Anyone reading this and saying "what a crock of shiat" has never smoked for a long time and quit pot

Is it possible to smoke pot in a healthy recreational way and not have it become a problem? absolutely

but for many people including myself that is not the case, and this story is almost exactly what I went through when I quit

I was depressed verging on suicidal for about a week after I quit, but not feel a lot better about myself and even in the two months I have haven't been smoking my life has improved in many significant ways

I think anyone reading this as an "attack on pot" is misreading it, I don't see that anywhere in the letter the man wrote.

charmingkiddo: I think anyone reading this as an "attack on pot" is misreading it

I think anyone who reads this as an "attack on pot" has very weird ideas about whether or not inanimate objects can be "attacked".

They also probably read a lot of things as "attacks on pot".

SmellsLikePoo: Cancer?

That would be dying of Cancer.

untaken_name: LoneWolf343: TabASlotB: Headso: TabASlotB: . The morbidity and mortality of cannabis use is probably quite a bit less than alcohol and tobacco

yeah like 100% less for mortality...

Only if the only measure of mortality is overdose. But nobody ever dies from a nicotine overdose, either...completely undermining your point.

I cited actual studies above. If you're just going to be disingenuous, I'll find others worth talking to.

You're just going to ignore COPD and lung cancer? Okay.

As well as ignoring actual deaths from literal nicotine overdoses, it appears that yes, the plan it to ignore those also.

There's more of the thread. Read it.

TabASlotB: untaken_name: LoneWolf343: TabASlotB: Headso: TabASlotB: . The morbidity and mortality of cannabis use is probably quite a bit less than alcohol and tobacco

yeah like 100% less for mortality...

Only if the only measure of mortality is overdose. But nobody ever dies from a nicotine overdose, either...completely undermining your point.

I cited actual studies above. If you're just going to be disingenuous, I'll find others worth talking to.

You're just going to ignore COPD and lung cancer? Okay.

As well as ignoring actual deaths from literal nicotine overdoses, it appears that yes, the plan it to ignore those also.

There's more of the thread. Read it.

And since I actually have time now, I'll elaborate and point out some important details.
As I said here, the term "overdose," while somewhat fuzzy, is generally used for a primary toxic event. This can be acute exposure or chronic accumulation, but the key is that the toxic component(s) directly cause illness (e.g., organ failure). When a chronic exposure results in a secondary medical problem, such as lung cancer following years of smoking or mesothelioma following asbestos exposure, it's not typically referred to as an overdose. I am in no way implying that tobacco doesn't cause COPD, lung cancer or any of the other numerous maladies clearly causally established to result from long-term tobacco use!

I know that nicotine can cause acute toxicity, sometimes fatal. My point was that recreational use of tobacco isn't known to result in fatal overdoses of nicotine (and every example of fatal nicotine overdose I've seen is outside of the realm of a smoker going overboard like a heroin addict or alcoholic might with their drugs of choice). Why did I bring up this seemingly obvious point? Because Headso made the claim that mortality associated with cannabis is zero. This is flatly contradicted by the academic studies I posted above. The only way the assertion that cannabis has 0% mortality risk (apparently ignoring morbidity) is remotely plausible in the face of this evidence is if mortality is limited to only overdose events. THC is well-known to have an LD50 well beyond what what anyone is likely to be exposed to in a recreational setting; this is certainly in contrast to heroin, coke, alcohol, etc. However, it's very similar to recreational tobacco use in this regard; both have effectively negligible recreational overdose risk.

As an aside, it is not actually clear that cannabis exposure hasn't been a direct cause of fatal medical events in rare cases. There are sparse case studies that suggest a very small number of fatalities are highly temporally correlated with, and plausibly result from, cannabis exposure. (1, 2) These are cardiovascular events, possibly triggered by the vasodialative and tachycardic effects commonly associated with smoking cannabis; these cases didn't identify any underlying cardiovascular or cerebrovascular pathologies that were "triggered" by cannabis exposure, but it can't be ruled out. Whether you'd consider them "overdoses" would depend on your definition of the term. I am merely asking for consistency in language and honesty in discussion.

Finally, allow me to return to a point from my original posting. There is a lot of misinformation about the benefits and risks of cannabis, and it comes from both sides of the debate. It's a drug that is vastly understudied in comparison to tobacco or alcohol, and even to cocaine and heroin. The available evidence does, however, show non-zero morbidity and mortality risks, including developing dependence, all of which are highly variable between individuals and highly dependent on lifetime patterns of use. The cannabis enthusiasts that argue that the drug is completely safe are presenting a comfortable fiction to themselves and others that is simply not compatible with the best scientific evidence. As I also said, there are contemporary--and certainly some historical--overstatements of the drug's risks from the prohibitionist side, sometimes dramatically and insultingly so. As a scientist, i believe the best counter to misinformation is accurate information, not misinformation in the opposite direction.

jaylectricity: Any advice would be welcome.

Stop blaming cannabis. You were in need of a life change and instead of doing it through positivity you chose drugs to fix it.

Done in one; externalizing your problems (e.g., by blaming them on something other than your own actions) ==> never resolving them.

TabASlotB: My point was that recreational use of tobacco isn't known to result in fatal overdoses of nicotine (and every example of fatal nicotine overdose I've seen is outside of the realm of a smoker going overboard like a heroin addict or alcoholic might with their drugs of choice)

No, that may have been what you intended your point to be. But that isn't what you said. I'm sorry if you didn't articulate your ideas properly. But that really isn't my fault.

untaken_name: TabASlotB: My point was that recreational use of tobacco isn't known to result in fatal overdoses of nicotine (and every example of fatal nicotine overdose I've seen is outside of the realm of a smoker going overboard like a heroin addict or alcoholic might with their drugs of choice)

No, that may have been what you intended your point to be. But that isn't what you said. I'm sorry if you didn't articulate your ideas properly. But that really isn't my fault.

And I'm sorry you couldn't be arsed to read the two posts prior to your "gotchya" that addressed and clarified my own admittedly unclear word-choice. But missing the forest for the trees in your rush to sanctimony is more your problem than mine.