The popular LSD and psychadelic advocacy online and elsewhere is an expression of the mainstream ideology. The foundation of our collective ideology tells us these drugs should have some profound life-altering and improving effect. Obviously, when examined critically, the premise is ridiculous on its face. Everyone I know who regularly does these types of drugs is not really doing much else with their lives. As for Steve Jobs, he was not a regular LSD user, he was a baby boomer who bragged about using it to make himself seem unique or different, like many of his generation.
You see a similar sort of popular collective delusion with people who claim Cannabis cures cancer or other disease. Sorry but hard no. There is no such thing as "Medical Marijuana." It's simply marketing and propaganda to get the public into associating virtue with Cannabis use, with the end goal of eventually changing policy.
You seem to have heard one extreme, that cannabis cures diseases, and you’ve snapped back to the other extreme where you state there is no such thing as a medical use of cannabis. Have you seen the studies? Have you looked into CBD?
Yes, there’s a lot of exaggeration if you’re listening to some person who knows nothing about science, but there are true benefits with it as well. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water as they say.
You can't exactly placebo cannabis. Anyone taking part in the study wants to take cannabis so when they take the unmarked plant product out of the packet they will tell the person running the study how amazing it is. The scientist will then report 100% success because everyone taking part is loving the new treatment.
Imagine if medical heroin was a new discovery. "I had depression so I took medical heroin and now I'm cured, we should be giving this to kids instead of pills". Because it makes you feel good and that reduces pain, people would believe it's a magical cure for everything rather than just being a painkiller. Ironically, medical heroin would actually be a safer and more effective cure for all of the things cannabis is being suggested for. The only real downside to heroin is the cost and that's what causes the societal problems.
I'm sorry but your preconceptions are way off. Medical studies on cannabis are not just about smoking weed and feeling better because you got high from it.
Here are the two main areas of research:
- For two forms of treatment-resistant epileptic seizures, Lennox–Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome, it is the closest you can get to a "miracle" treatment -- significantly reduces seizures with no clear downside other than feeling the effects. You can extract just the specific cannabinoid (cannabidiol) needed to treat it, so that there are no unwanted psychological effects from it.
- It is nearly irreplaceable for treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. The alternatives (prochlorperazine, promethazine) just don't have a cost-benefit analysis that adds up the way cannabis does.
And two important areas with a lower quality evidence are anorexia and migraines.
It's just another "experience" in life. Many have found it significant. I agree it's prob not some panacea thing... but clearly it let's people feel some other way of thinking and feeling things in their life and the world.
Which can probably be an impetus to solve some forms of depression, or have a change in life etc.
So I think you're partially right but also partially wrong at writing it all off as useless or some fad.
Is it possible that people just don't want to talk to you about their medical treatment? I know perfectly productive, happy people that use marijuana for a variety of purposes, both recreational and medical. But in general, people don't share their medication list with the world, so it doesn't surprise me you're not running across them, especially with this view.
You see a similar sort of popular collective delusion with people who claim Cannabis cures cancer or other disease. Sorry but hard no. There is no such thing as "Medical Marijuana." It's simply marketing and propaganda to get the public into associating virtue with Cannabis use, with the end goal of eventually changing policy.