Smoking pot makes you depressed for life

[Stars Down To Earth]

I see psychology in general as a mistake; we knew enough of this through literature and philosophy, but now we've made it another nuanced, separate field that encourages people to talk about themselves instead of working themselves through. And yes, I think it should be functional. If it's not decreasing insanity, throw it out -- it's crap.

That is pretty much the goal of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy which is the standard treatment for the majority of psychological problems.
 
"There is empirical evidence that CBT is effective for the treatment of a variety of problems, including mood, anxiety, personality, eating, substance abuse, and psychotic disorders.[2][3] Treatment is often manualized, with specific technique-driven brief, direct, and time-limited treatments for specific psychological disorders. CBT is used in individual therapy as well as group settings, and the techniques are often adapted for self-help applications. Some clinicians and researchers are more cognitive oriented (e.g. cognitive restructuring), while others are more behaviorally oriented (in vivo exposure therapy). Other interventions combine both (e.g. imaginal exposure therapy).[4]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

You might be able to help yourself through whatever problem you're having, but not everyone can do it by themselves, particularly if the problem is cyclic.

"I am ugly and no one will ever love me"
-> Low self esteem which results in never pursuing a relationship
"I've never been in a relationship because I'm ugly"
-> Confirms the original hypothesis

[Nimbostratus]

A new study finds those who've used a lot of marijuana have worse memories and don't think as quickly.

It's not the first study to suggest pot hurts memory, but the findings are stark.

In one memory test, long-time uses remembered seven of 15 words, on average. Non-users remembered 12 of 15. On a decision-making test, those who had rarely smoked pot had impaired performance 8 percent of time, while long-term tokers had 70 percent impairment. The results are detailed in the March 14 issue of the journal Neurology.

http://www.livescience.com/630-smoke-marijuana-toasts-memory.html

[Vesupria]

As interesting as all of the anti-marijuana propaganda is - didn't a lot of famous artists and scientists smoke pot?

[Cargést]

Yes, but not all day, every day.  I think the problem with it, as with everything, is excess: "smoking (too much) pot makes you depressed for life". 

Everything in moderation, etc.

[Parasite]

.

First, we've had psychology as a mainstream event for over a century and there's no lessening in insanity -- in fact an increase. Psychology is probably a bad method of solving problems!

Next, it's a slacker job. Don't want to go to med school? Be a paid listener. Most people don't have real friends. So you're there to listen and then repeat the appropriate memory. It's an easy job for a 120+, even if it makes you neurotic, which is why all but the already neurotic avoid it.

There are a few exceptions but... that psychologist makes his money by telling parents what they want to hear, and out-maneuvering kids so they end up in the "right" reform programs. Don't expect honest truth from any such person. In addition, if you ended up using drugs, your parents screwed up somehow and so they have no reason to be truthful either.

Come on, dont slag a medical job, just because of a bad experience you had with A psychologist.  Psychologists are needed in this world.  A real psychiatrist evaluates not just the child, but both of the parents as well, and would never just tell them what they want to hear, thats so completly unorthodox. 

When i was younger my parents took me in after a domestic disturbance we had at the house.  I went for the first session and i was done and my parents had several other sessions because the problem lay within them. They actually resented me after that, as if i made them go to the psychiatrist or something.  Anyways, you cant just bad talk an entire profession off of one or two examples.

[▓]

i disagree with hydroponic manmade strains of marijuana mainly on principle.

Natural cannabis is a lesser evil than some socially acceptable drugs like caffeine and seroxat.

[scourge]

You might be able to help yourself through whatever problem you're having, but not everyone can do it by themselves, particularly if the problem is cyclic.

"I am ugly and no one will ever love me"
-> Low self esteem which results in never pursuing a relationship
"I've never been in a relationship because I'm ugly"
-> Confirms the original hypothesis

You know what's wrong with this? We're getting good as modern people overcoming long time symptoms of living life like hunger, disease, and intolerance. Granted. However, modern people avoid understanding why there may have been a negative side.

For example, in an evolutionary sense, the pursuit of an intimate relationship, where attractiveness plays a major role, is really the pursuit of gene replication through reproduction. This is the hidden layer underlying the misleading cognition layer.

In an evolutionary sense, it may not be beneficial to the rest of us or to life on Earth overall for an ugly or an underconfident individual to overcome these symptoms and bring more of itself into the world for the future.

We can see the same thing with overcoming the symptom of hunger with our modern technical and knowledge capability: overpopulation and half-abandoned gang-ridden sprawl making the other people expand the same process, just elsewhere again, and the loss of wild habitat from anthropogenic biomes meant to keep up with the expanding demand to manage hunger.

With cognitive psychologists helping the pity cases, something that nature is likely attempting to select out for the betterment of life, they are either most definitely oblivious to cycles beyond the scale of an individual person or they have a rather mercenary attitude toward our world.

Most likely, humanity's intelligence has far outpaced its wisdom.

[Transcix]

With cognitive psychologists helping the pity cases, something that nature is likely attempting to select out for the betterment of life, they are either most definitely oblivious to cycles beyond the scale of an individual person or they have a rather mercenary attitude toward our world.

I disagree. First, without modern interventions in the natural process of survival of the fittest, it's highly debatable whether  people experiencing psychological difficulties would  be in the gradual process of being weeded out of the gene pool, or whether they've managed to stay in the gene pool all this time because they posses some other advantage that counter-balances said shortcoming; or similarly for example someone who is physically unattractive could possess other qualities to attract or 'acquire' a mate. Second and moreover, it's highly debatable that genetic perfection in context of sexual reproduction at a base level would be anywhere near genetic perfection in context of higher, transcendent values. Third, considering the psychological / philosophical / spiritual poverty of the modern world, it's quite possible those who are the most psychologically advanced often experience psychological difficulties in life because they can't properly integrate with mainstream society's bogus belief systems.

As for the marijuana debate, obviously when studies show people who use marijuana possesses weaknesses compared to the rest of the population it's obviously crucial to understand it could be an inverse correlation at work - people who possess such weaknesses in the first place may be more inclined than the rest of the population to use marijuana in the first place (perhaps for escapism for instance). Furthermore, in my personal view, in many significant ways 'psychedelic' drugs (as opposed to amphetamines, opiates, etc), on a general, overall level, merely enhance or 'fast-forward' what's already present inside a person, in which case people who's vectors in life are not pointed in a spiritually healthy direction, i.e. the majority of people, are liable to suffer from their drug use. More broadly, I would definitely say that drug use is to a very significant extent *challenging*, and that the fact most people fail at it is in no way a detriment of the drugs themselves.

I would also like to point out that the war on drugs is being waged with so much propaganda and so unfairly against drug users, that any discussion about the merits of drug use must be considered in this context. In this case, posting a study about the effects marijuana has on memory, without making any mention of the possibility that an inverse correlation could be at work, is quickly recognized by most people of sound mind to be just another bogus fucking claim against drugs. If you're going to bash drugs, you need to recognize how the anti-drug crowd on your side influences how people perceive what you say, it's on you. More generally in the same vein, I would also like to point out that any *blanket* statement condemning drug use is easily recognized by anyone with half a brain as moronic.

Finally, I'd like to point out that drugs could very possibly have played a significant role in the human species originally separating from its primate relatives.

[indjaseemun]

It's hard not to be depressed knowing that on pot things were like, super cool, and now without it it's not.

[Dinaric Leather]

It's hard not to be depressed knowing that on pot things were like, super cool, and now without it it's not.

With great discipline and meditation, you can achieve a sensation not dissimilar to cannabis without drugs.

[Cargést]

It doesn't even require a great deal of discipline, especially if you're familiar with the feeling.  Drugs act as triggers for chemical changes within the brain - these changes are possible without the ingestion of any substance.  One can "train" oneself to enter a similar state of mind without using an exterior catalyst.  Our lives consist of a succession of trance states of various levels of depth and direction, and it is within the power of the human mind to go into these states at will, once one has attained a calm, relaxed, "normal" state.

[Transcix]

It doesn't even require a great deal of discipline, especially if you're familiar with the feeling.  Drugs act as triggers for chemical changes within the brain - these changes are possible without the ingestion of any substance.  One can "train" oneself to enter a similar state of mind without using an exterior catalyst.  Our lives consist of a succession of trance states of various levels of depth and direction, and it is within the power of the human mind to go into these states at will, once one has attained a calm, relaxed, "normal" state.

I find this is a very delicate statement to make. It's true the human mind can realize many so-called 'altered' states of consciousness in sobriety, however these experiences can't be the same as drug-induced ones since drug-induced ones are triggered by physical stimuli. The physical stimuli of the drug is what creates the entheogenic experience, and then you experience it as the observer, except I definitely don't draw a solid line between creating and observing the experience - indeed you can do a lot to control the entheogenic experience if you're good enough at it. People who promote using drugs in a spiritually mindful way place so much emphasis on taking charge of the experience, it would be totally contradictory to then say that the experience's originating source is irrelevant. In this vein, I believe the entheogenic experience can definitely open up doors, but I also believe that walking through those doors in a real and permanent way is something else altogether (which entheogenic experience can help you with). In knowing where the drug ends and your own mind begins, it's easier to consider the entheogenic experience in proper context, and then you can use drugs just for their benefits while recognizing the other aspects of the experience you need to counterbalance.

[Veritas]

Yes, but not all day, every day.  I think the problem with it, as with everything, is excess: "smoking (too much) pot makes you depressed for life". 

Everything in moderation, etc.

In everything you do you must ask: is this action an expression of my strength, or my weakness?

[▓]

Yes, but not all day, every day.  I think the problem with it, as with everything, is excess: "smoking (too much) pot makes you depressed for life". 

Everything in moderation, etc.

In everything you do you must ask: is this action an expression of my strength, or my weakness?

What about shitting? Is that an expression of rectal weakness - because you could hold it in - no longer?

Is it the case then, that the Superman, is the - most constipated man?

At this Zarathustra departed to be alone with his stools.

[Cargést]

it would be totally contradictory to then say that the experience's originating source is irrelevant.

I disagree.  Consider a magic potion which allows you to suddenly gain inhuman strength.  You drink this potion, and lift a stone you couldn't have hoped to lift beforehand.  However, next to you is a man who doesn't have the potion, but has struggled, for a decade or more, to become as strong as he possibly can.  He, too, lifts the stone that you have just lifted, without any exterior aid, though with greater difficulty.  There's not all that much difference between exercising the body and exercising the mind - the benefits are manifold, and include not only production through action, but also growth with experience.

The only failure in my analogy is that it is near impossible to experience the effects of drugs at first without actually using the drugs - I suggest using the substance until you become fully acquianted and comfortable with its effects, and then start trying to replicate those effects on your own.  Eventually, after a lot of practice, instead of taking shortcuts, you'll get there under your own steam.