It does make you dumber, and so does alcohol. As we all know, the only drug that makes you smarter is huffing glue pantsless on a unicycle.

Saw a dude like that in Portland once. He had it all figured out.

Weed is addictive and has physical withdrawal symptoms.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7146100/

We need to treat weed like we do alcohol. It’s not the devil but it isn’t a saint either.

It’s sad to see a lot of the misinformation here that says there are no downsides to weed. In fact, weed has a ton of downsides that need to be considered in how marijuana is handled in a society.

If you are a visual/ audio learner, here’s a well researched video on the downsides of weed, from a source that acknowledges their staffs personal biases lean towards legalization.

Kurzgesagt, "We Have to Talk About Weed

Basically, we need to recognize that due to having criminalized weed for so long, we are only now getting the research into the negative effects of weed, but as it’s coming out we are seeing how weed is not all sunshine and rainbows.

THC potency has increased dramatically since the 60s, and that has led to increased risks of paranoia, psychosis, and panic attacks. It also increases the risk of Cannabinoid Hypermesis Syndrome, where ingesting weed will make you vomit, nauseous, and have horrible abdominal pain.

My roommate just got this and she is not having fun. Her doctor told her this may be a 6 month T-break, but it’s also possible this is permanent, and best to avoid weed altogether.

I also am sad to see “weed is not addictive” being thrown around. Cannabis Use Disorder (weed addiction) is very real and a quick look up says 10% of users become addicted. Personally I consider myself stuck on a habit since I can control my use to keeping it after 8pm, but I still have trouble not getting high daily. I have a friend who is now 100 days sober, but when he had a relapse last year, it ruined his life.

That’s not to say it’s bad, I have another friend who needs weed to help him get through the day with his PTSD. We just need to recognize one person’s medicine is another person’s poison.

Most all of the major issues with weed tend to show up with people who began smoking in adolescence. I think a reason I’m somewhat I’m control and my other friend is not is that I started smoking at 22 in college, and he started at 16. I imagine if I waited until I was 25 I’d have no problem making it a weekend thing.

That said

My experience and the pain many have dealing with the health issues associated to weed are no where near comparable to the damage that criminalized weed has had on marginalized communities as weed has historically been used to target and oppress minorities by our US government. I also agree to the points that having a black market is FAR worse than having legal weed that needs regulation.

Personally I’m pro-legalization, but I think we need to be careful at how we are messaging weed to the youths and handling the negative consequences, as the myths of weed just being an innocent plant are super harmful.