[LoganDark]

While I also have anecdotal experience that suggests early-life cannabis abuse can lead to short-term memory loss, I have not seen any evidence that it leads to much else. I would imagine that people with a genetic predisposition to schizophrenia would only not have it by chance, and that altering their brain with pretty much anything can risk upsetting that balance. Doesn't matter if it's weed, LSD, opioids... SSRIs, stimulants...

[Aurornis]

> that altering their brain with pretty much anything can risk upsetting that balance. Doesn't matter if it's weed, LSD, opioids... SSRIs, stimulants...

Of course it matters. Different drugs and doses have completely different effects on the brain.

Trying to to equate different drugs and claim they’re all similarly risky goes completely against everything we know.

[throw__away7391]

Conspiracy theories. Every heavy pot smoker I know has ended up believing in multiple conspiracy theories. Back in the day before YouTube my friends were burning DVDs of 9-11 Truther documentaries, a chick I dated became obsessed with UFOs and alien abductions, a close family member began to believe they had found a way to develop psychic powers, and the boomers who got their medical marijuana cards deserve their own category based on the number of right wing conspiracy theories they repost on Facebook. The only exception I can think of got heavily into sports betting with a similar level of obsession and belief that they had deep insights that escaped everyone else.

I suspect that it triggers part of your brain that rewards you for making connections or something like that.

[ryandvm]

Or people that are willing to engage in counter culture or illegal activities are more likely to reject cultural doctrine.

[throw__away7391]

This is definitely not the case. Half these people had no connection whatsoever to “cultural doctrine” and a number were extremely conservative and completely mainstream before they started smoking late in life. As I mentioned one takes this same attitude to sports betting, another family member is always passing me some highly unconventional investment tip he’s just learned about from some random guy.

I’ve seen this pattern emerge time and again over decades in people with completely different backgrounds. It expresses itself in different ways but smoking absolutely rewires your brain, makes you more receptive to “secret insider information”.

[anon84873628]

It puts the brain in our "art enjoyment mode" which also means lowered epistemological immune system. Cannabis should be used occasionally to play outside, make music, watch movies, etc. Not used daily when thinking about politics or stock trading :-/

[LoganDark]

Pretty sure there is a difference between cultural doctrine and the scientific method.

[stevenAthompson]

My life experience matches yours perfectly. I would love to see a study.

Maybe one that examines the rise of the alt-right and it's relation to legalization. The timing seems correlated.

[AnthonBerg]

That seems to be the case. In the literature it’s studied under the concept of aberrant salience. A Google Scholar search turns up seemingly interesting (salient, haha) papers: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=cannabis%20salience&btn...

From one of the papers: “the Aberrant Salience (AS) construct […] refers to an excess of attribution of meaning to stimuli that are otherwise regarded as neutral, thereby transform them into adverse, dangerous, or mysterious entities. This leads the patient to engage in aberrant and consequently incorrect interpretative efforts concerning the normal perception of reality and its relationship with our analytical abilities. AS appears to play a significant role in the onset and perpetuation of psychotic disorders. The internal conflict arising from aberrant attributions of significance leads to delusional thoughts, ultimately culminating in the establishment of a self-sustaining psychosis.” — https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1343...

[t0lo]

That sounds... pretty fun