I mean, I don't really blame people in China not trusting a guy of British decent (me) when I tell them that taking drugs is pretty cool and they should try it.
this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2026
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I have a friend from China who will get shitfaced off 20 shots during CNY but looks disgusted when someone pulls out a thc drink lol
That's not exclusively a china thing. It's common is places where weed isn't accepted. Humans in general are weird about anything associated with morality, I've met people who do shots and coke that think that people taking other substances are drug addled losers /shrug
I think it makes perfect sense.
The “war on drugs” is class war in the US waged on the working class. People are immiserated from capitalism, and even ostracized from social production entirely -with a health care system that also exploits them and alienates providers from the work of helping others. Then, after allowing these condition, and even importing drugs directly into the streets, the US government uses the pretext of drugs to abrogate their rights and create a permanent underclass. The US govt can even get to conduct military operations nearly anywhere in the world, including in their own borders, under the guise of fighting drugs.
But this also causes another issue, where working class people in the US live with the hypocrisy and then it creates its own sort of inertia. People often have totally unrealistic ideas about cannabis and drugs in the US because their first lesson was that anyone with any sort of authority is lying about them (absolutely true) so they say things like, “weed is harmless, actually” or “weed is good for you, actually” (not true). Weed is just relatively harmless, but it does have its own deleterious health and social effects. But its hard to even study them because of the climate. For instance, for years as a health care worker I would see a few patients every day who had “cyclic vomiting” or “abdominal migraines ” and they would ask for opioids, antiemetics, IV fluids etc. They would get subjected to tests and scans that would cost tens of thousands and then labeled drug-seeking. Some would even get exploratory surgery which would cause adhesions and other post-surgical complications that caused even more problems … but imo, often these issues were more likely caused by cannabis hyperemesis syndrome, but they couldn’t be honest about their cannabis use without reinforcing the “drug seeking” label and also they often dont even believe the things health care providers tell them about cannabis.
Yeah, my least favorite is the "weed isn't addictive" trope.
It's not physically addictive like cigarettes, but man every time I pick up weed it becomes a nightly habit that is hard to resist.
The idea that any substance that messes with dopamine regulation could possibly be described as "not physically addictive" baffles me.
It really isn't though. Everything can become a habit but there's no withdrawal associated with weed except insomnia in heavy users which is easily alleviated and not a symptom specific to weed (like you're just used to sleeping more sedated, anything sedating causing this).
It doesn't have the dopamine reenforcement or opiate reenforcement that makes you fiend for it. Like ciggies will have you snapping at everyone and crawling up the walls unable to think about anything else, weed just has you feeling a bit bored cause you're so used it it.
Shit running is more addictive lol.
there's no withdrawal associated with weed
Bullshit. I've gone through withdrawal every time I've quit heavy THC concentrate use cold turkey, which is nearly a dozen times at this point. It's hell. Constant vomiting, migraines, temperature control gets fucked so you're always feeling both hot and cold at the same time and sweating out all the fluid in your body which you can't replace because you can't even think about sipping water without scromiting.
No investigation, no right to speak
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you have obviously never experienced severe weed withdrawals lol. or, respectfully, done any actual investigation on the issue. it's simply not up for debate whether weed is physically addictive, it is. the idea that it wasn't was just kept afloat for years by stoner cope (speaking as a 10yr stoner myself). weed does have dopamine reinforcement. you can fiend for it. the withdrawals aren't dangerous in any direct sense like with alcohol or heroin, but they are real physical effects.
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It's a drug. It can be harmless if done correctly. All drugs carry this sort of problem with it. Tylenol isn't completely harmless either when abused etc. Weed suffers from worse issues of course but that is where the problem is. We treat drugs as if it's "good" drug or "bad" drug. Which honestly, now that I type this probably goes back to Western Christian societal issues but that's a whole ass other conversation.
In reality, it is a drug. I can take my vyvanse and go to sleep. My wife takes my vyvanse and she would probably be crawling up the wall with her heart almost pounding out of her chest. What's good for the daisy is poison for the cactus and all that.
Almost every drug has a duality to it. However, we can't have a normal conversation in this country without everything turning into "good" or "bad" when the truth of it is "well it depends with like five **** and 20 references"
Hell, weed can be harmless and then suddenly not if something happens to the person to change the situation. Human bodies are not static, which is something that is a radical thought to most people, which is wild to me. Something about at least Western medicine has us treating our bodies like they are literal machines, like an engine or something, when they are biological processes with a complexity that we can't even wrap our minds around.
Now, speaking as someone who is suffering from a auto immune disorder that has taken over 5 years to figure out (still not there), when you have shit insurance and have never had a good doctor in your life, you probably are going to cling to weed like a life raft if it has given you any amount of comfort. I had some of the best sleep I have had in ages on whatever they gave me for my surgery. Even before that, I had a bottle of oxy in my cabinets that I had a hard time getting rid of that I got for a different surgery that never happened. There is a little creature in the back of my mind that wants me to go find that shit and take it, cause it literally hurts me to sleep in a bed all night long. I will wake up the next morning in pain, and as of right now there really isn't anything I can do about it. The thing that has probably saved me from this is support and medical knowledge. The lizard brain, though, that desperately wants a good, nice, normal sleep, doesn't really give a shit. Now what happens if you don't have support, medical knowledge, or knowledge that good medical people exist? You take the drug and then are a dog with a bone if someone tries to take it away. That's not even getting into addictive issues.
The west is fucked. We are all clinging to whatever floats our way as the ship sinks, and sometimes those things drag us under faster.
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While I'm sure canabinoid hyperemesis is quite a real problem, my anecdotal experience is of an ER doc ignoring a first dose of a medicine taken just before the vomiting began and focusing on marijuana use and diagnosing someone with canabinoid hyperemesis. They just stopped taking the pill and told their doc they need to go back to the old one. Never had an issue since and weed use has dramatically increased around these parts
Yeah, I think this really just feeds into my point. People aren’t even always wrong to withhold drug use from doctors/health care workers because so many of them are judgmental freaks- that is another layer of the problem in itself. That is why the attitude towards drugs are so irrational here
On top of that, cannabis hyperemsis is something that is poorly understood and poorly researched. It was sort of fringe even less than years ago, with only one or two good papers coming from outside the US… And no research at all in the US is generally conducted because of federal issues with legality- historically, the vast majority of research in the UA is usually stuff that is incredibly biased
Then they come to the west coast and realize that
-America sucks, actually
-weed rocks, actually
Is this really a thing unique to China though? I've seen the exact same thing from people from other parts of Asia like Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc. The average East Asian person seems to much prefer normal cigarettes and alcohol over other mind altering things. And they seem to really really like cigarettes and alcohol.
Is this really a thing unique to China though?
no it's not and xhs keeps blowing my mind at how socially conservative the chinese are and recently as last night as i read through a heated & long exchange with an overwhelming majority of people calling for the police to intervene because a man was walking bare chested in a public space without exercising or swimming and with a tiny minority saying that it was no big deal.
the social conservatism reeks IMMENSELY of the social conservatism that i had to suffer and struggled to escape from in small town america as a queer & autistic brown person and it's just as immensely disappointing to learn that it's so strongly manifested in even the largest cities of the world's preeminent socialist hegemony.
My Chinese comrade told me when the exodus to xhs happened to remember that it was very much the Instagram equivalent used by mostly the well-to-do Chinese on the mainland. It is still very much a particular wedge of Chinese society and should be viewed as such.
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Somewhat off tangent, but I think the West has an hedonistic drive when it comes to drugs. The biggest example I could think of is tobacco. Tobacco started out as something that Indigenous people on Turtle Island smoked as part of a religious or civil ceremony. The modern recreational use only happened when European settlers began growing the crop as a cash crop, presumably to sell to other Europeans who smoke tobacco in order to cope with the fact that they live in the dumpster part of Asia called Europe. Peyote is a more modern example. For millennia, various Indigenous peoples use peyote as part of religious ceremony that is treated with respect and gravitas. But once hippy settlers found out about peyote, it became just another recreational hallucinogen to use and abuse.
I believe this is the giant cultural divide. East Asians (since it's not only China that has a problem with most recreational drugs) find recreational use of drugs (or at least Western recreational use of drugs since every culture has alcoholic beverages as part of their cuisine) completely off putting. Going "uh aktually, weed isn't that bad for you compared with cigs" misses the point.
And I believe humans have been getting high for fun longer than we've been humans. All great apes consume mind altering substances recreationally, we're not remotely special in that regard. Putting restrictions on who can get high and when is something that only occurred after humans had invented domination systems, and much like restrictions on who can have sex with whom and when, they exist only to strengthen the control of the ruling class.
Smoking tobacco is tremendously widespread and is absolutely recreational. Tea and increasingly coffee are also widespread and are absolutely recreational drugs.
Ephedra was used relatively extensively in the past for energy and focus, not really distinct to how uni students use speed or modafinil.
Everywhere has a history of drug use, the backlash is a recent historical thing and it's selective as hell.
I remember on the old subreddit trying to explain to a Chinese user that the War on Drugs is bad, and they could NOT let it go. I was trying to explain that, no, "the war on drugs" isn't a generic thing but rather a specific and very cruel and racist piece of, specifically American, legislation, and they kept on going "but you don't understand the opium wars". No amount of "china doesn't have 'the war on drugs'" was getting through to them. Very odd experience.
Weed is amazing it helps me introspect and think about things I wouldn't otherwise. It improves my life!
This, but in kind of a dark way.
A well-known trope among counterculture types is that it can "lift the veil" and let you see through layers of obfuscation that have been put around society and reality by The Man™️. And in my experience, I have found this to be quite true.
The dark part is, sometimes it helps me realize that I, am, in fact, The Man sometimes.
That is to say, I will realize that I have in fact put layers of obfuscation between my perception and my own reality, which serve as extremely comforting separations between my current self, both in situation and effort, and the material reality of the current state of my life and the actions I am taking within it.
So things like, oh I don't have enough money to maintain my lifestyle much longer, I'm not making enough effort to better my skillset to improve my career prospects, I am not putting in the work to keep my important social relationships healthy - these are very distressing thoughts, but I am a master as rationalizing and finding ways to justify these things to myself so that I can just kinda skate by and make it to another day.
But sometimes when I imbibe on the magical buds (not every time, mind you), I find that even my own self-made illusions are lifted, and I see my own negative contributions to these situations and the impending consequences looming before me that I've been happily ignoring. It's often quite distressing and can be a very anxious experience, but in taking a moment and examining the situation, it can be pretty clear its not just reefer-madness induced paranoia, but its actually just the real actual depressing situation I've put myself in, and I really actually have been avoiding dealing with it. The veil is lifted from my own self-delusion and I see my own bullshit for what it is.
It has seriously led to some of my most important self-renaissance changes in crucial moments throughout my life. Not every time, of course, and truthfully it sometimes makes the negative consequences of some things so much easier to bear that it can remove a major impetus from making some changes. But it absolutely does raise awareness more often than not, and sometimes the things it helps with are bigger than just "I should get off my lazy ass", and having something that can almost instantly alleviate a random dark cloud mood can really be incredible sometimes.
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I've seen multiple reports on China's CGTN news network which equated total drug overdoses in US with cannabis usage.
When alcohol and nicotine will actually kill you, but for some reason aren't considered drugs, so it's fine. But the drug that has medicinal properties, is far less addicting and won't kill you, is the devil incarnate. Most illogical.
The modern day reputation cannabis has as a dangerous drug in most places in the world is one of the dumbest things.
Alcohol and Nicotine both stimulate economic activity (Spending/Drinking and Smoking/Working). Weed is so demonized because it makes the user "lazy" aka content and happy, which has no economic value.
Capitalists only begrudgingly half-accepted weed once they realized the sheer profit and taxes that were being missed out on due to the popularity of the drug. It's pacifying and chilling-out effects now also have a secondary benefit, like Fentanyl and other opiates, of keeping the masses subdued and not revolting. That wasn't as big of a concern when things were better economically and socially, so there was more latitude for punishing weed to enforce productivity and economic growth. Now things are going to shit so weed has become a lot more functional and acceptable.
For a bourgie this is the order of preference for the state of their prole populations:
Best: Working hard, spending hard (Alcohol / Nicotine / Amphetamines / Cocaine / SSRIs) - these drugs are legal or rarely enforced
Next Best: Drugs for self-reflection, religious experience, growth, partying, overcoming trauma, artistic endeavors (Shrooms / Acid / MDMA / Ayahuasca / etc) - OK for "vacation" on occasion, they can be weaponized and used to increase productivity like micro-dosing acid. Occasional use is OK or even encouraged, continual repeated use is frowned upon.
Mid: "Lazy" and subdued, not generating economic activity but not actively causing unrest (Weed / Fentanyl / Opiates) - these drugs are demonized but still pushed on impoverished populations to keep them under control
2nd to worst: Dead / OD / Heavily Addicted to the point of being useless at anything else (Fentanyl but more of it / Alcohol but more of it / Crack / Other Hard Drugs) - whoops we pushed too hard
Worst: Rioting / Revolting - Somebody drug these folks!
Things in China right now are pretty good materially and getting better every day, so there's more emphasis on punishing "laziness" drugs that subdue the user. If conditions get sharply worse in China and civil unrest becomes more common, you may see these drugs tolerated more openly as more of the population resorts to self-medicating to deal with it.
I'm not even saying the bourgies are purposefully doing this, these populations are drugging themselves based on the conditions they find themselves in. The bourgies do control drug policy of the state though, which does have an effect, and there is a reason that the US government is the #1 drug dealer on Earth. They are also the #1 punisher of drug users. That's the two sides of the vice by which they grip us.
Liberals and normies often hear the "US is the #1 drug dealer on Earth" fact and disregard it (or accept it but don't truly internalize it) because they think "that can't be right, that same entity hates drugs so much! they are famously cruel at cracking down on drugs." They do not understand dialectics to realize that the US government purposefully contains this contradiction as a method of control. The farthest they will ever get is to call the US government "hypocritical" for this contradictory policy, as if it's some character flaw and not a purposeful strategy of tension.
Weed is so demonized because it makes the user "lazy" aka content and happy, which has no economic value.
Weed is demonised because of American racism, and their brain worms getting exported. People are equally not working on vodka, but you can't pretend beer is the brown and blacks polluting the white nation
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Weed is so demonized because it makes the user "lazy" aka content and happy, which has no economic value.
Small business tyrants operating pizza parlors and other takeout food and snack dispensing services strongly disagree, as does the cannabis industry. Weed can and is integrated into capitalist value extraction wherever it is sufficiently normalized under a capitalist economic system.
All value ascribed to particular drugs is largely ideological. They obviously do have their own distinct neuropharmacology and other observable material effects, but at the end of a day, for almost anything that has a history of widespread recreational and therapeutic use, patterns of usage and the context in which that use happens matter more than the properties of that substance itself. And societal attitudes towards the drug are almost fully uncoupled from either of that.
Objectively, a drug is a tool that can be used or misused. Societally, this approach goes largely unrecognized and is instead repaced with mythology and poorly understood heuristics, to the detriment of everybody.
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They really think weed is like heroin or something it's tragic.
The only reason to ever think that is just fully assimilating american drug war propaganda, how did they ever get there
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When i had my gallbladder out, they gave me two low-grade percocets and a month's worth of ibuprofen and told me that would be proper pain control
Thank god I live in a state with legal cannabis because I would have been in a lot of pain without it
Was high as shit every minute for about three weeks, then pared off as the pain subsided and I healed up
Didn't get addicted, don't use every day, body healed up pretty damn good
I hope someday they tackle tobacco, avoiding shitty methods that is
Anything dealing with law enforcement is awful (at least from what I see) on XHS. It's funny that they are both "shooting U$ civilians 15 times in the back is good", "report foreigners (implied to be Indian) working in unskilled jobs for a cash prize" and "cops here just want to avoid doing any work and always side with the wrong people". It truly shattered my belief that the US would stay ahead in the absurdist politics race.
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I would like to go to China and slap cigarettes and beer cans out of people's hands as part of my own righteous war on drugs.
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