JJJ Hack Program - Do the mental health risks turn you off weed?

[SpunOutStoner]

I have never read any research that has convinced me that Cannabis is a cause of any form of mental illness, though it can trigger panic attacks.

 

The research mentioned in this thread is flawed, its as simple as that.

 

It does not prove anything. Further I do not give any credibility to media reports of research, I must read the research myself. The media always leaves out key, important facts, and draws its own conclusions, which are inevitably that cannabis is dangerous.

 

Yet I do not have a problem with the small minority of the population that is predisposed to psychosis from abstaining from all drug usage. I also think, ideally that teenagers- especially young teenagers- should abstain from substance use.

 

Marijuana should be legalized, it is not dangerous, it is highly safe, and MASSIVELY safer than alcohol or tobacco- both of these have nearly killed me.

 

If psychotic prone people who smoke pot are developing psychosis earlier than non-pot smoking psychotics, it may very well be because their illness is more severe, and thus they are more likely to smoke pot, or some other confounding factors, that's if the so called statistical association exists at all.

Edited February 11, 2011 by SpunOutStoner

[Psychonaut]

I have to say it turned me off cannabis for many years because after I kicked it at around age 18 I induced psychosis from it, I do believe addiction can cause people in certain age brackets potential mental health problems, most of them very minor, in a very small percentage more serious. Mine problem of course was also due to many other factors, mainly existing psychological issues, which of course you are not aware of at all at that age. Also to say someone at higher risk because of family history should not smoke, or should adjust their dosage is just wishful thinking, we were all teenagers once and all know we didnt give a sh*t

 

Of course I eventually grew up, grew out of it and can enjoy my weed now in moderation; not genetic in my case I believe, more environmental.

 

I do believe their is minor risk but it is a very small percentage, pales in comparison to the problems caused my alcohol and tobacco, sh*t poor diets probably cause more mental illness and health problems, and really at the end of the day it is all a p*ss poor effort of an excuse to keep cannabis illegal. Do believe though, legalized, legal age should be 21 and over, all the money saved in the courts and by police could also go to decent education, awareness programs, proper treatment for those who might be having issues.

 

Cheers

[Radic]

greetnz

more drug war propaganda

same old reefer madness BS

they run out of BS and now repeat themselves

here is the proof to discredit them

Debunking the "new" schizophrenia "evidence"

 

Michael R. James writes: Re. "Why pot really is making kids sick: the new scientific line" (yesterday, item 9). The article by Sophie Cousins was too emphatic in accepting the conclusion from the newly published study. Schizophrenia (SZ) is a terrible disease particularly as it afflicts adolescents and young adults but these strenuous attempts to place blame on a single environmental factor seems misguided.

 

Readers should understand that this paper has not generated new primary data but is instead a meta-study of previously published data. A meta-study attempts to extract analyses of greater statistical significance from as many published studies as can be found to meet specified eligibility criteria. Meta-studies are used when there is confusion or conflicting conclusions from individual studies, usually over a long period of time. They are often employed, or resorted to, when statistical power of individual studies is inadequate. Thus, by definition the hypotheses being tested are not easy to prove and the phenomena being examined are complex and poorly understood. Disease of mental health fit this bill to an extreme.

 

 

 

Clearly any attempt to increase power by pooling data from different studies is itself susceptible to problems, perhaps none more so than in mental health research. The meta-study must attempt to establish rules that pool appropriate data and exclude incompatible data. In this case, of 443 relevant published papers examined 354 of them were excluded from the meta-study. So 80% of papers were excluded for the various reasons given by Large et al. For example only those were retained that reported time of onset of psychosis rather than time of first treatment. These exclusions were an attempt to remove potential confounding issues that may have previously hidden significant associations. But excluding 80% of data raises the risk of ascertainment bias or publication bias, notwithstanding the authors’ statement “There was no statistical evidence of publication bias.†Statisticians try to take care of such nuisances but this scientist hardly ever believes their claims.

 

 

 

Personally I am not going to be persuaded by studies like this. There are too many other possibilities, for example an ascertainment bias caused by susceptible teens being over-represented in the drug user group (or starting earlier, or smoking more). There are contrary studies suggesting that cannabis use may actually ameliorate psychosocial effects in SZ. I also find the effect described (cannabis use advances disease onset by 2.7 y) suspiciously high especially since it comes from all users, not, say, high users. The authors reported that heavy use caused a greater effect but was not statistically significantly separable from light users; there is almost the hint in the paper that single use may be enough!

 

 

 

More worrying is how enthusiastically politicians and some in the medical profession will grasp onto conclusions like this. Indeed, there is the money to perform these kinds of studies because cannabis is the third most commonly used addictive drug, not because it is the third most harm inducing drug. (That honour will lie with drugs like Prozac or Stilnox and other prescribed behaviour-modifying drugs our society is overdosing itself on.) Like the hysteria over ecstasy (on average one death per year compared to 12,000 alcohol-related deaths (2006 data, all ages) or log orders lower than youth alcohol consumption or dozens of other things kids use or do) the harm from cannabis is self-evidently not easy to find or we wouldn’t need to spend so much research money searching for it.

 

 

 

And as a Crikey commenter noted "about 20 people under 25 experience early onset of schizophrenia and have smoked marijuana at least once" are not compelling numbers. Total abstinence is not going to make much difference to SZ prevalence—maybe none if, as is likely, all such people will still suffer SZ a few years later -- or have much public health impact at all really.

 

 

 

But even if we give the benefit of the doubt to such studies or the hypothesis, I doubt anyone seriously believes the "solution" is more draconian prohibition. And good luck on counseling kids on preventive measures for a disease which less than 1% of them will suffer. If anything these studies suggest that decriminalization and regulation of the product (THC levels etc) would be the way to go. But then commonsense never applies

 

 

heres a real study

check for your self

EURODRUG - INFORMATION LIST OF THE EUROPEAN COALITION FOR JUST AND EFFECTIVE DRUG POLICIES

 

From the IACM-Bulletin of 5 July 2009

 

Science: The development of the number of new schizophrenia cases in the UK does not support the hypothesis that cannabis use increases schizophrenia risk

 

According to research of scientists at Keele University in Staffordshire, UK, the incidence (the number of new diagnosed cases) of schizophrenia in the years 1996 to 2005 does not support the hypothesis that cannabis use increases the risk for the development of schizophrenia or psychosis. For this study an analysis of data from 183 practices in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was conducted. The study cohort comprised almost 600,000 patients each year, representing approximately 2.3 per cent of the UK population aged 16 to 44. Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining.

 

A recently published study found that cannabis use increased fourfold between 1972 and 2002 and 18-fold among people under 18 years of age. If the risk of schizophrenia is elevated 1.8-fold among light users and 3.1-fold among heavy users as suggested by another study, and assuming an elevated risk for 20 years, an increase in schizophrenia incidence of 29 per cent would have been expected between 1996 and 2005. Researches concluded that "the causal models linking cannabis with schizophrenia/psychoses are not supported by this study" and that "the underlying causes of schizophrenia/psychoses remained stable/declined over the study period."

 

(Source: Frisher M, Crome I, Martino O, Croft P. Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. Schizophr Res. 2009 Jun 26. [Electronic publication ahead of print])

---

 

Colleagues,

 

Writing in the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet in 2007, Zammit and colleagues proclaimed that smoking cannabis could boost one's risk of schizophrenia/psychoses by 40 percent or more. Naturally, this sky-is-falling sound-byte was repeatedly thoroughly by the MSM

 

<www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/2007072...-psychotic-later>

 

and was one of the primary reasons cited by PM Gordon Brown, ex-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and others as the impetus for reclassifying cannabis in the U.K.

 

<www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3156255.ece>

 

Of course, what the MSM did not report from the Lancet meta-analysis was that empirical data did not support the investigators hypothesis that smoking marijuana caused schizophrenia or other mental illnesses: "Projected trends for schizophrenia incidence have not paralleled trends in cannabis use over time" (page 326).

 

So, in order to test Zammit and other's supposition, investigators at the Keele University Medical School in Britain have now done the obvious, and performed a comprehensive analyses of trends in marijuana use and incidences of schizophrenia and/or psychoses in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005. (*Note, average age of diagnosis for schizophrenia is one's twenties.) Their findings will appear in the journal Schizophrenia Research:

 

"[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period," authors concluded. "This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. ... This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence."

 

<www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900>

 

Further, the results of a separate clinical trial published earlier this month reported that the recreational use of cannabis does not stimulate the production of dopamine in a manner that is consistent with the development of schizophrenia.

 

<www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19539765>

 

So, should we expect an apology from Gordon Brown any time soon? I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

 

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900

Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005.

 

Frisher M, Crome I, Martino O, Croft P.

 

Department of Medicines Management, Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. m.frisher@keele.ac.uk This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

A recent systematic review concluded that cannabis use increases risk of psychotic outcomes independently of confounding and transient intoxication effects. Furthermore, a model of the association between cannabis use and schizophrenia indicated that the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia would increase from 1990 onwards. The model is based on three factors: a) increased relative risk of psychotic outcomes for frequent cannabis users compared to those who have never used cannabis between 1.8 and 3.1, a substantial rise in UK cannabis use from the mid-1970s and c) elevated risk of 20 years from first use of cannabis. This paper investigates whether this has occurred in the UK by examining trends in the annual prevalence and incidence of schizophrenia and psychoses, as measured by diagnosed cases from 1996 to 2005. Retrospective analysis of the General Practice Research Database (GPRD) was conducted for 183 practices in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The study cohort comprised almost 600,000 patients each year, representing approximately 2.3% of the UK population aged 16 to 44. Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. Explanations other than a genuine stability or decline were considered, but appeared less plausible. In conclusion, this study did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005.

 

1 more time

 

http://www.earthreggae.com/yard/components/com_kunena/template/default_ex/images/english/emoticons/pull.gif

Marijuana Use Associated With Higher Functioning In Schizophrenics, Study Says http://www.earthreggae.com/yard/components/com_kunena/template/default_ex/images/english/emoticons/rleaf.gif

 

Manhasset, NY: Schizophrenic patients with a history of cannabis use demonstrate higher levels of cognitive performance compared to patients who have never used the drug, according to clinical trial data published online in the journal Schizophrenia Research.

 

Investigators at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, the Zucker Hillside Hospital in New York, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Princeton University compared the neurocognitive skills of 175 schizophrenics with a history of cannabis use with 280 subjects with no history of illegal drug use.

 

Researchers reported that cannabis users demonstrated "significantly better performance" compared to nonusers on measures of processing speed, verbal fluency, verbal learning, and memory. Marijuana use was also associated with better over all GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) scores.

 

Authors wrote: "The results of the present analysis suggest that [cannabis use] in patients with SZ (schizophrenia) is associated with better performance on measures of processing speed and verbal skills. These data are consistent with prior reports indicating that SZ patients with a history of CUD (cannabis use disorders) have less severe cognitive deficits than SZ patients without comorbid CUD. ... The present findings also suggest that CUD in patients with SZ may not differentially affect the severity of illness as measured by clinical symptomatology."

 

Researchers speculated that the observed differences in patients' cognitive functioning may be because subjects who use cannabis are more likely to "competently engage in social interaction" than nonusers.

 

"[T]he present findings suggest that SZ patients with comorbid CUD may represent a higher functioning subgroup of SZ," investigators concluded. "Future large-scale, prospective studies are needed to elucidate the nature of this relationship."

 

For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Deputy Director, at: paul@norml.org This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Full text of the study, "Cannabis use disorders in schizophrenia: Effects on cognition and symptoms," will appear in Schizophrenia Research.

seen

cannabis therapy .,.,

Schizophrenia sufferers are self medicating

the world should know

cannabis is the safest medicine we have

safe for babies, children, adults and elders

if you dont have a endocannabinoid system please dont inhale

cannabis is for all the rest

cannabis is proven to cause a homoeostatic rebalance of the endogenous endocannabinoid system

cannabis provides the opportunities, the mind, body and spirit needs to heal,., for every one who has a endocannabinoid system

cannabis therapy is safe and effective for everyone

 

Dr Matthew Large you know the truth

yet you support the BS

chances are

one day you will suffer from a aliment that cannabis can cure

did you know.,., the father of prohibition died of cancer and is now buried in the most spat on grave in the US

trivia.,., or is it??

 

free cannabis

free people

free land

[Psychonaut]

Hey Radic, I was thinking last night how I could not believe they could use the term "Reefer Madness" anymore; even if there is some small link with cannabis and those with a predisposition to certain mental illness to use the word madness is politically incorrect, very misleading but most of all very disrespectful for people who do suffer from schizophrenia which can be a horrific condition, a condition which is of the brain by the way and not even 'mental'.

 

This kind of journalism does no one any favors, especially when trying to educate the public properly of mental illness; quite disgusting really

Edited February 19, 2011 by Psychonaut

[Radic]

seen Psychonaut

fully agree

gotta love your every utterance

gutter journalism sux

sensationalism, fear, and ridicule

total disrespect

they show their true colours now

they dont care about the truth

they just wanna sell papers, make $$$

vampires living off the blood of the sufferer

 

if some one tells us lies every year., for 75yrz

are we really gonna believe their next sentence???????????

 

get a real job Dr Matthew Large

work for the people

for the planet

forward ever