marijuana
Article
marijuana is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 3 times across 3 issues between May 12, 2021 and December 06, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “scientific research showing marijuana isn’t a deadly poison”; “ketamine was ranked as less addictive than tobacco, alcohol, or Adderall, and around the same level as marijuana”; “marijuana and LSD officially have no medical uses”. It most often appears alongside Adderall, FDA, LSD.
Metadata
- Category: Concepts
- Mention count: 3
- Issue count: 3
- First seen: May 12, 2021
- Last seen: December 06, 2023
Appears In
Related Pages
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- Adderall (2 shared issues)
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- FDA (2 shared issues)
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- LSD (2 shared issues)
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- 1950s (1 shared issues)
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- 1950s American consensus (1 shared issues)
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- 1990s (1 shared issues)
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- alcohol (1 shared issues)
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- AMPA receptors (1 shared issues)
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- amphetamine (1 shared issues)
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- anarcho-primitivists (1 shared issues)
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- atheism (1 shared issues)
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- BadCorp (1 shared issues)
External Links
Source Context
Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.
If we zoom out a little, we find that most of human history involved enforced ideological conformity, censorship, and repression. Maybe the most available reference point for this sort of thing is the US in the 1950s. There were certain ideas everyone knew were off limits - atheism, communism, marijuana legalization, gay rights. If you supported those things, you might not go to jail, but you'd be excluded from most good careers and most of polite society. This system was very stable - everyone knew the limits, and people generally didn't push against them unless they really wanted to and knew what they were getting into.
This isn't to say the 1950s US was good! I think atheism, marijuana legalization, and gay rights were correct! It was an ethical disaster that their progress was held back for decades, and immensely unjust that the few people who spoke out for them got punished! My point is that the 1950s cultural regime was good at censoring things quietly and through general social pressure, with a minimum of Red Guards breaking people's kneecaps. This is good, insofar as getting your kneecaps broken sounds painful, but bad insofar as the repression was so subtle that it was hard to convince anyone that anything was wrong.
If cancel culture is the equivalent of the 1950s American consensus, we should remember the fact that that consensus eventually failed. You’re now allowed to promote gay rights, cite scientific research showing marijuana isn't a deadly poison, campaign as a socialist, et cetera.
In a survey of drug experts, ketamine was ranked as less addictive than tobacco, alcohol, or Adderall, and around the same level as marijuana. If you would feel comfortable going out to a bar a few times without worrying about addiction, or smoking pot a few times without worrying about addiction, probably you also shouldn’t worry about getting a few ketamine infusions.
Long-term maintenance ketamine therapy has higher addiction risk, although still probably no higher than eg smoking marijuana regularly. One piece of good news is that there is no chemical dependence / withdrawal after coming off ketamine; any addiction is entirely psychological.
(on a federal level, marijuana and LSD officially have no medical uses, and are not available even with a prescription. The most embarrassing way this could end would be the legalization of all drugs except marijuana and LSD.)