informed consent for medication needs to include interactions with common recreational drugs, i think
most meds these days will only tell you ‘limit alcohol’ and wont even make a mention of weed (though if this is different in places that have legalised it i’d be interested to know). and they never tell you specifically why you should limit alcohol and thats something everyone should have the right to know
because i was terrified as a teen getting on the meds im on now, thinking i would never be able to drink and that i had to forgo taking my meds for the day if i did. then i learned that all my meds did was to increase the effects of alcohol and that the ‘limit alcohol’ warning in that case was more just a ‘you will get drunk faster than you are used to’
but in other cases, such as with some antibiotics, the ‘limit alcohol’ means ‘if you drink more than a little, this medication will stop working’
and some meds are actively dangerous when taken with alcohol/other drugs, putting you at risk of getting very sick or just dead
but every single time all you get is that little label saying ‘limit alcohol’
anyway, i will once again shamelessly promote my favourite harm reduction website in the whole world, the drugs.com interactions checker. standard boilerplate applies that ‘this isnt a substitute for medical advice from a professional’ but its sure as fuck better than nothing
i like the term “gallows humor” because it always makes me think of someone getting sentenced to death and being like “i have GOT to be the funniest person at my public execution”
It’s called “environmental amnesia” and it’s an actual issue environmentalists discuss how to combat. The climate crisis makes it more widespread but it’s been something that’s happening for generations. The story of The Lorax describes it beautifully. The idea that what you remember is what you consider normal, but if the changes happen slowly over generations, you don’t see how large they are because you don’t personally remember them being very different, even if you were told stories about it.
That feeling where you go “ didn’t we used to have four seasons? It wasn’t this hot when I was a kid was it??” And then you have to figure out if it’s just that you’re getting older. And then it turns out no the entire planet is falling apart.
ALT
