try CF. tried a version of this in feb, and it handles quite fine even under ai bot surges of 1.5m hits per day. and it’s still within the free limit btw ;)
Just one data point, but I'm neurodivergent, and suffered with depression from childhood.
A few years ago I was prescribed medical cannabis to treat chronic pain, and aside from being great for pain - wow, it's changed my life!
The right cannabis strains can do wonders for my mood, but it also makes me feel... less autistic, for want of a better way of putting it; suddenly I can understand why somebody said something, or how something I said could be taken the wrong way. For the first time in my life, I can really try to see things from someone else's perspective, and I'm thinking about other people far more than I ever have - I feel empathic.
Over time, cannabis has also allowed me to analyse and think on the past, which, has greatly helped me. For the first time in my life, I would no longer describe myself as having depression (it may come back if I stopped cannabis treatment, so maybe I should say I'm in remission).
Cannabis use may of course pose some risks for a small percentage of the population, but I'd wager it's in general far less dangerous than alcohol. And of course, my experience will not be universal.
Like with every drug it depends on set setting and dosage.
Personally I get very anxious if I smoke too much (and in the wrong setting); it helps me a lot with other issues if I only consume a small amount occasionally.
Also it matters a lot if I mix it with tobacco (then its a lot harder to consume responsibly).
So I think both you and GP have good points.
And yes its a million times better than alcohol, that stuff is literal poison for body and mind.
Yeah, smoking week is basically guaranteed to cause anxiety for everyone if you smoke "too much". I used to hang with lots of stoners and basically everyone had stopped because while it was fun as a teenager, the anxiety slowly crept back into lower and lower dosages until the only time it was doable was if you're alone at home playing video games. Then the social circle fragments and disintegrates until everyone grows up enough to realize that that sucks and we'd like to hang outv again please. Similar cycles can be seen with friends groups based around pretty much any other drug besides coffee and cigarettes i'd assume
Strain matters for anxiety/panic too - in particular, strains high in the terpene terpinolene can cause anxiety (these tend to be sativa-dominant strains). Even now as a seasoned patient, I have to be careful with high-terpinolene strains!
> Over time, cannabis has also allowed me to analyse and think on the past
There is danger in attributing something broad like this directly to drug use. Can you only reflect while high?
It may be that the initial psychedelic sessions helped break through some mental/emotional patterns you were suffering from (positive impact), but that continued regular use has an overall negative impact on mental health. That's been my experience with psychedelics and how I've seen them work on those around me, at least.
I have a very different experience with psychedelics so its very hard to make generalized statements here.
Not saying your experience is not valid but these diagnoses should be done by someone who knows the person _very_ well.
Cannabis is psychedelic to the extent that the term means anything. It's not a "classic" psychedelic like acid or shrooms, but there is no obvious category difference between microdosing shrooms vs. smoking a joint vs. having a proper trip vs. greening out, and so on. It's all spectrums of psychedelic experience caused directly by something you ingested.
The opposition to the term likely has more to do with proponents and lobbyists wanting to distance weed from the "harder" psychedelics that are known to fry people.
> The opposition to the term likely has more to do with proponents and lobbyists wanting to distance weed from the "harder" psychedelics that are known to fry people.
I don't know about any of that - my own opposition is because I've tried psychedelic substances a few times during my youth, and cannabis isn't remotely like that.
The terms here get kinda vague and smushy. I wouldn't necessarily call cannabis psychedelic, but i would call it a hallucinogenic. And very high doses of weed, especially edibles will give you closed eye visuals and auditory hallucinations. It's certainly not the same as LSD, but it's not entirely separate either.
Unless perhaps you've got other problems, cannabis certainly is not hallucinogenic at any sensible dose, even for edibles (which I use daily in combination with flower).
I've been discussing therapeutic use of cannabis here, not huge "recreational" doses.
You can get a lot of mileage out of making the indica/sativa distinction. Regardless of strain, inidca heavy tends to chill people out, while sativa heavy strands give energy and more anxiety. Everyone is different and ymmv.
It's a bit of a mix. Some strains affect most people the same way, while others don't - in particular, neurodivergent people often seem to have a different experience.
And some strains are better at different times of the day too - some can be stimulating, for example.
I'd say it's best for individuals to experiment and find what works best for them, to treat their specific symptoms.
There's a general vibe to the strains that's the same between people but you won't know which one you like or which improves your life until you try. It's more some-sizes-fits-most but not one-size-fits-all
I am suspicious that strains are much beyond marketing terms. Both in the literal sense that people will sell the exact same crop under different brand names. Or sell different crops under the same brand.
I'm also generally dubious that you can maintain consistency in a crop across seasons and growing cycles.
It's theoretically possible that there are growers using clones and exacting greenhouse conditions to replicate the same product over and over. But it's way easier to slap a brand on something so that's what people will end up doing.
Strains are very real and the general concept exists in not only many other farmed plants as well, but domesticated animals, like dogs. All members of the same species, specifically bred for a certain phenotype through manual selection.
Now some people might say that X strain is good for sleep, Y strain is good for anxiety, Z strain is good for creativity, etc… That type of “phenotype” is much harder to quantify and I agree a lot of that type of stuff could be mumbo jumbo, though there could be something to it. But overall high THC strains (more stimulating) vs high CBD strains (more relaxing) have a clear difference.
However flavor is also a big differentiator among strains and that is much more easily quantifiable through the terpene/flavonoid profile, and plain old smelling and tasting. And people have been breeding plants for specific smells and tastes for thousands of years, so it’s not like this is some new concept specific to cannabis.
Same as with everything else in life, the people doing that are going to run the gamut, from the lazy basically con artists to the OCD mfer that's a pain in the ass to work with because they're so meticulous about everything. One trip at the store isn't going to tell you if which of the two extremes (or somewhere in between) the grower of a particular strain is, but repeated use of a particular strain will either be consistent, or not.
Strains are a marketing term, and also a set of "expectations". Same with indica/sativa distinction. They aren't true, but they set an expectation. What actually drives the high, is a mix of the terpenes and other cannabanoids in the flower.
Terpenes (the smell and flavor compounds in the trichomes) will guide you toward a feeling. Limonene (citrus smell) is uplifting, just like kitchen cleaner. Pinene (pine needles) is another uplifting scent/flavor. Myrcene (musky smell) is a sedating terpene. And many others.
Then there are the other cannabinoids: CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC. CBD will modulate THC effects. CBG is almost non-existent in most commercial crops, but new strains are being bred to increase this as it gives a focused high. CBN comes from the degradation of THC, and it potentially causes couching and sedation (though might be myrcene).
Now as for harvest-to-harvest differences, this is true, which is why every harvest is tested and you can get the CoA of any harvest that will give you the full breakdown of the cannabinoids in the flower.
Cannabis is not typically grown from seed, it is grown from propagation off trimmings from mother plants. They are all the exact same plant genetically. So the harvest will be VERY consistent from harvest to harvest at an industrial scale since almost all of the environmental variables are accounted for and controlled.
This is a big topic, but here are a few random bits:
Pretty much any strain will make me feel more empathic to some degree.
In particular "orange" strains work well for me during the day. They're slightly stimulating, and not too sedating; they clear my mind and allow me to focus on a task; I get good muscular and neuropathic pain relief; I feel much more empathic, better able to understand subtleties of spoken and body language, and just better able to understand other people in general.
I find strains with myrcene and ocimene best for pain.
Strains with alpha-pinene are very relaxing.
Some high limonene strains can cause me anxiety even worse than terpinolene-based ones. Maybe it depends if they also have enough of other, calming terpenes such as myrcene, alpha-pinene, caryophyllene and linalool.
I try to avoid strains with limonene at night, as they can keep my mind going when I'm trying to sleep.
This is a big topic, but here are a few random bits:
Pretty much any strain will make me feel more empathic to some degree.
In particular "orange" strains work well for me during the day. They're slightly stimulating, and not too sedating; they clear my mind and allow me to focus on a task; I get good muscular and neuropathic pain relief; I feel much more empathic, better able to understand subtleties of spoken and body language, and just better able to understand other people in general.
I find strains with myrcene and ocimene best for pain.
Strains with alpha-pinene are very relaxing.
Some high limonene strains can cause me anxiety even worse than terpinolene-based ones. Maybe it depends if they also have enough of other, calming terpenes such as myrcene, alpha-pinene, caryophyllene and linalool.
I try to avoid strains with limonene at night, as they can keep my mind going when I'm trying to sleep.
This, listen to this guy, not multiple psychiatric committals guy. But I appreciate crisis guy incorporating HN in his therapy regime, you are heard bro!
Israel does want a failed state - they want to balkanise Iran, letting their ISIS head-choppers, the Uigher terrorists etc at it. See Syria and how that's going.
This is preposterous revisionism - Israel didn't just leave Gaza alone, they turned it into an open air concentration camp, controlling everything going in and out. And they were utter bastards about it too, literally counting calories going into Gaza, and classing just about anything as "dual use" so not allowed (e.g. tent poles could be used to hit someone).
Israel has never stopped being the aggressor. Maybe if they stopped occupying, stealing, raping, murdering and massacring, the entire region might be more peaceful. Not likely for a genocidal, apartheid state filled with religious supremacist fanatics though.
If what you said was true, we'd have seen many, many civilian deaths in Israel over the course of the war - there have, officially, been less than 50 (note that in the same time period Israel - which has targeted civilian infrastructure such as hospitals in Iran - has killed over 3,000 Iranian civilians!).
But what you're saying isn't true - any of it! Iran has been hitting military targets. And they've been using MIRVs, not anti-personell cluster munitions (you know, of the kind Israel has dropped over 1M of over Lebanon). MIRVs split into multiple, independently targetable missiles when high above ground near the target zone. Cluster munitions wait until they are only some meters above ground, and then explode into bomblets.
On April 6, as many as 50 sites were impacted by missiles and their cluster munitions.
“Iranian cluster munitions struck roughly 50 locations across central Israel, wounding at least six, including a seriously wounded woman in Petah Tikva and a moderately wounded man in Ramat Gan,”
Iran has focused on using cluster munitions in its ballistic missile salvos since the first two weeks of the conflict. However, the proportion of these munitions has increased. By March 10, Israel’s Home Front Command said that 50 percent of the Iranian missiles contained cluster munitions.
On April 1, The Times of Israel reported that “12 missiles carrying conventional warheads with hundreds of kilograms of explosives […] struck populated areas in Israel, causing extensive damage. There have also been more than 30 incidents of missiles carrying cluster bomb warheads hitting populated areas, with over 200 separate impact sites.” A ballistic missile attack on April 4, which led to at least 10 impact sites, illustrated how large an area can be affected by one missile with cluster munitions.
Iran is absolutely not using MIRVs. They are only used with nuclear warheads because they are very expensive. Iran is using good old fashioned cluster warheads where the bomblets are randomly dispersed, which is an evil weapon to use against civilians.
You are wrong[0], see Khorramshahr. Maybe Iran found ways to make them more easily produced. And there are videos where you can see missiles splitting into other missiles, some of which go in different directions.
As before, it's Apartheid Israel that uses cluster bombs (and white phosphorus too).
You are wrong if you think Iran is targeting each sub-munition of the ballistic missiles it is firing at Israel civilians. No country has ever used any ballistic missiles that has conventional MIRVs because it simply doesn't make sense.
Iran is far more of an apartheid state because Jews are considered to be Dhimmis and officially discriminated against. Dhimmi status is not equality. Recognized-minority status under the 1979 constitution comes with hard ceilings: Jews cannot hold senior military, judicial, or executive positions; inheritance law historically favored any family member who converted to Islam (a Jew converting could inherit the entire estate from Jewish relatives, a direct incentive structure against the community); testimony of non-Muslims is weighted less in court; blood money (diyya) was unequal until reforms in the 2000s. The reserved Majles seat is one out of 290, tokenism, not representation.
The funny thing is that many Sunnis don't consider Shia to actually be Muslims. Shia twelvers are obsessed with the 12th Imam who they think is still alive after 1150+ years while Sunnis don't care about this at all and consider the entire concept blasphemous.
Well, for starters just today they hit cental, civilian areas of Beirut with 100 attacks in just 10 minutes - killing more Lebanese civilians in ten minutes than Iran killed Israeli civilians in months of war. Absolutely vile, with clear genocidal intent, and with the aim of stealing Lebanese land.
You are ignoring the elephant in the room: Hezbollah was literally founded in 1982 under IRGC direction; 1,500 Revolutionary Guards deployed to the Bekaa Valley to organize and train it. It is arguably the most successful export of the 1979 revolution's "velayat-e faqih" ideology. So Iran colonized Lebanon.
Hezbollah formally accepts Khamenei as wali al-faqih the supreme juridical authority. That's not alliance, that's religious-political fealty to a foreign head of state.
Iran provides an estimated $700M–$1B/year, plus missiles, drones, training. Without Iran, Hezbollah's strategic arsenal doesn't exist.
It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
You are ignoring the mammoth on the room: Hezbollah only even exists because of Israeli aggression; murder, rape, land theft, and as we saw yesterday, civilian massacres.
> So Iran colonized Lebanon
They haven't "colonised" anything, and, at best, it's disingenuous to describe training a resistance group as such.
> It operates as a parallel state inside Lebanon (own military, telecoms, social services, foreign policy), displacing Lebanese sovereignty in the south and Bekaa.
To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous! They are stooges, tasked with sitting back and doing nothing while Israel carries out ethnic cleansing and genocide. An MI6 front (Westminster Foundation for Democracy) even has an office inside the Lebanese parliament.
Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist.
"To claim the "officially recognised" Lebanese state is sovereign is utterly ridiculous"
Wow, this is quite a take. If Hezbollah doesn't have to respect Lebanon sovereignty
then why does Israel?
"Turns out that if you take over a country's government and continuously carry out appalling attrocities against it's people for decades, they will resist."
This is just a insane conspiracy theory. Hezbollah is the organization that actually partially took over the Lebanese government with Iranian help.
Hezbollah attacks Israel with absolutely no concern for the damage Israels counterattacks will do to Lebanon.
Israel would not be attacking Hezbollah if Hezbollah wasn't attacking Israel. Israel just wants to exist while Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran all want to destroy it. Don't expect Israel to just passively accept this. Try to imagine how the US would react to a Mexican cartel shooting rockets at El Paso. I couldn't feel sorry for that cartel when the US counterattacked.
Let me ask you a few questions
1) do you think Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran can defeat Israel with force?
And those "proxies" are not "against" America or Israel - they exist solely as resistance groups that counter Israeli aggression, ethic cleansing, land theft etc. You know, like Israel is doing right now in their stated aim of annexing South Lebanon, after displacing over a million people from their homes. Without Israeli aggression and land theft, these resistance groups wouldn't exist.
> those "proxies" are not "against" America or Israel - they exist solely as resistance groups that counter Israeli aggression, ethic cleansing, land theft etc.
They explicitly call for the destruction of Israel.
Yes, the cohort of islamists and anti-semites, opposed to the decolonisation of historically jewish lands which were deliberately conquered in the name of Islam.
> that Iran had a religious decree against nuclear weapons?
One cleric issuing a prohibition while another pursues them isn’t particularly interesting from a political perspective.
> they've plainly had the capability to end Israel for many years
They plainly have not. Their proxies were insufficient. And their kinetics prone to interception and destruction at source.
> there are religious extremists involved for sure, but mostly of the Israeli variety
They’re both extremist. Iran has been funding extremists around the Middle East, in Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. Israel has a religious nutter wing in charge turbocharged by America’s own camp of evangelical idiots.
> One cleric issuing a prohibition while another pursues them isn’t particularly interesting from a political perspective.
Except there's no evidence that any in Iran were pursuing nuclear weapons - Joe Kent has said every intelligence agency in the US agrees with that. British intelligence has agrees with that. Even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agrees.
It's plain that this war was started at the behest and benefit of Israel. And Israel is also using it as cover to annex Southern Lebanon, just as they want a slice of Iran.
> They’re both extremist. Iran has been funding extremists around the Middle East, in Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.
See, those groups would call themselves resistance against Israeli aggression - afterall, resistance against constant Israel aggression is the only reason they even exist!
> Israel has a religious nutter wing in charge
Oh, it's much more than one nutter. Netanyahu may well be dead (he hasn't made any public appearance in a while, and Israel has been releasing AI videos of him), yet the genocide, ethnic cleansing and aggression continue, unabated. And let's not forgot about Israel and US' proxies in the region, ISIS and Al Qaeda.
This is a Western-centric framing. Iran have an oligarchy of IRGC billionaires consolidating power. Gazans and Lebanese and Yemeni are only slightly more disposable than their own populations.
It’s tempting to turn adversary into heroism. But the truth is Iran has supported the laughter of Gazans and Yemenis to keep war away from its shores for a few more years. These proxies need to rule ruthlessly, like their parent, because they’re violent, ruthless and cruel regimes. Powerful. But no paragon, and certainly not one who give two shits about Western notions of who is committing genocide or war crimes against whom.
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