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long term weed abuse causing damage?

Mysterie

Bluelight Crew
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May 7, 2010
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Everyone I seem to talk to about people who have been toking daily for 5+ years

all agree they are a bit fucked in the head/silly or dopey

do you think they will regain at least 90% of their cognitive function if they quit for 2 months?

I love weed and its my perfect self-medication but i dont want to turn into cheech or chong

is the answer to only smoke up once every two weeks? i feel i need it most nights after work for my peace of mind
 
Dude people who seem dopey because they smoke too much weed are typically wake and bakers who burn out and slow down within the first two hours of the day. Consumption at night rarely causes effects in people the next day, and more people than you think smoke everyday without any negative consequences on their life. So if you notice a change in yourself you don't like from smoking so much (although from my perspective once a day is far from a lot) cut back, but placebo effect aside I seriously doubt you will for toking a bowl after work to relax.
 
I have been smoking for 15 years exactly. smoked pretty regularly and with much enjoyment. During this time i have gone through periods of veryyy heavy use smoking about a dime of reggs or a gram or so of good shit on normal days. I only completly quit Cannabis for about 3 years when i was pretty sober from all drugs in 2007-2009.

I am 28 and i still smoke because in my case cannabis has never negatively affected my cognative funtion in the long run. I am also currently in school for my Masters in Education. I'll finish the graduate program after this semester and i will have done a good portion on my thesis research stoned. Before I went sober in 2007 I graduated with my BFA '06 with an emphasis on Illustration.

I should note that while sober I never felt my cognative abilities become over all more clear in any way I would say, just incase they might have slowly changed through the years. I should also note that long before I ever touched cannabis or knew that it was it was clear to my parents and schools that I have reading and writing diabilities and finally later confirmed I have suffered from inattentive ADHD my whole life. This caused my school career to be torture up until high school. I was sent to two diff target schools for two years in middle school and labeled a potiental drop out because of my freshmen year of high school.

Its highly documented that my cognitive functions are already a bit weird, so much so that it causes me to have illegible hand writing even though I have clearly always demonstrated my high funtioning fine motor skills with my abilities to draw even at a very young age.

But personally Im doing better than ever.
 
I've bad some bad side-effects from regular weed smoking. I'd give it about 6 months before you get back to "normal".
 
smoking weed daily 10 years here. definitely has me a bit slower and forgetful. i cant complain tho. 10 years of abuse is a long time.
 
Weed? Naaah....It might slow you down for a minute! I wouldn't write write my doctoral thesis stoned, but it makes me play guitar like a motherfuckeR! Order some hundred percent Kona coffee....wow! what a combo, balances it right out!!
 
^ Your right it's only weed, nevermind all the proven studies showing long term abuse does indeed mess with your head. As if that needed studying..

Don't worry guys, it's only weed, smoke an ounce a minute you'll be fine. :)
 
Ah the myth that cannabis causes brain 'damage'. If they had actually been honest about that study where they suffocated monkeys with cannabis smoke, depriving them of oxygen and then presenting the results as proof that cannabis causes brain damage then the myth might not have been imprinted into the psyche of the general public for all this time.

There is the caveat that smoking cannabis too much too regularly may dull your faculties but this will go away with time with abstinence. And for a young person to take any psychoactive substance when their brain is still developing is not advisable as it could hamper their neurological development. But for the adult using cannabis responsibly and sparingly, no it won't cause any 'damage' that is not reversible. And even if you interpret the evidence in the worst possible way the chances of it causing mental illness is so small that really only those using it from a young age with a genetic predisposition are at much risk.

I'm not saying weed is completely harmless but the degree to which is does cause harm is a lot less than what prohibitionists have always made it out to be. I think it was only recently that the head of the DEA refused to concede that cannabis is less harmful and less addictive than cocaine and heroin. In actual fact there is some evidence that cannabis can even be neuroprotective in certain instances so it's hardly going to fry your brain in the proverbial frying pain like they would like you to believe. Hell, most of prohibitionists have even smoked pot in their youth themselves.
 
I'm not saying weed is completely harmless but the degree to which is does cause harm is a lot less than what prohibitionists have always made it out to be. I think it was only recently that the head of the DEA refused to concede that cannabis is less harmful and less addictive than cocaine and heroin. In actual fact there is some evidence that cannabis can even be neuroprotective in certain instances so it's hardly going to fry your brain in the proverbial frying pain like they would like you to believe. Hell, most of prohibitionists have even smoked pot in their youth themselves.

There is a vid out of the DEA admitting that prescription painkillers are causing an epidemic in our country with how widely its abused. But when asked right after if cannabis was less harmful that prescription pain killers the DEA would not admit there is any less harm.
 
^Yup this is the vid I was thinking of neko (you can fast forward to 1:32 to the part I was thinking of). All she could get out was 'all illegal drugs are bad' lol. But yeah it's worrying to say the least!
 
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Everything you do and experience will alter your brain in some way. Smoking cannabis is no exception. I'm not saying it causes brain damage but think about when someone goes through emotional trauma or whatever.. do they have brain damage? No but it's obviously damaged their brain.

Saying that.. some people will find it has affected them more positively (or negatively) than others..

There is no doubt that cannabis interferes with normal memory formation.
 
Cannabis can cause mental health issues... but you'd have to be really fucked to ignore the signs and keep smoking to the point of retardation.

If anything, rc's fuck you up.
 
I'm currently in a heavy smoking phase, and these tend to come and go for me.

Currently my cognition is being affected. Short-term memory is impaired, word selection when I speak is less smooth, and if someone is telling me a story that requires attention to detail I end up asking them repeat certain things more.

All that said, if I stopped smoking for a week or more everything would return to normal. I have never noticed permanent mental effects from smoking. If anything, I notice how my mood tends to suffer if weed is absent from my life for a long time because for me it is a powerful creative and self-reflection tool.
 
Aside from the obvious of ruining you lungs if you smoke it. There more then likely other long term effects. Im not aware of any though
 
^ Any kind of smoking causes lung damage, but the degree to which cannabis actually hurts your lungs compared to other smokables is still being debated. Because there are anti-oxidants in the smoke (like THC), there may be some protective effects that happen at the same time.

You're still going to have lung health issues if you smoke too much regularly though. All that tar lodges in the alveoli and according to many reports it mostly stays there for life.
 
I used to blame past intelligence deficits or periods of cognitive slowness on weed. Not anymore, now that I have more experience with how I react to substances.

I have smoked/vaporized a half pound of marijuana since August, and I am doing better than ever before in my life. I have managed to stay happy for most of this time, a true feat for my typically depressed self. I hold an intense job that requires a whole lot of responsibility, dedication, interpersonal skills, creativity, common sense, organization skills, technical knowledge and quick thinking. I am learning a 2nd language in my spare time and I read literature incessantly. Also I program techno music and play guitar. I'm pretty much constantly motivated apart for the odd short, harmful bursts of sexual energy and anger that weed helps to quell.

I have not been using any drugs other than marijuana (in great excess) over this great period of my life. I have come to realize that hard drugs damage my brain temporarily, and that alcohol use is the worst culprit of all. Even having a few drinks will drastically decrease my awareness and productivity the next day, but weed only ever enhances my consciousness and doesn't come with a down (unless I stay off it for more than a day or 2, in which case I start hating on life because I'm addicted to weed). I'm feeling smarter than I've ever felt in my life, and I owe this to my current dietary habits, and the complete absence of drugs other than weed and tea especially that dirty alcohol shit which causes a rediculous amount of brain and other organ damage in my experience.

It's easy to point the finger at cannabis if you're using it daily, but maybe if you're feeling dumbed down at this time in your life, then it is because you are allowing your motivation to slide, or because you are using other drugs than pot that are actually neurotoxic. Alcohol causes brain damage; weed creates changes in the brain but in my experience these changes have been mainly positive apart from the addiction and fiending, which isn't always so bad.
 
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I've noticed that weed as slowed me down somewhat, and my memory isn't what it use to be (I once had an impeccable memory). Other than that I haven't noticed anything too significant.
 
dopey people are dopey. weed may exacerbate underlying issues.

successful people are successful. weed may enhance their awesomeness.
 
^Yup this is the vid I was thinking of neko (you can fast forward to 1:32 to the part I was thinking of). All she could get out was 'all illegal drugs are bad' lol. But yeah it's worrying to say the least!

Thank you for sharing that video! I can't even believe it...well, I can, but it still amazes me that our president would appoint someone who can't even back up her claims. Pathetic.
 
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