it is very important to also remind - no amount of alcohol is ever prescribed or sold in the pharmacies. the alcohol was legalized in order to a) reverse the ill effects of prohibition which led to birth of large-scale organized crime; b) to allow regulation of substances innit, as people were dying from bad booze.
likewise, nations may have to legalize in order to regulate the contents of whatever-white-powder users may stumble upon on the street. and let us be honest - no bombs can stop the Fentanil (or rat poison for all I care) from being mixed in.
The sad thing to me, because of how it has affected, several family members, is that some smoke dope or take CBD to treat anxiety only to make things worse.
Because of how marijuana has been made nearly sacrosanct in some circles, they will not look at that THC or CBD as a contributing factor : (
> Evidence from randomized clinical trials does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most conditions for which it is promoted, such as acute pain and insomnia.
I once slept in a hoodie with the hood under my back and woke up with horrible back pain, I could not sit still or focus on anything but the pain, 800mg of ibuprofen did nothing. I was about to go to the ER or urgent care when a doctor friend suggested trying cannabis, I took one small hit and was immediately pain free. I have never experienced such a dramatic medical effect in my life, one second I was writhing in pain and the next I was completely fine.
I’ve also seen videos of epileptics calming their seizures from cannabis. The autism community often speaks highly of it, how it makes them feel “normal” or more regulated. I’ve heard of stories of people getting off opioids by using cannabis. I think the people who get anxiety from it or no relief from insomnia are often taking far too much because there aren’t any good guidelines for self medicating and the guidelines they do get are from recreational users.
All I have are anecdotes, but given how obvious the effects were, I find it hard to believe there’s no medicinal value to cannabis.
I have a friend who was in a serious car accident years ago and had a broken hip. It still gives him daily pain. He has turned to cannabis to treat his pain long term and it seem to be working for him. He never describes it as "immediately eliminating the pain" or anything close to that. Really just takes the edge off so he's not as focused on his pain. It's easier to push to the background and ignore.
Different countries still treat cannabis very differently, and that alone shows how unsettled the whole topic is.
I don’t know the full historical reasoning behind the bans, but there must have been perceived downsides at the time.
It feels like society just keeps swinging back and forth on this.
The abstract of the review is interesting and honestly reflects my (negative) experience with cannabis.
I admit, I really like cannabis, and when I was a 20 year old occasionally smoking with friends at parties it was a "healthier" alternative to getting wasted on alcohol. Share few joins with friends, have fun, laugh a lot.
Then as I got financially independent and I started solo consumption (mostly to get rid of stress) I really started appreciating the cons: lack of energy, disruption of sleep, negative impact of my cognitive abilities, increase in anxiety. I'm glad the study confirms those to be statistically common.
I was very lucky to have a SO who really disliked me smoking and made me realize that I was just doing it to "not think", and it had really 0 positive effects on me. I'm sure I would've quitted eventually anyway, but support and criticism sped up the reality check.
Eventually this is all anecdotal experience, and I'm sure there might be occasional users who can have a mostly positive experience, but the fact that a review points out how statistically common are the negatives and how uncommon are the positives honestly reflects what I've seen on myself and friends.
This paper is very much a case of read past the abstract, especially the limitations of the study. As always it’s important for a clinician to explain the risks and current evidence when prescribing, no matter the substance. A lot of medicines have limited evidence, but they still work for some people.
Personally I use prescribed pharmacutical cannabis oils as I have much lower levels of a couple of important enzymes than most people which renders opioids mostly ineffective, even intravenous morphine as I recently found out after surgery. High CBD cannabis oil works, as does paracetamol but that’s way more dangerous.
> Evidence from randomized clinical trials does not support the use of cannabis or cannabinoids for most conditions for which it is promoted, such as acute pain and insomnia.
cannabis in many varieties and cannabinoids especially the most significant naturally made potentially cheaply sourceable receptors' agonist compound delta-9-thc, when taken not occasionally, in increasingly large quantities, in extracted purified forms, at high molar concentrations (up to and over 5-10 µM) have demostrated - albeit not in many clinical settings despite numerous studies since 1974 have confirmed such potential usage - a strong antiproliferative, antineoplastic, antitumor, anticancer activity.
The point of the studies was to establish a reason for people to use recreational drugs. Americans can’t be satisfied with “they’re fun” so people need to come up with a medical reason for it because “they’re suffering” is a get out of jail free card.
Everything is obviously fabricated. You think the snail darter is real? But the scientific consensus…
By the same standard, humans would never have started consuming alcohol, and it should be strictly forbidden. But of course we have tried that, and it's not very effective, but for some reason they seem to think it can work with something that is even easier to handle.
You can tell what the paper is going to argue just by reading the author affiliations. They're all part of a group whose funding lines all lead back to NIDA.
NIDA’s mandate is harm. Not cognition, not performance, not any of the reasons people actually use cannabis. So of course the study leans hard on CUD and psychosis as those are the two outcomes that guarantee grant renewals. A proposal about cannabis and creative problem-solving will get immediately buried. But if you emphasize risk (especially adolescent risk, ideally with "first-episode psychosis" somewhere in the aims) then suddenly everyone’s interested.
They do the usual maneuver with FDA-approved derived substances: carve them out as clean, respectable, and clinically manageable, while treating the whole-plant as this murky, unstable mass the medical system can’t "trust." That distinction is purely commercial, not scientific. The plant itself is chaotic, but the extract with an SKU number is pure, controlled, and therefore "clinical." It’s not hard to see what this protects.
It's the exact same thing Cargill, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo did against stevia (Rebiana) and Merck did against red rice koji (Lovastatin). The form you can just grow or make yourself cheaply is dangerous to consumers. But this patented recombination passed solely through greased palms is just dandy. This study is just another vehicle for the same move against cannabis.
Most of the authors work in addiction medicine. Their entire professional world assumes SUD as the governing model. If cannabis doesn’t sit inside that model (as in patients can just go buy it without passing through the psychiatric gate) then they lose money and clients. The conclusion section basically spells out the anxiety: clinicians must provide guidance, clinicians must set the boundaries, clinicians must interpret the evidence. That’s jurisdictional language.
Meanwhile, the practical reality is that patients get contradictory instructions: a doctor says "try cannabis" but a follow-up psychiatrist says "chronic cannabis use is a disorder." They're trying to patch that incoherence by building a moat around medicalized (and patented) cannabinoids and burning everything outside it.
The only cannabis that counts is the kind that runs through the FDA and, by extension, the institutions tied into that pipeline. Everything outside that channel is going to be treated as dangerous and destructive on purpose.
I understand what you are saying, and I largely agree that it's how the medical system controls things in general, but that's true for pretty much any industry. I wouldn't see too much of a conspiracy in people trying to protect whatever they believe in.
Anyway, I don't think the research can have the effect you think it has. Cannabis will be available in the black market regardless of whatever the research ends up saying. Whoever really wants to try to see if it works better for them than conventional medicine/treatment can definitely do so and choose for themselves if it's worth it.
I have consumed quite a decent amount of cannabis myself and have friends who are regular users (this is how I access it, basically).
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the bad effects of cannabis; they are very real. And the older I get, the more I think that the good part isn't really worth the bad part unless we are talking about some more extreme situations like cancer treatment, tetraplegia, or basically anything where life outcomes are so fucked there is almost no way to make it worse.
It's probably better to avoid it entirely before 25 yo, until the brain is fully stabilized. But that's very much true of alcohol, nicotine, and even most likely caffeine, but they still get used, so whatever, I guess.
20 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 37.1 ms ] threadlikewise, nations may have to legalize in order to regulate the contents of whatever-white-powder users may stumble upon on the street. and let us be honest - no bombs can stop the Fentanil (or rat poison for all I care) from being mixed in.
This statement is historically incomplete, and geographically myopic.
Alcohol in the US was initially fully legal, then prohibited for a short period, then legalized again.
Elsewhere, laws differ, but alcohol is largely regulated but legal for adults in most (non-Islamic) countries.
Because of how marijuana has been made nearly sacrosanct in some circles, they will not look at that THC or CBD as a contributing factor : (
I once slept in a hoodie with the hood under my back and woke up with horrible back pain, I could not sit still or focus on anything but the pain, 800mg of ibuprofen did nothing. I was about to go to the ER or urgent care when a doctor friend suggested trying cannabis, I took one small hit and was immediately pain free. I have never experienced such a dramatic medical effect in my life, one second I was writhing in pain and the next I was completely fine.
I’ve also seen videos of epileptics calming their seizures from cannabis. The autism community often speaks highly of it, how it makes them feel “normal” or more regulated. I’ve heard of stories of people getting off opioids by using cannabis. I think the people who get anxiety from it or no relief from insomnia are often taking far too much because there aren’t any good guidelines for self medicating and the guidelines they do get are from recreational users.
All I have are anecdotes, but given how obvious the effects were, I find it hard to believe there’s no medicinal value to cannabis.
I admit, I really like cannabis, and when I was a 20 year old occasionally smoking with friends at parties it was a "healthier" alternative to getting wasted on alcohol. Share few joins with friends, have fun, laugh a lot.
Then as I got financially independent and I started solo consumption (mostly to get rid of stress) I really started appreciating the cons: lack of energy, disruption of sleep, negative impact of my cognitive abilities, increase in anxiety. I'm glad the study confirms those to be statistically common.
I was very lucky to have a SO who really disliked me smoking and made me realize that I was just doing it to "not think", and it had really 0 positive effects on me. I'm sure I would've quitted eventually anyway, but support and criticism sped up the reality check.
Eventually this is all anecdotal experience, and I'm sure there might be occasional users who can have a mostly positive experience, but the fact that a review points out how statistically common are the negatives and how uncommon are the positives honestly reflects what I've seen on myself and friends.
Personally I use prescribed pharmacutical cannabis oils as I have much lower levels of a couple of important enzymes than most people which renders opioids mostly ineffective, even intravenous morphine as I recently found out after surgery. High CBD cannabis oil works, as does paracetamol but that’s way more dangerous.
I think that’s the key message do the paper.
Everything is obviously fabricated. You think the snail darter is real? But the scientific consensus…
By the same standard, humans would never have started consuming alcohol, and it should be strictly forbidden. But of course we have tried that, and it's not very effective, but for some reason they seem to think it can work with something that is even easier to handle.
NIDA’s mandate is harm. Not cognition, not performance, not any of the reasons people actually use cannabis. So of course the study leans hard on CUD and psychosis as those are the two outcomes that guarantee grant renewals. A proposal about cannabis and creative problem-solving will get immediately buried. But if you emphasize risk (especially adolescent risk, ideally with "first-episode psychosis" somewhere in the aims) then suddenly everyone’s interested.
They do the usual maneuver with FDA-approved derived substances: carve them out as clean, respectable, and clinically manageable, while treating the whole-plant as this murky, unstable mass the medical system can’t "trust." That distinction is purely commercial, not scientific. The plant itself is chaotic, but the extract with an SKU number is pure, controlled, and therefore "clinical." It’s not hard to see what this protects.
It's the exact same thing Cargill, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo did against stevia (Rebiana) and Merck did against red rice koji (Lovastatin). The form you can just grow or make yourself cheaply is dangerous to consumers. But this patented recombination passed solely through greased palms is just dandy. This study is just another vehicle for the same move against cannabis.
Most of the authors work in addiction medicine. Their entire professional world assumes SUD as the governing model. If cannabis doesn’t sit inside that model (as in patients can just go buy it without passing through the psychiatric gate) then they lose money and clients. The conclusion section basically spells out the anxiety: clinicians must provide guidance, clinicians must set the boundaries, clinicians must interpret the evidence. That’s jurisdictional language.
Meanwhile, the practical reality is that patients get contradictory instructions: a doctor says "try cannabis" but a follow-up psychiatrist says "chronic cannabis use is a disorder." They're trying to patch that incoherence by building a moat around medicalized (and patented) cannabinoids and burning everything outside it.
The only cannabis that counts is the kind that runs through the FDA and, by extension, the institutions tied into that pipeline. Everything outside that channel is going to be treated as dangerous and destructive on purpose.
That's an impressive take. In general, or were they institutionally created to destroy all people?
Anyway, I don't think the research can have the effect you think it has. Cannabis will be available in the black market regardless of whatever the research ends up saying. Whoever really wants to try to see if it works better for them than conventional medicine/treatment can definitely do so and choose for themselves if it's worth it.
I have consumed quite a decent amount of cannabis myself and have friends who are regular users (this is how I access it, basically). I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the bad effects of cannabis; they are very real. And the older I get, the more I think that the good part isn't really worth the bad part unless we are talking about some more extreme situations like cancer treatment, tetraplegia, or basically anything where life outcomes are so fucked there is almost no way to make it worse.
It's probably better to avoid it entirely before 25 yo, until the brain is fully stabilized. But that's very much true of alcohol, nicotine, and even most likely caffeine, but they still get used, so whatever, I guess.