- Joined
- Feb 8, 2006
- Messages
- 65,043
Well, a lot of people (myself included) are like that with weed. If we have weed we tend to smoke it.
I'm not really disagreeing with you in the sense that kratom is an opioid and is quite addictive and more physically addictive than marijuana for sure. However, if you look at society today I would argue there are far more daily cannabis users than daily kratom users. I would argue that cannabis is having a negative effect on the lives and emotional development of far more teens and young adults today than kratom is.
Of course partly this is due to cannabis being more popular but given that kratom is legal and has been around long enough now that most young people with any interest in drugs know about it and there is no huge stigma about it keeping people away from it, why is cannabis so much popular?
My overall point is that I see cannabis as a greater threat to the health of young people today than kratom. It's amazing how many young people I see today smoking weed every day and even taking dabs like it's just a normal thing to smoke weed/ dab every day. Personally I don't think it's normal or healthy and I think there is a greater risk for heavy marijuana use effecting emotional and psychological development.
That's not to downplay the risks of kratom, but like I said I don't think young people are abusing kratom to anywhere near the level they are abusing cannabis right now, hence the irony of the increasing legalization and promotion of cannabis while simultaneously banning kratom. If I get in my car I can't drive more than 5 miles without passing a billboard advertising legal cannabis. When I walk in the woods I find empty cannabis containers. If I ride my bike downtown I smell marijuana smoke. It didn't used to be like that, even 10 years ago it wasn't the norm to smell marijuana smoke in public on a regular bases.
I wonder if it's different in areas like where I am where it is displayed in gas stations and with electric signs on the door? I'm not sure, since I don't know any kids around here. I know a lot of people use it, not as many as weed though, for sure. It's pretty ubiquitous, but then, it was before we legalized it, too, among the people I knew and hung out with. Most of my friends my age started smoking between age 13 and 15, I didn't start until I was 17. There was no kratom back then, or any idea that weed would be legalized in my lifetime.
Weed and kratom should both be legal. I am not convinced that legalizing it is causing the huge increase in people smoking weed that you think it does. I'm sure there is some increase, but weed's been popular and common and easy to get for a long time.
Last edited: