Why do so many people smoke weed these days?

[MontyDonsBlueSuit]

I get the world isn’t a great place for many people but why is it so prevalent now? Is it cheaper than drinking? Or easier to get hold of? I really dislike it and don’t understand why if it’s illegal it isn’t more closely monitored. Am I missing something?

Alcohol doesn’t stink.

100% agree that screens are as bad/worse for young people but I dont think it has to be either/or.

Sickly sweet? It reeks of Tom cat piss! Nothing sweet about it.

Properly cured cannabis (see upthread) has a variety of floral aromas. As can be inferred from the names that seeds are sold under. Pineapple Express anybody ?

Uncured or improperly cured cannabis can smell of all sorts.

It's all to do with terpenes.

In my experience, it all smells like cat piss. So, I’m guessing not many users care about the terpenes, or what their houses smell like.

Interesting. Well everyone in my neck of the woods seems to smoke the eau de tomcat variety.

I agree that alcohol causes way more societal problems, be it antisocial behaviour, public and domestic violence, health etc but I would not describe cannabis as innocuous. I have seen too many friends and acquaintances go from casual users to heavy users with all the character changes an negatives that comes with that. When I was at uni it was mostly weed and a bit of resin hash doing the rounds. Back then years ago, traditional herbal cannabis averaged around 3% to 4% THC. Today, standard dispensary flower routinely ranges from 15% to over 25% THC. Highly concentrated forms (like dabs, shatter, and wax) which barely existed 20 years ago now dominate the market. These can deliver massive THC concentrations between 80% and 95%. Its a whole different ball game these days and potency levels means that induced psychosis and schizophrenia risks are significantly higher.

As for people just puffing away down the high street, local park, pub gardens etc they are just inconsiderate twats.

Curing takes time. And time is ...?

Yup. I'm willing to bet a lot of people these posters know people who actually smoke but don't talk about it. The lazy stoner trope literally came from anti-drug propaganda, after the whole 'reefer madness' bull didn't take.

The biggest smoker I know is head of English at the local high school.

Yes, it definitely needs to be legalised, plus it would create a huge income stream for the government. Think of all the lovely taxes it could collect!

Yes but this is like comparing beer to whisky. If you are getting wrecked on weed that is very strong, then that is your responsibility. Strong weed is a result of prohibition. But people who smoke it to excess are not that different to people who drink to excess, imo. It is the same mentality.

Strong skunk has been available for as long as I have been an adult (some 30 years). I am fed of the argument that because it used to be a lower percentage of THC then it’s a different drug. What it means is you should moderate your use of it because it is strong. Chumps who smoke it all day are just idiots. They are responsible for themselves.

My neighbour continually coughs and clears his throat. He sounds like he smokes about 200 cigarettes a day.

I often have to give up being in the garden because it annoys me so much.

Vaping is a good idea then.

Or make edibles. The active ingredients in cannabis are oil soluble so can be gently dissolved into butter for use in cooking. However ingestion this way is much harder to titrate if you are looking for a specific regime. Also the metabolic pathways are different. Which is why people tend to have a preference.

I dont think your alcohol analogy quite works. In my lifetime people have always had a choice of a range of alcholoic drinks from a weak shandy or spritzer through to hard spirits. In the same period the cannabis on offer has migrated from relatively weak weed and resin to way more stronger and potent products. Yes, strong stuff existed when I was at uni but it was way harder to get hold of unlike today.

In my lifetime people have always had a choice of a range of alcholoic drinks from a weak shandy or spritzer through to hard spirits. In the same period the cannabis on offer has migrated from relatively weak weed and resin to way more stronger and potent products

Yes, because alcohol is legal and cannabis is not (in the UK).

If the UK banned alcohol you can bet that there would be some pretty foul (and potentially lethal) alternatives to the alcohol that is currently available to those who choose to buy it.

My point is not to infantilise people who use cannabis of any kind. It can be strong. An intelligent person will moderate. An idiot will regard it as some kind of test and actively pursue something strong. The idiot is not anything you can do much about. They are just as sad as a someone who decides meths is better than vodka.

Cannabis is illegal. That doesn’t mean you cannot use your own sense of self preservation if using it.

The biggest driver of more concentrated cannabis (destroying the natural THC/CBD ratio in nature) is the profit motive couple with the convenience of carrying a much smaller amount for a much bigger bang.

I hold down a management job in social care, my friends are similar levels - assistant head of year, PHD academic, several experienced social workers, accountant, change management consultant...that's just a handful of the friends I know who smoke weed occasionally or at weekends in downtime. There are more! Nobody would have a clue unless we told them - why would they? I don't smoke at work obviously, or whilst working, nor walking down the street - the weed smoker stereotype described in this thread is simply one fairly visible example of the demographic.

Btw very strong cannabis, along with shatter or vapes, seems quite nasty as an idea. But that’s the nature of illegality.

It's not so much the strength as the unnatural skew towards THC at the expense of CBD. In nature they tend to balance, and CBD acts to moderate the cannabinoid pathways which ameliorates the psychoactive effects.

If you remove CBD by breeding just for THC, you can have extremely potent cannabis which can be problematic.

Once again, it's worth remembering the UK is the worlds largest supplier of legal cannabis (or was. Things change). The science (as opposed to what people think is science) is evolving slowly.

Yes CBD seems to balance the effects of THC which is found in the plant together. People chasing potency of THC are foolish. But basically I suspect the majority of users are not that stupid.

Ohhhhhhhhh! Someone's needing a bong!!

Have you never smelt booze on someone? Especially the next day?

I think it is partly that it is less so frowned upon (MN isn't a valid snapshot of reality!) than it used to be. And other drugs are more commonplace now given the price of alcohol and the more commonplace they get, the more open people are about them.

All this 'WeEd SmOkeerz R loZers' sort of talk is why a lot of people who are nothing at all like that, are not open about it.

I smoke weed every now and again.

It's one of the very few ways I can guarantee I will get more than 3 hours sleep (insomniac from a very young age).

I do not have MH issues beyond being a bit of an introvert.

I own 6 houses.
I have two degrees (postgrad).
I am a vegan (for the 'Don't care about anything but themselves' brigade) and also work in MH in a career formed entirely from a desire to help those less fortunate than me.

I am not saying I am amazingly successful, (I am probably the equivalent of scum in MN world where everyone lives in a penthouse in London and earns 6 figures) but I am hardly a loser.

I like the feeling of it, it helps me wind down, laugh, feel pleasure after a hard day where I haven't been able to let go or stop thinking about serious things. I am in my own home, harming nobody but myself other than the actual smoking part of it, I really do not think it does me any harm at all and as I generally do not smoke at all other than this, I think that part is negligible.

Some of it does, loads of the new trendy ales for example absolutely stink, even the next day it comes out of people pores.