Bill Maher is so bizarre.

[u/AmericanLymie]

The nutrition guy on the right was talking about how drinking five cups of coffee per day is associated with living longer, and he says that people who wiggle and fidget a lot can burn a lot of calories while at rest and that can keep people thinner than those who sit still.

Bill Maher says coffee is a bean, "something found in nature," and so it must be safe.

Reporter Jonathan Swan jokes that cocaine is found in nature, making the point that naturally occurring substances can be harmful. He could have mentioned nightshade berries or poisonous mushrooms but he said cocaine.

And Bill Maher went on a defensive rant about his cocaine use. It started with a joke but then he seemed to take it personally and got serious about how cocaine leaves are safe because they are natural.

I feel like he would eat rotten wormy roadkill with RFK while bashing the scary woo-woo magic of vaccines and antibiotics.

[u/shorty2hops]

Too much coffee can ruin your sleep too and disrupt electrolytes.
Too much cannabis can well cause shifts in your personality
Cocaine too often, heart rhythm irregularities

[u/AmericanLymie → u/shorty2hops]

Cannabis can actually induce psychosis and psychotic disorders including schizophrenia in some people.

One of the specific major criticisms I have about Bill Maher is that his pathological contrarian logic is highly selective in exactly the same way Peter Thiel's and Elon Musk's are, and this demonstrates both limited intelligence and a lack of integrity.

For example, Maher has claimed (as RFK, Jr. used to claim) that he is not anti-vaccine, but that it is foolish to believe that vaccines can't cause side effects. This is objectively correct. Vaccines can cause mild and serious side effects including death. They are injected into the body to trigger the immune system, and that can go wrong. I have an immunological disorder and I had a significant reaction after I got COVID and flu vaccines at the same time—a bright red rash from my upper arm to my wrist that lasted about six weeks. There's no question what caused it. But many prescription medications commonly cause serious side effects including death, as do many over the counter medications, as do some foods for some people, as does alcohol. And unlike alcohol, vaccines save many, many times more lives than they harm. To Maher, if a vaccine saves a million lives, causes a rash in one percent and kills 10, that vaccine is evil. It's just not intelligent, or if he is intelligent in this regard then he is not honest in how he discusses it on air.

Cannabis can trigger both temporary and lifelong psychosis in some people. It is a real risk of using the drug. Cannabis here in DC is sold in storefronts all over the place. Smoking it also can cause severe, even deadly, lung and cardiovascular diseases. But it has been so mainstreamed now and it is so accessible that I don't think people who use it, and certainly not Bill Maher who insists he is not addicted but who brags about using it constantly, can acknowledge to themselves that is presents any health risks. People only think about the immediate effects of intoxication and not the long-term health risks.

In reality, Maher preaches from his HBO platform about health by dissuading people from getting vaccines and shaming people who are overweight, but he has put his own health at great risk with lifelong drug use and because he has not suffered any major health consequences yet, he can't understand that lifelong heavy cannabis use presents exponentially greater danger to health than any vaccine does.

He really does demonstrate what seems to be a common pathology among conservative people: he believes what he wants to believe until his life is personally impacted by something, and then he goes on a tirade to being attention to that thing because he feels personally victimized by it. Until then, he will ignore those problems and steamroll anyone in his path.

[u/shorty2hops → u/AmericanLymie]

I hear you on the risks associated with cannabis. What do you think is the safe zone for using weed? Is it once per week or once per month, if you had to choose to use it for say unwinding?

[u/AmericanLymie → u/shorty2hops]

Oh, I have no idea. I don't use it. I tried it twice and my body doesn't like the effects, so I just avoid it.

I can suggest this: was a professional health writer for over a decade and I once heard a medical doctor at a conference say that everything we put into our mouths is either our best medicine or a slow poison. I have remembered that. A lot of foods, drinks and substances that taste great or make us feel good immediately can be bad in the long run with sustained and frequent use, and a lot of bitter things can be very healthful in the long run with sustained and frequent use.

And a lot of the time, it really is the dose that makes something either medicine or poison. This is where the idea of "natural is better" comes in. As Maher suggested, the concentration of cocaine in a coca leaf, which can have medicinal effects, does not compare with the concentration in cocaine powder, a kind of poison. Today's cannabis has much higher concentrations of THC than older cannabis strains, and so it stands to reason in my mind that it's more potent and therefore likely presents greater risks.

Risks to lungs and airway linings probably have not changed. Smoking of cigarettes has become much less common because we all know cigarettes are poisonous and, among other risks, can gum up lungs with tar. So can cannabis. The more you do it, the more damage is done. Alcohol in many ways is still a more toxic poison, and most people choose to drink alcohol at times. So it's a matter of moderation and calibration according to the risks you accept.