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Comment by hereforphone | Hacker News Reader

I can only speak from personal experience, which is of course limited. I smoked occasionally in my 20s, but not since (I'm middle-aged now). I've been friends and acquaintances with many people that smoke a lot. I see a trend among these people - not necessarily schizophrenia (I'm not a psychologist and probably wouldn't even notice a mild case) - but instead a consistent arrogance and self-importance. It's peculiar - they may be contributing very little to society (or maybe a lot), but regardless there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up among them all. Maybe even narcissism?

I could be completely wrong. I don't express this to assert it, but rather to ask if anyone else has noticed anything similar.

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It is entirely possible that this is a misunderstanding of their true feelings or intents. To quote Kat Williams "Weed has a chemical in it called F*k it..."

Maybe when they use they are not having the same anxious feeling that the general public feels and they do not react to others who otherwise might be perceived as "more important" than them. This would appear to the person who typically views themselves as "more important" as arrogance or self importance...when in reality they are just mildly happy and don't care at that moment about the typical societal norms and ranking.

More than likely they are just going about their own business and not paying attention to how you are reacting to it. Every life has value...every person is equal.

I have a co-worker who I would described as mildly happy at all times and doesn't care about societal norms/ranking, but I never interpreted them to consider themselves superior to me. This doesn't jive with my understanding of mildly happy people.

That makes sense. But it also makes sense that someone else might look at that same person you know and think to themselves "look at them, doing their own thing, they must think they are special, how arrogant!"

Guessing what's going on in someone elses head can be pretty subjective. Sometimes it's the person looking who jumps to conclusions.

> Every life has value...every person is equal.

What was the point of that remark? Persons may be said to be of equal dignity, but no two people are ever equal, in value or otherwise. But what does that have to do with anything in this context? Are you reading things in? The OP was not making any point about rank, only haughty behavior which has no place no matter who you are.

It was a statement of my personal views. It is OK with me if you don't feel the same way.

I do feel everyone is equal in value. Possibly equally worthless depending on how you view humanity's place in the overall universal timescale.

Whenever you look at someone else and think they are being arrogant or self important...likely it is time to take a step back and think about why it is OK to think that they should not feel that way. Maybe they have good reason that day to feel self important :) Take it as a good opportunity to take a good look inside and realize...overall...it doesn't matter how other people view themselves.

That statement needs tuning then. It's doubtful you have a 529 for your neighbor's college fund or you are bankrupting yourself to pay someone else's medical bills. Did you buy a $2 coffee today ? $2 is what the average Venezuelan earns in a month.

That quote is often associated with Bill Gates in the context of running a charity. In that case it has merit. But on a personal level it makes no sense, at least literally.

The discussion was about self worth.

The fact that the response to that is discussing money should be a red flag to you.

You can be good to your neighbors without giving anything but a smile and a kind word.

Well, since I'm spending $2 on a Colombian coffee today, instead of supporting a Venezuelan, I suppose I should just double-down on my disregard for human life, and lobby for the creation of gulags, the return of slavery, and a general expansion of the right of the strong to dominate the weak.

That would be as silly as that criticism of equality. I'm still unsure how we go from 'All people are equal' to 'Are they? I don't see you sacrificing <arbitrary amount of money> to help your fellow man.'

Daily toker and edible eater; I’m high now. Hit the bong and a cartridge multiple times.

I’ve also successfully upgraded large chunks of my employers infra code; tests green, deploys green.

It’s no different than coffee to me at this point; I figured out working with those jitters and anxiety. I even saw shimmering with caffeine I’ve never seen on THC.

I’m pretty sure a whole lot of the behavior is just subculture stereotypes that become something like a truism; correct at any speed of light; which become hard to shake for most people (even smart ones).

Personal experience is the science of human existence. The anxiety of non-smokers isn’t an anxiety I have to take on myself.

Sort of sounds like me a decade ago.

If you find yourself still doing the same job in a decade, I think you'll know why. Tech jobs are very compatible with weed. The sort of tactical, short term thinking you need to apply current knowledge to problems works well. It's great for crafting clever, short-term solutions and hacking your way through things. If that's all you ever want to be, smoke weed everyday man, why not?

If you want to achieve more, that, for me and the people I've seen, is where the problems start. You might not even recognize that this is where you want to be in life until it's too late because you're so comfortable with your 'smoke weed everyday' job. It really sucks when mid-life comes and you realize your skills won't carry you another 20 years, or that there's a whole generation of kids coming to either push you up the corporate ladder or push you out on the streets.

I was literally high all day for 16 years. Grew it. Made hash. Supplied edibles to dispensaries. I get it. It feels great. Do yourself a favor and stop for 6 months. See how you feel about your life and the overall direction. You might find you don't want to go back. That's assuming you can quit. I tried over and over again and couldn't go more than 3 days without it. Anyway, good luck.

I am not a grower and have moved up consistently in my career over the last decade from IT helpdesk to devops lead, with a company that’s profitable, and currently many rounds of demos deep with two very big businesses I can’t even tell you what industry we’re in that’s how new and weird this tech is.

Sounds like you made being high your identity.

To me it’s like coffee (which I drink sparingly as caffeine messes me up worse; biochemistry shrug). I just consume it and go.

I’ve also never had an issue setting aside when I need to. If I want to interview, I can hop off cold turkey, give it 3-4 weeks to burn it out of my fat.

My career went nowhere before I started smoking, tbh. I was a Linux admin for nothing companies that don’t exist anymore; think mom and pop offices 20 years ago.

In the last decade I’ve worked for big tech, startups doing actually cool shit, and now for a really neat security company.

But that could just be the subjective experience side of reality leading to different outcomes for different people and have nothing to do with weed for either of us.

Anecdotal, but caffeine is the drug that has messed my life up the worst.

In what way?

Causes bipolar episodes for me.

> Sounds like you made being high your identity.

Nope. I always despised the 'smoke it 420' subculture. I just go full bore into my interests and weed was one of them. It was a coping mechanism for my bipolar disorder, attentional issues, and a bad marriage. It also felt really fucking great. The good feelings helped blind me to the things it was affecting negatively. I went for years missing out on simple things like having vivid dreams. Hell, after I quit, I started getting morning wood again. I'm all for legalization and letting people choose, but I feel like the 'marketing' on weed is a little too positive these days so I like to share my perspective.

Good for you for keeping it under control. For a lot of the people I knew, that wasn't generally the case.

There's a line from the show "Suits" that really highlights your point I think. Essentially the show is about this wunderkind who conned his way into becoming a lawyer at a top firm. He smokes weed, and the partner at the firm wants him to quit. The partner explains "It's okay if you want to smoke weed. But that's what weed smokers do. They smoke. If you want to do other things, like work at this firm, you've gotta quit weed, because you can't do both." I think that's very true.

this is a meaningless tautology

"tautology"

Added to HN Bingo

I don't think so. I think it's a recognition of the habit forming qualities of the drug, the reality that some tasks require 100% effort, and sometimes weed gets in the way of that.

Listen, I love weed. I'm going to buy some tomorrow for the weekend. But there's no denying it's habit-forming and a large number of people fall into a pattern where they devote their day to smoking weed from dawn till dusk. There are a large number of people here talking about how productive it can make them and I get that. I wrote my dissertation high. But there's a whole spectrum of behavior associated with habitual use and it can lead people to get in a rut where all they do is smoke. Visit /r/leaves sometime and read the stories there.

This comment comes across as quite condescending.

I mean, yeah I used to smoke a lot and produce a bit. I stopped after a while.

And yeah, I generally recommend that other folks try not smoking...

but it's not like you're getting "more" career than other folks have. It's just different.

Like good on you if that's what you want to do, but from where I sit I could say the same thing about career minded folks who substitute their work for an identity.

I get being terrified you're gonna get pushed out on the streets and all, but yeesh.

I don't wanna get up the corporate ladder. The people who arrange the work I do are nice and all, but it's not like the sales staff and the mild sociopathy they develop are living some sort of elevated life or something just because they make more money and have nicer cars.

Good on you for recognizing that you want something different and pursuing it, but not everyone agrees that "more career" is the same as more life.

Sounds like you fell into the "subculture stereotypes that become something like a truism" trap that the parent comment mentioned. I've worked my way up into six figures being high on THC most of the time. I've only recently cut back, but only to drop a few pounds. Weed doesn't make people lazy or complacent, but it can make lazy and complacent people lazier and more complacent sometimes.

> It really sucks when mid-life comes and you realize your skills won't carry you another 20 years, or that there's a whole generation of kids coming to either push you up the corporate ladder or push you out on the streets.

Surely we all see that happen to most people, including non-users?

I think you are creating a narrative about pot use, and you are ignoring correlation.

Sure, I just think the issue is more likely to happen if you're breezing through middle age while high.

meh .. my friend and i started what is now a multi million dollar company over the past 15 years and we smoke weed everyday .. we smoke at work , just only after 5 .. no one is pushing me out into a street cause i smoke pot , quite the opposite actually.

Awesome man. I'm not trying to say you can't be successful on weed. I was, and I know many others who are. What I'm saying is it's easy to get complacent. A lot of the smokers I know obtain some level of success and then just rest in it. I'm saying you need to keep your drive and keep pushing. It doesn't even have to be success in the business world. It's success in your relationships, your mental health, and your contributions to the world. And again, I'm not saying you can't maximize those things stoned, it's just that most people I've seen don't. Is that the weed, or is the weed just a symptom? I can't say, but I can say I'm a hell of a lot better off from having quit.

Don't you feel it makes you a bit more stupid? For me, as soon as it becomes a daily habit for more then 2 weeks, the negative sides start to outweigh the benefits. It really does mess with short term memory, they say an average person can remember 9 things at once, and I'm pretty sure weed drastically reduces that. To the point where people in conversations will actually notice you can't remember well what you just talked about 5 minutes ago and might think you're a bit stupid. For coding it makes monotonous tasks more bearable, but I often lose context when tackling more complicated problems.

I mean I still love weed, but everyday / all day just isn't that great. All good things in moderation.

Daily != all day

Honestly, I only care about long term memory.

Short term was mutilated by todo apps and calendars already.

I want to reserve my memory for interesting ideas and moments. Not groceries and vacuuming.

This thread is making me think my way of prioritizing and doing is, not novel, but different than the replies is all.

I play guitar and piano, I don’t own a TV, I do use a tablet for movies but once or twice a week. I play Tetris on my kids Switch rarely, otherwise got bored with video games years ago, I don’t use social media. I exercise daily but don’t watch sports.

I have a lot less cultural “noise” in my face than many, yet I live in a big metro area.

Maybe that affords me the mental bandwidth to work with weed?

> consistent arrogance and self-importance

Unfortunately, these words are vague and will only facilitate people projecting their own definitions onto them in order to either support or deny your claim.

If there is a CEO making 500% more than some engineer, and some engineer complains about that, then someone may say, "Hey that person is just some engineer, how self-important and arrogant to complain to the CEO like that", but for me it's self-important and arrogant for the CEO to think the pay is proportional, and brave and commendable for the engineer to speak up.

I have known many assholes. Some were teetotalers and some used cannabis.

Be careful to let your own self-importance and arrogance allow you to think you can or should outright label someone else, or explain another's behavior, especially by pointing at only one facet of their life that you happen to be privvy to.

Yeah, I'm a daily pot-smoker and many of my friends are too, and we're all generally doing great at our careers and personal lives. I did some reflecting upon reading this comment to ensure that I'm not some sort of narcissistic stoner who doesn't get any feedback, but I really can't see that in myself or any of the people I know who are heavy smokers.

I'm worried that OP is just looking down on their pot-smoking peers through the lens of stereotypes with a "that's a lot of confidence for a pothead" attitude instead of recognizing that they're legitimately happy, confident people - traits they likely aren't as critical of when they comes from others.

That just sounds like people in their 20s in general, even without weed. Marijuana might make it seem worse because stupid ideas sound much more profound when we're high

Good point, I had in mind friends / acquaintances from 20s to 50s however.

yah I think there's something to this in an opportunity cost motivational angle. Basically there's a cost that comes to being in a high state which lowers your thresholds for profundity, satisfaction, deliciousness/appetite/taste.

Basically with the thresholds all lowered one becomes satisfied with things that are objectively lesser quality, less demanding of effort and work. One would be equally satisfied eating junk food as they normally would having eaten some gourmet meal. There's no fire under your feet to hustle or put in the time to need to learn how to cook some truly delicious meal let's say or develop skills that bring longer term satisfaction that takes a while before payoff. Motivation never needs to take off because the cheapest junk already meets ones pleasure and satisfaction needs so why bother.

Weed doesn't affect everybody the same. Not everyone is a stoner that gets high and says whoa dude on the couch.

I didn't perceive things as more profound rather the little voice of anxiety inside by head went away and for the first time in my life I was free to figure out who I was.

Hey this little Voice of anxiety I get it to and weed alleviated this.. or so I think. In return it makes me lazy and if I smoke too much it makes it louder and it wants me to stop smoking weed Soo much. But on other hand if I have a steady supply I cannot quit it. So fucked up

I agree with this. I hang out at this one bar and this 22 year old I talk to really thinks he "gets it." Incredibly cocky and arrogant a lot of times. He's fun to talk to but when he get's on a major BS kick I gotta tune him out. I'm only 5 years older than him but the contrast in experiences is stark to say the least. It really makes me wonder if I was ever that arrogant too.

I think it's a thing with liberalism as well though which has a huge overlap with marijuana use. Some people tend to think they know what's better for others without really considering the impacts it may have. Then you add in the existential paranoia brought on by being high all the time and you start espousing unconditional support for ideas that soothe your fears.

"Some people tend to think they know what's better for others without really considering the impacts it may have."

That's hardly limited to that demo. Also generally chronic users aren't going to get that existential paranoia you get from casual use

yeah true. I think it'd be best for others if they stopped being liberals.

(\s btw)

Lol thanks for the good chuckle

Patronization is a strong suit many people (including myself) have nicely ironed at all times in our closet. Nothing is more fun than to put that suit on.

The question is, can we tolerate flawed people? Can we laugh about it? Can we let them rant and wear that suit from time to time?

It's fine if you dont act like you know how I should operate my life.

I applaud the creativity, but the phrase “strong suit” originated from bridge and refers to a different kind of suit.

I realize I’m probably being patronizing myself by pointing that out. As Bart Simpson once said, “The ironing is delicious.”

Good, you just saved me from sounding like a dumbass in real life.

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

― Mark Twain

I could certainly be accused of haughtiness when someone made a snide remark about me using marijuana. This is because I got fed up with arrogant people shitting on me when they found out I use it.

In my experience it is those who love to flout their sense of superiority by shitting on users who are arrogant. But shit can flow both ways and when I'd point out that they too use "drugs" they'd get very defensive.

Back in the 80s my cocaine using friends loved shitting on weed users. "It makes you dumb" was one of their favorite cut downs.

My alcohol drinking friends who didn't smoke weed loved to cast the aspersion that weed smokers were "drug users". When I started pointing out that alcohol was a drug too they all very loudly denied it because couldn't stand the idea that they were "drug users" too.

And along with and within those two groups are those who do prescription drugs. It was pretty strange to be accused of being a "drug user" by people taking codeine and Xanax and Quaaludes, ect.

When I pointed out the serious side effects of alcohol, both personal and to our society at large as compared to weed smokers they started shutting up about that when talking to me.

Since Colorado legalized it those kinds of encounters have been far less common, and I've certainly appreciated it. And because of that I'd probably be far less likely to be accused of being arrogant nowadays.

> "It makes you dumb" was one of their favorite cut downs.

Well, it does measurably decrease IQ. And at least in teens, this reduction seems like it may be permanent.

Yeah, I've heard people say that all my life. Some folks love to believe that. But there's nothing that really backs that up with solid proof. A lot of them whom I've heard say that were coke users, which to me would indicate a lack of intelligence.

Here's a couple studies that seem to disprove that myth about weed users but, like all of these studies, they really cannot claim to be conclusive. Still better than most I've seen though:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marijuana-may-not...

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/twins-study-finds-no...

The "some folks" include the scientists who actually study this.

But good job cherry picking a study. Hope it makes you feel better.

To fair and accurate I cherry picked TWO studies

You didn't cite or include a link to even one. You just tossed a load of bullshit here and hoped it would stick.

By the way... one of those cherry picked links goes to Scientific American's website. Hard to do better than that even if you are picking cherries.

You have the power to search for "cannabis iq" and find the literature.

Generally I expect some basic scientific literacy on HN. But of course I should have learned by now to expect science denialism when ego is at stake.

If you want a concrete source look at any of the studies that cite the twin studies, including the meta-analysis from this year.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...

Scientific American is not a peer reviewed publication. They are science journalism and they aren't even particularly careful about their analysis. They posted an article in 2017 claiming cannabis might make you smarter:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marijuana-may-boo...

They might be right about "makes you smarter". I mean, here you are complaining that SA isn't "peer reviewed", which is pretty stupid because they're publishing the results of studies done by others, not doing or controlling them.

Ha. I honestly don't think I've ever seen such a childish response on HN.

After more than 30 years of daily cannabis use with occasional tolerance breaks I recently took an IQ test along with a series of mental evaluations and was in the 99th percentile. So maybe cannabis took me down just enough to avoid being one of those Mensa jerks?

It might be interesting and revealing to see the correlation between casual cannabis dismissal and low or reduced IQ, but of course that goes against the popular narrative and looking for potential errors isn't where most scientists focus since that isn't super glamorous or likely to get citations from publication.

That’s an excellent line of research to dive down. You’re going to get some folks here sweating, though.

What do you mean by casual cannabis dismissal?

My experience is the exact opposite:

1) I would not suggest that marijuana use correlates with any particular behavior very much.

2) The only thing I have noticed in common among some heavy users was stereotypical stoner behavior, primarily forgetfulness and absent-mindedness. They are usually aware of this, which means it does not present as anything remotely like arrogance.

My experience and opinion are similar to yours. A typical stoner isn’t really there, and when they are there, it’s more of a questioning or socializing activity. Alcoholic behaviors are what I would describe as arrogance and extreme impairment.

It's very possible that those are the stoners that stick out. There are a lot of stoners out there that are there and you don't realize are high.

> they may be contributing very little to society (or maybe a lot), but regardless there's a sense of superiority

A sober individual's brain is operating on standard (often societally installed) reward mechanism, including "succeeding" on certain self-evaluated measures like "contributions to society"

It's commonly said that weed makes you "OK with being bored". i.e. standard reward mechanisms mentioned above don't really matter much when you're high.

It has nothing to do with narcissism or sense of superiority as you call it, just that their reward mechanism doesn't include things like "how much am I contributing to society". Apathy is a better word for it.

well apathetic individuals still rely on the society they are in, most of the time anyway. I think this is where the narcissism perception comes in.

Most stoners in particular people who smoke a lot and for a long time at least in my experience become apathetic and to a degree dependent on their environment. They rely on others to organize their lives, even get simple chores done, they become sort of lethargic. And when you have an individual like that who also acts indifferently towards it you create (I think a justified) negative perception.

Be careful not to over-generalize from personal experience... Maybe you've just met a few examples of lethargic, dependent narcissists who smoke a lot of weed?

There is selection bias at play, as someone with an admitted negative perception of stoners you probably haven't put yourself in many situations where you might meet counterexamples.

In my experience, I've met many stoners whose driving force is empathy and compassion and not narcissism and apathy.

Anyway, keep in mind any substance abuse is often an amplifier of issues that already existed.

I did qualify that I'm talking about heavy users but I don't think I'm over-generalizing. Any heavy drug use, or addictive or dependent behavior in general crowds out other things. That's just a fact of substance use.

Occasional recreational use is one thing but people who are high every day, they aren't able to be as present as they would be if they were sober, and in changes them in I think usually negative ways. Not even because of the particular drug they're using, but because of the patterns of behavior that come with those levels of consumption.

Most of the lethargic narcists I met were weed (and other drug) users. Most weed users I know are not lethargic narcists. People who swing in the direction of personality disorders already have a predisposition to "anti-social" behavioral patterns, and frequent risk-taking. It's just as likely that they get into drugs on account of existing personality constructs as they develop personality constructs on account of using drugs.

There is the persistent question: does this attract people who are a certain way or does it transform some people into being that way. But let's be clear, schizophrenia is not a personality trait.

That's just society these days...

Actually I think you have a point and it probably stems from the way in which MJ modifies your dopamine system.

In any case, the reason I ultimately gave up smoking it is it makes my overall psychological health worse. I take a more cynical and negative view of things, even if it makes me mellower and temporarily happy. It affects my memory and my motivation, even as it increases my interest in things(so it slightly helps with ADHD, but effective net benefit to my job is zero). It also costs a hell of a lot of money unless you can grow it yourself these days(thanks, legal weed).

Smoked for 16 years constantly, quit for 2, resumed a couple times to help with various issues in mid life, but at the end of the day I quit because it's just not in line with my goals for my life. Weed helped me stay in bad life situations and compromised my ability to plan an effective way of changing my circumstances. It works for some people, I get it. My friend is a paraplegic and loves it for pain. I love the benefits to joint pain and general mid-life aches. That pain relief is what led me to never really dealing with my back problems until now though.

Same observation. I also smoked weed in my teens and early twenties and I remember it making some of the most banal horse shit ideas seem profound, or like I really understand how the universe clicked together. I bet hanging out with a bunch of stoners steeping in my own bullshit for another decade would make me a(n even more) pompous ass too.

I doubt this even happened lol.

“I doubt that even happened lol.”

Says man who, earlier in the same thread on weed-induced arrogance, writes, “my experience is the opposite.“

Realistically it was my teens and early twenties that made banal horse shit ideas profound. There's something to be said for age.

My experience is opposite.

My experience with cannabis use using a simple activity.

Sober, I can clean my office without much thinking and if I had to repeatedly do it, I’d probably do it the same fashion every time.

On cannabis, I’m able to see what I believe to be the more or most efficient way of cleaning my office, garage and rooms. I could probably come up with a few ways or road maps for doing so.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe there’s a higher level of dopamine from using cannabis that influenced me to have so much attention and focus on such a menial task.

I have been told that I’m usually not there mentally and never arrogant; and my friends are pretty outspoken.

You should record yourself cleaning in both situations and then compare. Otherwise, you are merely comparing your perception of your self, which obviously is altered in the second case.

Sure, that would be interesting on some level.

But I see the objective as cleaning the room, not having a clean room, so a subjective experience of being more engaged and enjoying it more is intrinsically valuable.

If it takes a lot longer or the results aren't as good, that changes things, sure, but this can be settled with a timer and a before/after photo. Controlling for degree-of-mess probably adds so much noise that this probably isn't useful in practice.

I imagine that's just perception; as in reality cannabis impairs cognitive functions such as motor control, and problem solving.

On the other hand, Amphetamines would definitely help you clean your office more efficiently; but you wouldn't want to stop there!

I think part of that isn't the symptoms of the drug but the culture surrounding it. In most places its illegal or at the very least frowned upon, so being one who does this regularly makes you perceived by some parts of society as some sort of black sheep. People wear the black sheep badge proudly and can be arrogant and in your face about it. Just look at how techies act online. Smoking pot, like knowing stuff about technology, makes you 'in the know' relative to the rest of society, and can make you feel superior that you are taking part in something that most people will never or might outright refuse to experience.

Even in parts of the US where its been legal to smoke pot for some time like California, the social stigma of meeting up for drinks at a bar regularly and meeting up to smoke pot regularly are not equivalent. Your employer might even drug test you still.

Honestly I've noticed the opposite. The pot smokers I've known (which there have been many) have been some of the coolest people. They've been very friendly and giving, and definitely not arrogant or self-important. Maybe it depends on the area you live in and types of social circles you're in?

> there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up among them all

As a Canadian where weed is legal, I can say I've not had this experience at all. A lot of folks here use it, at all ages and all personality types. Very unusual for me to meet someone who uses it and for them to strike me as any different than the average Canadian.

Reading this article made me recall an incident back in art college. A mature student asked if I smoked cannabis, I said I do. There was another mature student in the room with us. Upon hearing my confession she stared at me with a very serious expression, then lunged forward at me and pushed her face into mine. I was so taken aback I nearly fell off my chair. I had never met this woman before, we were never introduced and I haven't seen her since.

I would argue this woman was sufficiently arrogant that she thought it was socially acceptable to invade my personal space because I was a stoner. Perhaps I myself was more arrogant when I was younger, in the spirit that user warent mentioned below. On the other hand, I'm not the type to spontaneously invade the space of others.

Yes, I've noticed something simila, although way I phrase it is I noticed among high marijauna users from teens to twenties was what is a sense of delayed maturity. This overlaps with the attributes you described but it also felt like they weren't able to accept the increasing responsibility to themselves and others that comes with growth out of adolesence. I accept this is just one lived experience and there are other possible confounding factors, but I've definiutely noticed it.

My experience with the substance is similar to yours. I’ve started again occasionally and see that the experience differs depending on the strain. I do get paranoia that wears off; there were times where I’ve experience schizophrenia like symptoms; where reality seems off or my perception of it changes temporarily until it wears off. Hopefully I don’t have early onset of the disorder.

Regarding your friends, is it possible that the behavior you are seeing is when they are under the influence and not during sober?

I can only provide a single data point, but I used to smoke a lot of weed for a pretty long time, then stopped about 12 years ago, and one of the changes I noticed was that I became much more able to accept responsibility for my mistakes instead of blaming everything wrong with my life on others.

After I stopped smoking, I talked about this a friend who also quit weed around that time, and he said it was the same for him. (Okay, so it's two data points.)

Make of that what you want, but there is a correlation. That doesn't mean weed turns people into assholes necessarily, but it can certainly amplify preexisting tendencies in that direction. I'm pretty sure the same goes for various other drugs as well - I never spent time around cocaine or methamphetamine enthusiasts, but I've been told, some people have a tendency to become real assholes on cocaine. And of course there's alcohol, which definitely helps all kinds of unpleasant personality traits to float to the surface.

Maybe growing older and wiser played a part? I've seen some of my friends transform attitudes like that significantly as the years go by, weed never being involved.

I'm not a psychologist, but I think narcissism and self-importance simply stem from a small world view.

If your main hobby/recreational activity in life is smoking weed (certainly not judging anyone) then you'll likely only associate with people who enjoy the same things, if anyone at all.

This leads to a very narrow world-view where you're the center of that world. Going out and meeting people, doing different activities, taking on new jobs and roles, going to school and getting an education all really help to humble people and make people realize that most of us are all very similar in our pursuit of happiness.

I've had my weed phase between 16 and 19 and I dont know. There is a sort of arrogance that comes with ignorance in general that subsides as you learn the vastness of what you'll never know.

I suppose the intersection of ignorance, criminality and drug consumption may make you think that because they smoke, they exhibit the other traits, but it could be the contrary.

You need a bit of arrogance to think cannabis is on your side and you can dominate it, as I witnessed myself when I started stumbling as a teenager.

> You need a bit of arrogance to think cannabis is on your side and you can dominate it, as I witnessed myself when I started stumbling as a teenager.

I have had similar experiences. Without your mind you are not you, a drug which changes the minds substrate (in some ways permanently) is going to be outside the control of the effected mind. Beware the Snoop Dogg pool party.

What an elaborate way if saying weed smokers are lazy bums.

Have you considered you attract a certain type? The long time smokers I know live remarkably normal lives. Kids, jobs, etc

I noticed the opposite. In my 30s now and most of the people I know who smoke a lot are pretty relaxed and the complete opposite of a narcissist.

> there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up among them

the directionality could be the inverse: e.g. insecurity driving people to social overcompensation as well as cannabis as a reprieve or escape from their anxieties

I think what you describe is pretty common in humans, weed or not.

What I've seen in weed users (myself included when I was in my 20s) is a tendency towards magical thinking and enjoying/accepting fantasies.

I take the position that it’s your biochemistry reacting to them.

What words you label it as feeling like are subjective.

I notice people from all walks of life can feel entitled, and narcissistic. I’m sure some have been stoners.

You've hit the nail on the head with my experience. I have noticed this with a brother who smoke daily.. I never really put it down to the marijuana use entirely, but more of an aversion to any kind of confrontation/disagreement that might make him second guess himself etc.

Personally I can't smoke it anymore, I get super anxious now and nervous. I don't enjoy it, but I can see why some people who enjoy it would rather avoid any kind of mental doubt/disagreements.

> Personally I can't smoke it anymore, I get super anxious now and nervous

I've heard so many people say the same thing, that they used to enjoy using cannabis, then some years later they find it induces anxiety, jitters and nervousness - I wonder what the mechanism behind this anxiety is?

Is it as simple as "modern" cannabis strains having much THC than older ones, or is it something else, possibly age-related, like thyroid hormones?

Like Shrooms, Cannabis will sooner or later confront you with aspects of yourself that you're not entirely comfortable with.

There was always strong weed, and hashish; it just means you either consume less or fall asleep.

Hormones are possible, I guess.

Was there always strong weed though? Modern strains go up to 20% THC and 0% CBD.

At least when I were lad (in UK), we only got brick weed (which I remember was a good bit less strong than hash), but it was almost exclusively Moroccan hash we got, and even though that is a "concentrate", THC levels have traditionally[0] been lower, and CBD levels significantly higher, than much of today's modern cannabis flower.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303871898_The_main_...

I heard this opinion so many times from new agey types who think they know so much wisdom about life. None of them are successful in any way or smoked weed in the same amounts as I or other stoner friends did.

On the hand every single person I know who abused weed (including me) by wake and baking themselves for years have stopped smoking basically because every time they smoked their heartbeat would go to 9000 and they just couldn’t feel good on it anymore (by good I mean just “not feeling like I am having a heart attack in purely physical way”)

Just to be clear it has nothing to do with paranoia, just physical effects - I don’t feel afraid, it’s just that there are no good effects anymore.

Weed never destroyed my life. I was a hugely high-functioning addict to be honest. But there’s no way I can smoke and not get my heartbeat to the moon.

So please, just stop this misinformation. You just never smoked enough of weed to get there.

The CB1 receptors actually shrink up and recede with long term use and the effects change with aging. For many long term smokers, this long term heavy use does bring more anxiety. Stronger THC profiles with less CBN, CBG, or CBD in the flower being smoked, coupled with the terpene profiles present in the flower also have widely varying effects. Some smoke a kush strain that is heavy in caryophylene, myrcene, and/or linalool and feel a relaxing effect. For some, couch locking, sedative effects cause more anxiety. While still for others, sometimes lemony strains full of limonene and pinene causes more anxiety but for others the limonene gives one an energetic and uplifting buzz without the anxiety. It's also a psychoactive (THC) and so similar to hallucinogens, for some it's what anxieties are already in the head that amplifies anxiety once high.

Unless you dive deep into the latest chemical/terpene profiles or live in a legal state you may not have heard that much of the type of high actually comes from a compound effect of the terpenes present and level of THC to CBD to CBG to CBN. Every single strain and plant to plant should be thought of as a concoction of sorts.

Ask yourself why people smoke weed in the first place. It isn't because they're temperate and psychically/spiritually/morally in order. Weed stupefies and dulls a person to certain unwanted feelings, like guilt or anxiety. That isn't any more medicinal than alcoholism.

In line with that, if what you write is true, it would be consistent with the idea that they have vices which cause them suffering which they then proceed to numb instead of dealing with the vices. So if they suffer from envy and pride, this will make them miserable people, so they smoke to numb the suffering. It's basically a way of coping with the consequences of denial about those vices: an intentional disintegration of the intellect to prevent conscious realization of one's vices because they can bear down on one's conscience. The only true way out is moral reform, but if you don't want to repent and face the consequences of repentance, if you are a slave to your pride and to your passions, then you will look for something else to kill the guilt and the pain.

It may help if you asked yourself why you feel qualified to judge a bunch of people's minds.

Where ever did you get your ideas from? A D.A.R.E advertisement? Are you conflating marijuana and opioids? Seriously. You sound like my grand parents, who ascribe frankly magical effects to marijuana. Do you also believe that people regularly get high and believe they can fly?

This sounds like it's coming from someone who has 0 experience with weed and has been told their whole life that it's bad and only bad people do it for bad reasons. And judging by the "repentance" language, probably a religious aspect too.

Wow, this is really ignorant. Have you ever tried cannabis? My guess is no.

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