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The Free Thought Project reports via AlterNet
There's one thing that appears to be saving more lives during the opioid epidemic than anything else--medical cannabis. While government touts meaningless attempts at addressing the problem--paying lip service to the people while protecting Big Pharma's profits and filling jails--people are saving themselves by turning to an ancient plant.
Yet another scientific study has confirmed that medical cannabis access reduces harm from opioid abuse among the population. A recent study published in the Drug and Alcohol Dependency journal found that states with legal medical cannabis experience fewer hospitalizations related to opioids.
"Medical marijuana legalization was associated with 23% and 13% reductions in hospitalizations related to opioid dependence or abuse and [opioid pain reliever] OPR overdose, respectively; lagged effects were observed after policy implementation."
Researchers from the University of California analyzed hospital administrative records for the period of 1997 to 2014. The author reported:
"This study demonstrated significant reductions on OPR- (opioid pain reliever) related hospitalizations associated with the implementation of medical marijuana policies. ... We found reductions in OPR-related hospitalizations immediately after the year of policy implementation as well as delayed reductions in the third post-policy year."
The data also show that cannabis-related hospitalizations did not increase after legalization, contrary to what prohibitionists would have you believe.
(Score: 5, Funny) by AndyTheAbsurd on Friday March 17 2017, @05:19PM (16 children)
Let me be the first in this thread to congratulate Drugs on winning The Drug War.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @05:59PM (15 children)
Drugs haven't won yet. People who cannot live without cannabis will need to think about whether they would rather die from big pharma “treatment” or die defending their right to grow plants.
Good guys with guns are the only thing that can keep cannabis legal where it's been legalized, because Republicans with guns will be mobilized soon to commit robbery, assault, kidnapping, and murder against legitimate business owners.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday March 17 2017, @06:09PM (14 children)
I think that sounds crazy, but fine then: Let's also preemptively congratulate the Democrats on winning the War on Guns to defend small business owners. :D
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @06:25PM (12 children)
I hope Democrats may come to understand the error of their ways now that they've allowed an administration into power that is a threat guns may be needed against.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @07:17PM (10 children)
Thanks to some of the posters on this site, along with other life experiences, I have switched from "mildly pro gun control" to "anti gun control". Now that conservatives are literally talking about murdering liberals I am tempted to become a gun owner so I can defend myself from the likes of EF. Thankfully reason wins out, people like EF are just venting their emotional problems through the anonymity of the net. I suspect most conservatives would defend their liberal brothers and sisters, and vice versa.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @07:36PM (6 children)
I suspect most conservatives would defend their liberal brothers and sisters, and vice versa.
No, they wouldn't. Not the Michigan Militia at least.
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Friday March 17 2017, @07:47PM (4 children)
Dude. It's Michigan. It's like Texas with a higher failure rate. I've literally never heard of anything good happening there outside of, like, one band I can think of off the top of my head.
I get that you hate it. But seriously, you could have walked out of there by now. Get a backpack and a sleeping bag and just start walking in a direction. If you hit water, follow it, sooner or later you're going to be free.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:58PM (1 child)
Um, ex-Michigan native here... Michigan's largest contributions are historical. Look up the importance of the St. Lawrence river and shipping some time. Water way from the Atlantic ocean to places like Detroit, Chicago, Duluth, etc. And depending on your interpretation, Ford and GM came from there... and they where.... at least at one time good? What about Motown? Yeah as of late I can admit not a lot that is any good has come from Michigan but we had our glory days once.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Friday March 17 2017, @10:47PM
> Michigan's largest contributions are historical. Look up the importance of the St. Lawrence river and shipping some time.
That seems to still be of some importance:
One of Canada’s most important transportation and trade networks, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway, is undergoing a transformation that will see more than $7-billion worth of investments by 2018.
[...]
The improvements come as shipping on the seaway has been soaring with cargo volumes hitting 40 million tonnes last year, the highest since the recession.
-- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/great-lakes-st-lawrence-seaway-to-get-7-billion-facelift/article22437770/ [theglobeandmail.com]
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday March 17 2017, @08:35PM
It must be nice not to have any obligations.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:00PM
Ok, how long before the magic happens? I've hit water and I must have been, like, 8 times round this pond.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:03AM
Well, there you go. These people actually want to strip you of your rights.
But, a feminist was rude to you once. You really showed them!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:13AM (1 child)
>Now that conservatives are literally talking about murdering liberals
Fucking retard. We aren't the ones burning down college campuses when the wrong person tries to speak there. We didn't riot when Obama won. You bitter little slugs though, you're the ones we have to watch out for.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:07AM
Fucking retard. We aren't the ones burning down college campuses when the wrong person tries to speak there.
Funny you should use the word "burning." No burning occurred at Berkeley.
Bit of burning going on here, though. [revelist.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 19 2017, @10:46AM
I have had a lot of people ask me what I think about Gun Control.
I am all for it - providing the words "Gun Control" means you hit what you are shooting at - and you do not hit what you ain't shooting at.
If you aim for one thing, and hit something else, its obvious you ain't controlling your gun and you don't have any business messing with one.
That's all I ask... if you mess around with it, know how to use it.
A flock of people without the means to protect themselves is just about as bad as a flock of sheep with wolves around.
I take about as kindly to removing people's guns as to declawing a cat then making it fend for itself. What's the thing to do? Meow loudly while its being eaten?
I know the "bad guys" are going to have guns. Law or no law.
My concern is that the "good guys" have them too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:10AM
Obligatory [youtube.com]
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:22PM
You gotta hand it to the dems, they are the gun industries best marketing agency. All they gotta do is mention "gun control" and boom! Huge surge in gun and ammunition sales.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @05:27PM (13 children)
"Suckit Sessions"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @06:17PM (5 children)
If you think scientific studies can change these people's minds, or even make them think, you haven't been paying attention.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:45PM (4 children)
Precisely. I doubt very much that they don't know these things to be true, they just don't care. It turns out that they like money more than the problems that will come after they've died. And, yes, with global warming, the worst effects won't happen until after these 60 and 70 year olds are dead.
I think it's short-sighted personally as we all depend upon previous generations working to improve the world for our benefit. The fact that the Baby Boomers decided to be such greedy bastards makes it that much harder to convince the Gen Xers and Millenials to plan for whatever future generations.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday March 17 2017, @10:03PM (3 children)
Don't forget about compartmentalized thinking. Tell a lie enough times and you believe it.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 17 2017, @10:10PM (2 children)
Says who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:48PM
Anyone who is aware of the Dubya/Cheney White House. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:07PM
The "Big Lie Theory" has been around for quite a while.
Here's a link to one of the original references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie [wikipedia.org]
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @06:18PM (6 children)
Oh don't worry, evidence contradicting their beliefs will do very little to this administration.
Sessions will be more than happy to reinvigorate the opioid epidemic if it means sticking it to potheads.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by redneckmother on Friday March 17 2017, @07:23PM (5 children)
The opioid epidemic is profitable for some of the corporations that run the US government. Pot is too easy to produce at home for them to decriminalize it.
Does anyone really think the overlords really care about individuals?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 4, Informative) by ikanreed on Friday March 17 2017, @07:31PM (2 children)
The problem with that logic is that a great many of the people who were addicted to Oxy switched to heroin because it's way cheaper, and, once you have a contact, easier to get.
I don't know if that's an indictment of how expensive the American medical system is, how much the drug war failed to stop opium imports, or both, but it's still true.
(Score: 5, Informative) by edIII on Friday March 17 2017, @07:45PM (1 child)
Indictment of both. Having a relative that was addicted to heroin, I learned first hand that the biggest problem.... was how cheap it was. That truly surprised me. I always thought heroin was one of the more expensive drugs that forced you into petty crimes and shitty lives like crack-whorin' for crack.
Price in Northern California to get high on heroin these days? $5. I'm not kidding. $5. My relative wasn't stealing to get high or committing crimes. Didn't have to. Just a small portion of the daily budget for living.
For LESS than a Starbuck's coffee, for LESS than a fucking cheeseburger at fast food, LESS than food at the grocery store, I can get high on heroin today. Legal options for eliminating pain? $35 per fucking pill. Legal weed? $2,200 per pound at the high end. $9 per pre-rolled joint at the lower end. That's commercial.
Heroin is less costly than almost every other legal or illegal drug out there. So when opiate addicts are switching to weed, that is opiate addicts putting their money where their mouth is in their desire to stop using.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:46AM
Actually it is really hard to find heroin, the price crash is due to the other opiates that are sold as heroin. Femoral is the big one, cheap as hell to buy in China and mail to N. America. Cheap to make as well. There's some others around as well w, another one that is used for tranquilizing elephants, synthetic opiates where a grain of salt sized dose will kill you.
It is the free market in action, heroin is not as cheap and is bulky and the market has replaced it with fake heroin, even the dealers often think it is heroin they're selling. Being free market, there is also a minimum of quality control, leading to something like 1500 overdose deaths in the last year here in BC. It's hard to cut something that potent. It's hard to gauge the dose when the potency is unknown.
The solution being talked about more and more here in Canada is the government selling legal heroin (it's happening a bit) as it is cheap and actually heroin is pretty safe, especially compared to many drug store drugs. It's just societies hatred of (some kinds of) addiction that is the big problem.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday March 17 2017, @10:14PM (1 child)
Opium is equally easy to produce, humans used it as pain relief at least 7000 years back [wikipedia.org], while in Neolithic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:31AM
The seeds are also commonly available, like most racks of garden seeds include opium poppies. Once you know what they look like, you see them all over the place. They self seed well too.
(Score: 5, Touché) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday March 17 2017, @05:50PM (3 children)
You hippies think you're all so clever with your "facts" and "evidence" and "proof". What about COMMON SENSE? Hmm? My ill-informed, hollywood-fed, semi-literate reactionary hindbrain knows more about complex social and medical issues than your "experts" and "doctors" and "people with direct and extensive experience of the problem" all put together. Here's an alternative fact for you: Clearly we're not punishing these so-called people hard enough for not being like me. Lock 'em up, that's what I say. Lock 'em up, or shoot 'em, and steal their stuff.
(Score: 4, Touché) by NewNic on Friday March 17 2017, @06:24PM (2 children)
Your comment is very accurate, except for one thing. I don't believe that these idealogues get their information from Hollywood. Instead, it comes from the mouths of their pastors.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @09:21PM
No. They have think tanks to think up all the stupid shit they say.
Think tanks inventing alternate realities. Aka lies.
Its what keeps captain chaos doing his crazy train.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:37PM
Nah, it comes from their peers.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday March 17 2017, @06:23PM (23 children)
This seem like an odd story. They seem to be grabbing things left and right and moshing them together - perhaps it was written while high on weed. Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else? I guess that is it - or that it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose. A weed-dealers bullet or the crime that follow in the illegal weed market is probably just as deadly as any other illegal drug market. Legalization might solve a few of those issues but as noted neither "Big Pharma" or the various Drug cartels south of the border are to pleased about it.
That said this seems like it has very little to do with the War on Drugs, an effort to stop illegal drugs and the creation of new addicts. As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to. The legality doesn't change the addiction in that regard. That the War on drugs is a giant failure is probably not really the issue here. The War on Drugs seems to have had a few other "bonus effects" such as propping up various little dictators in South America with military hardware and assistance so they wouldn't fall to the evils of communism. That seems to have been just as important as stopping drug trafficking.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @06:32PM
You have the comprehension of somebody who's been drinking too much.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @06:35PM (6 children)
Hehe
it's really really hard to die of a Weed overdose
Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
As far as I know you can become addicted by using legal weed to
Weed is not chemically addictive.
This is the problem, so much misinformation due to the War on Drugs.
As for the style of writing, what are YOU on? Citing multiple studies to make a point is "grabbing things left and right and moshing them together"?
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday March 17 2017, @07:10PM (4 children)
> Basically impossible, I don't think there is one recorded case of death by marijuana.
What if a 200-pound bale of the stuff falls on your head? What then, ese?!
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Funny) by Zz9zZ on Friday March 17 2017, @07:20PM
Call OSHA!
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 4, Insightful) by rts008 on Friday March 17 2017, @07:41PM
Call it a gift from 'heaven', and find a truck?
Is this a trick question?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @07:52PM
Then you call Cheech & Chong and get some XXL Zigzags... And some munchies.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:38PM
You call Dominoes. Duh.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:20AM
As you said "chemically addictive" I must agree, but I have encountered examples of people who where psychologically addicted, so if you can be addicted to video games or iPhones, you can be addicted to marijuana. There are reasonable arguments over whether this is the correct use of the language. I don't tend to think so, but I seem to be in the minority.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Friday March 17 2017, @06:40PM (7 children)
It's so hard that nobody has ever managed to do it in the entire documented history of humanity.
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects. To the degree that it is psychologically addictive, it appears to be no more so than just about any other daily habit, e.g. my near-daily dose of perfectly legal chocolate.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:48PM (2 children)
In order to overdose on weed you'd have to either purposefully do it or you'd have to be caught in the middle of a field as it burns. I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
Medical marijuana though, I'm completely for that. I don't think there's a viable argument in favor of keeping that illegal. And even the argument in favor of keeping it illegal for recreational use is getting weaker and weaker as time goes by.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:26AM
I'm not personally a supporter of legalization without appropriate studies being conducted about the various pros and cons being done, but saying that it's going to cause overdoses or similar is rather ridiculous.
So you're in favor of preemptively making/keeping things illegal until studies are done that show them to be safe? Because that is the exact opposite of what a free society would do.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:27AM
There is reasonable evidence that marijuana is damaging to people before their late adolescent neuron pruning is done at around 23. This isn't convincing evidence, as I don't believe the study has ever been replicated. It's also true that the effect detected was not large. And I don't believe this is reasonable ground for legislation, though I do believe that it's reasonable ground for parents to ensure that the effect was tested by somebody else's children.
A thing worthy of note is that many of the experimental tests of hemp extracts for medical potency promote them as not resulting in people getting high. This is a useful characteristic in a medicine, but shouldn't have anything to do with whether or not it was legal.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Post-Nihilist on Friday March 17 2017, @09:23PM
There's no signs that weed has any kind of physically addictive effects
If you try hard enough or use a concentrate like shatter or hash oil, there is some physical addiction to be found. Speaking from experience, extremely heavy prolonged cannabis use withdrawal symptoms are alike to a 3 days long mild cold concomitant to about a week of sleeplessness/bad sleep. Those symptoms feel quite different than the psychological cravings and unlike the cravings those symptoms are not suppressed by a small dose of a benzodiazepine like Rivotril (clonazepam) .
But do not take that as a warning against weed legalization: when you have the need to consume burn in your DNA, you will get addicted to something, anything. Compared to alcoholism, opiate addiction, cocaine addiction, sex addiction and gambling, weed addiction is by far the less damaging option.
If you want some active substances where addiction is physically impossible, magic mushroom (mostly psylocibin) and LSD are better candidate as they have an anti addiction feedback loop builtin: if you take 120ug of lsd on Monday, 250ug on Tuesday will have a potency similar less then 50ug would have had on monday. Wait until Friday and 120ug will give you a decent trip again. With magic mushroom it is the same but the delay is longer. Note that there is cross tolerance between psylocibin and LSD as they are both serotonergic hallucinogens.
Be like us, be different, be a nihilist!!!
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:44AM (2 children)
Chocolate is actually physically addicting, its active chemical is similar to caffeine. Chocolate has been bred for weakness ever since the Catholics got control of the chocolate producing regions and what you call chocolate may have very little actual cocoa in it so it is not very addicting but the potential is as bad as coffee as being an addicting gateway drug. (Every drug user I've asked started with coffee or other caffeine containing beverage).
Interestingly, back around the end of the 19th century when prohibition became popular, there was a movement to include chocolate in the list of bad substances that need to be prohibited.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday March 20 2017, @03:02PM (1 child)
Not sure if sarcasm, but I have personally never found caffeine to be addictive at all.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday March 21 2017, @03:26AM
Most people do experience mild withdrawal symptoms when used to drinking 2 or more cups a day. http://www.webmd.com/balance/caffeine-myths-and-facts#1-2 [webmd.com]
Not trying to be sarcastic, just showing the stupidity of comparing marijuana, which is considered non-lethal and non-physical addicting to (mildly) addicting, potentially lethal drugs such as coffee and chocolate (btw, chocolate does also contain caffeine as well as theobromine). A tablespoon of pure caffeine can kill and a gram to 1.5 grams a day can have negative affects. Chocolate kills a lot of animals as many such as dog and cats can't metabolize theobromine, even known to kill bears. In its pure form, it is not harmless. Be interesting to get hold of the stuff that the Incas etc used, it sure freaked out the Catholics back in the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_chocolate [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine#Overdose [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by edIII on Friday March 17 2017, @07:34PM (2 children)
Sorry, but you are perpetuating a myth. Weed is not addictive at all, beyond the possibility of psychological addiction. So if weed addition is an actual thing, so is sex addiction, chocolate addiction, and addiction to soap operas. Dunno about you, but I'm pretty "addicted" to sex and chocolate. Not so much soap operas.
Addiction without any special context means BIOLOGICAL OR CHEMICAL addiction. Weed is simply not chemically addictive like opiates or cigarettes. That's a myth you should stop spreading around.
I smoke a weed a lot, for medical reasons having to do with pain that doesn't respond to opiates. Opiates have a very bad reaction with me anyways. I'm not addicted at all, beyond the psychological addiction of not wanting pain. To put it simply, you're not addicted to something like an addict is addicted to heroin, until you're sucking cock in a bathroom to get it. I've never heard of a pot smoker telling me, "Man, nobody was holding so I had to blow this shady looking dude in an alley to get a joint". I sure as shit don't need weed that badly. I'll take the all the pain first. Plus death. So I sincerely doubt I'm addicted in the classic clinical sense.
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with it. That goes away after stopping for a week or two. Operative word there is stop. There are way too many pot smokers able to stop for extended periods of time, without withdrawal symptoms for weed addiction to be a medically verifiable phenomenon.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:20PM
Yep. Here too.
I'm getting on in years and have my own set of medical issues. Heart, arthritis, and have found cannabis a life saver. Alcohol is poison to me and has destroyed most my heart's nerve bundles. Got a pacemaker ICD now.
Cannabis has also been helpful in weight loss and even getting my blood pressure down.
Unfortunate our leaders are ignorant neanderthals making up lies and tall tales to keep something so good and beneficial out of the hands of people that would benefit from it, all for crony capitolism and corruption in the highest levels of our government. Even more unfortunate that glue sniffers like that idiot above citing lies told by the fucking criminals in our government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @11:18PM
The worst that can happen to you is actually getting sick from being too saturated with [weed]
I really enjoy the story about NYT's ridiculous redhead who went to Colorado, bought a candy bar, ate the whole thing (when the dose was 1 square), and completely freaked out. Maureen Dowd [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @09:04PM (2 children)
>Weed isn't an opioid so what they are trying to say that getting stoned on weed is better then getting high of something else?
No, they're saying that legal marijuana one of the first truly effective thing we've found to fight the epidemic opioid addiction.
Presumably, because pretty much every addict knows that opioid addiction is really screwing up their life, and that marijuana is much, much safer. I've met a few people that have used marijuana to kick an opioid addiction - marijuana helps with the nausea of withdrawal, stimulates appetite (which can fade under opioid use), and promotes a sense of well-being. Nothing like the intensity of an opioid high, which stimulates the brain's endorphin "pleasure" receptors, but stimulating the brain's canabanoids receptors generally induces a feeling that everything is all right - you may be in constant pain and your life is a mess, but everything is still basically okay.
And marijuana leaves you functional - critical thinking skills usually suffer while you're high, but intuitive reasoning may actually be enhanced, and you're not in some opioid induce quasi-dreamstate, so are quite capable of cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and taking care of all the chores necessary to keeping your life in order. An awful lot of people even go to work high - a good attitude and near-total immunity to boredom and bullshit can actually be a much larger advantage in a whole lot of jobs than the enhanced critical thinking skills you've traded for them. And unlike alcohol, marijuana has negligible effect on reflexes or reckless behavior - in fact there's even some evidence that people tend to become more cautious when high than when sober.
And yeah, you can get addicted to marijuana, in the same way you can get addicted to shopping or chocolate. There's no physical addiction or withdrawal, just an unhealthy psychological obsession. And frankly, replacing an opioid addiction is a marijuana addiction is a *huge* step up. Heck, it'd be a huge step up from an alcohol addiction. We all have our little addictions (Caffeine? Internet?), they're only a problem if they interfere with our ability to function well in society.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
Hmmm, getting an idea here. Do you really think that I could use pot to break my internet addiction? As it is, I work from home on the screen and also spend much of my "down time" on the screen reading (and SN commenting). I do get out for bicycle rides when the weather is reasonable (spring & fall). Medical pot has just started being legal here, but I'm guessing that a 'script for it would be hard to get with these symptoms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:44AM
From what I've seen it tends to make everything more interesting, internet included, so probably not...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @09:22AM
So loorg. I'm curious. Genuinely curious.
Now that all these people have responded to your post with factual information to improve your understanding of the topic, do you see things any differently?
Did facts change your mind? Or are you now even more convinced that cannabis is a serious menace?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Lagg on Friday March 17 2017, @08:09PM (11 children)
I'm aware it sounds inherently weird to say "Hey if you take drug X you won't want drug Y". Obviously that's not a fact. But if you want an explanation of what exactly weed does for an addict and how precisely it saves lives. Here's my testimony. [soylentnews.org] Long story short its effects are highly conducive to post-withdrawal (the thing that makes most people start taking pills again) symptoms and in general provide relief that is superior to opioids for an anxious personality (that will be made more so by withdrawal).
It's frustrating that they choose to express this information the way they do. But they're usually doctors that couldn't even begin to understand how addiction works because they've never experienced addiction. So is the general population.
P.S. Forgive the rambling nature of my posts. This is just how it happens when I attempt to explain something.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:32PM (9 children)
As a long term patient on strong prescription painkillers, I'll add this... I started weaning myself off the prescription crap due to near ineffectiveness and switched to weed. It's the best pain relief I've had in 15 years. I have absolutely no withdrawal symptoms with weed, as opposed to the very strong and miserable withdrawals from prescription meds. Yeah, the doctor gave me the lecture about still being a fed offence, but also added some people do get relief using weed where the other meds fail. Sidenote... Our elected officials here in San Diego just passed an ordinance banning weed outlets in all of San Diego county, only within the city limits are you allowed to operate a weed outlet now. I will not be voting for those fucktards next election.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:35PM (8 children)
Umm, is this the real EF without the fake troll persona??
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @08:40PM
Nooooo. I live in the good part of San Diego county. And I don't drink alcohol.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday March 17 2017, @09:49PM (6 children)
No, as they pointed out, but I never understood the appeal of painkillers either. I was prescribed Vicodin after hurting my back and although it put me in a different headspace it did nothing for the actual pain, which is the only reason why I took it. Over-the-counter anti-inflammatories and pot were way more effective.
I ended up throwing away over half a bottle of Vicodin.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Friday March 17 2017, @10:49PM (1 child)
Friend of mine did the same thing. They gave him something along the lines of Vicodin or hydrocodone. It made him nauseous and disoriented. Just completely shitty. He switched to smoking weed and took advil. Not only did it numb the pain, but he could also eat. The choice between the overpriced "legal" crap and cheaper weed is a no-brainer.
It's going to be a tough fight to legalize because a LOT of fat cats stand to loose a shit load of money if it's legalized. Drug companies, Alcohol industry, Law Enforcement vendors, Prison companies, and I'm sure a whole lot more. Not to mention we get to deal a huge blow against the drug cartels, who like the bootleggers, will simply go away.
Hell I'm gonna smoke a bowl right now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @10:56PM
Lets see... $360 for a 30 day supply of fentanyl patches which comes with addiction, side effects, withdrawals, shitty pain relief, and possible death... or $90 for a 60 day supply of weed which almost cuts the pain level to nothing, no withdrawals, and is not addictive. No brainer.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday March 18 2017, @12:36AM (1 child)
Asking this seriously: how does cannabinoid-mediated analgesia work?
I ask this because in studying the effects of acetaminophen (Tylenol/Paracetamol) on myself, I noticed it has an anxiolytic effect, which further research suggests is because it's essentially a weak anandamide reuptake inhibitor. It doesn't seem to inhibit cyclooxygenase the same way aspirin and other NSAIDs do, at least not directly at the site of inflammation and pain. Anandamide is an endocannabinoid. So what's the mechanism of action here? Does it simply make the pain more bearable, or does activation of certain endocannabinoid receptors actually abolish nocoception to some degree?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:16AM
Fuck if I know, that's way out of my league.
The only thing I can say about all that is that being a drunk, I swear by ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen because ibuprofen is much more friendly on the liver and just works. And if one's stomach can't handle ibuprofen then they shouldn't be drinking either.
With respect to pain, I have a lot more experience with hangovers, so I can make a couple of quite-possibly-bullshit assumptions here based on Wikipedia. The first is that the CB1 receptors within the brain decrease GABA activity, which would alleviate some symptoms of hangovers since part of a hangover is caused by a GABA rebound, in which the brain's compensation for suppressed GABA activity while drunk becomes excessive after the booze wears off, causing excitability (mania, anxiety, or even death by seizure; depending on the extent of the alcohol abuse).
The second possible-bullshit assumption is that, since CB2 cannabinoid receptors are part of the immune system (among other parts of the body), and alcohol is inflammatory, and the immune system is responsible for inflammation; then stimulating that receptor in the immune system (and possibly other parts of the body) could lead to a reduction of inflammation (and thus a reduction of pain).
The Rastafarians say that Jah (God) put Marijuana on the Earth specifically for Man to use. That we have cannabinoid receptors within our bodies is proof of that.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday March 18 2017, @08:52AM
I got some Vicodin after some oral surgery.
Like you, ended up taking two or three of 'em before I figured out those were best left in the bottle.
For some reason, these drugs don't seem to do anything for me. Alcohol puts me to sleep. Both pot and tobacco makes it really hard for me to breathe and I cough up a storm. I seem to get some benefit from aspirin. I do enjoy eating pot, though - but smoking it just plugs me up and it takes weeks to clear it out.
I can think of four chemicals that do have an almost immediate effect on me... beer will make me pee, calcium carbonate will quickly neutralize an upset tummy, phenolpthalein will give me the squirts, and potassium bicarbonate will quickly stop leg cramps. I also salt food with potassium bicarbonate, potassium gluconate, or potassium chloride, as when I get too much sodium in me, here come leg cramps. It seems as if I am literally shorting out. To me, the potassium salts taste like sodium chloride, while anything I made with magnesium tasted absolutely terrible.
I am careful about ingesting too much potassium at one time though... I get the idea that one good heavy dose will be my last.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday March 19 2017, @12:47AM
Interesting. They gave me Vicodin after my gall bladder was removed, and I didn't find it very effective. I think I still have about half a bottle, but by now it's way past the expiration date. Now I don't know whether it really wasn't effective or not. It could be that I just had enough pain (for awhile) that following the prescription orders would only dull things down a bit, and that it lasted long enough that there was a lot of overlap between doses. Or it could be because different medications have different effectiveness for different people. E.g., Acetaminophen has so little effect on me that it's worthless, but Asprin is pretty good, and ibuprofen is nearly as good. Unfortunately, side effects...
Asprin leads to a tendency to bleed, which increases the probability of certain kinds of strokes, and since I know that, for me, it leads to nose-bleeds, it's quite likely that that would be a result.
And I'm told that using ibuprofen more than twice a week damages the nerves within the ear. My mother and her father both ended up going deaf, and I've got little desire to go the same way.
So currently for pain I either tough it our or take some booze. Neither is a particularly good result. Neither is getting high. Marijuana *might* work, but I tend to be risk averse, so I'm waiting for it to become legal before I see how well it would work, and whether it would interfere with my life more than the pain. (OTOH, it's also true that the pain I'm talking about is minor compared to, e.g., extensive operations. I'm just dealing with arthritis, the thing that my grandparents thought aspirin was the best thing for.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by theronb on Saturday March 18 2017, @01:34AM
Hi Lagg; I'll second this. There's about 10% of the population that will become addicted/dependent on whatever you've got (I've got that tendency), so it's probably better to have the pot option instead of heroin. Or alcohol, for that matter - fewer violent confrontations.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Friday March 17 2017, @08:34PM
I would like to see studies done to see which natural but effective substance is more helpful with opiate-family problems, cannabis or mitragyna [wikipedia.org]. I know that cannabis gives me a headache (as of 20-some years ago when I last tried), but mitragyna seems to provide pain relief + slight euphoria (which contributes to the pain relief) that as a chronic pain sufferer I might otherwise look for opiate-family medications to treat.
The (U.S.) federal government has made some noise about adding mitragyna to the list of scheduled controlled substances, but I'd rather see focus on using whatever works to help people who need it.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 17 2017, @08:55PM
What should I do differently this time?
4/20: StonerNews is People [soylentnews.org]
4/20: Half-Baked Headline [soylentnews.org]
Looks like "lumping cannabis with opiate drugs" (read: writing about the "heroin epidemic") was time well spent in last year's version.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]