with various strains

Your caregiver should always be informed of any conditions that may impact the use of medical cannabis.

I have seen people faint (and subsequently wake up just fine) from low blood pressure episodes with cannabis use, and the risk there is usually just falling down and hitting your head on something hard.

Full disclosure - I still do medical volunteer work, though I am not myself a doctor.

 

[Altorin]

maybe, you're boring.

and maybe, you're bringing her down and she wants to relax

and maybe, she just enjoys getting a little high.

send her to my place.

 

[Terminal Blue]

First of all, how are you quantifying a "psychotic episode" -? People throw that term around a lot without knowing what it means. I've heard people refer to an extreme panic attack as a "psychotic episode" - and I know far, far more people who *act* psychotic after ingestion of alcohol - up to and including violent behavior - than I know people who act "psychotic" on marijuana.

Well, technically an extreme panic attack is a psychotic episode, it's a delusional state in which your thoughts and personality changes. The point at which I mean however, is the point at which a person hallucinates or becomes delusional, such as hearing voices or developing a fear beyond the generalized anxiety of a panic attack.

Don't play down panic attacks as if they're nothing worth getting worked up over. A panic attack might go away, but it can affect people very profoundly and can recur.

Marijuana CAN seem to cause an acute psychosis in people, but not actually as commonly as alcohol seems to.

I'm not denying this, I've seen both happen. Heck, I used to drink all the time, I know it has negative psychological consequences especially for people with preexisting disorders.

That said, I presume you're factoring for alcohol use as a dissociation tactic or self-medication by people with pre-existing psychoses and anxiety disorders, as well as the increased prevalence of alcohol consumption generally?

I'm not saying alcohol is better, but most people at least have some awareness that alcohol is harmful. None of the people I know who went seriously wrong were social smokers who had a joint once in a while with friends, they generally smoked to an extent and in situations which they would never allow themselves to drink, and they justified themselves with the litany you are using now that marijuana is relatively safe. Sure, had those people been drinking instead they might not have come out any better, although in my experience it may have taken a lot longer and more sustained alcohol abuse to cause the kind of problems they had. I'm not recommending alcohol as an alternative, I just dislike the claim that anything which can cause mental health problems up to acute psychosis (and there are lesser symptoms which can persist after a really bad panic attack) is harmless or even relatively harmless.

Maybe it's because I don't smoke myself, but I find it somewhere between annoying and upsetting when people advocate it like it's a panacea and will make your life infinitely better with no possible downsides. Actually, although most people I know who smoked never went crazy, it occurs to me that I'm not in contact with any of them save those I met in the last few years. Why? Because they became incredibly boring. They had nothing worth talking about, no hobbies or interests which they kept up, I knew one guy who ended up living in a room full of bottles of his own piss because he was too monged out to go to the fucking toilet. I wish I was kidding.

Beyond psychosis, anything which has the power to make people that lifeless deserves to be treated with respect, in my opinion, and yes that goes for World of Warcraft as well - something which is designed to hotwire your brain's reward system, whether externally or internally, is always open to abuse. I'm sceptical of anyone who is polemic about weed because it reminds me of the people who were very clearly abusing it, in this case I'm sure it's not accurate but I don't think you can trust everyone to make a responsible decision, especially with the extremely limited and polemic information they get.

Incidentally, part of the reason I'm really sceptical of research in this area is precisely because people are so polemic about it. The methodological demands to ensure that polemic opinion does not enter the research process are unreasonably high, and while I don't know enough about the research to be sceptical of anything in particular I don't trust most researchers on either side of the 'debate' to meet those standards consistently.

 

[The Gnome King]

Well, technically an extreme panic attack is a psychotic episode, it's a delusional state in which your thoughts and personality changes. The point at which I mean however, is the point at which a person hallucinates or becomes delusional, such as hearing voices or developing a fear beyond the generalized anxiety of a panic attack.

I have to correct you - former psych student & medical worker/volunteer here:

Diagnosis of a psychotic episode:
Patients with psychotic symptoms should undergo a thorough physical examination and history to rule out such possible organic causes as seizures, delirium, or alcohol withdrawal, and such other psychiatric conditions as dissociation or panic attacks. If a psychiatric cause such as schizophrenia is suspected, a mental health professional will typically conduct an interview with the patient and administer one of several clinical inventories, or tests, to evaluate mental status. This assessment takes place in either an out-patient or hospital setting.

See http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Psychotic+episodes - a panic attack is NOT considered a psychotic episode in the psychiatric community.

Don't play down panic attacks as if they're nothing worth getting worked up over. A panic attack might go away, but it can affect people very profoundly and can recur.

I don't. I happen to believe that panic attacks are a medical emergency and require medical attention; they just aren't a psychotic episode in the same way an apple and an orange are both fruits but they aren't the same thing. Generally speaking people with panic attacks aren't hallucinating or hearing voices; though a psychotic episode can CAUSE a panic attack.

I'm not denying this, I've seen both happen. Heck, I used to drink all the time, I know it has negative psychological consequences especially for people with preexisting disorders.

That said, I presume you're factoring for alcohol use as a dissociation tactic or self-medication by people with pre-existing psychoses and anxiety disorders, as well as the increased prevalence of alcohol consumption generally?

In counties where marijuana is legal, it's consumed as much as if not moreso than alcohol in some cases. Also in some cultures marijuana is the norm, not alcohol - see many middle Eastern cultures.

Also, did you know that marijuana has an accepted medical use in the US for TREATING panic attacks and anxiety? One man's medicine is another man's poison. People use marijuana to medicate anxiety all the time.

I'm not saying alcohol is better, but most people at least have some awareness that alcohol is harmful. None of the people I know who went seriously wrong were social smokers who had a joint once in a while with friends, they generally smoked to an extent and in situations which they would never allow themselves to drink, and they justified themselves with the litany you are using now that marijuana is relatively safe. Sure, had those people been drinking instead they might not have come out any better, although in my experience it may have taken a lot longer and more sustained alcohol abuse to cause the kind of problems they had.

Let's agree to disagree here; I have seen alcohol cause immediate violent behavior much more frequently than I have ever seen marijuana cause it. Alcohol use doesn't need to be "sustained" - it can turn people into violent, raving lunatics who piss themselves and black out with surprising frequency. Ask any ER doctor what the worst drug is and they will say without a doubt "alcohol" followed by opiate or benzo abuse. Marijuana never tops their list, including in countries where it is legal.

I'm not recommending alcohol as an alternative, I just dislike the claim that anything which can cause mental health problems up to acute psychosis (and there are lesser symptoms which can persist after a really bad panic attack) is harmless or even relatively harmless.

Marijuana is relatively harmless to 99% or more of the population, then. Does that work for you?

Maybe it's because I don't smoke myself, but I find it somewhere between annoying and upsetting when people advocate it like it's a panacea and will make your life infinitely better with no possible downsides. Actually, although most people I know who smoked never went crazy, it occurs to me that I'm not in contact with any of them save those I met in the last few years. Why? Because they became incredibly boring.

Well, it's not a panacea; and personally I find alcoholics much more boring than potheads. Maybe they find you boring, also. In all seriousness, I know many interesting, high functioning people who use marijuana. The anecdotal evidence of "I knew people who used to be cool but are just boring now that they smoke pot" could have a lot to do with the fact that they simply have different interests than you now.

Pot use, in and of itself, doesn't make people "boring" - a lack of motivation can, and that can occur from nearly anything. Many times pot is a symptom, not a cause.

They had nothing worth talking about, no hobbies or interests which they kept up, I knew one guy who ended up living in a room full of bottles of his own piss because he was too monged out to go to the fucking toilet. I wish I was kidding.

I've never seen that. Kind of sounds like you have a bit of a personal vendetta against marijuana. Let me assure you most users still manage to use the bathroom, hold jobs, and hold interesting conversations when required.

Incidentally, part of the reason I'm really sceptical of research in this area is precisely because people are so polemic about it. The methodological demands to ensure that polemic opinion does not enter the research process are unreasonably high, and while I don't know enough about the research to be sceptical of anything in particular I don't trust most researchers on either side of the 'debate' to meet those standards consistently.

Most medical researchers I know doing research on this aren't potheads. Try to get access to some links, or better yet, as I have access to the medical community databases in most cases, I can try to find some for you and share relevant ones.

I think it becomes a case sometimes of "I had a bad experience with black people so now I dislike blacks and black culture" - most people who abuse pot would already not be the kind of people I think would be extremely interesting or productive even without the drug.

I've never met an interesting or productive person suddenly take up pot and then drop out of life. My partner works for a high tech company where many people smoke pot and they're some of the most productive, interesting people you would ever want to meet.

They just decided that pot works better for them than alcohol when they choose to relax and unwind with a recreational substance.

Peace.