Your last two sentences are what I was getting at. THC has always been associated with paranoia. It is also associated with worsening depression when used for a long period of time, at least that's what I was told by the experts when I was working in restorative justice with teenagers. I was never sure about that claim. Whether people turn to drugs when they are depressed or have other emotional issues or if the drugs the kids were using, caused their issues, which was the party line in that field. Verifiable, reproducible research has shown us that of all the people who experiment with drugs and or alcohol about 10% become addicted and or dependent. Something is obviously different about the 10% of people who become addicted. As a culture we seem to be very resistant to the idea that something about the way we live is causing so much stress for many people that they become drug dependent or alcoholic. I don't know if those numbers, the 10%, are still good, still accurate. I doubt that they are. America has never seen a drug epidemic like the opioid crisis. During that time and for the last 50 years life has been getting harder and harder for people on the lower half of the income scale. They're working harder for less money. They're seeing the good job they had, go away and be replaced by less good jobs. Guys in midlife who were once in tech, working for solid 5 figure salaries are now working at Home Depot for a fraction of what they used to earn. A number of books have been written on this subject. Books about what it is like to be working hard and still being poor in the richest country in the world, the richest country in the history of the world. By the way, what keeps us the richest country in the world is what is owned by the top few percent. We no longer have the highest standard of living in the world in fact we don't have the highest of much of anything in the world if you're looking at the figures that come from the government and from University studies.

If THC helps you with anything, I'm glad you have the privilege of getting it legally. Let's not forget that most people in America don't have access to legal marijuana and many of the people who do have access to legal marijuana cannot afford it because the cost is prohibitively high. A very large portion of the people who inhabit our prisons and our jails are there because of marijuana. If you were arrested for marijuana and you are black, you face a much different future than if you are white, upper middle class, and college-educated.

After using GeneSight testing to find out which psychotropic meds would work best for me or at least which my body could metabolize I found very good solutions to y very severe depression. I also employed bibliotherapy and I saw a psychologist regularly for a number of years. I was one of the fortunate ones who could afford both my medications and had insurance which would pay for my psychologist. Remembering those times I cannot imagine that getting high on anyting wood have improved my situation.

We also need more research into the other components of marijuana which are produced in much smaller quantities than the THC. I heard an interview on public radio with a scientist from a company that developed a process for turning sugar into THC. They manipulated the DNA of yeast to cause it to actually ferment the sugar into THC and they were hopeful that they could use the same process to produce much greater quantities of some other less studied components of cannabis

, which may have even greater medical value than the ones we know about now.

Make no mistake about this. It was my generation that began the push for legalized marijuana for medical purposes and it was definitely a matter of getting the camel's nose into the tent. Another first step in legalizing recreational marijuana. The most dangerous and deadly drug that we use in America is alcohol. Nothing has a body count like alcohol and drunk driving but it's legal because it's part of our culture. Marijuana is now part of our culture and has been for at least 50 years and if two should be legal. Some experts believe that all drugs should be legal, that they are a medical problem not a police problem not a problem to be solved with jails.

I'm not sure I agree with that idea but I do wonder, I think about how much money there would be to use to treat addiction if we didn't have to employ the police and the courts and the prisons to deal with drugs. The last time I saw any kind of reputable information was about 15 years ago. This report said that if you took everyone who was in jail or prison for 1/2 pound of marijuana or less and release them you would be releasing 50% of the United States prison population. Think about that.

Again I'm glad you have something that's working for you oh, I do too. Love & blessings