Posted on 11/25/2019 5:13:25 AM PST by urtax$@work
This is an excerpt for discussion purposes, see article for full story.
More and more Americans are reporting near-constant cannabis use, as legalization forges ahead.
The proliferation of retail boutiques in California did not really bother him, Evan told me, but the billboards did. Advertisements for delivery, advertisements promoting the substance for relaxation, for fun, for health. “Shop. It’s legal.” “Hello marijuana, goodbye hangover.” “It’s not a trigger,” he told me. “But it is in your face.”
When we spoke, he had been sober for a hard-fought seven weeks: seven weeks of sleepless nights, intermittent nausea, irritability, trouble focusing, and psychological turmoil.......
Public-health experts worry about the increasingly potent options available, and the striking number of constant users. “Cannabis is potentially a real public-health problem,” said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University. ......
For Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, the most compelling evidence of the deleterious effects comes from users themselves. “In large national surveys, about one in 10 people who smoke it say they have a lot of problems. They say things like, ‘I have trouble quitting. I think a lot about quitting and I can’t do it. I smoked more than I intended to. I neglect responsibilities.’ There are plenty of people who have problems with it, in terms of things like concentration, short-term memory, and motivation,” he said. “People will say, ‘Oh, that’s just you fuddy-duddy doctors.’ Actually, no. It’s millions of people who use the drug who say that it causes problems.”
Users or former users I spoke with described lost jobs, lost marriages, lost houses, lost money, lost time. Foreclosures and divorces. .....
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
Legalization has nothing to do with this. It’s just people are willing to talk about it. Pot was plentiful—and less expensive—before legalization.
And what companies don’t drug test? The hyperbole in the article denotes a problem that is just not being seen.
Being able to vape high potency THC has changed the use profile for a lot of users, from the stoners of decades past.
People tend to develop high tolerances quickly with vaping, like a rat in a lab, who only has to hit a button for another dose. Kind of like the boiled frog phenomena, the total daily THC dose can climb to chronic stoner levels in just a few weeks. Relatively suddenly, other things in life can just be dropped.
That doesn’t happen to most occasional users, but for those that it does, the slide into habitual heavy use is can be much quicker than it is for alcohol.
Something to watch out for, in yourself, and your loved ones.
what kind of “techs” do you provide?
No, they are not addicted.
If they were addicted to any of those things you mentioned, none of which are addictive substances, then when they attempted to stop doing those things, they would suffer actual physical damage or death.
They can stop doing those things anytime they want to, but instead, they continue to CHOOSE to do them.
You could say that those things may be habit forming, but an addiction is a very different thing from a habit.
And yes, I used to be physically addicted to Xanax. I know what an addiction is. I felt it in my body when it almost killed me. An addiction is a need that, if not feed, will require an ambulance and possibly a morgue.
Perhaps not in the pharmacological sense, but there are changes in the brain as a result of becoming habituated to any activity whether it be gambling, watching pornography, overeating or any of a number of other deleterious activities.
And it's the anticipation of performing the activity (as opposed to the activity itself) that triggers the areas of the brain that are affected by it.
The key to breaking a habit is to find something to substitute it with.
In the case of pot, chemical changes do take place in the brain - and studies are indicating that these changes can be long-term in nature and perhaps irreversible.
So, to say that 'any of them can quit anytime they want to with no problem' is perhaps a little naive and simplistic.
I wouldn't wish any form of addiction or dependency on anyone.
I can’t stand it when these people have “panic attacks”. Why wouldn’t you? Life is scary as it can be, no guarantees. We all should be panicky but control it.
what kind of “tech”?
Articles like this help "addicts" see that they have problems and that they can solve those problems.
As an aside, I have known many full-time users over the years and can testify that, though every user may not experience addiction-like usage and the problems that come with it, pot can be potentially dangerous for some people.
I have had several friends sink into deep depression and many who have wasted much time and money on pot.
That said, pot abuse, like alcohol abuse, shouldn't be a legal problem too. It is sufficiently difficult to handle as a medical/behavioral problem.
None of them are actually addicted to pot, because pot is not an addictive substance.
Any of them can quit anytime they want to with no problem.
***********8
I take it you are being sarcastic
And please, don't feed me the cost to society shit. Folks smokin' a doobie is so far down on my list of things I am against that I'm not against it. Besides, do we really need one more thing that makes more conservative folks look like they want to run everyone's life?
...Any of them can quit anytime they want to with no problem
Define “Want To”
Yes, there will be no major withdrawal symptoms
But Pot seems to degrade ones command pathways
so they cease to “want” self control
It’s all in how you look at it
I agree. The pharma lobby doesn’t want the competition and the legal industry loves confiscation. Since Canada changed it’s laws we may see an uncontrollable shift from northern states within a year. It’s funny to read about ‘medical experts’ kinda like ‘diplomatic’ or ‘climate’ type experts. The term expert is losing its glow.
You are absolutely correct. There are 2 types of addition, physical and mental. Physical addiction can end with time and treatment. Mental addiction is in your head until you die. That’s what causes addicts that have been clean for years or decades to go back to the destructive behavior whether it be drugs, gambling or shopping.
My daughter has a degree in Drug and Alcohol counseling. She says the most difficult patients to treat are the pothead because they don’t believe they have a problem. Even when a pothead looses their house, family, job or is in court ordered rehab, they still don’t think they have a problem.
There are weed wagons now in NYC
Flavored candies and such
Many young people lined up to buy, many Black
What does the future hold for these young Blacks and
other teens buying pot candy?
Not much. Not brain surgeons for sure
“The key to breaking a habit is to find something to substitute it with.”
This is very true. My best advice to those with such a problem is first ask Jesus Christ to guide you and give you strength, and then find and identify what it is that you love more than you hate yourself, and love that thing. That will heal what ails.
“In the case of pot, chemical changes do take place in the brain - and studies are indicating that these changes can be long-term in nature and perhaps irreversible.”
It has been my personal experience with this drug that such changes do occur with pot use, and that they revert within a few weeks of cessation. They aren’t permanent.
I also agree that habitual pot use, daily heavy use, can promote or exacerbate any mental illness, and this also ceases within a few weeks of cessation.
Doing this drug on any sort of a daily basis is not a good idea at all, but that is really the case for almost anything.
Occasional use of this drug is not going to cause any sort of acute problems outside of the basic health risk of inhaling smoke, which should be considered, as there are consequences to the body.
I don’t know much at all about the topic but I do have a curious question; If THC is not addicting, then why is it that when they advertise for CBD oil they always seem to harp on the fact that it’s the non-habit-forming component of marijuana?
Actually, I am being as literal as I possibly can.
If the parents fail... the kids fail - and ain't that basically Biblical.
Actually, the government should spend some effort scraping the human swill off the streets and reopen the institutions.
This article was originally published on August 20, 2018 . . .
Define “Want To”
I will do that.
Anytime a pot smoker wants to stop smoking, all they have to do is stop smoking, and then it’s over.
When the xanax addict wants to quit, he must consider how to do this very carefully, because he may very well die. Let me tell you, that s*** will screw your CNS up SO BADLY that your soul may well decide it can no longer inhabit its vessel.
I think it’s really important to consider the difference between things that may well be habit forming, and things that will actually cause chemical dependence.
None of these people know what it means to have to wake up every day and make sure that, on your list of needs for the day, right after consumption of oxygen resides consumption of xanax, or the result will be the same.
That is what an addiction is.
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