"But Rachel also has another hobby, one that makes her a bit different from the other moms in her Texas suburb—not that she talks about it with them. Once a month or so, after she and her husband put the kids to bed, Rachel texts her in-laws—who live just down the street—to make sure they’re home and available in the event of an emergency.

“And then, Rachel takes a generous dose of magic mushrooms, or sometimes MDMA, and—there’s really no other way to say this— spends the next several hours tripping balls.”

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      21 days ago

      It’s quantifying harm, among other things. The difference between free base cocaine (aka crack) and cocaine is nothing, you’re right. But unfortunately the method of using it usually smoking with crack, and that leads to more harm. If you’re a very casual user, you’re more likely to snort cocaine than smoke crack. Which is why there’s a seeming disparity.

      The difference in userbase isn’t as big in the UK as it is in the US, afaik.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          21 days ago

          Bruh.

          Read the chart.

          Who’s said anything about killing?

          It’s quantifying harm. A lot of people smoke cannabis. Smoking is not healthy. One might even be inclined to say harmful. (Edit just adding this here, it’s not saying cannabis in itself is harmful directly [edit2 although obviously it’s not completely risk free, just practically], it’s quantifying the harms that come from use. So that graph would be different if everyone vaped or only took edibles, for instance.)

          That’s why crack is so much higher as well. Smoking tends to be more addictive as well, no matter the substance. (“Addiction” being different from “dependence”.)

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  21 days ago

                  I can show you evidence of smoking causing lung cancer. Do you think smoking cannabis magically makes the smoke healthy?

                  While cannabinoids aren’t carcinogenic, a lot of the byproducts of smoking are.

                  This isn’t even debatable, man. Smoking is unhealthy. Were people to only use edibles, I doubt there’d be any mortality of any sort to report. And I doubt the veracity of the mortality rate in general. (I didn’t notice it, my bad for saying “read the chart, bruh”, as I was the one who had poorly skimmed it, because I’m rather high and thought I remembered what it said.) The mortality rate, afaik, would include things like if someone smoked only cannabis, got lung cancer, then those medical files would probably count towards this stat. I’m thinking there’s probably cases where some drunk driver has died in some way, and they test the blood, find alcohol and a tiny bit of cannabis, and then list “driving on drugs (cannabis)” as the reason or something.

                  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2516340/

                  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23846283/

                  If you’ve only ever vaped, (and not vape-liquids, but actual herb vaporisers) I don’t think you’re much at risk of lung cancer, really. I should like to see evidence to the contrary, and until I do, I don’t think I’ll believe it. Smoking, on the other hand? Drawing the byproducts of combustion into your lungs? Yes, I’m sure it causes cancer. And scientists tend to agree.

                  I’m off to hit my bong, all this talk of lung cancer made my lungs leak; got to go tar them a bit.