Thread

1. alexandre_m · 1790644533 · focus · HN ↗

   > while young people are drinking less alcohol due to health and financial concerns

   My observation is that gen-z spends less time socializing in real life, and drinking remains a social habit for the most part at a younger age. While they drink less, cannabis, vaping and psychedelics are on the rise.

   It's a nice claim to say they are more responsible, but it tells an incomplete story.

   1. 1-6 · 1790645754 · focus · HN ↗

      I may be old-fashioned but the substitute mind-altering drugs you're mentioning does not sound like a more responsible pathway.

      1. asa123 · 1790646980 · focus · HN ↗

         it's really not

         looking from the tail end of the generation, many of my friends ( and also I ) were led to believe somehow that things like marijuana, psychedelics, non-Alcohol have such low consequences that are entirely a rounding error compared to alcohol. which is ...

         1. WalterBright · 1790648765 · focus · HN ↗

            I have a couple friends in their 60s who drank a single glass of wine every day, for decades. Then, they decided to stop. They were amazed at how much better they felt.

            Cannabis today is much stronger than it was in the 70s.

            1. bunderbunder · 1790650390 · focus · HN ↗

               In places in the US where it’s now been decriminalized, it’s a completely different beast from what it was in the 70s. So much so that the potency of the plants kind of isn’t even relevant anymore for typical users. It’s a far cry from when I was a kid and there was peer pressure to keep taking hits from a joint of unknown potency at too quick a pace to do any sort of dose control.

               The people I know who are using it are buying it as tablets and gummies that come in 1mg increment doses, and taking exactly as much as they want to have, which typically isn’t much.

               Vape pens are presumably also more consistent and predictable, and seem to be taking over. I can’t even remember the last time I smelled actual weed smoke.

               It actually strikes me as much more healthy than alcohol culture, where dose control can still be a problem because it’s hard to tell how many units of alcohol the bartender put in your cocktail, and driving home afterward is still quite normalized.

               1. Karrot_Kream · 1790665812 · focus · HN ↗

                  Yes I find this a big difference in modern weed culture and alcohol culture. At my age most of my friends know their tolerance for weed quite well and we usually keep low dosage edibles around just to offer for friends who consume weed a couple times a year.

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