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cannabis users
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
hi guys
my girlfriend smokes cannabis socially for about 6 months now, she enjoys getting stoned cos she says it makes everything funny, she doesnt smoke it alone but will usually smoke at least 1 joint when out with friends, anywhere between once and 5 times a week
now i dont begrudge her having a good time but i really hate it, to me drugs are the most pointless crap on the planet and they can really fuck you up, i worry about her health and it really annoys me when she goes on about how good it is and how much she loves weed, like she doesnt take her heath seriously,
she is only 16 so i'm asking is it something she is likely to grow out of? i'm 21 and have never smoked ciggarettes or done drugs except alcohol, have second hand smoked pot at parties a few times and i really didnt like the way it made me feel, all her friends do it and i know she is unlikely to quit while they still smoke it,
i can accept it casually but i worry that she is beggining to ascociate smoking weed with having a great time that she will start to think that she has to smoke it to have a good time,
not to mention the fact that they go out in her friends boyfriends car and he smokes weed and drives at the same time, she accepts its dangerous but does it anyway
i dont like to go on about it too much cos i dont wanna start sounding like her dad, but i really do worry, i feel like by saying nothing i'm being ok with something that couldnt potentially fuck the girl i love up big time,
so is it a thing that you grow out of? does it get old? how addictive is it, and how regularly would she need to be smoking it before i should get worried?
just to reiterate i can live with it every once in a while so long as she doesnt get stupidly high when i'm around, i'm not trying to control her or force her to quit just looking for info so i can understand better
my girlfriend smokes cannabis socially for about 6 months now, she enjoys getting stoned cos she says it makes everything funny, she doesnt smoke it alone but will usually smoke at least 1 joint when out with friends, anywhere between once and 5 times a week
now i dont begrudge her having a good time but i really hate it, to me drugs are the most pointless crap on the planet and they can really fuck you up, i worry about her health and it really annoys me when she goes on about how good it is and how much she loves weed, like she doesnt take her heath seriously,
she is only 16 so i'm asking is it something she is likely to grow out of? i'm 21 and have never smoked ciggarettes or done drugs except alcohol, have second hand smoked pot at parties a few times and i really didnt like the way it made me feel, all her friends do it and i know she is unlikely to quit while they still smoke it,
i can accept it casually but i worry that she is beggining to ascociate smoking weed with having a great time that she will start to think that she has to smoke it to have a good time,
not to mention the fact that they go out in her friends boyfriends car and he smokes weed and drives at the same time, she accepts its dangerous but does it anyway
i dont like to go on about it too much cos i dont wanna start sounding like her dad, but i really do worry, i feel like by saying nothing i'm being ok with something that couldnt potentially fuck the girl i love up big time,
so is it a thing that you grow out of? does it get old? how addictive is it, and how regularly would she need to be smoking it before i should get worried?
just to reiterate i can live with it every once in a while so long as she doesnt get stupidly high when i'm around, i'm not trying to control her or force her to quit just looking for info so i can understand better
Beep boop. I'm a bot.
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Although it is probably not what you want to hear, but it didnt do me any harm, and I doubt at the min it will to her.
She isnt doing it alone, it aint all the time, it is just one of them things.
Perhaps you should tell her how you feel and see how she reacts, but when I was 16, I wouldnt have listened to anyone about anything.
some of her friends are already total pot heads, i mean they get totally stoned every night, i just dont want to see her go down that route,
i dont want her to make her stop i just want her to respect it for what it is, a substance that alters the chemicle state of your brain, know one really knows for sure what it does to you in the long term,
I liked the odd smoke at that age, but i dont smoke at all now. Others smoke at that age and then carry on. There is no definite progression that happens for everyone who smokes a bit at 16, but if she thinks youre trying to stop her doing something fairly benign that she enjoys with her friends, it may come across to her as controlling. She can make her own decisions about this. its up to her. Youve made your feelings clear on it, but if you keep on and try to make her stop, then thats not necessarily your place to do that.
There are certain risk factors, heavy use during teenage years is linked to mental health problems later on - though this seems to largely depend on a genetic componant - if you dont mind me asking is she black? That sounds like a nasty question, but more black people have the genetic disposition than whites, its just one of those things.
As for her use, at current levels its unlikely to cause her any lasting physical harms - though driving under the influence may well - and if caught can mean a driving ban of 6 months.
As a side note I would say that your comments on drugs seem quite ill informed, if you want your girlfriend to take your concerns seriously I would learn about what she is using - for a start its a drug just like alcohol, seperating them out and saying one is fine but the other isnt is rubbish.
Smoking it 5 times a week though is a bit much if you ask me. I always found people who smoked it on a regular basis weren't very nice people to be around when they werent stoned as it gave them bad mood swings.
I began to get paranoid and even now if I have a little toke I get edgy and start to think to much if that makes any sense to you.
I'm sure if I wasn't such a heavy user when I was younger I'd still enjoy the odd toke, so it's a shame really but I think it was the way I used the drug that resulted in the dislike I have for the drug now.
I know a lot of people that share my experience too, but then I also know a few that still smoke it heavilly today without any negative impact on their lives.
I found smoking used to make me paranoid and proper fuck with my mind. It also used to make me really lazy. Smoking also made my memory worse.
On the other hand it had not effect on my mate at all. It never seemed to fuck with his mental health. All he ever got was the good bits of getting stoned with none of the shit.
Go figure.
It does to me!
I cant even smoke weed around friends any more, and refuse even a single drag. It got to a point where I'm suddenly paranoid around people I trust and cant concentrate on anything but my own thoughts.
Mind fuck!
Actually it is not a myth, there has been significant research in gene population distribution and mental health for quite a number of years. A good place to start looking at a number of findings and theories is here.
This is an article published in the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2001. I understand that issue of race is one which evokes strong reactions, and for very good reasons; however where health is concerned we need to look with clarity at the evidence.
Risk factors for ethnicity in relation to mental health are not simply 'black' vs 'white' but to do with a complex combination of genealogy (i.e. genetic endowment from previous generations).
To ilustrate why this isn't a 'black' vs 'white' thing - if you look into the report you see that the distribution of certain forms of psychosis is higher in African Carribean groups than South Asian ethnic groups who are subject to similar forms of social disadvantage and exclusion (Bangladeshi groups for example suffer with poor housing, education and labour market outcomes) (source: MIND, 2002)
You may see in the report that it is also about generations - second generation African Carribeans (i.e: those children of first migrants, who were born in Britain) are at comparatively greater risk than the first generation.
This is also the case for those of an Irish ethnicity; as those of an Irish ethnicity (who might well be classed as 'white') are also at greater risk of mental health problems than the white British population, due to a number of factors (MIND, 2002). Within this group, again the second generation are thought to be at greater risk, and indeed this has been observed in physical health issues such as heart disease.
Human health, particularly mental health, is a complex and only partially understood thing; while we have shed some of the racist and poorly supported assumptions that early bio-medical science had about different 'races' (Eugenics, for example) that does not mean that all human groups are uniform. There are many, many variations in the human genetic endowment but that does not make any of us more or less human - what we cannot do is pretend this is not the case.
Alcohol is a route to evil and I personally think it should be monitored more and rationed.
If it's not taking over her life, getting her in debt and effecting your relationship (other than your personal view of illegal drugs) then what's the problem?
Maybe compromise with her, you both allow yourself a budget of what you both can spend on drugs and alcohol.
If you make unreasonable demands you are going to push her away.
There certainly has been observed, as you have done, some residual effects such as tiredness or irritability in some people when the effects have expired. Like others have said, it would help if you are going to talk to her if you support your points with evidence and try to be calm and non-judgmental.
I appreciate that, if you have not been around drugs much as a matter of course, this can seem a little confusing and/or worrying. You shouldn't feel stupid or naieve because you don't know much about these things - but it would help to do some reading around what your concerns are. Good places to start are here;
MIND factsheet on Cannabis and Mental Health
This would be a good place to start.
What you should be aware of at the outset, is if she has any history of mental illness in her family (depression, anxiety, sciezophrenia, bi-polar effective disorder) she should seriously consider her usage.
Good luck, and don't be afraid to come back and ask questions whenever you need to.
It really has nothing to do with addiction or the colour of their skin, its just that research seems to show that people from the afro-caribbian community have a greater likelyhood to have the gene which is linked with mental illness and cannabis use.