"I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot"

[Godboy]

Whoa, slow down with the "extremely harmful" talk. Alcohol can be "extremely harmful". Heroin can be "extremely harmful". Are you suggesting that there are pot addiction cases comparable to those? If not, you might want to choose different words.

I am saying some people get no benefit whatsoever from marijuana and in fact it can be extremely harmful. Some people cannot handle any drugs whatsoever. Just like Indians cannot handle alcohol… I grew up on the reservation I’ve seen this first hand

I call ruining your life with heroin and going through withdrawals on a dirty mattress soaked in your own urine, vomit and diarrhea, in some abandoned building, "extremely harmful". Now paint me a picture of an "extremely harmful" case of weed addiction.

It depends on the individual some people get no benefit from marijuana and cannot handle it.
Like I said I see no difference between tobacco and marijuana, but at the same time it should be a personal choice. I don’t want to tell other people what to do

So you cant come up with an extremely harmful case of weed addiction? I cant either.

I know it’s destroyed millions of people’s lives over the centuries.
Just like Indians with alcohol, just go to an Indian reservation sometime.
I personally do not like alcohol, have no desire for it whatsoever. But millions of lives have been destroyed because of it. But for some people it has no affect on them.
That’s why it is a personal thing...

Whatever. As long as you dont lie and say that weed is "extremely harmful", I've got no problem with your position.

 

[watchingfromafar]

If there's a legitimate concern about motor reflexes, have those employees take a motor reflexes test. (Duh) That will show whether they're actually affected by alcohol, drugs, lack of rest, illness, psychological distraction, whatever. What it will not show is a way to invade their personal lives.

I kinda like this idea; lets get------------
[1] (5) people who are drunk and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[2] (5) people who are stoned on pot and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[3] (5) people who are high on coke and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[4] (5) people who are high on Heroin and have each drive threw an obstacle course.

Once these tests are completed, the results will remove any doubt we may have in their effects to driving a car.

 

[Rustic]

I am saying some people get no benefit whatsoever from marijuana and in fact it can be extremely harmful. Some people cannot handle any drugs whatsoever. Just like Indians cannot handle alcohol… I grew up on the reservation I’ve seen this first hand

I call ruining your life with heroin and going through withdrawals on a dirty mattress soaked in your own urine, vomit and diarrhea, in some abandoned building, "extremely harmful". Now paint me a picture of an "extremely harmful" case of weed addiction.

It depends on the individual some people get no benefit from marijuana and cannot handle it.
Like I said I see no difference between tobacco and marijuana, but at the same time it should be a personal choice. I don’t want to tell other people what to do

So you cant come up with an extremely harmful case of weed addiction? I cant either.

I know it’s destroyed millions of people’s lives over the centuries.
Just like Indians with alcohol, just go to an Indian reservation sometime.
I personally do not like alcohol, have no desire for it whatsoever. But millions of lives have been destroyed because of it. But for some people it has no affect on them.
That’s why it is a personal thing...

Whatever. As long as you dont lie and say that weed is "extremely harmful", I've got no problem with your position.

To some people it’s extremely harmful, it brings out the very worst in them.
It is not a miracle drug

 

[whitehall]

You can't smoke a cigarette in New York but you can puff on a joint. You would be arrested by U.S. Rangers if you took a piss in an unauthorized area in a National Park area but the freaking "homeless" drug addicted perverts can set up permanent tents and leave needles and filth around. Go figure.

 

[Harry Dresden]

If there's a legitimate concern about motor reflexes, have those employees take a motor reflexes test. (Duh) That will show whether they're actually affected by alcohol, drugs, lack of rest, illness, psychological distraction, whatever. What it will not show is a way to invade their personal lives.

I kinda like this idea; lets get------------
[1] (5) people who are drunk and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[2] (5) people who are stoned on pot and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[3] (5) people who are high on coke and have each drive threw an obstacle course.
[4] (5) people who are high on Heroin and have each drive threw an obstacle course.

Once these tests are completed, the results will remove any doubt we may have in their effects to driving a car.

my experience with pot and alcohol tells me this.....if i was with 2 other people 50 miles from the nearest hospital and i was seriously hurt and needed one to drive me there and one was drunk and the other was high,i know who i would be tossing the keys too....

 

[Godboy]

I call ruining your life with heroin and going through withdrawals on a dirty mattress soaked in your own urine, vomit and diarrhea, in some abandoned building, "extremely harmful". Now paint me a picture of an "extremely harmful" case of weed addiction.

It depends on the individual some people get no benefit from marijuana and cannot handle it.
Like I said I see no difference between tobacco and marijuana, but at the same time it should be a personal choice. I don’t want to tell other people what to do

So you cant come up with an extremely harmful case of weed addiction? I cant either.

I know it’s destroyed millions of people’s lives over the centuries.
Just like Indians with alcohol, just go to an Indian reservation sometime.
I personally do not like alcohol, have no desire for it whatsoever. But millions of lives have been destroyed because of it. But for some people it has no affect on them.
That’s why it is a personal thing...

Whatever. As long as you dont lie and say that weed is "extremely harmful", I've got no problem with your position.

To some people it’s extremely harmful, it brings out the very worst in them.
It is not a miracle drug

If weed is "extremely harmful", then how do you describe extreme cases of heroin use? If it isnt even stronger language, then you have a problem with your terminology.

 

[Rustic]

It depends on the individual some people get no benefit from marijuana and cannot handle it.
Like I said I see no difference between tobacco and marijuana, but at the same time it should be a personal choice. I don’t want to tell other people what to do

So you cant come up with an extremely harmful case of weed addiction? I cant either.

I know it’s destroyed millions of people’s lives over the centuries.
Just like Indians with alcohol, just go to an Indian reservation sometime.
I personally do not like alcohol, have no desire for it whatsoever. But millions of lives have been destroyed because of it. But for some people it has no affect on them.
That’s why it is a personal thing...

Whatever. As long as you dont lie and say that weed is "extremely harmful", I've got no problem with your position.

To some people it’s extremely harmful, it brings out the very worst in them.
It is not a miracle drug

If weed is "extremely harmful", then how do you describe extreme cases of heroin use? If it isnt even stronger language, then you have a problem with your terminology.

I think to a very large part of the population all drugs are very harmful, most people cannot handle that shit.
But at the same time I think it’s a personal issue, it should be no one else’s business and certainly not the federal government’s business. Much the same as firearm ownership

 

[DigitalDrifter]

"Like most pot addicts in denial, I spent years telling myself that marijuana isn’t addictive, and so I didn’t have a problem. But clearly I did. And I’m not the only one who suffers this way."

"Though marijuana addiction isn’t deadly like opioid addiction or toxic like meth addiction, it still wastes millions of lives. Around 9 percent of users become addicted, and about 17 percent of those who start as teenagers. That’s less than the rate for alcoholism but still significant.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

"Two weeks after I sobered up, I took a business trip to California. My hotel room was less than a mile away from three recreational weed dispensaries. I paced around and got into the tub with some 12-step literature. Finally, I went to a Marijuana Anonymous meeting in West Hollywood. It was Friday night, and the room was packed with addicts, some my age, but most younger, struggling to recover a life lost to weed.



There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life. If you have a problem, you are not alone.

Neal Pollack is the editor in chief of Book and Film Globe and the author, most recently, of “Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You.”

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

 

[Dan Stubbs]

weed can make one be psychologically dependent but it is not physically addictive like nicotine or opioids.

Exactly. Matter of fact, when I finally decided to start smoking, I tried a small experiment.

If you were to drink a case of beer, every day, for a month, and then stop suddenly? You will go into DT's, which is the physical withdrawl from alcohol. And, people can actually die from them.

So, knowing that little factoid about alcohol, I decided to try the same thing with cannabis. I took a month (it was after I retired), and spent 30 days smoking morning noon and night. Then, at the end of the 30 days, I stopped suddenly to see if there was any kind of physical withdrawl. The only thing I noticed was that I wasn't stoned anymore, and there were zero physical symptoms from suddenly stopping.

Yes, cannabis can be mentally addictive, but then again, so can gambling, shopping, running, people (its called codependency), etc.

But, it is NOT physically addictive.

I small side effect, you can end up with a case of COPD the same as tobacco and live at the end of a ox tube.

 

[Dan Stubbs]

"Two weeks after I sobered up, I took a business trip to California. My hotel room was less than a mile away from three recreational weed dispensaries. I paced around and got into the tub with some 12-step literature. Finally, I went to a Marijuana Anonymous meeting in West Hollywood. It was Friday night, and the room was packed with addicts, some my age, but most younger, struggling to recover a life lost to weed.



There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life. If you have a problem, you are not alone.

Neal Pollack is the editor in chief of Book and Film Globe and the author, most recently, of “Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You.”

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

Yep only 44k die from related auto accidents so we just up the figure with the use of pot and driving. Makes a lot of sense of thinning the herd.

 

[ABikerSailor]

"Two weeks after I sobered up, I took a business trip to California. My hotel room was less than a mile away from three recreational weed dispensaries. I paced around and got into the tub with some 12-step literature. Finally, I went to a Marijuana Anonymous meeting in West Hollywood. It was Friday night, and the room was packed with addicts, some my age, but most younger, struggling to recover a life lost to weed.



There’s a reason that Alcoholics Anonymous started in 1935, two years after the end of Prohibition. Alcohol abuse became rampant, and the country almost drank itself off the rails. Will the same thing happen with marijuana?

Marijuana isn’t alcohol or an opioid. You can’t die from an overdose. It doesn’t really evince physical cravings. So is it better to call my problem marijuana “dependence”? Does it matter?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life. If you have a problem, you are not alone.

Neal Pollack is the editor in chief of Book and Film Globe and the author, most recently, of “Not Coming Soon to a Theater Near You.”

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

The person who wrote that said themselves that marijuana is not physically addictive, nor can you overdose on it and die.

Yes, people can become psychologically addicted to something, but that can be anything.....................people (it's called codependency), gambling, shopping, running (yes, you can get addicted to the runner's high), just about damn near anything. But, that speaks more to the person's mental state.

Marijuana is not physically addictive in any way. Mentally, maybe, but that is on the person themselves, not the plant.

 

[evenflow1969]

I hear all the time that pot isn't addictive. Is it denial ?

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life.

AUSTIN, Tex. — My name is Neal, and I’m a marijuana addict.

A year ago I wouldn’t have said that, because it would have meant giving up marijuana. I would rather have given up breathing.

When I had my first cup of coffee in the morning, I pressed the little button on my vape pen, waited for the blue glow, took a huge inhale and then blew it into the mug so that I could suck in the THC and caffeine at the same time. Then I took another hit, and another. In the afternoons, I’d smoke a bowl, or pop a gummy bear, or both. At night, I got high before eating dinner or watching the ballgame. Maybe I’d stop getting stoned a little bit before bed, but what was the point? If I went to bed high, I could wake up high, too.

What a time for people to get stoned! Marijuana has left the counterculture, exploded into the mainstream and transformed into a multibillion-dollar industry. Cannabis is now an essential part of any hip wellness and beauty regimen. Netflix offers a marijuana-themed cooking show.

Cannabis should be legal. It has medical uses. Millions of people, most of them black and Latino men, have unjustly gone to jail for selling what should have been easily available in stores. States with the political courage to legalize it have seen their tax rolls bloom and have created thousands of jobs. Also, it’s delicious.

Opinion | I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot

So this worse case scenario didnt end with multiple DUIs or a fatality car accident? He didnt hit his wife or kids in a drunken rage? No detoxing process?

You heard it here folks, even the worst case of weed addiction is super mild!

True, marijuana is not at all harmful to some people, but it is extremely harmful to other people.
It should be a personal private thing

Some people can handle it some can't. Just like any thing else. I use to sit and watch my study partner in physics during college spark up and then have no issue learning the material. I was not solving many equations in that state. It effects different people differently.

 

[DrLove]

Times won't let me in unless I dump cookies. Found it here:
Opinion | I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot - BYLIFETODAY.COM

Weed can be psychologically addictive to some, but physically addictive to no one. You take the vape pen away from a pot smoker and they won't be Jonesing or requiring hospitalization like say a heroin addict.

Booze on the other hand, can be for some both psychologically AND physically addictive. If you've ever known an alcoholic, they've gotta have that fix every day or the shakes set in.

Weed is MUCH easier on the human body.

 

[Rustic]

Times won't let me in unless I dump cookies. Found it here:
Opinion | I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot - BYLIFETODAY.COM

Weed can be psychologically addictive to some, but physically addictive to no one. You take the vape pen away from a pot smoker and they won't be Jonesing or requiring hospitalization like say a heroin addict.

Booze on the other hand, can be for some both psychologically AND physically addictive. If you've ever known an alcoholic, they've gotta have that fix every day or the shakes set in.

Weed is MUCH easier on the human body.

Depends on the individual, I’ve known a lot of potheads over the years on the Indian reservation they are fucked up beyond repair

 

[DrLove]

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life.

I am truly sorry that you feel marijuana wrecked your life but I must add that it may not have been the smoking but rather something else for I find smoking a bit of pot is not addicting at all. I used to smoke a joint in one sitting & yes; I got “hi”. In the process, in my teens I smoked a joint and had a change of mind. I also had my share of LSD & that too; changed my mind in many ways.

I started smoking pot when I was in my early teens. Now some 50+ years later I might take a “buff” and that's all & that is all I needed for that change of mind.

If I am saddened by an event or something I see on TV, that one puff cools my mind and my angry goes away. In fact; I cannot stay mad & my grief goes with that one small buff and away goes that sorrowful feeling of mine.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me; it puts me in a restful place a place free of fear, hate and the rest; a place where I can sleep with restful thoughts.

Just my experience, no more; no less

Exactly my experience and the way I approach it. I also enjoy a "buff" (literally ONE) listening to music, watching SNL, Daily Show or Colbert, and prior to sex.

 

[DrLove]

Cannabis should be legal, just as alcohol should be legal. But marijuana addiction exists, and it almost wrecked my life.

I am truly sorry that you feel marijuana wrecked your life but I must add that it may not have been the smoking but rather something else for I find smoking a bit of pot is not addicting at all. I used to smoke a joint in one sitting & yes; I got “hi”. In the process, in my teens I smoked a joint and had a change of mind. I also had my share of LSD & that too; changed my mind in many ways.

I started smoking pot when I was in my early teens. Now some 50+ years later I might take a “buff” and that's all & that is all I needed for that change of mind.

If I am saddened by an event or something I see on TV, that one puff cools my mind and my angry goes away. In fact; I cannot stay mad & my grief goes with that one small buff and away goes that sorrowful feeling of mine.

I can’t speak for everyone, but for me; it puts me in a restful place a place free of fear, hate and the rest; a place where I can sleep with restful thoughts.

Just my experience, no more; no less

And to me alcohol , weed, cocaine and heroin should be legal to adults ( I still say we need drug tests at jobs if they are under the influence though) .

Heroin and coke are not the same as pot and alcohol

Coke is the same to me, alot better of a buzz then a caffeine high.. and it's just the opposite of alcohol and weed ..

Oh yeah and all heroin is to the normal brain is a massive dose of alcohol.

I figured you were snorting something

 

[DrLove]

I still say we need drug tests at jobs if they are under the influence though .

That's just Big Brotherism. If there's a legitimate concern about motor reflexes, have those employees take a motor reflexes test. (Duh) That will show whether they're actually affected by alcohol, drugs, lack of rest, illness, psychological distraction, whatever. What it will not show is a way to invade their personal lives.

That's why the whole "drug testing in the workplace" canard is a fascist sham.

I'm not opposed to drug testing a truck driver, but testing is particularly invasive in states that have legalized weed. Fascist indeed.

 

[DrLove]

You can't smoke a cigarette in New York but you can puff on a joint. You would be arrested by U.S. Rangers if you took a piss in an unauthorized area in a National Park area but the freaking "homeless" drug addicted perverts can set up permanent tents and leave needles and filth around. Go figure.

You have fear and loathing for the poor, downtrodden and addicted. Jesus would not approve.

 

[DigitalDrifter]

Times won't let me in unless I dump cookies. Found it here:
Opinion | I'm Just a Middle-Aged House Dad Addicted to Pot - BYLIFETODAY.COM

Weed can be psychologically addictive to some, but physically addictive to no one. You take the vape pen away from a pot smoker and they won't be Jonesing or requiring hospitalization like say a heroin addict.

Booze on the other hand, can be for some both psychologically AND physically addictive. If you've ever known an alcoholic, they've gotta have that fix every day or the shakes set in.

Weed is MUCH easier on the human body.

Yes, and a broken leg is much easier on the body than lung cancer.