Smoking weed is......

[LockJawTrouble]

Just trying to make sense of things. Is it me or smoking weed is not normal? I am fed up of this excuse to the point, where I think I need some reconfirmation , to make sure I am not the only one thinking that.

It's normal where I live. And legal. I don't. Haven't for years, I'm the odd one out though. Edibles are big here too.

Honestly, my friends don't. They were shocked when I said I had tried it.

There really are people who just aren't interested in smoking weed.

Unfortunately smoking weed is commonplace amongst dcs friends. A lot seemed to have moved onto harder stuff.

Judging by the reaction to a message someone sent them last night I think some are definitely showing signs of paranoia.

Prohibition of marijuana is a bigger factor in people using harder drugs.

If it was widely legalized, people wouldn't have to go to a drug dealer to buy it, and be exposed to harder options.

Never tried it.....until I was in my mid forties.
Now have a few puffs once or twice a week. It’s great for inducing a good nights sleep. Went to Amsterdam recently though and the hash brownies made me feel dreadful. Won’t be having one of those again. But, the odd puff of a spliff or bong is something I have found to be good.
Even the cat chills out if he’s in the same room as me 😀.

I relied on it to get to sleep for several years, it's so useful in that respect, when I stopped smoking I was worried about sleeping...as it turned out I had one night of no sleep and after that I was ok, mind you I do sleep much more lightly than I did back in my stoner days.

The thing I found most problematic was the way that it makes food taste so amazing that it's rather hard to stop eating.
It's pretty useful to ease the come down from other drugs.

I dont use other drugs. Why would anyone risk it when pot is legal?

Ohfortuna the munchies can be brutal. I allow myself only healthy food, a couple of crunchy apples, and a fruit cup. Otherwise ild be nose down in the tortilla chips.

Seriously, ive a chronic gastro issue, and it is the only medicine that works, slows my gut down, helps with pain and spasms, and deals with a very itchy skin disorder very well. It is far far more gentle than tramadol and other conventional meds.

I would be much more poorly without my medical marijuana.

"Why would anyone risk it when pot is legal?"

It might be where you are, but it isn't in the UK. I have no problems with it being legalised here BTW.

People use drugs other than pot because they want the effects of drugs other than pot

I find it strange that people don't seem to realise that the reason that they only see the 'pathetic loser can't hold down a job' type stoner is exactly because it's illegal. The more together stoners aren't going to be advertising the fact are they?

If an activity is illegal, then the majority will hide the fact that they partake of the activity. A minority of that majority will then be unable to hide the fact they partake, for whatever reason, and therefore, what the general population will see is a minority of that activities partakers, who are not a fair representative of that activity.

Hardly anyone knows I smoke it. Those who do were surprised when they found out.

Although I have the odd puff of weed. I have never touched a cigarette of tobacco in my life. I was recently chatting to a friend of mine who’s a doctor. She thought weed is really very good for people- in small amounts of course. I dare say she’s had the odd puff too!

My best friend’s sister is a GP and she thinks weed is less damaging than alcohol (if both done in small quantities). I’m glad to see it’s been legalised in California today and edibles are able to buy in shops there. Seems like America has the right ideas when it comes to cannabis. Hopefully the UK will follow suit soon. I would be very, very surprised if it isn’t legalised here within the next 10 years

My normal is that I never USED to know anyone who smoked pot - never even smelled the stench.

However, DD17 boyfriend is always smoking it, stinks of it etc, so does she now, so I'm guessing she's been drawn in to the culture.

She thinks nothing has changed, it has. She smells of it, she is wide eyed and slower than normal, she gets grumpy and crotchety when she has not had any for a while, she also now has a reputation for hanging around with people who smoke pot. She is no longer invited to her old friend's houses (parents tend to value "reputation"), so the people she mixes with smoking pot are becoming her new normal.

I think it is sad... but am aware there is very little I can do.

The reason it has been legalised in America is about money it’s not for the good of the population

It’s already a multimillion dollar business but that money isn’t go back into the healthcare system or social care it’s making a few people incredibly wealthy and powerful

If it becomes legal here I hope the restrictions on who sales it and who profits from it (like to see it very highly taxed) and also a lot more education around the use of cannabis especially on young people and how it can impact their mental health

I really, really dislike the stuff. I've not touched it for about 20years.

My ex used to deal weed on a small scale.Used to sell about an ounce a day which would fund his own habit of smoking 1/8th a day. It would be all on credit so he was beholden by the dealer above him, to sit inside all day waiting for punters, who it was them customary to stop for a smoke with him (using the weed they had just purchased. This was on top of the 1/8th he would smoke to himself. Needless to say I knew a lot of stoners.

The flat was regularly broken into by people either looking for cash or weed. We would also be threatened by the dealers above him in the pecking order if he was caught out of the house as he should have been inside selling. I've met a lot of people with serious mental health issues that have been exacerbated by weed, including the ex. Most of them had been signed off work are were claiming incapacity benefit. I was held at knifepoint by a punter who was angry when my ex didn't have anything for sale. I also remember having to convince a violent schizophrenic man to leave, couldn't call the police for help as it would have lead to the house being raided and I would have been in danger from the dealer above. The whole set up around weed was just awful.

I've never smoked much more than a few joints as it makes me forgetful and demotivated. I feel the same about alcohol. I think legalisation and regulation would help - my ex was literally a slave to the dealers above him because of his own addiction. He couldn't leave the house without their permission or he would be risking a beating.

My company (Pharma) routinely do random testing. We also test everyone we offer a job to and have removed the offer because people have failed the drugs test (cannabis stays in the system for ages). I'm sure you all want the drugs your sick children are given made by someone sober (and yes, we do test for alcohol in the system as well and people are encouraged to report colleagues they suspect have been drinking).

As a result, although I know a lot of people who took a variety of drugs in their early 20s, I don't know of anyone who takes cannabis in their 40s.

As far as 'medical cannabis' goes, cannabis contains several active ingredients. To properly test the effectiveness of each of these as painkillers they'd need to be isolated and tested in known quantities. I'm not sure what the intellectual property is like around these chemicals but from a Pharma viewpoint you'd want to have a patent to ensure the return of your investment, you'd need a cost effective purification method or synthesis method and you'd need to know you'd get a decent price for your drug at the end of the process. I suspect since it's 'just' a painkiller the combination of the above issues means it's not worth Pharma's time or money to invest in. Is purified THC really going to be a better and cheaper painkiller than morphine? Probably not.

The only time I've touched weed in years was a pot caramel a couple of months ago. I was utterly fucked for hours.

A lot of total crap being spouted here.

It was legalized because people wanted it to be, voted in. We have it because people are sick of being criminalized for a bit of pot.

The revenue from pot taxes pays around 129 million bucks a year towards education in Colorado. Other states find good uses for the tax money too.

The pot business is brutally tough. People want top quality bud at low prices. I pay $6 a gram for my medicine with my mm card. I dont expect anyone to go into business not to make money. They arent charities.

Pot is not just thc, and I would not touch synthetics with a bargepole.

All the pot has to be tested, and you get at the least a print out of cbd and thc levels, and percent of indica vs sativa. Some places give you a run down of the 60 different terpenes and cannibidols. Not as much medical research has been done on it because of prohibition.

As for medical uses. Morphine is very addictive physically, and the US has a bad problem with pain pills. People ger addicted, move to illegal sources when the stupid doctor cut them off, then die from fake pills cut with fentanyl.

Cannabis as painkiller works well enough for a lot of people. And doesn't carry the risk of addiction or od.

Those 60 terpenes do more than kill pain. They slow down the gut, ease gut spasms, bring down inflammation, eases nausea so I can eat. I have both crohns and celiac disease. I dont care about whether extensive research has been done, pot helps my symptoms.
And unlike other meds, the side effects are pleasant.
People see improvement in their glaucoma, blood pressure, seizures.
The list goes on.

The right strain can be excellent medicine.

It is pretty sad when peoples lack of education and their own spiteful prejudices keep that cheap, powerful, natural medicine from people who need it.

The fact that big pharma dont profit makes me love it even more. That is a purely money driven industry.

NC

My DH smoked weed for decades. It was a gateway drug for him (clean now for years from all).

I can tell you from first hand experience the long term and probably permanent mental health effects are CRAP for both him and me and a consequence, and I never touched any of it.

I know a number of older people who smoke it for joint pain and it does wonders. Not sure why you’re bothered

I dont know what the cause of your dh's poor mental health were, but pot didnt cause it. Correlation is not cause. It's likely he had these problems previous to using weed, and his harder drug use made it worse.

He made a choice to use hard drugs. The weed didnt cause this.

The gateway theory is nonsense anyway. If there ever was a gateway drug surely it's alcohol.

If Marijuana was not illegal, and people bought it at the shop next to the butcher and the baker, then there would be no criminal involvement.
It therefore could not be a "gateway drug"

And in terms of harm caused, Tobacco and Alcohol are tens of thousands of times worse
but have bigger wallets for lobbying politicians

The pot shop I use is family run, very clean and more like a nice coffee shop. Though no on-site use, sadly. They are very knowledgeable, and they sell clean, organically grown pot which is tested in a lab as per regulations.

Nothing scuzzy about it.

There' an excellent article in vice on the gateway argument, and mental health and pot.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.vice.com/amp/sv/article/9bgn7a/why-marijuana-is-not-a-gateway-drug-1013