• tatterdemalion@programming.dev
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    3 months ago

    the risks in cannabis are comparable to caffeine, and on an objective level, even smaller

    OK maybe? I think it depends on the user. Excuse my falling back on anecdotes now, but I don’t think I’ve met anyone whose had a panic attack from drinking coffee (though I would not be surprised). However I know several people who have had panic attacks from ingesting THC.

    I agree that we are too blase as a culture about the relative risks of caffeine and alcohol dependence. I just get frustrated when people parrot the notion that cannabis has never hurt anyone. I even support the cause to at least decriminalize it and even legalize it for adults, though we need better education about the potential risks. I’ve only ever seen warning labels about the habit-forming nature.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Yeah, anecdotes aren’t science.

      Especially when we’ve established how biased society’s view of cannabis is.

      Caffeine can actually kill you of an overdose. It’s not even that rare, medically. Not compared to zero cannabis overdose deaths.

      Caffeine can even cause auditory hallucinations on a fairly small dosage. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/caffeine-linked-to-hallucinations-51161154/

      https://www.cannabisculture.com/content/2016/04/20/cannabis-vs-caffeine-which-is-safer-a-cup-of-coffee-or-a-puff-of-weed/

      CONCLUSION

      To conclude, caffeine is clearly more risky, more dangerous, more deadly, more harmful and more costly than cannabis in every category – overdose deaths, overuse deaths, withdrawal symptoms and acute toxicity.

      Yes the site is “cannabisculture”, but they give sources to actual science outlets and specific publications

      And this isn’t to say that caffeine is really that dangerous, as it isn’t. You can abuse it and get problems, but most don’t. It’s more addictive and more dangerous and more used, and less worried about. They hypocrisy around coffee is expecially high here in Finland.

      It’s honestly crazy, I’ve had to strip down and take a piss in front of a guy who’s lips were packed with snus and who was on his 12th cup of strong coffee for the day. As in he had to visually confirm I didn’t have any gadgets or anything on my dick.

      All this because I got a fine for smoking cannabis. And I had to do that every week, on random days, for six months. Beyond humiliating, especially done by people who were clearly sorely addicted themselves, which I wasn’t. (At the time I didn’t use caffeine or nicotine — even going so far as to not eat chocolate because of it’s caffeine content.)

      I don’t think I’ve met anyone whose had a panic attack from drinking coffee

      Yes you have. Go to literally any high school, and like a third of the kids are so high on energy drinks that they’d get a low score of mania on clinical tests. Just because you’ve not associated someone’s behaviour with caffeine doesn’t mean it didn’t cause it as much as cannabis the anxiety attacks of the people you talk of.

      And caffeine is actually regulated, formally. Cannabis isn’t. So you’d get way stronger strains than what you might if it were legal, ans definitely strains with more CBD, which counteracts the psychotic effects of THC.

      You literally couldn’t give the equivalent of that in caffeine, because it’d be like 8 large energy drinks and would literally kill a person, whereas with a cannabis overdose, you’ll get anxiety instead of a coronary and death. Also, the anxiety is very strongly connected to the legality of cannabis as well. In places whereby cannabis is legal, those sorts of anxiety attacks are far fewer.

      Video games are habit forming. Do you think they should have labels on them? Literally anything can be addictive. What causes the “cannabis isn’t addictive” myth is that cannabis doesn’t cause dependence. As in you could smoke insane amounts for several years daily, then quit cold turkey, ans only suffer a few days of insomnia if that.

      With alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, you’ll get actual physical withdrawal symptoms. With alcohol so bad that you can die.