[op00to]

Just a point - the same people who thought they were “saving” people with a drug war were destroying lives themselves over drugs that not so many years later are legal and accepted to possess. Somehow they’re not harmful anymore. It’s all BS.

[dns_snek]

Excellent point, and it's not just a thing of the past, it's still happening right now. Cannabis might be at various stages of legalization throughout the US, but there are countless other substances that are criminalized without any justification, like psychedelics.

The damage that the US-led war on drugs has done throughout the world is staggering. It's probably going to take decades until all the brainwashing and propaganda washes away and we get some form of legalization in Europe, not to mention other parts of the world that take it even more seriously.

[aaomidi]

The war on drugs is also just a much more active participant in harming people vs the drugs themselves.

The drugs aren’t making a conscious choice of destroying someone’s life. Those agents are. They’re by definition worse than the drugs (premeditated vs not).

[fbdab103]

That definitely stands out to me as well. How many lives were destroyed by consuming cannabis vs government retribution for attempting to get high?

[coffeebeqn]

Drug policy is complicated. Amphetamines and opioids certainly have very valid medical uses - but also giving the public unrestricted access to them is a complete disaster.

Psychedelics likely have various mental health treatment uses but they are for some bizarre historical reasons considered dangerous.

Mental health medication like benzos are also tricky. They are amazingly affective but also amazingly addictive and withdrawals can be fatal

[upleft]

Having been a cannabis smoker myself for years, I can understand the danger of self-medicating with psychedelics. They aren’t entirely harmless.

Any drug with a high is a dopamine button. It’s easy to hit that button instead of doing something else to feel good. It’s easy to stop doing other things in favor of just hitting that button all day. But the effects of that button diminish over time, so you hit it more often, and the more you hit it the less other things you want to do.

Psychedelics powerfully activate and deactivate different parts of the brain, changing the way you think and process information. Controlled and intentional, this has huge potential for positive mental health outcomes. With chronic recreational use, cannabis leads toward negative mental health outcomes like depression, disordered thinking, anxiety, and low agency.

[adwi]

Do you still smoke? If not, how did you quit?

Quitting is an interesting grey area for cannabis; culturally and functionally people misusing the drug are able to do so indefinitely, usually not reaching the “rock bottom” emergency state that other drugs (hopefully) convince the user to seek treatment. So it feels like “just weed” isn’t serious enough to warrant a 30 day treatment center, but the behavior patterns can be so ingrained it can be hard to see breaking them without.

[upleft]

I haven’t quit but have pulled back and am using it far more occasionally rather than most of the time.

The sense of increased focus after smoking is a big plus for me, but the decrease in focus after that coupled with the overall disorganized thinking is a big minus. Disorganized thinking can be great if you are trying to generate a variety of ideas, but bad if you are trying to communicate them. Learning more about what is actually happening in my brain with focus, memory, agency, etc has been one of the biggest motivators in pulling back from chronic use. I don’t enjoy it much knowing that I’m avoiding other things or going to be grumpy and depressed later because of it.

Agree about the grey area for quitting. There isn’t a rock bottom, but with chronic use there is a kind of dull limbo where everything feels harder to do, but you’re demotivated to make a change. It is literally a drag - it slows and lessens you overall.

[coffeebeqn]

For me after daily use for 6 months or so I just had a realization that it’s a net negative. I was always tired, cranky, forgetful, and the highs weren’t that high - more like maintaining some rather low level of life satisfaction. If you use it a lot there is probably some root cause why you think you need to get fucked up all the time.

What helped me quit was really seeing it for what it is - it was making a few hedonistic experiences “richer” but kind of draining the color out of all the experiences outside of that. I never had any negative effects while high - like anxiety so it seemed harmless. For practical tips think of something to do for the first few days at least when you’d normally toke up if youre just bored at home. Out with friends, walking, playing a new game, hobbies, etc