Dry January? More like high January.
Many Americans enthusiastically partake in Dry January, but it is rarely pitched as fun. After the holiday stretch of office parties and family gatherings, Americans have come to use the start of every year to abstain from alcohol in the name of health and auspicious beginnings. It’s a time of discipline, of cleansing, of embodying your mood board, even if it makes you a drag at parties. And it is also, as weed companies have learned, a marketing opportunity.
In recent years, weed companies have started to lean into the argument that taking the edge off sobriety with a low-dose gummy or THC drink still counts as dry. My social-media feeds are flooded with posts from cannabis companies pitching their products as fun and approachable tools to get through an alcohol-free month. Mary and Jane, an edibles company, makes a tantalizing proposition: “Dry January made easy.” Artet, which specializes in beverages, sells a “High & Dry January” bundle that includes a bottle of its THC-laced aperitif. Some products are conspicuously health-coded: North Canna describes its cannabis drinks as “functional,” and Feals highlights its edibles’ low calorie count. Above all, the ads emphasize how little booze you drink when you get high instead.
This push for a weed-filled January is, of course, a blatant (and somewhat silly) attempt by cannabis companies to get more customers. But as restrictions on marijuana loosen, and more Americans find themselves able and willing to fit the drug into their lives, Dry January does appear to be offering an opportunity for experimentation. In fact, cannabis sales surged in January 2024, and 21 percent of Dry January participants who responded to a 2023 survey swapped booze for weed that month.
This type of liberalistic, “have what you want as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else,” mindset is what will eventually destroy civilizations, including ours. You can’t walk out of anywhere these days except you smell weed. Even right outside the hospital for God’s sake.
So much for starting the new year with optimism and healthier choices:
The shaky logic of replacing one drug with another during a month dedicated to sobriety is hard to ignore. If the point of Dry January is to improve health, replacing alcohol with cannabis—which is not a benign substance—seems counterproductive. Far less is known about the long-term use of cannabis compared with alcohol, but both can be abused, cause dependence, and interfere with daily function and productivity, Ryan Vandrey, who helps run Johns Hopkins’s Cannabis Science Laboratory, told me. Some people are predisposed to react negatively to cannabis, experiencing anxiety, paranoia, or even cyclical vomiting. Over time, long-term heavy cannabis use can exacerbate mental-health conditions such as schizophrenia and depression.
The cycle will continue, as increased schizophrenia and depression means prescribing more antidepressants and antipsychotics that people once again shouldn’t need, but it fuels the money circle fresh with even more cash. One of the reasons why I left traditional pharmacy is because you become a bonafide, legal drug dealer, depending on what city you work in.
That was over a decade ago, so I can’t even imagine how insane it must be today.
Just think - almost every area of healthcare that has increased treatment leads to better outcomes, except mental health.
One of the reasons why it’s true is because people aren’t living with purpose anymore. Many people don’t even think about the question:
“Why am I here?”
They’re always connected to a device, listening to something 24/7, are on some sort of drug cocktail, binge watching a new series, and so on.
They’ve never unplugged and detoxed their mind to really think about, “Why am I here?”