Thanks for sharing your experience!
Here is a quote from dr Carl harts new book on the topic of cannabis vs “hard drugs”
“Incidents such as this one filled my head with trepidation as I considered how much to reveal about my own drug use. At the same time, though, I was tired, tired of being dishonest. I was tired of pretending that marijuana was different, from a biological perspective, from something like heroin. Why is it OK for me to admit having used marijuana but not heroin? I know why, of course. Because most people have been led to believe that heroin is inherently a dangerous drug, whereas pot is just a harmless giggle. It’s frustrating. Consider the remarks made by senator Bernie Sanders at the start of 2018 on this subject: “Marijuana is not the same as heroin. No one who has seriously studied the issue believes that marijuana should be classified as a Schedule I drug beside killer drugs like heroin.”1 As politicians go, Sanders seems to be a fair-minded, well-intentioned individual. But his drug perspective is ignorant. Here’s why: In order for a drug, any drug, to produce an effect in the brain, it must first bind to a unique site recognized by that drug. This site, this “receptor”—a specialized structure that recognizes and responds to a particular chemical—is endogenous, meaning that it’s in all of us. We also have an endogenous chemical that binds to each of these receptors. That means, each of our brains contains heroin-like and THC-like chemicals and their corresponding receptors. Why, you may ask, would our brains contain a heroin-like substance? Or even a marijuana-like substance? Well, heroin belongs to a class of chemicals called opioids, and opioids participate in myriad important biological functions. For example, they relieve pain, reduce diarrhea, and induce sleep. It’s not difficult to see the life-sustaining value of this class of chemicals. Similarly, the marijuana-like chemical in the brain plays an important role in food intake and coordinating bodily movements, as well as other vital functions. These chemicals, or more precisely, their endogenous relatives, are critical for our survival. Still, neither heroin nor marijuana is inherently more evil than the other. It’s true that heroin, for example, will more readily cause respiratory depression than marijuana will. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that heroin is more evil than marijuana is. Smoking marijuana is far more likely to cause temporary paranoia or disturbing perceptual alterations than heroin administered by any route is. If someone were suffering from dysentery, a condition that remains a major cause of death in countries that have inadequate health resources, heroin would be the obvious lifesaving choice. The point is that all drugs can produce both negative and positive effects. So to act as if marijuana is intrinsically or morally superior to heroin—or any other drug, for that matter—highlights the ignorance of the holder of this belief. Such ignorance also decreases the odds of people honestly reporting the use of drugs other than marijuana because of the stigma attached to so-called harder drugs, such as heroin. For at least the past five years, I’ve felt a nagging sense of guilt about complying with the requirement to lie about my current drug use. “
