Marijuana is harmless. Right?

[!Kaggen]

In my case I have a genetic predisposition for Atrial Fibrillation (Grandmother and Uncle had) and I am pretty sure marijuana helped induce my first and second episodes...thank goodness two catheter ablations later I am mostly asymptotic...its a horrible debilitating condition and to be avoided at all costs...I really enjoyed a toke every now and then and have never been a heavy user so I really miss it and pro-marijuana for sure...research is coming in on its effects on arrhythmia’s and its concerning...I would certainly recommend anyone with a genetic predisposition to avoid it...I have thought about the fact that the newer strains have much higher THC levels compared to the older ones in the past and if this could have induced my AF...the problem only started at age 45 and I definitely noticed the increased potency over the years..however it could just be that age is the main contributing factor to onset..what i did notice with AF is since I have low blood pressure the effect of marijuana was not whilst high (increased blood pressure) but for a few days after as my blood pressure dropped again..the same thing happened with exercise and doctors can sometimes artificially induce AF before an ECG by making one exercise for a few minutes and then wait to the blood pressure drops again.
I always feel better during exercise when my blood pressure rises.
Interestingly some of the studies of arrhythmia and marijuana have found it reduces arrhythmia probably whilst high by pushing up the blood pressure.
I could post a few papers but its easy enough to look up yourself.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I know several people who have been regular cannabis users for years (some even decades). None suffered any ill effects from their habit, most had successful careers and all have hobbies and interests outside of their cannabis use.

And you know this because? Have you seen their medical records?

I could say the same thing about people I knew who smoked tobacco and drank a lot too, except in most cases it wasn't really true. They had successful careers despite the effects of their habit - until they didn't.

As for pot, nobody I associate with will touch the stuff, and we intend to keep it that way. My brother recently had to resign from a high paying job because the boss was a pot-head who tried to get him onto it.

 

[Chanakya]

In my case I have a genetic predisposition for Atrial Fibrillation (Grandmother and Uncle had) and I am pretty sure marijuana helped induce my first and second episodes...thank goodness two catheter ablations later I am mostly asymptotic...its a horrible debilitating condition and to be avoided at all costs...I really enjoyed a toke every now and then and have never been a heavy user so I really miss it and pro-marijuana for sure...research is coming in on its effects on arrhythmia’s and its concerning...I would certainly recommend anyone with a genetic predisposition to avoid it...I have thought about the fact that the newer strains have much higher THC levels compared to the older ones in the past and if this could have induced my AF...the problem only started at age 45 and I definitely noticed the increased potency over the years..however it could just be that age is the main contributing factor to onset..what i did notice with AF is since I have low blood pressure the effect of marijuana was not whilst high (increased blood pressure) but for a few days after as my blood pressure dropped again..the same thing happened with exercise and doctors can sometimes artificially induce AF before an ECG by making one exercise for a few minutes and then wait to the blood pressure drops again.
I always feel better during exercise when my blood pressure rises.
Interestingly some of the studies of arrhythmia and marijuana have found it reduces arrhythmia probably whilst high by pushing up the blood pressure.
I could post a few papers but its easy enough to look up yourself.

Right, so here's the first case I've come across -- IRL, that is amongst people I directly know, or online or in the literature -- of pot directly causing ill health, and very serious illness at that. FSM knows there are more than enough such instances when it comes to alcohol.

Actually, as I go through your comment, and generally quickly re-read and recap this thread, what occurs to me is this: It's kind of stupid, when you think about it, to go out of your way to stuff into your body things that you know are harmful to you. (This is merely self-introspection, and no comment on the intelligence or otherwise of others who choose to do this. That is no business of mine.)

I myself drink coffee. A great deal of it, regularly. Alcohol as well, but not really much, and mostly beer. As for weed, once upon a time fairly regular, but these days only when catching up with old friends from old days, which isn't all that frequent.

I'm not really "hooked" to any of these things. Things like coffee, things like alcohol, things like pot. And it seems to me, at this point, that it's kind of ...foolish, to go out of my way to spend money to put inside my body things that provide zero nourishment, things that probably don't have any real benefits at all (or if they do, it's probably only incidental -- I'm referring here to research on the alleged beneficial effects of coffee and wine), and things that might cause me some long-term harm (or, if addiction ends up taking hold eventually, then a great deal of harm), simply because it is the done thing, simply out of habit.

I mean, hell, if you need coffee to bring your energy levels up to speed, then you probably should be seeing to improving your diet and lifestyle so that you don't need external props for this, at least not regularly. Similarly, if you need alcohol or pot to help you relax, or help you "open up", well then, probably you need to work on yourself, and on your circumstances and your lifestyle, so that you these are no longer dependent on external artificial stimulus, at least not on a regular basis. [Generic "you", needless to say.]


...Anyway, just thinking aloud there. Not really turning teetotal overnight, but ...like I said, seems stupid to go out of one's way to make a habit of tugging at the tiger's tail. (Again, speaking just for myself, and without in any way referring, not in this post, to others' lifestyle choices or to general policy, law, etc.)

 

[Pixel42]

I mean, hell, if you need coffee to bring your energy levels up to speed, then you probably should be seeing to improving your diet and lifestyle so that you don't need external props for this, at least not regularly.

It was a while ago so it may have been refuted but I remember reading of research that showed that people get addicted to coffee, their bodies learn to expect it, and consequently exhibit withdraw symptoms when they go without it for a while. IOW if you never drink coffee in the first place you'll never suffer the "low energy level" withdrawal symptoms that require coffee to correct.

And yes, I've never understood why people deliberately ingest substances which bugger up their brain chemistry. Your brain chemistry has been optimised by millions of years of natural selection to operate at peak efficiency; unless an illness has unbalanced it enough to require correction, messing it up with drugs is a very silly thing to do.

 

[Chanakya]

It was a while ago so it may have been refuted but I remember reading of research that showed that people get addicted to coffee, their bodies learn to expect it, and consequently exhibit withdraw symptoms when they go without it for a while. IOW if you never drink coffee in the first place you'll never suffer the "low energy level" withdrawal symptoms that require coffee to correct.

And yes, I've never understood why people deliberately ingest substances which bugger up their brain chemistry. Your brain chemistry has been optimised by millions of years of natural selection to operate at peak efficiency; unless an illness has unbalanced it enough to require correction, messing it up with drugs is a very silly thing to do.

Thing is, even apparently innocuous things like coffee can sometimes mess up (some) people. I hadn't really known this: this turned up in the course of an unrelated discussion in these very forums, when another member shared their personal (and distressing) experience with coffee addiction. [Although openly posted for all to see, I'm not linking to those exchanges out of respect to their privacy. They're welcome to add the link if they happen to see this, and wish to.]

I tried a little experiment, cutting down my own intake from ~6 cups to zero for a few days. No withdrawal, nothing. And in bringing this up I am not disagreeing with your POV about addiction, but instead actually agreeing, emphatically, with you, and repeating my earlier ...introspection, that it seems silly to go out of one's way to ingest potentially harmful substances, potentially addictive substances, that, as you say, bugger up our finely tuned brained chemistry, for no good reason. (One could make an exception for exceptional cases, extreme distress, that kind of thing, but generally speaking I mean.)



...But of course, thoughts like these and opinions like these are entirely personal, and have to do with one might (wish to) do with one's own life. Not policy. (And even when it comes to personal policy, electing not to do something that one may do any time one wants to, is very different than being barred from doing that something.)



eta:

Reflecting about what you said here: "I've never understood why people deliberately ingest substances which bugger up their brain chemistry"

I myself did it simply because it was the thing to do. Your friends were all doing it, you were young and stupid, and you did it too. Then you kind of got in the habit of doing it. Thank FSM you never got actually addicted, so eventually you stopped consuming these things in large quantities, and instead became an occasional user of some things, a regular but light user of some other things, and a regular and fairly up-there user of some others (that last would be coffee). And yeah, clearly seeing this in these terms does make the whole sequence look ...stupid, is the word.

Hell if this mood I'm in, this line of thinking, persists, I might actually give up all of these things. If.

 

[Chanakya]

And you know this because? Have you seen their medical records?

I could say the same thing about people I knew who smoked tobacco and drank a lot too, except in most cases it wasn't really true. They had successful careers despite the effects of their habit - until they didn't.

As for pot, nobody I associate with will touch the stuff, and we intend to keep it that way. My brother recently had to resign from a high paying job because the boss was a pot-head who tried to get him onto it.

That sounds entirely ******-up.

Irrespective of one's personal opinions and choices, irrespective even of what the actual research might say about the harmfulness or addictiveness or otherwise of pot or alcohol or tobacco or whatever, facilitating someone else's habit -- and, more, actually compelling someone else's habit -- that is a terrible thing to do. That boss of your brother's is the one who should have been shown up, and fired from his job, instead of your brother having to leave. (In an ideal world. Yeah, the world isn't ideal, not always.)

 

[!Kaggen]

Right, so here's the first case I've come across -- IRL, that is amongst people I directly know, or online or in the literature -- of pot directly causing ill health, and very serious illness at that. FSM knows there are more than enough such instances when it comes to alcohol.

Actually, as I go through your comment, and generally quickly re-read and recap this thread, what occurs to me is this: It's kind of stupid, when you think about it, to go out of your way to stuff into your body things that you know are harmful to you. (This is merely self-introspection, and no comment on the intelligence or otherwise of others who choose to do this. That is no business of mine.)

I myself drink coffee. A great deal of it, regularly. Alcohol as well, but not really much, and mostly beer. As for weed, once upon a time fairly regular, but these days only when catching up with old friends from old days, which isn't all that frequent.

I'm not really "hooked" to any of these things. Things like coffee, things like alcohol, things like pot. And it seems to me, at this point, that it's kind of ...foolish, to go out of my way to spend money to put inside my body things that provide zero nourishment, things that probably don't have any real benefits at all (or if they do, it's probably only incidental -- I'm referring here to research on the alleged beneficial effects of coffee and wine), and things that might cause me some long-term harm (or, if addiction ends up taking hold eventually, then a great deal of harm), simply because it is the done thing, simply out of habit.

I mean, hell, if you need coffee to bring your energy levels up to speed, then you probably should be seeing to improving your diet and lifestyle so that you don't need external props for this, at least not regularly. Similarly, if you need alcohol or pot to help you relax, or help you "open up", well then, probably you need to work on yourself, and on your circumstances and your lifestyle, so that you these are no longer dependent on external artificial stimulus, at least not on a regular basis. [Generic "you", needless to say.]


...Anyway, just thinking aloud there. Not really turning teetotal overnight, but ...like I said, seems stupid to go out of one's way to make a habit of tugging at the tiger's tail. (Again, speaking just for myself, and without in any way referring, not in this post, to others' lifestyle choices or to general policy, law, etc.)

I hear what you saying but if you studied what we now know about brain chemistry with regards our evolutionary reward system which relates how we feel when we act and re-act to our environment you will learn that the same biochemical processes that reward evolutionary success (material and social) are stimulated by substance we can ingest. So when we are lacking in evolutionary material or social success we have learnt to get through these periods with “stimulants”...stimulants even increase the natural reward response from social activities( sex, entertainment). Rejecting technology (which also contributes to evolutionary success via the reward biochemistry in the brain) is the same as rejecting stimulants with regards human evolution..

 

[wasapi]

Personally, I now consider cannabis as medicine. It is so different than when I used it recreationally. My blood pressure has been so high that I was given 3 different prescriptions to lower it. It was unpleasant, making me tired, listless, walking in a dizzy daze. Whenever they tried to change or lower the meds, my BP would be scary-high again.

Discussing this with my doctor, she asked me to consider taking cannabis to see if it effected my BP. It has been unbelievable. On bad days, I eat a bit of canna-cookie or tea, throughout the day. My BP has been greatly improved, and thankfully, I am no longer taking any prescription meds. A huge relief.

Am I addicted? No, and if so I wouldn't care anyway.

 

[Chanakya]

Personally, I now consider cannabis as medicine. It is so different than when I used it recreationally. My blood pressure has been so high that I was given 3 different prescriptions to lower it. It was unpleasant, making me tired, listless, walking in a dizzy daze. Whenever they tried to change or lower the meds, my BP would be scary-high again.

Discussing this with my doctor, she asked me to consider taking cannabis to see if it effected my BP. It has been unbelievable. On bad days, I eat a bit of canna-cookie or tea, throughout the day. My BP has been greatly improved, and thankfully, I am no longer taking any prescription meds. A huge relief.

Am I addicted? No, and if so I wouldn't care anyway.

What? Pot helps with blood pressure?! Really?! This is the first I've heard of this. (Which itself isn't saying a lot, my not knowing this I mean, since this thread, these few links and posts exchanged, represents the sum total of my actively seeking out research on this subject.)

Speaking from this position of admitted ignorance, what you say does sound ...as you say, unbelievable. The phrase "too good to be true" comes to mind.

Are you entirely sure your doctor corroborates this, and is good with your substituting your meds with pot? Because if that's true, then sure, who cares if addiction does set in -- BP meds are pretty much a for-life thing too, from what I've seen. If one must take on one of these as life-long companion, BP meds or pot, the choice is a no-brainer.

 

[psionl0]

And you know this because? Have you seen their medical records?

I could say the same thing about people I knew who smoked tobacco and drank a lot too, except in most cases it wasn't really true. They had successful careers despite the effects of their habit - until they didn't.

The point was that anecdotal evidence proves nothing and the poster who I responded to had to quickly downgrade the status of his argument to "example".

If you know people who gave you access to their confidential medical records that conclude that alcohol and tobacco destroyed their careers then that's great but it is still just anecdotal evidence.

As for pot, nobody I associate with will touch the stuff, and we intend to keep it that way.

Bully for you.

 

[psionl0]

And yes, I've never understood why people deliberately ingest substances which bugger up their brain chemistry.

Are you seriously unable to see things from a different POV? If somebody finds something to be a wonderful experience then you seriously can't believe that they would want to repeat it even if there are risks involved?

And why do you imply "will" (bugger up their brain chemistry)? Unless you are incredibly ignorant, you know that not every body will go the way of "Reefer Madness" just as not everybody will enjoy it.

 

[Modified]

What? Pot helps with blood pressure?! Really?! This is the first I've heard of this. (Which itself isn't saying a lot, my not knowing this I mean, since this thread, these few links and posts exchanged, represents the sum total of my actively seeking out research on this subject.)

I would guess that it could help if the cause of the high blood pressure was constant low level stress.

High blood pressure is weird. My mother had it from the time of pregnancy with my sister until 38 years later when she had a neck operation that should have nothing to do with blood pressure - removal of some lymph nodes. Maybe pressure was relieved on some nerve or blood vessel or maybe it had something to do with being under anesthesia (though it was not the first time), but she went from having high blood pressure and a fast pulse for 38 years to completely normal blood pressure and pulse in one day (and passed out from low blood pressure before she figured it out and stopped taking blood pressure medication).

 

[Chanakya]

I would guess that it could help if the cause of the high blood pressure was constant low level stress.

That makes sense, I suppose.

But. I googled around a bit, and here's what came up. Here's three links (1, and 2, and 3) that say that THC, and cannabis, far from easing BP, actually might casue hypertension. On the other hand, here's one link that does say that naturally occurring THC has a beneficial effect on blood pressure (it lowers high blood pressure) -- so that, as you say, and as wasapi's doctor says, pot might actually help with weed. (And of course, we seem to have wasapi's direct, first-hand -- if anecdotal -- experience that does bear out the beneficial effects of cannabis on BP.)

In the course of some quick googling, I found there's heaps and heaps of studies and articles on the medicinal effects of cannabis, that I hadn't really checked out before, because what I was looking for here was the recreational aspect of weed use. But if there might be such potentially dramatic benefits associated with that stuff, I guess that bears checking out. Doctors generally do not speak of these things.

High blood pressure is weird. My mother had it from the time of pregnancy with my sister until 38 years later when she had a neck operation that should have nothing to do with blood pressure - removal of some lymph nodes. Maybe pressure was relieved on some nerve or blood vessel or maybe it had something to do with being under anesthesia (though it was not the first time), but she went from having high blood pressure and a fast pulse for 38 years to completely normal blood pressure and pulse in one day (and passed out from low blood pressure before she figured it out and stopped taking blood pressure medication).

This might suggest that, in some cases at least, there could be lasting long-term easing of high BP by interventions of this kind deliberately effected, right? (Perhaps there is, I've zero clue about this kind of thing.) But cool. I suppose kind of like how we do know, now, that Type 2 diabetes can be benefited, sometimes even fully "cured", simply through lifestyle changes, yet in general it is medication that is almost universally thrust on people (with lifestyle changes, while not entirely ignored, ususally not posited as actual substitute).

 

[Chanakya]

Hm, apparently passive smoking of pot, including even from vaping, might have some negative effects on children. The results of the study aren't quite conclusive, and all they suggest is that this is an area that calls for examining some more, but there's enough there to show that some such outcome may not be unlikely.

Stands to reason, I suppose, as far as passive smoking. Of course, I guess this speaks only to actually smoking the stuff.

Link to nature.com article.

 

[Minoosh]

I once told a doc now associated with woo (Andrew Weil) that weed made me a better editor. He responded dryly: "That is not a pharmacological property of marijuana." He believed (decades ago; maybe this has changed) that pot was an "active placebo" - a substance that had mild pharmacological effects, but one that to many people activated learned responses of relaxation (or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, paranoia). His evidence was his own studies of administering marijuana to marijuana-naive people, and observing that on first use, very few if any reported a "high" feeling. Mostly they felt nothing. Meanwhile it did redden their eyes and I think might have lowered blood sugar - I don't remember for sure. Increased appetite was, I think, an actual pharmacological property.

Meanwhile, Richard Feynman reported that when in some sensory-deprivation scenario, he got "high" after 8 minutes when he didn't use weed, and slightly faster when he did use. He decided 8 minutes was fast enough for him and, IIRC, decided to abstain from weed.

I've never been able to sort it out for myself. I smoked every day from age 14 to about age 37, and it was a genuine addiction. I took risks at international borders that were pretty insane, and my daily use discouraged other travel adventures. I had physical withdrawal when I tried to quit. Starting at 37 I abstained for about 10 years. When I resumed occasional use I found it obliterated short-term memory, which I think is pretty common, but it didn't seem to hit habitual users quite as hard. And I experienced why THC is considered a mild hallucinogen, when I tried to drive. The lighted street signs popped out at me uncomfortably and I heard whooshy-sounding noises that weren't there. I face the occasional drug test so it's safer all around to abstain, but I still love the smell of fresh-crushed bud and enjoy whiffs of secondhand smoke.

I never believed it was harmless - it was almost certainly helped perpetuate a chronic case of bronchitis from my teens to my mid-30s.

 

[CORed]

Risk analysis, alcohol vs marijuana

Greater risk of overeating: marijuana
Greater risk of dehydration: alcohol
Greater risk of mistakenly thinking you're a philosopher: marijuana
Greater risk of mistakenly thinking you're a singer: alcohol
Greater risk of drowning in a swimming pool full of the product: alcohol
Greater risk of burning to death in a warehouse full of the product that's on fire: marijuana

Well, that would be quite dependent on the concentration and container size of the alcoholic beverage in the warehouse. A warehouse full of beer or wine in bottles would not be too likely to go up in flames. Boxes and pallets would burn, but once the bottles started breaking, they would likely slow down or even extinguish the fire. OTOH, if you have a warehouse containing barrels of undiluted distilled spirits, say wood barrels of something like 80% - 95% ethanol, that sucker could fuel a spectacular fire.

Greater risk of running toward the burning warehouse instead of away from it even though not a firefighter: marijuana
Greater risk of being badly injured by the container the product comes in if used as a weapon: alcohol
Greater risk of being murdered by evil cartels that produce and distribute the product: push
Greater risk of absurdly overpaying for exotic varieties that you have to pretend you can tell the superiority of even though that's not necessarily what you even actually got: push
Greater risk of waking up a member of the crew of a Royal Navy vessel after indulging, historically: alcohol

 

[theprestige]

Apparently two of my cousins have had psychotic breaks correlating with their trying pot. One has sworn off the stuff and seems to be doing fine. The other has developed a severe and irreversible behavioral disorder. I assume the disorder was always lurking, and would have emerged sooner or later anyway. But still. Also one of my siblings reports persistent extreme feelings of anxiety for days after using. Micro-doses, mega-doses, doesn't matter for her. The "high" experience itself is quite enjoyable, but the subsequent anxiety is crippling. So I'll buy that pot can in fact be quite harmful. Partaking should be an informed decision taking into account the risk of severe negative consequences. Not a blind faith that pot is "natural" and "harmless" and "but alcohol is the real problem, amirite?!"

 

[CORed]

It was a while ago so it may have been refuted but I remember reading of research that showed that people get addicted to coffee, their bodies learn to expect it, and consequently exhibit withdraw symptoms when they go without it for a while. IOW if you never drink coffee in the first place you'll never suffer the "low energy level" withdrawal symptoms that require coffee to correct.

And yes, I've never understood why people deliberately ingest substances which bugger up their brain chemistry. Your brain chemistry has been optimised by millions of years of natural selection to operate at peak efficiency; unless an illness has unbalanced it enough to require correction, messing it up with drugs is a very silly thing to do.

I have an amusing little anecdote about caffeine addiction. Many years ago, at my workplace, I used to frequently drink diet cola (Coke or Pepsi, I forget which) from the vending machines there. One day, I noticed that there was an off-brand diet cola available in one of the vending machines at a lower price than the brand name stuff. I tried it, and the flavor was acceptable. A bit later it dawned on me that I was purchasing my third 12 oz. can of this stuff in less than an hour, and I asked myself, "Why?". I looked at the label a bit more carefully, and noticed the words "caffeine free". Conclusion: I was craving my caffeine fix, and with said craving unsatisfied, kept returning for some more.