as someone who used to drink daily but stopped, I found that I dramatically overestimated how much the average USian drinks. when you're surrounded by drinkers it's an easy mistake to make.
I think there's a lot of people that drink a glass of wine at dinner maybe? They're not by any means alcoholics but would be included in that 5%, which seems expected I guess.
Seems about right to me, if not high. Keep in mind that this isn't the number of Americans that consume alcohol, but the number of Americans that consume alcohol on a daily basis. People that drink on the weekends, or a few times a week after work, don't qualify. 1 in 20 seems a bit high to me, but within the ballpark.
This thread is fascinating for highlighting that what seems normal to one person seems rare to another.
I'm not sure I know a single "daily drinker". Even the people who had reputations as being heavy drinkers I don't think drank every day. Drinking daily sounds like something someone in recovery would talk about as the final stage of their spiral towards rock bottom before they went to rehab, not something I'd expect 1 in 20 people to be doing.
But maybe I'm underestimating how many people have one glass of wine with dinner or one beer after work.
Before becoming a techie I did construction work and nearly every person drank beer after (and often during) work. It was a way to alleviate the pain from hard manual labor.
Yeah it was surprising but this is from NIH, they didn't have a stat for daily drinkers so I took the most extreme.
According to the 2022 NSDUH, 16.0 million adults ages 18 and older reported heavy alcohol use in the past month (see glossary for definition of heavy alcohol use)
Heavy alcohol use (or heavy drinking):
NIAAA defines heavy alcohol use as follows:
For men, consuming five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more per week
For women, consuming four or more drinks on any day or 8 or more per week
You have no idea what real alcohol dependance can look like. 74/Week is a run of the mill alcoholic. Many drink double that for years and even decades before their liver forces them to stop or die.
Yea, that's what I thought, too. When OP posted that figure, I thought, that's like 10 beers a day... I mean, yes that's a lot, but even I might have achieved that during the peak of my irresponsible drinking era. When I think "actual alcoholic" I imagine about 3X that number.
The other issue here is the term tolerance. There's the "I have a high tolerance" sentiment from people who think that means they can drink a couple more drinks than their friends and not pass out verses real tolerance in the medical sense of the term. Tolerance in the medical sense is that you have submerged your central nervous system in a depressant for so long that it has effectively "Overclocked" itself to compensate. It now runs faster and hotter in order to overcome the constant presence of something trying to slow it down. That's why people with real tolerance sweat profusely, have uncontrollable shaking and potentially seizures and hallucinations when the CNS depressant is removed from their system. Their nervous system has adjusted to only function normally with the depressant in their system and functions extremely abnormally without it.
It sucks because alcohol seems to unlock a part of my brain in a way that no other drugs can. But the half life is SO short, and you have to keep redosing. And then you inevitably pay for it the next day. I can avoid hangovers pretty well, but even then, my mood is noticeably impacted for at least one or two days after drinking. Even just the shitty sleep you get after a few drinks makes it a hard sell these days...but at the same time, the occasional night drinking helps me feel things I'm not able to otherwise. Ugh. I'm trying to keep it to just a couple nights a month.
I'm fairly certain EtOH causes depression directly because an antidepressant I take now feels exactly like a hangover whenever I miss a dose and sleep.
I don't drink now because there's no particular benefit to it, only risks. Maybe a half glass of wine or one finger of very old single malt whiskey every now and then.
If you have to do something cannabis is probably the better option especially if you eat it instead of smoking it. I stopped drinking 5 years ago and my blood pressure dropped from like ~135/90 down to ~115/75 most readings. Now coffee is my only vice.
Try mushroom matcha (ryze brand). I used to drink tea, a lot. But now I am only mixing mushroom matcha with a small spoon of raw organic maca powder, and a hot water. Don't add maca in the evening, it might affect your sleep hours.
It's been pretty much my drink for the last couple of years.
Relative to alcohol this is probably a good thing but I think most people grossly underestimate the negative impact of daily cannabis use. I’ve seen many people slowly deteriorate. Cannabis psychosis is no fun at all
Agreed. It's understandable that people were fed up with the rampant misinformation around the dangers of weed, but I fear we may be overcorrecting in the other direction now. Some people like to pretend that it's completely harmless even as they struggle with dependency issues.
We need some actual fact-based education around weed.
I dunno if alcohol is so much worse than weed in the grand scheme of things. A lot of Europeans, especially up north, are downright alcoholics by US standards, and yet their societies seem to be doing just fine, quite flourishing really.
For example Ireland has the highest GDP/Capita in EU and Finland has the best educated school students in the EU.
Not promoting alcohol consumption, but from my POV here in Europe, traditional alcoholic societies seem to have developed further than traditional stoner societies.
India and Jamaica come to mind, but one had their GDP drained from 23% to just 4% of global GDP by British colonialism and the other is a former slave colony so those examples might have rather more significant downward pressure on productivity other than cannabis
The probability of being hurt or even just disturbed by someone else due to them being high on cannabis is far, far lower than the probability of being hurt by someone due to them being high on alcohol.
Work in a public facing role, especially at night or on weekends. Or even just drive around at night to see the difference.
Irish society being held up as a shining example to argue a point. I think the Irish could double their drinking and it wouldn't bring any more tech companies to the country. They're there for tax status, this is common knowledge especially in this part of the world.
It is common in family/small types businesses to start drinking at the office after lunch, this is Sweden/Norway/Denmark/Finland. It is dark and is sucks, what else you gonna do?
There are lots of factors in life that can cause psychosis, reading philosophy can do it via triggering an existential crisis? Right? Obviously other traumatic events cause psychosis.
I wonder if these require multiple things to happen, a life event + regular usage.
The picture is murky: both addictions co-exist (i.e., there are now two addiction issues), but for the overlapping group, combined use may lead to more alcohol consumption [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8855954/]. There's only a moderately positive effect if cannabis use doesn't grow further, and substitutes alcohol abuse.
What it says on the tin: psychosis triggered by cannabis. Its rare, but not that rare, and well established scientifically and anecdotally. It's debated whether cannabis causes it, or just exacerbates it, but give 100 random people a super strong edible, a few will have a break from reality.
Why is it an argument for an effect being real that a lot of people have personal stories about it? For instance, a lot of people have stories about mentioning a niche interest while using certain software and that interest later appearing in Google results. That can happen for reasons related to statistics and confirmation bias. Consequently, a lot of people have stories. So what? Some software spies, some doesn't, the rumors aren't how we tell the difference, and "scientifically and anecdotally" is a terrible phase, as if those things were of equivalent merit. Lots of people have stories about bigfoot.
The problem isn't cannabis, the problem is how it's dosed and flavored. Edibles are too strong, and taste too delicious.
> but give 100 random people a super strong edible, a few will have a break from reality
Give 100 random people 10-20 shots in a short period of time, and they will also have a break from reality.
The difference is that hard alcohol has a very clearly identifiable taste and causes stomach discomfort: If a child mistakes a glass of whiskey for a glass of apple juice, they aren't going to chug it.
In contrast, cannabis gummies (which I eat plenty of,) taste wonderful, and are often too strong.
When I made my own brownies, I would only have intense experiences if I ate a lot. In contrast, what appears to be a "normal" bite of a chocolate bar, or a handful of gummies, can end up being like an LSD trip.
With edibles, taking the right dosage is notoriously difficult. They are very prone to accidental over-consumption (e.g. becoming "higher" than desired).
The feedback loop is very slow. It can easily take 30-60 minutes after ingestion before you can start gauging how strong the overall effect will be and how it might peak.
This must mean psychosis correlated with cannabis use in a controversial way, complicated by matters of genetics, environment, the use of other drugs, and pre-existing psychiatric conditions. It means schizophrenia, and possibly other forms of long-term psychosis but I'm not sure what those are. Delusions of persecution? But that isn't very different.
I’m becoming pretty alarmed at cannabis smoking/vaping causing endothelial dysfunction.
Alcohol is hilariously bad even relative to most drugs, but at some point we’re going to have to start examining cannabis on its own and it’s not that great. Edibles seem relatively inert though.
I live in a country where weed is still illegal. I'm not a user, but I used it heavily in my teens (which I don't recommend). In principle I'm all for legalisation - get the profits out of the hands of criminal gangs and into legitimate taxable enterprise.
In practice I have heard on podcasts based in places like Washington and California where hosts say they almost can't leave their home without being hit in the face with the stink of weed. I absolutely hate the smell of weed smoke. This is the one practical hitch in my mind. I wish that we could rely on pot smokers to be a bit more respectful to people who aren't.
> In practice I have heard on podcasts based in places like Washington and California where hosts say they almost can't leave their home without being hit in the face with the stink of weed.
These podcasts are meant to scare people to farm engagement. I live in WA and barely smell weed (except when I myself am smoking it.) And when I do, it's usually just the scent and not clouds of smoke or anything.
I live in Northern Europe and almost never feel the smell of weed here.
In my travels around the USA and Canada, it was very clear to me it's far, far more common over there.
You may not live in the city. I smell it all the time. Regardless of whether I agree or not, its pretty prevalent depending on where you live/spend your time.
I live in NYC and travel semi-regularly to both CA and WA, and this is completely overblown. You might catch a faint whiff every once in awhile, but it’s very far down on the list of annoyances a major city offers.
I don't think people are scared about it, it's more of an annoyance. And it's not being wildly exaggerated. In NYC nowadays it's more common than not when walking anywhere to get at least one strong whiff of weed per trip, if not multiple. It's also become quite common for people to light up in subway stations. I'm a former user who's not offended by the smell but still find it a bit annoying, for fear of it clinging to me.
idt I'm noseblind to it. When I go downtown in various WA cities I smell it more often. Often from far away / as it's fading. Since it's so rare to be exposed to actual second-hand weed smoke.
>In practice I have heard on podcasts based in places like Washington and California where hosts say they almost can't leave their home without being hit in the face with the stink of weed.
that's some severe hyperbole. you'll probably smell it on the bus if you use the bus, but weird smells are part of riding the bus. I rarely smell it at the grocery store unless someone's carrying flower in an unsealed package, it's pretty obvious in those cases
I live in UK where it’s still illegal. It used to be like once a month that I’d smell it in public, and now it’s a few times a day. I think it changed during the Pandemic? Doesn’t bother me personally but the sharp change is interesting.
Legal pot taxes profits from law abiders. It doesn't get anything from crooks. They move on to other contraband if anything, or don't go out of sight if caught.
At the very least, you get acclimated to the smell of cannabis much quicker then the smell of cigarettes at least in my experience. It's also becoming increasingly common to vape cannabis in America, which only has a residual smell in small, enclosed spaces with frequent use.
I can't smell my neighbor's farts from inside my house.
Cigarette or weed smoke, though, is very noticeable and it tends to linger. To the point that I avoid opening certain windows because someone 30ft from it likes to smoke on his balcony.
my manager from Atlassian used to fart a lot, standing by his desk. He even had no hesitation, it wasn't once or twice. I was wondering why nobody was willing to sit next to him when I just joined. I've learnt it the hard way. He moved now to Australia fortunately!
Just like with any substance - daily use increases tolerance of the substance and it's side effects. This includes "hangovers" for habitual over-indulging drinkers... they don't get hangovers like someone who drinks occasionally and then overdoes it at a party.
Other countries do it all the time. Europeans drink wine at meals. My wife's company even serves wine at their cafeteria in their Geneva office while their US offices are completely dry including office parties. No drinks at the Xmas party.
Impairment for e.g. driving isn’t so great but as far as just before work—how many people are on prescription mood-altering drugs? The potential for abuse is worse with self-medication (well—I mean, hypothetically, but see also opioids) but I don’t per se see “I like to stay a little high at work, makes my day a ton better” as a significantly worse than “I take a Wellbutrin each morning, makes my day a ton better”.
> Cannabis-use disorder does not lead to organ damage or death unlike alcohol or opioid-use disorders, but it can cause that health and social problems that greatly impact a person's quality of life or even their safety.
You can't kill yourself, but you might forget to shower or eat proper food. All told, it's not the worst thing a person could do to themselves.
One of the aspects I'm most concerned about is the number of people who smoke while driving. I frequently see people blowing vape smoke out of their windows in traffic. I walk past people parked in their cars smoking. So many delivery drivers smell like weed, especially Door Dash drivers and Amazon subcontractors. We're probably headed back to 1950s levels of impaired driving, and at all hours of the day rather than primarily at night.
I think this is exciting news. Scientifically, there is a clear consensus that marijuana is far less harmful to human health than most illegal drugs. It is also less dangerous than legal, highly addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco. The health effects of marijuana, compared to other recreational substances, depend on frequency of use, potency, dosage, and the age of the user. For healthy adults, occasional moderate use is virtually, if not completely, harmless. Marijuana primarily makes people feel pleasant and mellow, whereas alcohol can lead some drinkers to cause trouble in bars, commit violence at home, or drive dangerously.
given the statistic, is it high time for legalization at federal level?
as an outsider, doing something non-essential daily rarely has a net-positive effect. the roadblocks in research in this field is primarily due to the above restrictions, and it is better to have more research sooner than once this becomes widespread.
regardless, a philip morris of cannabis is in the works as we speak.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 155 ms ] threadhttps://datacenter.aecf.org/data/tables/6538-adult-populatio...
Thus, it may seem like a significant proportion of the population from the perspective of someone who does, or hangs around at least 1 such person.
I'm not sure I know a single "daily drinker". Even the people who had reputations as being heavy drinkers I don't think drank every day. Drinking daily sounds like something someone in recovery would talk about as the final stage of their spiral towards rock bottom before they went to rehab, not something I'd expect 1 in 20 people to be doing.
But maybe I'm underestimating how many people have one glass of wine with dinner or one beer after work.
"The top 10 percent of American drinkers - 24 million adults over age 18 - consume, on average, 74 alcoholic drinks per week"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think...
Long distance binge drinking
According to the 2022 NSDUH, 16.0 million adults ages 18 and older reported heavy alcohol use in the past month (see glossary for definition of heavy alcohol use)
Heavy alcohol use (or heavy drinking):
NIAAA defines heavy alcohol use as follows: For men, consuming five or more drinks on any day or 15 or more per week For women, consuming four or more drinks on any day or 8 or more per week
https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/alcohol-to...
https://www.rte.ie/news/2022/1222/1343395-health-report/
It’s all so close at the top it shuffles around regularly so it’s kinda moot.
I’m pretty sure that would kill me and I’ve always had a relatively high tolerance.
It's hard on the body. Especially as you get older.
You sleep like shit. Even with just a couple of drinks.
You're less patient with the people that you love.
Less motivated.
It just sucks the life out of you.
I mean, the calories alone are really bad, before you consider the other harmful effects of alcohol.
Not saying it’s better than doing neither, necessarily, but it does seem a ton better than drinking.
Here are some references:
https://www.theiwsr.com/moderation-trend-drives-demand-for-n...
https://www.businessinsider.com/millennials-gen-z-drag-down-...
Is that exclusive to drinking?
It sucks because alcohol seems to unlock a part of my brain in a way that no other drugs can. But the half life is SO short, and you have to keep redosing. And then you inevitably pay for it the next day. I can avoid hangovers pretty well, but even then, my mood is noticeably impacted for at least one or two days after drinking. Even just the shitty sleep you get after a few drinks makes it a hard sell these days...but at the same time, the occasional night drinking helps me feel things I'm not able to otherwise. Ugh. I'm trying to keep it to just a couple nights a month.
I don't drink now because there's no particular benefit to it, only risks. Maybe a half glass of wine or one finger of very old single malt whiskey every now and then.
It's been pretty much my drink for the last couple of years.
We need some actual fact-based education around weed.
For example Ireland has the highest GDP/Capita in EU and Finland has the best educated school students in the EU.
Not promoting alcohol consumption, but from my POV here in Europe, traditional alcoholic societies seem to have developed further than traditional stoner societies.
Just a shower though.
Work in a public facing role, especially at night or on weekends. Or even just drive around at night to see the difference.
There are lots of factors in life that can cause psychosis, reading philosophy can do it via triggering an existential crisis? Right? Obviously other traumatic events cause psychosis.
I wonder if these require multiple things to happen, a life event + regular usage.
Or if it really is a deterioration is inevitable.
if thinking about stuff deeply can cause psychosis, maybe the the problem isn't the text?
What is "Cannabis psychosis"?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3927252/
https://medicine.yale.edu/psychiatry/step/early-intervention...
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/mental-health/marijuana-induc...
https://www.brightquest.com/cannabis-induced-psychosis/
Those things don't go together.
(What are these downvotes, you all want your facts to be based on anecdotes?)
> but give 100 random people a super strong edible, a few will have a break from reality
Give 100 random people 10-20 shots in a short period of time, and they will also have a break from reality.
The difference is that hard alcohol has a very clearly identifiable taste and causes stomach discomfort: If a child mistakes a glass of whiskey for a glass of apple juice, they aren't going to chug it.
In contrast, cannabis gummies (which I eat plenty of,) taste wonderful, and are often too strong.
When I made my own brownies, I would only have intense experiences if I ate a lot. In contrast, what appears to be a "normal" bite of a chocolate bar, or a handful of gummies, can end up being like an LSD trip.
Source? Remember that you are replying to a comment with 5 studies linked.
The feedback loop is very slow. It can easily take 30-60 minutes after ingestion before you can start gauging how strong the overall effect will be and how it might peak.
Alcohol is hilariously bad even relative to most drugs, but at some point we’re going to have to start examining cannabis on its own and it’s not that great. Edibles seem relatively inert though.
In practice I have heard on podcasts based in places like Washington and California where hosts say they almost can't leave their home without being hit in the face with the stink of weed. I absolutely hate the smell of weed smoke. This is the one practical hitch in my mind. I wish that we could rely on pot smokers to be a bit more respectful to people who aren't.
These podcasts are meant to scare people to farm engagement. I live in WA and barely smell weed (except when I myself am smoking it.) And when I do, it's usually just the scent and not clouds of smoke or anything.
I think you underestimate how much weed smells to someone not used to it. Even the tiniest hint of it makes me uncomfortable.
I wish the UK had something like the smoking chambers in China where people can do what they want without affecting others too much
You are a pot smoker yourself. You probably are so used to it that you don't realise how incredibly pungent the odour is.
And no, I don’t smoke weed.
You're probably noseblind to it, since you smoke yourself.
that's some severe hyperbole. you'll probably smell it on the bus if you use the bus, but weird smells are part of riding the bus. I rarely smell it at the grocery store unless someone's carrying flower in an unsealed package, it's pretty obvious in those cases
They don't have to be — this is an American phenomenon.
What else is a good reason to legalize?
It's extremely unpleasant.
If you want to take some, please eat it instead of smoking. It's not right to inflict the smoke on others. (And yes this includes outside.)
Cigarette or weed smoke, though, is very noticeable and it tends to linger. To the point that I avoid opening certain windows because someone 30ft from it likes to smoke on his balcony.
Because people can't be trusted to behave or? Sounds a bit extreme...
> My wife's company even serves wine at their cafeteria
Seen that but I think very few people consider buying it. Maybe last day before a vacation or similar (once or twice in a lifetime).
I don't like that this has become normalized.
You can't kill yourself, but you might forget to shower or eat proper food. All told, it's not the worst thing a person could do to themselves.
I do agree that no one should be inebriated while driving though.
as an outsider, doing something non-essential daily rarely has a net-positive effect. the roadblocks in research in this field is primarily due to the above restrictions, and it is better to have more research sooner than once this becomes widespread.
regardless, a philip morris of cannabis is in the works as we speak.
some more discussion:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40441099