Marijuana withdrawl rivals that of nicotine

[freddie]

Marijuana withdrawal rivals that of nicotine

February 5, 2008 - 6:40AM

 

Quitting marijuana can cause withdrawal symptoms as severe as those from quitting tobacco, a small US study suggests.

 

The study, of 12 adults who were heavy users of both marijuana and cigarettes, found that stopping either substance triggered similar withdrawal symptoms.

 

As with nicotine withdrawal, quitting marijuana caused symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, sleep problems and difficulty concentrating, researchers found.

 

"Marijuana is not as innocuous as some people would lead you to believe," said lead researcher Dr Ryan Vandrey, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

 

Previous research had shown that there is in fact a "marijuana withdrawal syndrome," he said.

 

These new findings give some idea of its significance, Vandrey explained.

 

It's not clear from this study whether marijuana withdrawal symptoms hinder many people from successfully quitting.

 

However, Vandrey said that past surveys of marijuana users in treatment have shown that people with withdrawal symptoms tend to have more failed quit attempts.

 

The men and women in the current study, published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, used marijuana four times a day, on average, and smoked an average of 20 cigarettes per day.

 

None was in treatment or had any plans to quit either drug.

 

Vandrey and his colleagues had the volunteers go through three separate five-day periods of abstinence - one in which they quit tobacco, one in which they quit marijuana and one in which they quit both.

 

Across the group as a whole, the researchers found, withdrawal from marijuana was as severe as nicotine withdrawal.

 

Withdrawal symptoms were not worse, however, when the volunteers quit both drugs at once.

 

The findings, according to Vandrey, should help give heavy marijuana users some idea of what to expect in terms of withdrawal.

 

He said other studies are looking at ways to ease these symptoms, such as treatment with an oral form of THC, the main active substance in marijuana.

 

Sleep medication, Vandrey noted, could potentially help, since poor sleep is often part of withdrawal, but this has yet to be studied.

 

No no no. I have given up both drugs. Nicotine was hell; absolute torture to quit. Had to use patches ultimately. Cannabis on the other hand was incredibly easy. I often have breaks (one lasted 5 years) and am always amazed at how easy it is to quit. The only problems I had was a difficulty sleeping on the first night.

 

I would love to see the details of this one. 12 subjects who were cannabis and tobacco users? hmmmm

 

EDIT oops forgot to provide link

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/world...2090362518.html

Edited February 5, 2008 by freddie

[blackheartedprofit]

in my younger days i gave up smoking pot a number of times and found the same as you freddie, it was easy as, no probs whatsoever, cigarettes on the other hand, i have been a smoker for 35 years and every time i have tried to stop i have basically failed, the withdrawals from tobacco are far worse than from pot, all these "studies" coming out all across the world seem to have little to do with scientific research and mostly to do with propaganda

[Rocker]

Well, 12 people were used in the research. What a joke.

I agree, it's propapanda not to mention crap.

[Stoney]

what about another 12 people that only smoked weed and not smokes and asked them to give up

 

oh oh oh and not to mention lets all quit weed and get on some sleeping tablets instead

 

pfffft what a crock

 

cheerz

[Al B. Fuct]

yeah, what a bucket of shit. Nowhere in the real world does THC produce dependence and withdrawal in the character of alcohol, opiates and nicotine.

 

One for the Journal of Irreproducible Results.

 

31-year-old Dr Vandrey is on a mission. Here's some of his recent publications:

 

Publications

 

Budney, A.J., Moore, B.A., Vandrey, R.G., & Hughes, J.R. (2003) The time course and significance of cannabis withdrawal. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112(3), 393-402.

 

Budney, A.J., Moore, B. A., & Vandrey, R.G. (2003) Health consequences of marijuana use. In J. Brick (Ed.), Medical Consequences of Drug Abuse (pp. 171-218): Haworth Press.

 

Budney, A.J., Hughes, J.R., Moore, B.A., & Vandrey, R.G. (2004) Review of the validity and significance of cannabis withdrawal syndrome. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 1967-1977.

 

Vandrey, R.G., Budney, A.J., Moore, B.A., & Hughes, J.R. (2005) A cross-study comparison of cannabis and tobacco withdrawal. The American Journal on Addictions, 14, 54-63.

 

Vandrey, R., Budney, A.J., Kamon, J.L., Stanger, C. (2005) Cannabis withdrawal in adolescent treatment seekers. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 78, 205-210.

 

Budney, A.B., Vandrey, R.G., Hughes, J.R., Moore, B.A., Bahrenburg, B. (2007) Oral Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol suppresses cannabis withdrawal symptoms. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 86, 22-29.

Vandrey, R., Stitzer, M.L., Bigelow, G.E. (2007). Contingency management in cocaine abusers: A dose-effect comparison of goods-based versus cash-based incentives. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 15, 338-343.

 

Stitzer, M.L., Peirce, J., Petry, N.M., Kirby, K., Roll, J., Krasnansky, J., Cohen, A., Blaine, J., Vandrey, R., Kolodner, K., Li, R. (2007). Abstinence-based incentives in methadone maintenance: Interaction with intake stimulant test results. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 15, 344-350.

 

Moore, B., Bowden-Jones, H., Budney, A.J., & Vandrey, R. ( In Press) Treatment for cannabis dependence. In P. Tyrer & K. Silk (Eds.), Effective Treatments in Psychiatry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

 

Vandrey, R.G., Mintzer, M.Z. (in press). Performance and cognitive alterations. In L. Cohen, F.L. Collins, A.M. Young, D.E. McChargue, & T.R. Leffingwell (Eds.), The Pharmacology and Treatment of Substance Abuse: An Evidence-Based Approach. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

 

Vandrey, R.G., Budney, A.J., Hughes, J.R., Liguori, A. (in press). A within-subject comparison of withdrawal symptoms during abstinence from cannabis, tobacco, and both substances simultaneously. Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

 

E-mail contact: rvandrey@jhmi.edu

 

I guess if you have a particular scientific outcome in mind, you can prove it if you try hard enough. It's a great way to get funding.

[Reverend]

I always thought that irritability, anxiety, sleep problems and anything else came along when your children reached teenage hood

[Guest niall]

Just read this article before coming to OzStoners today, fuck it makes me angry. 12 people and they smoke BOTH tobacco and cannabis?!? What kind of idiots do they think we are? God the media will print anything!

[Al B. Fuct]

While we're on the topic of Bad Science...

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/20...ssandpublishing

 

The Guardian

Saturday February 2 2008

Ben Goldacre

 

There are no difficult ideas in this column. Like, for example, when I tell you about the Daily Telegraph front page headline which says "Abuse of cannabis puts 500 a week in hospital", and it turns out they're actually quoting a figure from a report on the number of people having contact with any drug treatment service of any variety. The colossal majority of these, of course, are outpatient appointments for drugs counselling, not hospital admissions. So there are not 500 people a week suddenly being put into hospital by cannabis. But this is not a news story: like their recurring dodgy abortion figures, it is the venal moralising of a passing puritan, dressed up in posh numbers.

 

Similarly, there's nothing very complicated about a report from CNW Marketing in Oregon, which the Independent's motoring correspondent has now quoted twice in his attempt to demonstrate that Hummers, Jeeps, and various other cars the size of a small caravan are - "in fact" - greener than smaller hybrid cars like the Prius (because readers love a quirky paradox).

 

CNW, a car industry marketing firm, manage to do this by making calculations over the lifetime of a car. They decide that about 90% of the environmental cost of a car's lifetime environmental impact is from its manufacture and recycling, not the fuel it burns whilst tootling around. This is the polar opposite of all other life-cycle analyses. CNW include all kinds of funny things to make their numbers work, like the erosion of the road surface of the people who travel to the car factory.

 

They also decide, for the purposes of their calculation, that people will keep their giant, cyclist-killing Jeeps for twice as long as their green hybrid cars, and if you think that is a leap of faith, they also decide that Prius drivers will travel about half as many miles a year as Jeep drivers.

 

This may be true if you observe the behaviour of people who choose to buy these cars. But it's hard to see how it is a factor for anyone making a new purchasing decision, since you're probably going to drive as much as you're going to drive, and buying a 4x4 is not suddenly going to turn you overnight into a chubby, middle-class parent driving your children 400 yards to school. Although for those of us afflicted with a disproportionate anality, the most infuriating thing about this report is the contrast between its opaque methodology and its spurious, four-figure accuracy. They confidently assert that your Hummer will last "34.96 years", which is almost as irritating as this paper slipping into bogusly accurate currency conversions for estimated figures, like last week's "$56bn (£28.26bn) international food supplement industry".

 

I know I'm wrong to care. On the BBC news site "crews were hopeful the 20m cubic litres of water could be held back and not breach the dam wall". And that'll be a struggle, since "cubic litres" are a nine-dimensional measuring system, so the hyperdimensional water could breach the dam in almost any one of the five other dimensions you haven't noticed yet.

 

In the Metro they reckon "solving problems is really down to keeping an open mind. Brain scans showed that volunteers who hit a mental block during verbal tests gave off strong gamma rays, which are linked with being focused and alert."

 

Gamma rays are produced by sub-atomic particle interactions, like electron-positron annihilation or radioactive decay. They will sterilise your brain very nicely, before the dead, irradiated neurons start to grow over with scar tissue, and that may well affect concentration.

 

And meanwhile, in Elle magazine they're promoting the scientific theories of yet another self-declared nutritional genius: "Marisa cited flour and water as the two biggest problem foods. She gave us flour and water and urged us to make a gloopy paste, with which we stuck pieces of paper to the wall. Then she said this is what's stuck to our insides when we eat pasta and bread."

 

They only do it to wind you up. If you close your eyes, it'll all go away again.

 

Please send your bad science to bad.science@guardian.co.uk

 

And if you can suffer through it, check out this INCREDIBLE Hansard bit, where a govt shill "expert," one Dr Reese, claims cannabis causes osteoporosis. Kid you not, he does! Marvel at how Bronwyn Bishop shits all over the highly respected Dr Alex Wodak...

 

You shouldn't have to depend on the preponderance of science to gather who is telling you the truth about the medical effects of cannabis, but the minority opinion science that indicates that cannabis is any more harmful than parsley is a minority opinion for a good reason, despite broad republication on every conservative news outlet on earth. Other scientists don't seem to be able to replicate the anti-drug wowsers' results.

[Rocker]

A lot of the funds for research come from government grants.

You must not bite the hand that feed you.

[SukonmiSkunk]

As with nicotine withdrawal, quitting marijuana caused symptoms such as irritability, anxiety, sleep problems and difficulty concentrating, researchers found.

 

lmfao... seems Dr Ryan doesnt have a fuckin clue about anything and should shut his mouth before the whole world realizes hes a fuckin idiot...

 

these symptoms are exactly why i smoke MJ in first place.. take away my meds.. and sure i get irritable, anxious and sleeplessness.. .. but thats due my severe dislike for fuckwit people, which there seems to be no shortage of..