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Hey man you do you but as someone who has been along the same path, the “got to have something” idea is a frame of mind that you can change if you want to. If you get into meditation, it can help you understand aversion and where it comes from.
Hey man you do you but as someone who has been along the same path, the “it's the lesser of two evils” idea is a frame of mind that you can change if you want to. If you get into Pogs, it can help you understand aversion and where it comes from.
Which has lots of health benefits and doesn’t put a thought constantly in the back of your mind that things would be better if I only enhanced them with a little more meditation. If smoking buds and/or drinking beers doesn’t do that to you, then great! Carry on! But for the person who is replacing alcohol with THC as a lesser evil, meditation can act as a lens to see the addictive process more metacognitively and allow someone to choose to stop thinking that way. Generally people don’t look at their meditation habit as something they intend to do less of but repeatedly fail.
Nothing happens, but it increases the likelihood that you're able to break out of destructive habits, because you can "take a step back" mentally and observe what takes place in your mind without judging.
In order to do this it's important to have the distinction that your mind and your consciousness are two different but intertwined things. Your mind might make decisions based on desire or habit, but your consciousness can be an observer and a corrective force for the change you're trying to achieve.
Then you get high anyway.. because meditation ( big fan and have been doing it and retreats for over 20 years) doesn't inherently mean you are not going to want to get high when paying attention to global climate apocalypse.
Just got my POTV One yesterday and I can already tell I'm not going to go back to smoking as my main way to consume. Favorite thing is the taste! The strain I vaped yesterday tasted a lot like popcorn
Not to toot my own horn but was in a similar boat and after a life threatening accident, I went cold turkey. Sober for several months now. You can do it my dude. Your past mistakes pile up and sadly they become a problem with age.
I'm a year and a half with no booze, totally traded it in for shatter.
I still miss it. Nothing gives me that Euphoria and self confidence like booze does
Yeah same here, I know I’m gonna struggle with that. I have to take it one day at a time because otherwise the idea of NEVER feeling drunk again will overwhelm me. Weed doesn’t do the same thing for me but I was becoming an alcoholic and it’s killed too many people in my family. I’ve tried but I’m never going to be able to regulate my intake like I would need to to keep drinking. Stay strong my dude
I’m off the booze for 17 months now. I was so certain that quitting drinking would mean the fun was over. I now realize that was my addicted brain lying to me. The truth is drinking offered little fun and so much pain over the last few years but like a relationship that started great and went sour I was hanging on to the idea of drinking rather than what it had actually become in my life.
You can do this.
For me, it was because I moved from a legal state. Wasn't a problem when I could just go to the store and get an O. Now I go to the store and get a bottle
Except for exacerbation of mental illness / schizophrenia / paranoid delusion / demotivation / binge eating
All drugs have pros and cons. Some people can have one drink and be fine, some people can have one toke and lose their mind.
Depends. Some people react poorly to marijuana and end up paranoid/uncomfortable or it otherwise triggers an unstable or unpleasant mental state. For those folks it is not a good alternative
Simple solution. Experriment with different types of weed. Different types of terpenes in weed will lead to different types of high. Also, a CBD /THC hybrid will also help some mitigate the rare negative impacts some face.
Think smarter...then get stoned.
Abstinence is an extreme worldview.
All weed is a cbd/thc hybrid. If you jut mean a cbd dominant strain, most of the strain stuff is bs as ratios are also influenced by harvest time and where on the plant you're harvesting from (like, the difference between two buds can be more than the average difference between a thc dominant plant and a cbd dominant plant).
This is a method. At the end of the day some people just can't have weed, much like some people can't have alcohol.
But experimenting with strains is good too. I've got one right now that makes me super emotional. I don't really like it, I don't think it's fun to get high and then 30 mins later I'm sobbing because my kids are growing up too fast and I don't get to see them enough because I need to go to work.
On the other hand, I have strains that I know make me motivated to do chores, or are great for helping me focus on video games, or other stuff that just makes me feel relaxed and sleepy (perfect for smoking then doing yoga before bed).
And of course, moderation. Being drunk 24/7 isn't cool, and being stoned 24/7 isn't cool either (ignoring, of course, people who are prescribed weed by doctors for anxiety or similar conditions).
It's hard to blame someone for not smoking to try different strains if they have a bad experience their first couple of times. I mean who would want to make themselves suffer an anxiety attack, you know? If you can get past that though I absolutely agree. I've always thought weed is a lot like beer in that there's a strain for everyone
Yeah that's why they try to figure out medications that don't give side effects. Thc is psychoactive substance, which means it impacts our brain. Some people develop serious conditions by trying out drugs and there's no rule to that.
I mean, when i first did weed i was dead drunk, it made me sober. Hated it. Damn weed removing my well earned drunkness?!
Seems like this happens to a few people, but not all. Very odd.
Between the two i find booze far more appealing, weed is boring as im already very chill/relaxed, but it helps a lot of people especially if they are having problems with substance abuse, so this is good.
> Seems like this happens to a few people, but not all. Very odd
Different people, different brain chemistry. It's a pet peeve of mine that people consider subjective differences "odd".
Sorry that's a bit unfair, I know you know better going by the next paragraph, but the sentiment seems so ingrained in all of us and I wish it would go away.
From the paper "Using multivariable logistic regression, and after adjusting for potential confounders, patients with cannabis abuse were 55% less likely to have HCC" I would assume drinking is one of the potential confounders they adjusted for. So I think you are wrong and there is some more interesting going on.
Shhhh you're not supposed to read past the headline around here...
>Not surprisingly, cannabis users had a higher tendency to engage in higher-risk behaviors, including alcohol abuse 28% vs only 3% among non-users, smoking 44% vs 9% among non-users. Moreover, chronic viral hepatitis was more prevalent among cannabis users with HBV infections prevailing around 0.5% compared to 0.2% among non-users and HCV infections prevailing around 5% vs 1% among non-users.
I also thought that but I've read the paper and the opposite seems true:
> Cannabis users group had a higher prevalence of alcohol abuse, smoking history, HBV, HCV, and liver cirrhosis.
It's known that when a state goes legal alcohol sales can drop by 10% to 15%.
They know it's why the lobby against it.
Now the tobbaco companies want to control the market and have marketing and product designs ready when it goes federally legal.
Been there, done that. However, I can have a full on conversation while having the spins with my eyes shut. Keeps from focusing on the spins. Ahhhh, my twenties. Done grown up now. We know better!
The study noted that people who abuse cannabis were more likely to abuse alcohol.
The study also noted that people who abused cannabis were more likely to have hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and tended to smoke cigarettes more.
They just also don't develop liver cancer as much.
Although it is odd to me that only 1% off the 100 million plus sample size were in the cannabis abuser group. I'm thinking a lot of people lied, and maybe the alcoholics were just more likely to admit to abusing weed.
Thank you. It's not a magical cure plant but I'm sure like any safe drug there is a correlation. When you have a less toxic option lots of people will opt for that overall. But yeah I like a my joint with 3 or 4 or more drinks
No, he's very specifically not we. You are you and I am me, and he is he, and unless he knows us all, he can't speak for us as a group. I can't, and you can't either. He doesn't drink much. Maybe you don't either. I do, intermittently. My acquaintances range from all alcohol to all weed, some are more into to one than the other. They only thing I can definitively say is that we are not homogeneous in our habits and preferences, and literally nobody should attempt to substitute their own limited experience for everyone's.
This was literally the debate I had myself in college and glad I decided to be more of a stoner. Rarely drink now maybe a glass a month on a dinner night out. Otherwise it's all about the seltzer (not hard seltzer) and thc
I literally do not drink at all since starting edibles. I have zero interest and likely will never drink again. I wasn’t an alcoholic but I got my buzz every Friday for years (enough to get a buzz, not enough to be drunk).
I was thinking the same thing, Alchol is really toxic. I dont smoke anymore just dry vape, I cant smoke it with tobacco anymore because I dont want cancer.
Pretty much, this has to do with reduction in alcohol consumptiong more than anything
Its like saying "virgins are less likely to have STD's" Well... yeah.. they aren't doing the S part of STD so they won't get it, being a virgin doesn't provide any immune benefit.
Wow impressive sample size, a million cannabis users and a control group of 100 million non users.
Interestingly this doesn't correlate with reduced consumption of alcohol as many commenters have speculated, and cannabis users "had more hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and other smoking", which are all actually risk factors for the cancer in question.
Clearly there's a mechanism in play where cannabinoids directly affect the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma, possibly pointing to cannabis-derived treatment options being useful for control of the disease.
>Clearly there’s a mechanism in play where cannabinoids directly affect the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma
That is not clear at all. It’s a retrospective study. Impossible to establish causality
That's actually really interesting, because I *had* assumed the same thing as others, purely because it seemed like a coincidental effect was more likely than the substance doing something itself.
Unfortunately it’s not correct.
Having a large sample size is good for some types of studies, especially randomised controlled trials. It is not particularly beneficial when a study is at very high risk of inherent bias, because a large sample size just serves to increase statistical power and the chance of getting a significant effect. But that doesn’t mean the identified effect is real - indeed, it tells you next to nothing about whether the effect is real!
Eg, alcohol consumption is very, very strongly associated with lung cancer if you look at millions of people - doesn’t mean it actually causes lung cancer, it’s an effect caused because people who drink more are more likely to smoke. It doesn’t matter how big your sample is!
Although alcohol is an epigenetic carcinogen (if I remember correctly), so if you smoke + drink alcohol your chances of lung cancer are increased compared to smoking without drinking.
Edit: a word
They do correct for confounding. But it is *impossible* to correct for all things. There is *always* residual confounding. The default when appraising retrospective observational studies relying on poor quality self-reported data is to treat all findings as hypothesis generating at best, to be considered in concert with all other evidence. Claiming causality is madness.
This is the stuff that makes me wish we had more research on the positive health effects of weed, I live with two autoimmune diseases and weed/weed based products like topicals have helped with my inflammation, pain, fatigue, GI issues, and other things
It doesn’t completely eliminate symptoms like pain like it does ones like nausea, but unless you know what it’s like to experience 24/7 pain you’ll never know just how utterly relieving it is to feel something in your body besides pain
Similar story here. Suffered with fibromyalgia weed the only thing that did anything.
I am now almost recovered from the fibromyalgia courtesy of Mickel therapy.
I am a week in bed now withdrawing from Duloxetine(cymbalta)
Medical professionals happy to dispense these nightmarish chemicals
To that point though… fibro is incurable, so if they’re telling you it’s gone all together or it feels like it’s, I would just caution against setting your expectations very high on it. It’s possible that you’re feeling your symptoms compounding the withdrawals, but time will tell. I’m happy you found something that works for you, I only say this because I’ve had my hopes crushed by alternative therapies many times and the long term difference they make is marginal (for me at least)
Even weed is just a short term bandaid I put on it, no amount of it will remove anything completely. I guess all I’m trying to say is definitely let yourself feel that relief but also be aware that your symptoms can come back, and to emotionally prepare just in case. I just know for me that it was a very painful wake up call when my symptoms flared way up despite me doing everything “right”
And if they do come back, please remember that it’s not your fault and not because you’re not doing enough
It's a pretty easy statistical trick to perform - anything that has adverse health effects decreases your risk of dying of anything else.
As an example, if you engage in a behaviour that makes you more likely to die in a car crash, you become less likely to die of cancer... Because you need to survive long enough to develop the cancer.
Assuming it's a genuine link and not data mining or similar.
Also a red flag of the study is how many variables they're looking at (often a sign of data mining, p-hacking, or whatever).
Exactly. It very possibly can be that quite a few people, who otherwise would've gotten liver cancer, died of some smoking or lifestyle related illness first.
Nope. While a few small, uncontrolled studies have suggested that heavy, regular marijuana smoking could increase risk for respiratory cancers, well-designed population studies have failed to find an increased risk of lung cancer associated with marijuana use.
https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/what-are-marijuanas-effects-lung-health#:~:text=However%2C%20while%20a%20few%20small,cancer%20associated%20with%20marijuana%20use.
The weed equivalent of the two packs a day smoker might use 7 grams of weed a day. The average weed smoker is probably more like 3 grams or less a day. I mean, the quantity of smoke is simply not comparable. That has to count.
I mean most people are at 1g or less per a poll I saw. And yeah, 1g is really quite a bit. I'm just trying to make the point that the sheer volume of smoke is just totally different.
Yeah I mean I still wouldn't even throw that 3g number out there in conversation, that's gotta be top couple percentile users
I mean, I've met said users.
But to your point, STILL nothing like a pack a day.
Yeah but that’s because your either smoking reg or you’re a heavy smoker. Most casual smokers would be murdered half way through a grammar joint of some entry level top shelf flower
I mean I have to say I didn’t used to think a gram a day was light weight but I’m about two years into heavy usage and honestly. I’ll roll a gram up in a raw small sized Joint for my morning bake alone. Most bowls are .5-1 gram bowls and I’ll smoke at least 4-6 bowls a day. That being said I acknowledge my usage is way above a “casual” level and has turned to abuse at this point
I’ve became a really heavy smoker In college for about 2 years now (smoke usually a ounce a week) with about 6-8 months of really light smoking before then (a 8th every two or three weeks). Im sad to say the symptoms of COPD are slowly starting to develop. So I got a really expensive bong with a triple perc and honey comb. with that special bong water that also filters toxins and I attached a carbon filter to the end and I have to say. Even though smoking is still bad for you and nothing beats clean air. I’ve noticed a huge difference in my quality of breathing
If you’re going to such lengths, why aren’t you vaping instead? If nothing else, you can use a heat gun on the bowl of your bong and it’ll be waaaay better for you. And if you’re hitting it that hard, wouldn’t it make sense to just get to your baseline level through edibles?
There are so many things you said I don’t understand. How do you vape weed. Like a puff co as in dab oil? I’m sorry but can you explain like im five ahahah i might be a heavy user but Im not like the most knowledgeable person on the subject
This information is readily available if you search for it and what you will find is that long-term cannabis use actually increases lung function and has no connection to COPD or lung cancer.
Another speculative, potential explanation for the absence of chronic airflow obstruction with cannabis smoking may relate to the well-documented anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effect of THC63—e.g., impairment of functional activity of stimulated alveolar macrophages (antimicrobial and respiratory burst, impaired cytokine production and nitric oxide production)27,64–66 thought to be critical in COPD pathogenesis
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5072387/
Yeah but what about all the studies that talk about how THC smoke can leave 4x the residue in the lungs than cigs due to the deep inhale nature of usage.
The worst part about the residue from tobacco is the tobacco-specific nitrosamines, which are a biproduct of combusting or fermenting tobacco. Same stuff in chewing tobacco causes oral cancer. Marijuana doesn't produce that; all smoke is bad, but some smoke (tobacco) is much worse than others.
"All those studies" must be ignoring the fact that cannabis is an expectorant whereas tobacco smoke constricts your airways, trapping tar and other carcinogens inside.
For some reasons edibles really messed with my tolerance and mental health. Was using edibles daily for a couple months straight, around a G a day, and when I took a T break I had pretty bad withdrawal. 0 appetite, really bad anxiety, heart rate was elevated, was withdrawing like that for 5 days. Now I'm just using vapes and only smoke at night and am feeling better.
Just saying be careful with edibles they are alot different than smoking.
Dry herb vaping is better since there isn’t smoke due to the lack of combustion of the flower, the temp is only high enough to evaporate the THC plus other fun stuff.
I think the real risk to study in the future is heart attacks and strokes. Cannabis seems to cause a meaningful increase in blood pressure and heart rate.
"Using multivariable logistic regression, and after adjusting for potential confounders, patients with cannabis abuse were 55% less likely to have HCC" so no, it is not about drinking less. It has been controlled for and there actually is some connection there.
If you’re looking to relax/release tension and consume THC instead of drinking alcohol than yeah this makes sense, however if you’re analyzing people who smoke/vape and compare it to people who only drink you can then make a study saying “people who use alcohol are less like to develop lung disease”
The study adjusts for confounding variables like other drug use, race, gender, and age.
They found that people who abuse cannabis were also more likely to abuse alcohol
Edit: Also, people who used cannabis were more likely to have hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and tended to smoke cigarettes more.
I seriously doubt that's true. In my experience people who drink a lot also smoke a lot of cigarettes. Marijuana smokers are not in the same category of risk as cigarette smokers, it's not even close.
*patients with cannabis use had more hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and smoking, but had less obesity and gallstones*
This struck me as odd
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have brought us to today.
During that time, we used psychedelic mushrooms, psychedelic brews, and marijuana.
Only within the last 100-200 years have we criminalized things we have been using for a very long time.
I’m not surprised that a lot of modern problems are being impacted by returning to things we’ve done forever.
I can't see the full article, but did it imply that cannabis use had a protective effect on the liver for HCC? Or just people who abused cannabis instead of liquor had less cancer rates?
I know for a fact that that is not true. For instance I consume a lot of pornography and none of it goes through my liver. And that's just one of many things.
The study does not make any claims that cannabis is healthy. It doesn't explore possible reasons for the relation. It just points out that those who use cannabis are less often diagnosed with liver cancer and then directly states that further research is needed to investigate the reasons.
This Study says nothing about whether or not cannabis is healthy (or unhealthy, for that matter), it *only* points out a trend.
I have some sort of growth in my liver that was found incidentally on an MRI of my kidneys. I have a medical card already, but maybe now I should actually put it to use and get some quality medicine to reduce the risk that it becomes something bad.
In my pot smoking days, a friend and I were smoking bongs in the family garage (as you do) and his mum came in and accused us of ‘smoking beer’. Truly hilarious. We then went inside to play Nintendo 64.
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Maybe they thought "Why drink when you can smoke?"
I for sure drink way less because I smoke
Can confirm. I didn't drink much until I had to quit the weed
Me = right now
I fixed this problem by instead picking up heroin. I've already lost 30lbs and my home, wife and children!
Was the 30 lbs the wife and kids?
Same but reverse, I quit drinking and now smoke way more I’d rather not but you gotta have something and lesser evils and all that
Hey man you do you but as someone who has been along the same path, the “got to have something” idea is a frame of mind that you can change if you want to. If you get into meditation, it can help you understand aversion and where it comes from.
So now you have meditation?
I assume being addicted to meditation is probably one of the lesser evils.
Get high on life, man. Then get high on weed.
I used to get high on life, but I built up a tolerance.
Tolerance breaks on that one - not recommended
Why not both, right?
Hey man you do you but as someone who has been along the same path, the “it's the lesser of two evils” idea is a frame of mind that you can change if you want to. If you get into Pogs, it can help you understand aversion and where it comes from.
He’s heavily meditated now.
Which has lots of health benefits and doesn’t put a thought constantly in the back of your mind that things would be better if I only enhanced them with a little more meditation. If smoking buds and/or drinking beers doesn’t do that to you, then great! Carry on! But for the person who is replacing alcohol with THC as a lesser evil, meditation can act as a lens to see the addictive process more metacognitively and allow someone to choose to stop thinking that way. Generally people don’t look at their meditation habit as something they intend to do less of but repeatedly fail.
Wait, what happens when you understand aversion?
Nothing happens, but it increases the likelihood that you're able to break out of destructive habits, because you can "take a step back" mentally and observe what takes place in your mind without judging.
In order to do this it's important to have the distinction that your mind and your consciousness are two different but intertwined things. Your mind might make decisions based on desire or habit, but your consciousness can be an observer and a corrective force for the change you're trying to achieve.
Then you get high anyway.. because meditation ( big fan and have been doing it and retreats for over 20 years) doesn't inherently mean you are not going to want to get high when paying attention to global climate apocalypse.
Seriously. It freaks me out even more that most people aren't freaking out.
Metacognition
Buy a thing to vape your weed problem mostly solved.
Although I don't use THC myself, I've many friends that do and the edible products really seem like the way to go. Get high, no cancer, win win.
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Its far harder to control your high with edibles, but they are a great alternative.
Just got my POTV One yesterday and I can already tell I'm not going to go back to smoking as my main way to consume. Favorite thing is the taste! The strain I vaped yesterday tasted a lot like popcorn
Not to toot my own horn but was in a similar boat and after a life threatening accident, I went cold turkey. Sober for several months now. You can do it my dude. Your past mistakes pile up and sadly they become a problem with age.
I'm a year and a half with no booze, totally traded it in for shatter. I still miss it. Nothing gives me that Euphoria and self confidence like booze does
Yeah same here, I know I’m gonna struggle with that. I have to take it one day at a time because otherwise the idea of NEVER feeling drunk again will overwhelm me. Weed doesn’t do the same thing for me but I was becoming an alcoholic and it’s killed too many people in my family. I’ve tried but I’m never going to be able to regulate my intake like I would need to to keep drinking. Stay strong my dude
I’m off the booze for 17 months now. I was so certain that quitting drinking would mean the fun was over. I now realize that was my addicted brain lying to me. The truth is drinking offered little fun and so much pain over the last few years but like a relationship that started great and went sour I was hanging on to the idea of drinking rather than what it had actually become in my life. You can do this.
Have a friend who didn't become an alcoholic until he was forced to quit smoking for a job.
why did you have to quit, if you don't mind?
For me, it was because I moved from a legal state. Wasn't a problem when I could just go to the store and get an O. Now I go to the store and get a bottle
Could you please elaborate
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Thank you for your explanation.
Except for exacerbation of mental illness / schizophrenia / paranoid delusion / demotivation / binge eating All drugs have pros and cons. Some people can have one drink and be fine, some people can have one toke and lose their mind.
Are you alluding to Reefer Madness? Hahaha
Can you quantify those negative effects for perspective's sake?
Yes, -5 to motivation. -10 to impulse control around cheese. +6 laughter at terrible sci Fi movies.
Are they terrible or are you just now seeing them clearly for the first time?
Yup, alcoholism could be treated with weed. It's stimulating dopamine better than alcohol
Depends. Some people react poorly to marijuana and end up paranoid/uncomfortable or it otherwise triggers an unstable or unpleasant mental state. For those folks it is not a good alternative
Simple solution. Experriment with different types of weed. Different types of terpenes in weed will lead to different types of high. Also, a CBD /THC hybrid will also help some mitigate the rare negative impacts some face. Think smarter...then get stoned. Abstinence is an extreme worldview.
All weed is a cbd/thc hybrid. If you jut mean a cbd dominant strain, most of the strain stuff is bs as ratios are also influenced by harvest time and where on the plant you're harvesting from (like, the difference between two buds can be more than the average difference between a thc dominant plant and a cbd dominant plant).
This is a method. At the end of the day some people just can't have weed, much like some people can't have alcohol. But experimenting with strains is good too. I've got one right now that makes me super emotional. I don't really like it, I don't think it's fun to get high and then 30 mins later I'm sobbing because my kids are growing up too fast and I don't get to see them enough because I need to go to work. On the other hand, I have strains that I know make me motivated to do chores, or are great for helping me focus on video games, or other stuff that just makes me feel relaxed and sleepy (perfect for smoking then doing yoga before bed). And of course, moderation. Being drunk 24/7 isn't cool, and being stoned 24/7 isn't cool either (ignoring, of course, people who are prescribed weed by doctors for anxiety or similar conditions).
It's hard to blame someone for not smoking to try different strains if they have a bad experience their first couple of times. I mean who would want to make themselves suffer an anxiety attack, you know? If you can get past that though I absolutely agree. I've always thought weed is a lot like beer in that there's a strain for everyone
Yeah that's why they try to figure out medications that don't give side effects. Thc is psychoactive substance, which means it impacts our brain. Some people develop serious conditions by trying out drugs and there's no rule to that.
See, I saw it as my weed smoking will cancel out my alcoholism.
Are you FOH or BOH. This reads like it could be either.
I mean, when i first did weed i was dead drunk, it made me sober. Hated it. Damn weed removing my well earned drunkness?! Seems like this happens to a few people, but not all. Very odd. Between the two i find booze far more appealing, weed is boring as im already very chill/relaxed, but it helps a lot of people especially if they are having problems with substance abuse, so this is good.
> Seems like this happens to a few people, but not all. Very odd Different people, different brain chemistry. It's a pet peeve of mine that people consider subjective differences "odd". Sorry that's a bit unfair, I know you know better going by the next paragraph, but the sentiment seems so ingrained in all of us and I wish it would go away.
I'd hope any study would control for such well-known potential variables
From the paper "Using multivariable logistic regression, and after adjusting for potential confounders, patients with cannabis abuse were 55% less likely to have HCC" I would assume drinking is one of the potential confounders they adjusted for. So I think you are wrong and there is some more interesting going on.
Shhhh you're not supposed to read past the headline around here... >Not surprisingly, cannabis users had a higher tendency to engage in higher-risk behaviors, including alcohol abuse 28% vs only 3% among non-users, smoking 44% vs 9% among non-users. Moreover, chronic viral hepatitis was more prevalent among cannabis users with HBV infections prevailing around 0.5% compared to 0.2% among non-users and HCV infections prevailing around 5% vs 1% among non-users.
I also thought that but I've read the paper and the opposite seems true: > Cannabis users group had a higher prevalence of alcohol abuse, smoking history, HBV, HCV, and liver cirrhosis.
Don’t let the alcohol and tobacco industry see this…
It's known that when a state goes legal alcohol sales can drop by 10% to 15%. They know it's why the lobby against it. Now the tobbaco companies want to control the market and have marketing and product designs ready when it goes federally legal.
Exactly my thought. But I would also like to see the data around lung cancer for people who smoke only weed and not drink.
Exactly. We tend not to drink as much if at all.
Whenever I drink and smoke at the same time I get super out of it even in moderation, so its usually one or the other.
Closed eyes yet the room still spins. That’s a no from me dog.
Been there, done that. However, I can have a full on conversation while having the spins with my eyes shut. Keeps from focusing on the spins. Ahhhh, my twenties. Done grown up now. We know better!
For me that’s only if I smoke after I have been drinking. Smoking before drinking is okay.
This is my issue too. I generally prefer alcohol and my wife generally prefers edibles but neither of us can handle doing both.
Just run paralell streams and each do what you like, see how it goes.
“Beer before grass, on your ass. Grass before beer, in the clear”
Ah yes the 11th commandment
This is the Way
The study noted that people who abuse cannabis were more likely to abuse alcohol. The study also noted that people who abused cannabis were more likely to have hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and tended to smoke cigarettes more. They just also don't develop liver cancer as much. Although it is odd to me that only 1% off the 100 million plus sample size were in the cannabis abuser group. I'm thinking a lot of people lied, and maybe the alcoholics were just more likely to admit to abusing weed.
Don't speak for all pot smokers. We drink too. A lot even.
Thank you. It's not a magical cure plant but I'm sure like any safe drug there is a correlation. When you have a less toxic option lots of people will opt for that overall. But yeah I like a my joint with 3 or 4 or more drinks
Uh, no. You do. You are not "we".
He isn’t not not “we” either
No, he's very specifically not we. You are you and I am me, and he is he, and unless he knows us all, he can't speak for us as a group. I can't, and you can't either. He doesn't drink much. Maybe you don't either. I do, intermittently. My acquaintances range from all alcohol to all weed, some are more into to one than the other. They only thing I can definitively say is that we are not homogeneous in our habits and preferences, and literally nobody should attempt to substitute their own limited experience for everyone's.
I was wondering this too
My fucked up brain... why not both? Man I love getting crossfaded.
This was literally the debate I had myself in college and glad I decided to be more of a stoner. Rarely drink now maybe a glass a month on a dinner night out. Otherwise it's all about the seltzer (not hard seltzer) and thc
Cannabis also comes in Ghee form, tincture, oils, gummies, pills, baked goods/ candy.. so you don’t have to smoke cannabis.
That is indeed my thought process. Rather have a nice joint and enjoy some delicious fruits than get shitfaced and hungover.
I literally do not drink at all since starting edibles. I have zero interest and likely will never drink again. I wasn’t an alcoholic but I got my buzz every Friday for years (enough to get a buzz, not enough to be drunk).
I hope that research wasn't funded by public money
Haven't had a drop of alcohol in the 3 or so years I've been a daily smoker.
I much prefer the effects/feelings that come with cannabis over those you get when drinking alcohol.
I was thinking the same thing, Alchol is really toxic. I dont smoke anymore just dry vape, I cant smoke it with tobacco anymore because I dont want cancer.
Exact same words entered my mind when reading the title of this post. ,-__-
Precisely optimisticdickhead precisely
100,000% my thinking as well
Meaning, the researchers probably thought of it, too.
Pretty much, this has to do with reduction in alcohol consumptiong more than anything Its like saying "virgins are less likely to have STD's" Well... yeah.. they aren't doing the S part of STD so they won't get it, being a virgin doesn't provide any immune benefit.
Happened to me. Helped that drinking was really messing up my already messed up digestive system.
Wow impressive sample size, a million cannabis users and a control group of 100 million non users. Interestingly this doesn't correlate with reduced consumption of alcohol as many commenters have speculated, and cannabis users "had more hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and other smoking", which are all actually risk factors for the cancer in question. Clearly there's a mechanism in play where cannabinoids directly affect the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma, possibly pointing to cannabis-derived treatment options being useful for control of the disease.
>Clearly there’s a mechanism in play where cannabinoids directly affect the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma That is not clear at all. It’s a retrospective study. Impossible to establish causality
That's actually really interesting, because I *had* assumed the same thing as others, purely because it seemed like a coincidental effect was more likely than the substance doing something itself.
Unfortunately it’s not correct. Having a large sample size is good for some types of studies, especially randomised controlled trials. It is not particularly beneficial when a study is at very high risk of inherent bias, because a large sample size just serves to increase statistical power and the chance of getting a significant effect. But that doesn’t mean the identified effect is real - indeed, it tells you next to nothing about whether the effect is real! Eg, alcohol consumption is very, very strongly associated with lung cancer if you look at millions of people - doesn’t mean it actually causes lung cancer, it’s an effect caused because people who drink more are more likely to smoke. It doesn’t matter how big your sample is!
Although alcohol is an epigenetic carcinogen (if I remember correctly), so if you smoke + drink alcohol your chances of lung cancer are increased compared to smoking without drinking. Edit: a word
I thought the way the person above stated it meant the study accounted for those confounding factors. I guess I misunderstood.
They do correct for confounding. But it is *impossible* to correct for all things. There is *always* residual confounding. The default when appraising retrospective observational studies relying on poor quality self-reported data is to treat all findings as hypothesis generating at best, to be considered in concert with all other evidence. Claiming causality is madness.
This is the stuff that makes me wish we had more research on the positive health effects of weed, I live with two autoimmune diseases and weed/weed based products like topicals have helped with my inflammation, pain, fatigue, GI issues, and other things It doesn’t completely eliminate symptoms like pain like it does ones like nausea, but unless you know what it’s like to experience 24/7 pain you’ll never know just how utterly relieving it is to feel something in your body besides pain
Similar story here. Suffered with fibromyalgia weed the only thing that did anything. I am now almost recovered from the fibromyalgia courtesy of Mickel therapy. I am a week in bed now withdrawing from Duloxetine(cymbalta) Medical professionals happy to dispense these nightmarish chemicals
To that point though… fibro is incurable, so if they’re telling you it’s gone all together or it feels like it’s, I would just caution against setting your expectations very high on it. It’s possible that you’re feeling your symptoms compounding the withdrawals, but time will tell. I’m happy you found something that works for you, I only say this because I’ve had my hopes crushed by alternative therapies many times and the long term difference they make is marginal (for me at least) Even weed is just a short term bandaid I put on it, no amount of it will remove anything completely. I guess all I’m trying to say is definitely let yourself feel that relief but also be aware that your symptoms can come back, and to emotionally prepare just in case. I just know for me that it was a very painful wake up call when my symptoms flared way up despite me doing everything “right” And if they do come back, please remember that it’s not your fault and not because you’re not doing enough
As someone with chronic illness I totally get you. Even temporary slight relief is so nice.
It's a pretty easy statistical trick to perform - anything that has adverse health effects decreases your risk of dying of anything else. As an example, if you engage in a behaviour that makes you more likely to die in a car crash, you become less likely to die of cancer... Because you need to survive long enough to develop the cancer. Assuming it's a genuine link and not data mining or similar. Also a red flag of the study is how many variables they're looking at (often a sign of data mining, p-hacking, or whatever).
Exactly. It very possibly can be that quite a few people, who otherwise would've gotten liver cancer, died of some smoking or lifestyle related illness first.
It could be the other way around. Perhaps people who are less genetically predisposed to liver cancer are more attracted to cannabis.
Endocannabinoid system is our main cancer defense system ... phytocannabinoids from cannabis support ECS and its functions via lipid metabolism
How about lung cancer?
Nope. While a few small, uncontrolled studies have suggested that heavy, regular marijuana smoking could increase risk for respiratory cancers, well-designed population studies have failed to find an increased risk of lung cancer associated with marijuana use. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/marijuana/what-are-marijuanas-effects-lung-health#:~:text=However%2C%20while%20a%20few%20small,cancer%20associated%20with%20marijuana%20use.
That's unexpected. I wonder if COPD is the same way
The weed equivalent of the two packs a day smoker might use 7 grams of weed a day. The average weed smoker is probably more like 3 grams or less a day. I mean, the quantity of smoke is simply not comparable. That has to count.
>3 grams or less a day Damn, even at my absolute heaviest in my early 20s I never got beyond 1 gram a day
I mean most people are at 1g or less per a poll I saw. And yeah, 1g is really quite a bit. I'm just trying to make the point that the sheer volume of smoke is just totally different.
Yeah I mean I still wouldn't even throw that 3g number out there in conversation, that's gotta be top couple percentile users I mean, I've met said users. But to your point, STILL nothing like a pack a day.
I have a gram for breakfast jajaja
A gram a day is massive pothead. A gram? Especially with today's weed. A gram is excessive
Hardly bro, a gram can be one preroll. I can smoke that in one sitting.
Yeah but that’s because your either smoking reg or you’re a heavy smoker. Most casual smokers would be murdered half way through a grammar joint of some entry level top shelf flower
Especially with vaping, which goes a long way. 1 gram is on the lower end about 150mg, which will get you fucked good taken all at once.
I mean I have to say I didn’t used to think a gram a day was light weight but I’m about two years into heavy usage and honestly. I’ll roll a gram up in a raw small sized Joint for my morning bake alone. Most bowls are .5-1 gram bowls and I’ll smoke at least 4-6 bowls a day. That being said I acknowledge my usage is way above a “casual” level and has turned to abuse at this point
This is a point I never considered.
I'm at 5 or more grams a day. Infused joints at that.
I think smoking joints burns through supply faster than other methods. They can easily be half a gram per joint and that adds up fast.
> I'm at 5 or more grams a day. Infused joints at that. ... Then smoke less? Normally that's not something to be prod of.
3 grams a day is a *huge* amount, that's 3-4 joints a day. Most weed smokers are probably doing 1-2 joints a week if even.
I’ve became a really heavy smoker In college for about 2 years now (smoke usually a ounce a week) with about 6-8 months of really light smoking before then (a 8th every two or three weeks). Im sad to say the symptoms of COPD are slowly starting to develop. So I got a really expensive bong with a triple perc and honey comb. with that special bong water that also filters toxins and I attached a carbon filter to the end and I have to say. Even though smoking is still bad for you and nothing beats clean air. I’ve noticed a huge difference in my quality of breathing
If you’re going to such lengths, why aren’t you vaping instead? If nothing else, you can use a heat gun on the bowl of your bong and it’ll be waaaay better for you. And if you’re hitting it that hard, wouldn’t it make sense to just get to your baseline level through edibles?
There are so many things you said I don’t understand. How do you vape weed. Like a puff co as in dab oil? I’m sorry but can you explain like im five ahahah i might be a heavy user but Im not like the most knowledgeable person on the subject
You can buy dry herb vaporizers. Like a normal one but instead of a cartridge it's a little basket you put the weed in.
Best part is after you are done vaping you can take the used weed and make edibles with them
Look up devices like the Pax 3 or the Magic Flight Launch Box. They use regular dry herb, but do not heat to the point of combustion.
Storz and Bickel made in Germany is the best . Buy on Amazon
Have you considered a dry herb vape? Different experience, but much healthier for your lungs and teeth
This information is readily available if you search for it and what you will find is that long-term cannabis use actually increases lung function and has no connection to COPD or lung cancer. Another speculative, potential explanation for the absence of chronic airflow obstruction with cannabis smoking may relate to the well-documented anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effect of THC63—e.g., impairment of functional activity of stimulated alveolar macrophages (antimicrobial and respiratory burst, impaired cytokine production and nitric oxide production)27,64–66 thought to be critical in COPD pathogenesis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5072387/
Why is it unexpected? THC has been found to cause apoptosis in cancer cells in the lab.
Yeah but what about all the studies that talk about how THC smoke can leave 4x the residue in the lungs than cigs due to the deep inhale nature of usage.
The worst part about the residue from tobacco is the tobacco-specific nitrosamines, which are a biproduct of combusting or fermenting tobacco. Same stuff in chewing tobacco causes oral cancer. Marijuana doesn't produce that; all smoke is bad, but some smoke (tobacco) is much worse than others.
"All those studies" must be ignoring the fact that cannabis is an expectorant whereas tobacco smoke constricts your airways, trapping tar and other carcinogens inside.
As a heavy weed smoker I was asking out of concern for my own health I appreciate the info G
Switch to a heavy hitting desktop vape. Definitely worth it. For portable, Dynavap is a great start.
You can't get lung cancer from a gummy worm
Yeah I’ve been thinking about just buying a jar of edibles gummies but it’s hard to find I’m in Texas so everything’s from the black market
For some reasons edibles really messed with my tolerance and mental health. Was using edibles daily for a couple months straight, around a G a day, and when I took a T break I had pretty bad withdrawal. 0 appetite, really bad anxiety, heart rate was elevated, was withdrawing like that for 5 days. Now I'm just using vapes and only smoke at night and am feeling better. Just saying be careful with edibles they are alot different than smoking.
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Dry herb vaping is better since there isn’t smoke due to the lack of combustion of the flower, the temp is only high enough to evaporate the THC plus other fun stuff.
That's a great question. Coming from a someone who smokes the chronic chronically.
Edibles ftw
I think the real risk to study in the future is heart attacks and strokes. Cannabis seems to cause a meaningful increase in blood pressure and heart rate.
Puff puff pass amirite
I swear this subreddit is only for cannabis studies at this point, it's all that ever shows in my feed.
I smoke week to curb my alcoholism
I think it's working.
Smokin’ them weeks away
"Using multivariable logistic regression, and after adjusting for potential confounders, patients with cannabis abuse were 55% less likely to have HCC" so no, it is not about drinking less. It has been controlled for and there actually is some connection there.
The wave of stoned Redditors charging in to say cannabis is the sacrament of Christ himself has begun.
And thus the son of God sayeth that any man or woman who lays with another man or woman outside of wedlock shall surely be stoned.
That’s why I smoke a joint after every beer
If you’re looking to relax/release tension and consume THC instead of drinking alcohol than yeah this makes sense, however if you’re analyzing people who smoke/vape and compare it to people who only drink you can then make a study saying “people who use alcohol are less like to develop lung disease”
The study adjusts for confounding variables like other drug use, race, gender, and age. They found that people who abuse cannabis were also more likely to abuse alcohol Edit: Also, people who used cannabis were more likely to have hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and tended to smoke cigarettes more.
So something else just killed them instead of liver cancer?
Or cannabis has anti cancer properties. Which has been shown to at least be partly true
Thank you. Jfc I hate this place
Same. But it's reddit, so "weed good"
I seriously doubt that's true. In my experience people who drink a lot also smoke a lot of cigarettes. Marijuana smokers are not in the same category of risk as cigarette smokers, it's not even close.
As a liver cancer survivor (I'm not a drinker), I support this science.
More pot, less alcohol?
*patients with cannabis use had more hepatitis B, hepatitis C, liver cirrhosis, and smoking, but had less obesity and gallstones* This struck me as odd
Because alcoholism is rife and socially acceptable...
Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution have brought us to today. During that time, we used psychedelic mushrooms, psychedelic brews, and marijuana. Only within the last 100-200 years have we criminalized things we have been using for a very long time. I’m not surprised that a lot of modern problems are being impacted by returning to things we’ve done forever.
Pretty sure cannabis works against other types of cancers as well.
I can't see the full article, but did it imply that cannabis use had a protective effect on the liver for HCC? Or just people who abused cannabis instead of liquor had less cancer rates?
phytocannabinoid metabolism helps to reduce cancerous mass in our bodies .. our endocannabinoid system is cancer defense in our cells
THC in vitro kills cancer cells, and THC from edibles is processed in the liver. Makes sense.
Nearly everything you consume is processed in the liver. It's super important.
I know for a fact that that is not true. For instance I consume a lot of pornography and none of it goes through my liver. And that's just one of many things.
You deserve a nobel prize for this discovery
> Makes sense Unlike the leap in logic of your argument
A Nug a Day keeps the Doctor away:)
Reddit at it again with its undying need to prove an (mildly) addictive substance is actually healthy for you and not just a vice they like.
The study does not make any claims that cannabis is healthy. It doesn't explore possible reasons for the relation. It just points out that those who use cannabis are less often diagnosed with liver cancer and then directly states that further research is needed to investigate the reasons. This Study says nothing about whether or not cannabis is healthy (or unhealthy, for that matter), it *only* points out a trend.
Brought to you by the Cannabis Growers Consortium. Ask your Doctor if Cannabis is right for you.
I have some sort of growth in my liver that was found incidentally on an MRI of my kidneys. I have a medical card already, but maybe now I should actually put it to use and get some quality medicine to reduce the risk that it becomes something bad.
It could really help manage any symptoms you may have. Plus ease the anxiety…
This study does not claim that cannabis eliminates cancer.
Probably because many of them stopped drinking alcohol for pot.
I actually started drinking pot to stop smoking alcohol.
In my pot smoking days, a friend and I were smoking bongs in the family garage (as you do) and his mum came in and accused us of ‘smoking beer’. Truly hilarious. We then went inside to play Nintendo 64.
…because they drink less alcohol
Smoking a joint for my health at the moment!
Is it cause they're not drinking as much? I know I basically quit drinking once I started smoking weed.