fine in moderation but it can ruin your life. wake and bake stoner lifestyle is bad and 99% of people who say they can handle it can't. still vast harm reduction compared to alcohol

Speaking from experience and observation, doing it multiple times a week does dull the brain and doing it most nights a week does make you generally more paranoid, even if it doesn’t push you over the edge.

I tend to do it in phases. I’m a stoner for a month or two and then later just occasionally.

The best rule for drugs and alcohol is: if you’re doing it to make a fun time more fun, then it’s probably fine. But if you’re doing it to try and make a bad time better, you shouldn’t do it.

There’s nothing wrong with smoking a joint to take the edge off. But if you need to smoke a joint to take the edge off then you’ve formed a dependency.

Both? It can help ease pain and spark creativity. It can also dull your mind and encourage you to stay in your head instead of the world. I don't think it has such bad effect and addiction potential that it should be banned recreationally but, like everything under capitalism, it's easy to end up forming an unhealthy habit with it. I don't think I'd be hitting the bowl as much as I do if I wasn't deeply atomized and unsatisfied with where my life is.

Idk enough about different drug stuff to weigh in on how those should be handled.

Idk but the packaging required is incredibly wasteful. Like worse than any other packaging for any other commodity imo. Black market dealers giving you weed in the corner of a plastic bag from the grocery store was infinitely less ecologically damaging lol

Different tokes for different folks

Completley subjective. imo the younger generation smoking more than their drinking is a positive development as whatever problems cannabis has(and there are some) the personal and societal damage of alcohol is far worse

I started way too young but its great for me a keeps me off harder stuff(which I was on for several years)

I kinda think the commercialization of it isn't great but it has gotten us a lot closer to decriminalization so that's good. I think if the legal regime was more like how states handle liquor it'd be better.

Like with pretty much everything in this world, it's good in moderation.

Anecdotally, i'm a light daily user (go through an eighth of flower every 2 weeks. Smoke one small bowl a day, about 3 bong rips). I didn't start getting high until reaching my 30s, so my brain was developed. I was a daily alcohol drinker; I used to have about 3 drinks every day, and now I might have 3 a week, if that.

The good: It makes mundane things more fun. Gardening/yardwork, walking the dog, exercise, watching movies and shows. I like how it can let my mind wander or approach thoughts with a different perspective. It's cheap ($25 to get high 10+ times), it can be consumed in ways that don't physically harm the body, no hangovers. No calories.

The bad: Can't always anticipate what kind of high I'll get. Since it amplifies what I'm already feeling, if I'm stressed or anxious, it can give physical sensations (pressure on chest) and mental feelings of dread. I can cognitively remind myself that the weed is just drawing my attention to the preexisting stress, but I can't shake the "you don't know what, but you did something bad, and someone's gonna yell at you for it any second now" feeling. I like to think of it as a challenge to get cognitively reason my way out of the dread. it mostly works. Just my opinion, but burnt flower reaks and I don't like smelling bad or stinking up my family-friendly neighborhood. Cleaning a bong is annoying. Smoke is bad for lungs. I burned off all my airway cilia so I don't cough much anymore. It makes me forget my dreams (literally and metaphorically). Can be hard to follow train-of-thought or complete tasks when stoned (but it's also kinda fun, like trying to play life with the controls switched up)

Not necessarily good or bad: I think I can tell a difference in my behavior when regularly using or not. When getting high daily, I'm generally calmer or more go-with-the-flow. But also I'll act more impulsively instead of thinking before speaking. I'm already kind of paranoid and conspiracy minded (in a not-very-serious-way) and weed does kindle that fire, but it makes me conspiracies more creative.

I'm currently on a break (5 days in), and my mind feels sharper, I can think more clearly and faster, I can organize thoughts to explain things verbally better. HOWEVER, I like feeling slower and calmer. I have an intrinsic restlessness (some call it motivation) that weed can tell to relax. I've reached a point in my life that I don't need to feel like I need to keep striving; weed is my reward for getting here.

That's all I have to say about that

Edit: https://youtu.be/1Zcrb1ff1xs "get out of here, Dewey, you don't want none of this shit" funny clip

If you're growing it yourself and using in moderation, sure. But commercial stuff has a fuck ton of pesticides and fertilisers in it that are not at all regulated.

Of recreational drugs it seems maybe the least harmful. It rarely results in serious harms and effects seem impermanent except maybe heavy use while young.

Hyperemisis syndrome seems unpleasant, but seems related to high potency extracts.

Smoking anything is bad for you.

Humans like drugs so having safer ones is good.

Humans will use drugs so these questions are kinda pointless. Whether it is good or bad it's been around for thousands of years

Wished I would've waited till my brain was fully developed before I ever tried it but I'm kinda neutral on it.

it's the drug of our time. with all the shit, we all need some chilling down and creativity to solve our problems. it's a lot of fun too.

it's also the lesser evil when compared to all other recreative drugs i can think of rn, but can still be addictive and make you demotivated. there is some rare potential health issues or heavy addiction too.

drugs aren't inherently good or bad though. it's on how and why it's used and how we deal with them. even ivermectin can be good or bad 😉

good

It's not for me but I say let people enjoy their lives

good but still a racket

as a heavy smoker, it’s both. good in that it’s pretty low on the drugs scale, much better for me than when i was drinking, and bad in that i’m still dependent on a substance which is Not Good in general

much better is an understatement, drinking was going to get me killed/seriously injured or have me do it to someone else. weed just turns the volume down a bit

It fucks with my psych meds so bad for me. My psychiatrist keeps telling me that it effects me all the way down to the cellular level and I don’t know specifically what that means but I can feel the difference for a day or so after I smoke. Same with drinking. Never thought I’d be completely sober, but going going from not smoking at all to occasionally smoking the difference is actually pretty easy to feel.

I like it

But I'm a bad guy so idk

From the perspective of an addict and poly drug user, weed is relatively harmless. My personal DOCs are heroin, methamphetamine or mdma, powder and crack cocaine (smoked and injected), and I'm a heavy drinker. I use needles to do drugs, mostly intramuscular injections but sometimes IV. Alcohol is nearly the worst, in regards to both health effects and general societal problems, but a lot of that is how normalized and widely available it is. Generally speaking; weed, milder pure pharma grade opioids (hydro and oxycodone, dilaudad, etc. Anything that isn't crazy potent like fentanyl and its analogs or the newer nitazines that we're seeing in the street drug supply) naturally derived poppy extracts (opium, heroin) are MUCH less dangerous and damaging than more potent and harmful substances and alcohol. So, it really comes down to a matter of perspective, what you're comparing it to, etc.

It's probably a net bad but probably not quite as bad as alcohol.