Link Between Marijuana and Psychosis Goes Both Ways

An anonymous reader writes with news of a study out of the Netherlands (abstract) about the link between psychosis and marijuana use. The researchers wanted to examine what caused the relationship — was marijuana use leading to psychosis, or did those suffering from psychosis have a higher tendency to seek out marijuana? As it turns out, they found evidence for both. From the article: "... using pot at 16 years old was linked to psychotic symptoms three years later, and psychotic symptoms at age 16 were linked to pot use at age 19. This was true even when the researchers accounted for mental illness in the kids' families, alcohol use and tobacco use. Griffith-Lendering said she could not say how much more likely young pot users were to exhibit psychotic symptoms later on. Also, the new study cannot prove one causes the other. Genetics may also explain the link between pot use and psychosis, said Griffith-Lendering."

Comments

So

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we learned nothing of value except that studies like this have inconclusive results. Oh, and teenagers can experience psychosis before, during and after using drugs.

Re:So

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Falling in love is> a form of psychosis.

Re:So

[flaming error]

Especially true when the study is conducted in a swing state like the Netherlands.

Re:So

[Jetra]

So is puberty.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

"Both of the above" is not the same as "inconclusive".

Re:So

[Immerman]

Griffith-Lendering said she could not say how much more likely young pot users were to exhibit psychotic symptoms later on

Sounds like a sign of a BS study to me - either your sample size and methodology are sufficient to show a numerical correlation, or they're not. If they are, then it's *really* easy to specify the degree of correlation - aka how much more likely it is that a person in group A will also be B. If not, well then your study didn't actually find a statistically significant correlation, did it?

Re:So

[Kjella]

So, we learned nothing of value except that studies like this have inconclusive results. Oh, and teenagers can experience psychosis before, during and after using drugs.

And if we knew the results of the study up front, we wouldn't have needed to do the study in the first place. As much as some people like to believe this is some sort of conspiracy theory to keep grant money flowing it's completely natural that at times you find that the results are inconclusive, it's only with 20/20 hindsight you can say it was pointless.

Re:So

[drainbramage]

Calm down, I think he was joking.
I'm pretty sure Netherlands is where Peter Pan is from.
Or Peter Noone, one of thos guys.

Re:So

[jimmetry]

Some are like that, but please don't generalise and say it's everyone. There are plenty of people who use it the way others use alcohol and live normal lives. Dumb people aren't made any smarter by pot, so they still have equally dumb ideas... Pot just happens to be what they talk about. The neuronal connections were never there in the first place.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

No, we learned that there is a link and that it goes both ways. What your propose is that we learned there may or may not be a link and it may or may not go one way or the other. That is not what it says, it says that there is a link and that the link goes both ways. Not sure why misunderstanding the article gives you a +4.

Re:So

[v1]

So, we learned nothing of value

it's just a reminder that "correlation is not the same as causation". In simpler terms, when you notice that you have a Y when you are studying an X, it doesn't mean Y contributed to X. Sometimes it means X contributed to Y. (and sometimes they mutually reinforce each other)

It'd be like finding a link between eating doritos and smoking pot, and thinking the doritos were contributing to the pot smoking. That one's a bit more obvious, but in any event you can't just automatically assume Y is causing X without more thorough research. And it looks like that's just what they did. So it wasn't wasted time.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it so hard to admit that your sacred weed isn't as perfect and healthy as you imagine it is?

I think it's more a matter of being a little irritated that despite a basically inconclusive study, the headlines are suggesting that there is indeed a link.

Re:So

[Lumpy]

Because they all were smoking pot....

Vote? no way man, I still have cheetoes left.....

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd be more inclined to listen to pro-drug arguments if they were rational and not based on feelings or false promises.

I have never used pot and have no plans to, regardless of legality, so I don't have any direct emotional investment in it. However, I do not care if others do it or not, and I don't want my tax money wasted on some people's witchhunts to deal with it.

I don't see why there needs to be a more complicated argument than that. There shouldn't be any irrationality or false promises needed. Half the time I see overly extensive arguments in favor of such things, it is to counter similar overly extensive negative arguments, neither of which should really matter in the end.

Re:So

[EdIII]

You're ignoring science and rational arguments.

A link between psychosis and pot?

The only people more in the closet than homosexuals, are pot smokers. Scientists, judges, cops, doctors, lawyers, dentists, business executives, etc. smoke pot.

Given the sheer amount of pot usage since the 60's I have to reasonably conclude this research is faulty. Otherwise, we would be seeing far more instances of psychosis directly related.

It is medically defined as:

Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality that usually includes:

False beliefs about what is taking place or who one is (delusions)

Seeing or hearing things that aren't there (hallucinations)

I would assume the researchers are not talking about behavior while under the influence, but effects that last long after usage has terminated. Delusions and hallucinations are quite prominent and not easy to hide. Not as easy to hide, as say, an functioning alcoholic. Which, by the way, alcohol is listed as a cause and risk factor for psychosis as well, and DTs are because of withdrawal.

It's not difficult at all for me to change my views regarding "weed". As long as it is presented with proper science, and not conclusions that are refuted with such ridiculous ease with only common sense and experience in the last six decades.

Re:So

[Baloroth]

You misinterpreted her statement. The correlation is, in fact, given in the abstract (relevant quote below). What she says she cannot do, because the study did not examine it, was how likely young pot users were to exhibit psychotic symptoms later, i.e. when they were not young (they only covered between 13 and 19 years old, looks like).

Findings
Significant associations (r=.12-.23) were observed between psychosis vulnerability and cannabis use at all assessments. Also, cannabis use at age 16 predicted psychosis vulnerability at age 19 (z=2.6, p<.05). Furthermore, psychosis vulnerability at ages 13 (z=2.0, p<.05) and 16 (z=3.0, p<.05) predicted cannabis use at, respectively, ages 16 and 19.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

GP also wrote:

I'd be more inclined to listen to pro-drug arguments if they were rational and not based on feelings or false promises.

This is where GP generalizes. In GP's mind, there is no such thing as a pro-drug argument that is rational and not based on feelings or false promises. All pro-drug arguments are based on feelings or false promises and are coming from irrational potheads.

I'm not really sure how you missed that. It's right there, in the text.

Re:So

[harley78]

not arguing any of your points; just, lol kids is crazy! what's the actual of kids that age these days with new definitions of psychosis?

Re:So

[davester666]

So is life...

Re:So

[shaitand]

"I'd be more inclined to listen to pro-drug arguments if they were rational and not based on feelings or false promises."

Because someone who refers to all individuals taking a pro-drug (what does that mean? I've yet to hear a definition of drug that doesn't encompass water) stance as potheads is clearly someone ready for rational debate.

Re:So

[shaitand]

The real problem I see with this is that they seem to view psychosis as a binary issue that magically appears fully formed one day and does not exist at all the day before. My mother has psychosis, my grandfather, my uncle, both my aunts, and my great grandmother. You could say I've seen this progress before.

The shrinks would tell you that they developed psychosis in their mid to late twenties in all cases. The reality is that they all had varying degrees of mild psychosis their entire lives (or at least during the time I knew them) and that psychosis wanes and waxes throughout the course of time and it peaked in their mid to late 20's and began to bloom into full blown psychotic episodes but after that point it has continued waxing and waning cycles.

Crazy people, attract other crazy people. I know a gentleman who had mental issues and murdered his wife and married her sister (the police never convicted him). Another who read some phrase about the hand of the devil in the bible and tried to chop his own hand off with an axe to purify himself. I could go on here. These people didn't live their entire lives in these states but as far as I can tell they've had a degree a mental illness their entire lives.

So while I can believe that something can trigger or mitigate a psychotic episode I simply don't believe that any external force will cause the mental illness that causes an individual to be capable of having one. It seems far more likely these individuals are either self medicating or are simply a bit more eccentric and more inclined to utilize substances that help them escape from a world they don't quite sync with.

Re:So

[jandersen]

So, we learned nothing of value except that studies like this have inconclusive results. Oh, and teenagers can experience psychosis before, during and after using drugs.

No quite - by far the most research is like this; it is only ever intended to add a very small bit of knowledge to the pool, and expecting it to deliver big, revolutionary insight is simply a misunderstanding. This study seems to confirm the very reasonable hypothesis, that there is a correlation between drug use and mental illness. At some point, there will be a large scale meta-analysis of all these small bits of data, and that will tell us much more, but right now we are simply collecting information.

What I don't agree with is the way these tiny results are always press-ganged into serving as "proof" for somebody's pet attitude. So this result will be taken as "proof" that "Dope Makes You Insane!!!". What we never hear sensationalised is that "Alcohol Makes You Insane", "Tobacco Use Makes You Insane" or "Watching Soap Operas Makes You Insane"; as far as I am aware, there are similar correlations between these behaviours and mental illness - it probably all revolves around a wish to escape an oppressive reality.

The best thing we could do as a society, would be to realise that all these things carry with them a certain, minor risk, and that we should learn to live with them in a responsible way. We already know now that from a physical health perspective it would be miles better if people stayed away from alcohol and tobacco and smoked pot instead. Even if it produced an increase in mental illness, I'm sure the savings on physical health would more than compensate, financially. Yes, that may seem like a very cynical way of looking at things, but money saved would then ideally be available for better education about how to use drugs sensibly, among other things. Besides, I don't think we would see an increase - after all, the number of alcohol related psychoses would probably go down more than cannabis related ones would go up, since alcohol is in objectively so much more damaging.

Re:So

[mcgrew]

no we learned that by pretending to be anti marijuana, we can get federal money to do a report that offers nothing of value.

Not necessarily, the work could have as easily come to a different conclusion. An example is a group that tested the assumed link between marijuana and cancer. The assumption ("theory") was that since all smoke contains carcinogens, marijuana must cause cancer, so they looked at geezer nonsmokers, potsmokers, cigarette smokers, and smokers of both. They fully expected pot smokers to have twice the cancers of nonsmokers, and smokers of both to have twice the cancers of those who smoked only cigarettes.

What they found was that those who smoked both pot and cigs had half the cancers of those who only smoked cigs, and those who smoked only pot had fewer cancers than nonsmokers although the difference was statistically insignifigant.

So the anti-pot web sites changed their text from "marijuana causes cancer" to "marijuana smoke contains carcinogens." Disingenuous bastards, aren't they? If you have to stretch the truth to make your point, your point is not valid.

Unscientific, I know, but most abusers of most substances that I know (and marijuana is very hard for an adult to abuse but alchohol and other drugs are easily abused) are crazy and were crazy long before the first time they got high. We have little to no mental health treatment here in the US, which leads crazies to self-administer pot, heroin, alcohol, crack, you name it. If we had free mental health care the drug "problem" would be DRASTICALLY reduced.

Re:So

[doggo]

"Every time we get studies talking about the health risks of marijuana, there are potheads up in arms about the results. Is it so hard to admit that your sacred weed isn't as perfect and healthy as you imagine it is?"

I think I speak for the majority of potheads, maaan, when I say that we know there are some risks.

Like, first of all, we're smoking the shit, so there's that, man. That's probably not good for your breathers, y'know, man? But, putting aside the danger from the corrupt running-dog capitalist dealers, and the pigs, man, there's probably less danger to your health than sucking down a six-pack like a jock, man. I mean, heyyy, man, when's the last time you saw a bunch of stoners, like, start up a big fight in a bar? Or like drunk drivers man. Yeah, when you're stoned you have a pretty big chance of, like, getting honked at excessively for going too slow, or getting lost. But you're less likely to end up getting busted for speeding.

Re:So

[mcgrew]

Every time we get studies talking about the health risks of marijuana, there are potheads up in arms about the results.

The "results" were "we don't know." Care to mention some of the risks that have been shown by science? Because I've seen absolutely zero. I'm also 60, healthy as a horse, and have been smoking pot for forty years.

It isn't up to me to show you it's safe, it's up to you to show me it isn't. So fare I've seen no evidence of any danger to adults whatever.

Re:So

[EdIII]

We have six decades and literally billions of instances of pot usage. That's a huge sample pool, in which the effects, would have been noticed if they are as prominent as psychosis. If pot turned 1/1,000,000 people's eyes glowing purple, we would have seen it by now. Sounds like hyperbole, but consider the rest of my statement.

Remember, psychosis is delusions and hallucinations. I've never hallucinated on pot, or had delusions either. I'm not anywhere near a heavy smoker. My usage is less than a 100 times in 30 years. It's been a once in a while thing, mostly on vacations. My experience has led me to conclude it is far less dangerous than pharma drugs, and far far far far less detrimental than Tequila.

This study is talking about delusions and hallucinations as risk factors for pot usage, after pot usage has ceased. Common sense will tell you that is bullshit. Delusions are defined as believing situations are real when they are not, or believing you are somebody else, or that other people are somebody else. I've never experienced that, or heard of that, due to pot usage. Ever.

To use your example of smoking, you see people develop smoker's cough right? There are many clearly evident signs of heavy smoking usage that you don't need to be medically trained to see, or even feel.

In the last 6 decades have you seen or heard of people walking around with delusional behavior seeing and hearing things that are not there, and that it has been directly traced back to weed usage?

Me either. I've known quite a number of very respectable people, some much older now, that exhibit no signs of psychosis at all.

So my original point stands. We don't need a study to know that these conclusions are complete bullshit because the conclusions themselves would be clearly evident worldwide without training at all.

Perhaps you're right though. There may be long term side effects of regular pot usage. Still, we have senior citizens that been using pot for decades and no medical studies indicating any kind of increased risk factors for major disease that I am aware of.

Delusions and hallucinations, occurring after pot usage has ceased though, are complete bullshit even to the untrained observer.

Re:So

[mcgrew]

Not everybody who smokes dies immediately from smoking either, but that doesn't mean smothing is not lethal.

The difference is, I know a whole lot of people personally (or rather, did) who smoked cigarettes and died of cancer. I know a whole lot of pot smokers, and I've yet to see any negative effects on any of them. I've known a few crazies, but all were nuts long before they ever got high.

Re:So

[monkeykoder]

I say we legalize it tax it like crazy to keep the prices constant and put all that tax money into our education system with an addendum that all administrators make no more than the highest paid teacher.

Re:So

[Fned]

which legalisation will lead to an inevitable increase in.

Bullshit.

Portugal.

You lose.

Go away.

Re:So

[fostytou]

I do know someone who will have a multi-day bipolar episode if he uses marijuana, however that never occurred until after being triggered by heavy mushroom usage. I can't say that marijuana didn't contribute to that trigger but I would never deny someone else access to something that helps them because of it either way. Especially when you could probably replace the word 'marijuana' with 'cake' in research such as this and come to the same conclusion.

Re:So

[ganjadude]

thank you, someone gets the joke

Re:So

[EdIII]

That's interesting, but it's important to note that bipolar episodes are characterized by depression and mania. Delusions and hallucinations are not part of being bipolar.

Mushroom usage however, is most certainly characterized by hallucinations, and I have not direct experience with it at all. I'm not really sure if delusional behavior is part of it, but if it was, I would assume it to be far more dangerous than indicated.

Brain chemistry is different for everyone. My only real point is that delusions and hallucinations are quite serious and noticeable. We would've come to this conclusion decades ago.

In fact, now talking to you, it reminds me of those ridiculous public service movie shorts like Reefer Madness.

Re:So

[drainbramage]

Okay, 'ganjadude' got rated 'Flamebait.'.
Is this a triple entrande? /. is deeper then I imagined!

Re:So

[Immerman]

That's what I get for only skimming the article. I would be interested to know exactly what she means by psychosis - it's a fairly generic catch-all term, and the exact criteria she used to judge it could be enlightening as to the actual effects and appeal of marijuana.

As someone once so elegantly put it: we live in a world where most people work long hours at jobs they don't like to earn money they don't need to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't care about. So long as such people are considered sane I think we need cast a jaundiced eye at our "official sanity guidelines". While I've certainly met a few potheads who were... poorly anchored, the vast majority of them were among the happiest, most well-adjusted people I've ever met, with delusions no worse than any other person suffers. You want a common and seriously damaging delusion? How about "more wealth will make me happier". Countless studies have shown it to be categorically false once survival needs have been met, and yet people throughout the developed world routinely sacrifice health, leisure, relationships, etc., things which actually *do* improve happiness, in order to pursue the wealth they think will make them happier.

Re:So

[Immerman]

Yes. I know. Try expanding it in-line to see if it makes sense before criticizing: "technical term", also known as "layman's phrase used to express the concept in the article"

I'll see your baseless criticism and raise you a better one: your link makes no reference to AKA, and even their examples of the usage of i.e. versus e.g. are pretty shaky.

Correlation not cause

[gurps_npc]

Which is more likely: 1) People with psychological issues seek pharmaceutical drugs to help them stay calm and not screw up their lives even though they are hearing voices and other psychotic issues.

2) Drugs cause the problems - but no one ever noticed before.

3) Some idiot won't even consider option #1 and go right option #2 - without any evidence at all, let alone proof.

Note, I have kidney disease - and as such do not take pot, drink alcohol or do any other drug without my doctor's express advice. My body can't handle it - but I'm not stupid enough to think other people have the same problem I do.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Pharma is scared shitless of the prospect of Marijuana legalization. Both the Alcohol and Pharma lobbies have a lot to lose with the legalization of Marijuana.

Speaking of big Pharma, I wonder how many of the recent modern spree killers were prescribed and taking psychotropic drugs around the time of their killing sprees? Is it possible that had they been smoking marijuana without taking taking Paxil and Zoloft, they'd have just played a lot of games and eaten a lot of twinkies rather than murdering?

-- Ethanol-fueled

Re:Correlation not cause

[eggstasy]

Well, let's skip pot and talk about the HARD drugs, such as coffee :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stimulant_psychosis#Caffeine

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Marijuana/Cannabis is not for everyone, alcohol is not for everyone, we all have personal preferences.

I know cannabis has helped keep me sane. I've found it far more beneficial than the concoction of of man-made, side-effect heavy, possibly lethal pharmaceuticals that the doctor would prefer I took daily.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Lunix Nutcase]

Why would they be scared of it? Legalization would mean they can monopolize on it. You'll see all sorts of patents on marijuana like with food crops.

Re:Correlation not cause

[blackraven14250]

You think big pharma would get to it before Monsanto or Phillip-Morris? I'm pretty sure either one of them would be all over it long before big pharma got there.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed your right, they knew it back then. Marijuana makes black men look twice at white women, what more do you need to know?

Re:Correlation not cause

[SomePgmr]

I'm not the GP, but I do know that some prescription antidepressants have known side effects that can include violent psychotic breaks and strong suicidal ideation.

That's not conspiracy talk, that's printed on the box.

Having said that, I'd honestly like to know more about this link between marijuana use and psychosis. I know everyone here has already dismissed it, but this is the sort of thing people should have pretty good answers on. It's not a new theory, after all. Show us the results. Good ones. We'll go from there.

Re:Correlation not cause

[rtb61]

First a correction needs to be made. What is the connection between Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) use and psychosis and what is the connection between Cannabidiol (CBD) use and psychsis. What are optimum ratios THC:CBD for say stable use. Which would be much like the safe ratios for alcohol to water in many beverages and yet still orders of magnitude safer, less addictive and less impact on society in terms of violence and reckless behaviour than alcohol. It is well known that THC/CBD use substantially reduces alcohol consumption due to the nausea affect and the bodies heightened response to the earlier elimination of the toxin alcohol via vomiting.

Re:Correlation not cause

[caluml]

What happens when you do do something that strains your kidneys?

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason marijuana was forbidden was because the government needed a reason to employ all the now useless enforcement agents after prohibition was lifted.

Re:Correlation not cause

[geekoid]

"The connection has been known"
Citation needed, becasue I have read some of the best studies and there is no obvious connection.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910149/

"it is reason it is forbidden in the first place"
no. It was forbidden becasue lies were spread about it and ignorant parents became scared and politicians just outlawed it instead of getting actual data and presenting it to the public.
It was outlaws do to perception of an issue.

"main reason doctors still recommend not to legalize it completely"
Repeat after me:
Doctors aren't scientists
Doctors aren't scientists
Doctors aren't scientists

The only reoccurring issue in studies is poor schooling facilities. .. and while reoccurring, better studies should be done.
My vested interest is in good data.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Big Pharma is scared shitless of the prospect of Marijuana legalization. Both the Alcohol and Pharma lobbies have a lot to lose with the legalization of Marijuana.

Speaking of big Pharma, I wonder how many of the recent modern spree killers were prescribed and taking psychotropic drugs around the time of their killing sprees? Is it possible that had they been smoking marijuana without taking taking Paxil and Zoloft, they'd have just played a lot of games and eaten a lot of twinkies rather than murdering?

-- Ethanol-fueled

WHAT?!?!?!

Who the hell do you think would make money off pot if the US government were to legalize it and - like they do with every damn thing else - write thousands of pages of regulations on it?

Oh, wait, let me fix that:

Who the hell do you think would make money off pot if the US government were to legalize it and - like they do with every damn thing else - allow some big industry's lawyers to write thousands of pages of regulations on it?

Who the hell do you think that big industry would be?

Re:Correlation not cause

[Altus]

I once met a doctor who, in all honesty, did not know what the word falsifiable meant.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

" 1) People with psychological issues seek pharmaceutical drugs to help them stay calm and not screw up their lives even though they are hearing voices and other psychotic issues."

Trust me, as a person who is in this group of people who become psychotic when exposed to marijuana smoke/plant fumes, you do not seek out grass when you are feeling psychotic. You know that it makes the symptoms worse. You may seek out drugs like tranqs and E and opiates... but not grass.

Marijuana is a trigger for a pre-existing illness, it isn't a cause but it's a trigger. This is proven quite well in my eyes because I have had it happen to my life I've been tested medically.

Re:Correlation not cause

[TheCarp]

The thing is... Big Pharma could capitalize on placebo if it were ethical and they could patent it (I might even argue that they already do given the actual effectiveness of some drugs).

The problem is, if pot is good for something (or even if it isn't but it helps someone feel better so they shut up) then anybody can supply it. Nobody, except Phillip Morris and their ilk, could possibly ensure that they will profit big from it, when they have to compete. Their business is competing to discovery and patent, not sales.

Now anecdotally, I know one person who got rid of 3 prescriptions for sleep issues by smoking pot before bed. So far, she reports its working better, and has less side effects, and even some medical doctors we talked to just smiled and said that if it works, its probably a better choice.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

"...that can include violent psychotic breaks."

As a person who has experienced psychosis many times please don't correlate violent and psychotic together. Psychosis is more common without violence than with, by a huge magnitude. Those who become violent "Hearing the voice of God telling them to kill a school full of kids" are not representative of *MOST* of us, just a tiny fraction numbering on one hand.

Re:Correlation not cause

[EdIII]

I have direct experience. As a teenager I was prescribed a drug ostensibly for one reason, but it was listed as treating severe anxiety.

After just 48 hours I had a missing day. My friends say that I want basically "insane" and acted like a manic 6 year old. No violence, no aggression, no hostility. Just super goofy and hyper wanting to do everything. Flushed the pills down the toilet.

That guy that shot up the TDK theater, was on psychiatric drugs, as well as the Newton kid.

You cannot overstate that enough. The SHIT is on the side of the boxes people.

I've tried weed several times, and on some vacations, was high morning, noon, and night, for several days. I experienced no delusions or hallucinations. Just the munchies. I did not feel like jumping off a bridge, or doing some crazy shit like you've seen in the Hangover or some teenage craziness movie.

Granted it may be anecdotal evidence, but at my age, just about every weird moment and adult has explained to me did not come from recreational drugs but pharma drugs or severe overuse of alcohol.

Re:Correlation not cause

[bcrowell]

Which is more likely: 1) People with psychological issues seek pharmaceutical drugs to help them stay calm and not screw up their lives even though they are hearing voices and other psychotic issues.

2) Drugs cause the problems - but no one ever noticed before.

There are all kinds of possibilities. Your #1 actually doesn't seem to fit, since they observed that the time-sequencing of the events worked both ways. Having psychotic symptoms at one time was correlated with smoking dope at a later age, but smoking dope was also correlated with psychotic symptoms later.

Some other possibilities:

3) Some genetic or environmental factor tends to cause both marijuana use and psychotic symptoms. (The summary explicitly mentions the genetic possibility.)

4) Smoking marijuana is correlated with methamphetamine use. WP says, "Methamphetamine induces a psychosis in 26-46 percent of heavy users." Marijuana is used by about 5% of people in the Netherlands. Rates of psychotic symptoms seem to be about 4% in most populations. I.e., both of these things are fairly uncommon. Since psychotic symptoms are so uncommon, and methamphetamine causes psychotic symptoms so strongly, it would only take a very, very small correlation between grass and metamphetamine to cause a huge excess of psychotic symptoms among marijuana users.

5) The standard definition of psychosis includes "hallucinations and delusions and impaired insight " (same WP article). Well, what's the reason people get stoned? It makes them feel a certain way. To people who are not stoned, they often seem peaceful, silly, and stupid. Stupidity is not all that different from "impaired insight." Marijuana is also a drug that is hard to classify, but in some ways it acts like a hallucinogen. And I can think of one person I know who smokes a lot of marijuana, and he often gets unrealistic ideas while he's stoned -- could they be considered delusions? Maybe. There seems to be a lot of overlap between the criteria a psychiatrist would use for diagnosing psychosis and the desired effects of marijuana. Are psychiatrists able to distinguish between the desired, temporary effects of the drug and permanent set of psychotic symptoms? What kind of questions are they asking their patients? I doubt that they ask them, "are you hallucinating right now?" I bet they ask them things like, "do you ever hallucinate?," or "within the last month, have you hallucinated?"

Re:Correlation not cause

[EdIII]

Not hardly.

Monsanto (which deserves to die horribly) makes it money through legal terrorism, and intellectual property that is difficult to reproduce.

Pharma drugs as well require strict protocols and experienced factories to produce their products, and are not easily knocked off. Sure as heck, not done so without consequences, sometimes lethal.

Weed?

I could grow the plant on my porch and possibly have a higher quality product than what would be available at the pharmacy down the street. Unlike bootleggers, it's a lot easier to hide the fact you are growing marijuana when it becomes legal and the smell itself is not a dead giveaway.

There might be coffee shops that specialize in different "flavors" and famous producers known for quality or attributes. However, it would still remain a product that you could produce at home in enough quantity to satisfy personal needs.

Re:Correlation not cause

[SpiralSpirit]

I would call this speculation unless you have some sort of citation for this.

Re:Correlation not cause

[techhead79]

makes it money through legal terrorism

Ok, lay off the documentaries...seriously dood...

Re:Correlation not cause

[bug1]

4) Addict subconsciously believes any argument that might help satisfy the addiction.

Re:Correlation not cause

[jamesh]

Marijuana/Cannabis is not for everyone, alcohol is not for everyone, we all have personal preferences.

I know cannabis has helped keep me sane. I've found it far more beneficial than the concoction of of man-made, side-effect heavy, possibly lethal pharmaceuticals that the doctor would prefer I took daily.

I know next to nothing about marijuana... is it still consumed primarily through smoking?

Re:Correlation not cause

[EdIII]

What do you call it when the wind, which some people refer to as an Act Of God, and other such legal mumbo jumbo, are held accountable for it?

They've created a product that migrates on its own, trespasses other people's properties, infects their crops, and then allows a huge corporation with an unfair financial advantage to litigate small farmers to death. All in order to spread their product, which harms biodiversity in the name of huge profits.

I call that terrorism.

What if I created, and patented a DVD feature. This feature somehow spreads through the electrical system, which your DVD cannot operate without, and no reasonably economically viable method exists to filter my feature from the power supply.

How would you feel when my lawyers come by and tell you that you need to pay me $1.99 every time you watch a DVD?

Yeah, I would say terrorism is an apt description and their legal premise is shocking and only serves to illuminate the corruption of the legal system.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Desler]

Yes, I do. Monsanto is small potatoes in comparison to Big Pharma companies.

Re:Correlation not cause

[blackraven14250]

Pfizer, the single largest of big pharma, had revenues of $67 billion. Monsanto had revenues of $12 billion (not sure of their position in the agbiotech industry), and Philip-Morris International had revenues of $78 billion - that doesn't include PM USA, which is owned by Altria. Even though Pfizer are a company of the same scale of PM (a bit smaller), and decently larger than Monsanto, do you really think they're going to beat out the guys with a heavy specialization in agricultural genetic engineering or in genetically engineering and then dealing with everything from planting to distribution in an industry thought to be poised to be the first on planting marijuana on a commercial scale?

Re:Correlation not cause

[techhead79]

I've never agreed with Monsanto. However their actions are very similar to many other large corps such as MicroSoft. Contrast what Monsanto is doing to what SCO did to Linux or what the RIAA MPAA did to small time music downloaders. Extortion maybe a more appropriate word to use? Home grown or self made products have a long list of government regulations put there by large companies to hinder and prevent small businesses from entering into the market. The problem is a lot larger than Monsanto and is more related to what narcissistic corporate entities have turned into all in search of pleasing stock holders. But I still wouldn't call it terrorism...maybe capitalism and monopolistic greed??

I saw this image a few days ago comparing star war rebels with that of terrorists...maybe I'm just reacting to that. I think blurring that line between what real terrorism is brings validity to terrorist acts as just another aspect of life no less evil than that of large corporations. I think we should be clear that terrorism are violent acts or the suggestion of violence towards civilian populations. No matter how unsettling it maybe...legal court cases are never terrorist acts of violence. While what corporations do to 3rd world countries and 1st world country small businesses is unsettling, their acts are not designed to terrorize those that can not defend themselves. They are just blind fools following their only vice. Terrorists deserve a special place in hell (if you believe in that)...while board members and ceos might only deserve a summer home there. So don't get me wrong, I hate them too...but they are not terrorists.

Re:Correlation not cause

[markass530]

you probably shouldnt have taken the whole bottle at once

Re:Correlation not cause

[EdIII]

Funny, but I was extremely careful and only took the recommended dosage at the times prescribed. I'm one of those people that reads the literature accompanying prescriptions and researches contraindications and side effects.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought they already figured out that it is the 'strong' cannabis (which is now outlawed even in the Netherlands) which has a THC % of 23+ that is the problem. The therapautic effects arise from a certain ratio mainly between THC, CBD and CBN Too much THC gives the psychotic effect. Also, using a vaporizer (you get them prescribed in the Netherlands) will help eliminate most other chemicals, not to mention you won't need tobaccp to mix anything with. Another option is tea, also recommended by dutch health department and prescribed. Of course, space cookies works too.

Re:Correlation not cause

[fuzzywig]

I know people with varying levels of psychosis who actively avoid pharmaceutical drugs (because they don't like the effects), and instead self-medicate with illegal drugs.

Take home lesson? The effects of anti-psychosis drugs are unpleasant, even when they're working.

Re:Correlation not cause

[Carewolf]

Repeat after me:
Doctors aren't scientists

I do not repeat incorrect information, or sheer stupidity. I would suggest you shouldn't do it either, but I doubt you would listen.

Medical doctors have a university degree in medical science and are medical scientists.

Re:Correlation not cause

[gurps_npc]

#1 fits fine. You are assuming that scientist observable symptoms correlate with the actually beginning of the problem. Nope. Usually the problem starts long before other people notice it.

Re:Correlation not cause

[gurps_npc]

First, it damages them even more than they already are. If I keep it up, my urine turns brown - from the blood. At that point I should go to a Hospital. If I didn't, then it would turn red. At that point they take me to a hospital.

Re:Correlation not cause

[monkeykoder]

Hence the poster saying "violent psychotic breaks" instead of "psychotic breaks" implying that not all "psychotic breaks" are violent.

Re:Correlation not cause

[monkeykoder]

"I'm not the GP, but I do know that some prescription antidepressants have known side effects that can include violent psychotic breaks and strong suicidal ideation." There are known instances of suicide caused by prescription anti-depressants I know of at least one case personally.

Re:Correlation not cause

[mcgrew]

Many of these companies are big manythings. Bayer, for example, not only makes drugs, but also pesticides that directly compete with Monsanto's wares.

Re:Correlation not cause

[davydagger]

anonymous coward with the ad hominem ftw.

Only a corporate stooge would argue for the continued illegalization of marajuanna while handing out heavy duty drugs(most of which have a high street value), to children.

Re:Correlation not cause

[mcgrew]

I grew up two miles from Monsanto, before the EPA, when you had to roll the wondows up in 100 degree weather when driving past so your lungs wouldn't burn, so I pretty much hate Monsanto.

I had the same opinion of their "roundup ready" seed as you until I looked a little closer. Nobody innocent is being hurt. The case you're referring to (there was only one) was a farmer who knew his neighbor was growing Roundup Ready, and planted his non-GM corn in the next field over. Then he dosed that field with enough roundup to kill any non-GM corn. What didn't die he kept to plant the next season -- he was after FREE roundup ready corn.

Personally, I'd like to see Monsanto die, but in this case it was the farmer who was in the wrong.

Re:Correlation not cause

[mcgrew]

It is well known that THC/CBD use substantially reduces alcohol consumption due to the nausea affect

Whoa, there cowboy, citation needed. In 40 years of smoking pot I've only known one person who got an upset stomach from smoking, and that was only when he was smoking hash. Pot has the opposite effect, it's a better antinausient than dramamine. In fact, the best thing for a hangover is two aspirins, a cup of coffee, and a joint.

And unlike alcohol, marijuana is not addictive. Take a pothead's pot away and it's like taking orange juice away from someone who drinks a glass every morning. Take a coffe drinker's coffee away and he gets irratible and has headaches. Take an alcoholic's or a heroin addict's drug away and withdrawal can be fatal.

Re:Correlation not cause

[caluml]

But what, other than brown urine is the effect? I mean, do you feel tired? How would someone know if they had damaged kidneys?

Re:Correlation not cause

[Deliveranc3]

There's nothing to be done, the medications emulate neuro transmitters/hormones. This can affect the production of transmitters/hormones in the body. One side effect of the drug is that your body slows those productions and when you aren't on the meds you have a more severe deficiency.

It's not as though they wanted to make psych medications that produce the opposite effect.

MJ is a mind flexer, it's possible to pull a mental muscle on it... I personally feel it is unlikely that it will produce a mental break in someone without a likely problem but it's a possible effect of imbibing MJ, so do it in social situations and in public as much as possible.

Re:Correlation not cause

[EdIII]

Future?

I'm a pot smoker now if you think one or two times a year makes me a pot smoker. If you're referring to habitual use to the overall detriment of my livelihood, family, and friends, then you sound like one of those people who think legalizing gay marriage will head to marriage between men and animals.

Just because somebody has a drink once or twice a year does not, in any way, shape or form, guarantee they will become alcoholic.

Re:Correlation not cause

[robsku]

Has there been an actual study claiming what your message says or is this just how you figured it would likely be?

What about people who didn't eat those antidepressants (SSRI's for one have many uses [and doctors want to claim there are even more]) to treat depression but something else, like anxiety, and decided to kill themselves? In such cases I would expect the symptoms to likely increase chance of suicide than not, and if the medication helps then it should decrease it, yes?

It says in boxes of many different brand of antidepressants that suicide is indeed a possible, even if relatively rare, side-effect.

My friend killed himself after starting a medication to help him stop smoking. The medication is a relative of antidepressants - and it lists suicide as side-effect. He was not depressed, nor was he suicidal before the medication.

Re:Correlation not cause

[robsku]

I know this has little to do with original subject, and I actually mostly agree on what you wrote (I don't damn anyone to hell though, but I sure wish there exists something like the hindu reincarnation system where you do worse the worse you lived your last life - if not then maybe at least a purgatory type of system? ;) ), but I wanted to ask you... what about corporations who do stuff in 3rd world countries that puts most small ass terrorist groups in shame, like Shell and the killings of Ogoniland people in Nigeria - I know, "it was not Shell, but military", no need to go there - and other such things, actions where the corporation knowingly chooses to take action they know will result in numerous deaths (not that even one wouldn't be enough) of innocent people, even babies (Nestle, baby milk substitute in India(?)), because it will be the (more) profitable thing to do for them.

Surely you must agree that there are corporations (not ones you mentioned specifically, but since your message seemed to be bit general...) that can be even worse, much so, than terrorists? Hell, some terrorists, no matter the fckdness of their horrible actions toward other people, even have way better motives for doing the act of taking lives - hell, even downright noble motives in comparison to sociopathic greed of some business leaders who make the decisions... Wouldn't you agree?

Re:Correlation not cause

[robsku]

Marijuana/Cannabis is not for everyone, alcohol is not for everyone, we all have personal preferences.

I know cannabis has helped keep me sane. I've found it far more beneficial than the concoction of of man-made, side-effect heavy, possibly lethal pharmaceuticals that the doctor would prefer I took daily.

I know next to nothing about marijuana... is it still consumed primarily through smoking?

It's the most common method, if that's what you mean.

It can also be prepared for eating or drinking, which will take larger amount of ganja to reach the same level as you get with smaller amount when smoking and the onset seems to take forever (0.5-3 hours even), but as a flip-side it will last several times as long as a smoke.

Then there is vaporizing, a method producing vapor instead of smoke, offering the same fast onset as smoking but with only fraction of the amount needed - it's quite rare, but mostly because people don't know about vaporisator's or where to buy them. I see a possibility here - legalize and then, at least for medical marijuana, put vapo's in pharmacies... If the word starts spreading there is a chance of getting potheads like me to use, in wider scale, a method which saves us big penny, has effects and duration like when smoking and yet saves you from the biggest clearly established source of possible negative health effects when smoking pot: getting smoke (with carcinogens, etc.) in your lungs.

Oh, and almost forgot: As for prescription drugs, a product named Sativex, made from the plant itself (not some lame attempt by big pharma to develop a synthetic cannabinoid they have patent for). It's a spray, and supposedly should have fairly fast onset. It contains a mix of both, THC and CBD.
That's all I know about it at the moment - oh, and it was accepted, as first cannabis product, to be sold and used as prescription drug (for glaucoma, chronic pains and other uses) August 2012 in Finland, where I live. *thumbs up*

Re:Correlation not cause

[robsku]

Right. So a cocktail of a thousand chemicals is less side-effect heavy than a purified component?

So, if comparing any one chemical used as active ingredient on a drug and cannabis, it's the synthesized and/or extracted chemical that wins because even though it may have any number of nasty side-effects you feel immediately (nausea, loss of libido, mental/motoric impairment) and a number you'll get to know later (eg. withdrawals), the plant has a thousand chemical cocktail which we just never can know which will blow up on you and end up causing damage the synthetic drug wouldn't do (because, whatever it is, we at least know it).

I was of course just comparing strong opioids with side-effects I wrote in parenthesis - a relatively harmless category of drugs in general, most not causing practically any physical damage and next to nil psychological. I say it's clear that cannabis is better choice for treating chronic pain than synthetic opioid oxycodone, provided it works for you if it's long term and you want to live full, unimpaired as possible, normal, healthy and enjoyable life.

Well, then... let's just compare synthetic THC to organic cannabis plant as drug to give you an easy one. This is clearly a victory for your argument... ...although there was a study saying that CBD is apparently acting as psychosis prevention of the main active chemicals duo in cannabis plant, while plain THC alone was shown to have higher probability to cause psychosis.
Now, clearly this wasn't anti-cannabis biased study - if anything, it was cannabis neutral and it's results can help to create healthier cannabis strains and/or pharmaceutical products. Still it might not have been correct, but you certainly don't get to call yourself a winner on this one.

Caffeine pills or coffee? Now this is probably one where you *do* win - I chose it just to point that while coffee in fact is known to have hundreds of chemicals, many known to be carcinogenic and only a portion of them known for their effects, I'd still pick a cup of coffee (I'm leaving out the pleasure from taste & feel, just comparing effects) over caffeine pills.
Why? Because coffee has substance(s) that act against caffeine smoothing it's effects that cause nervousness, jitters, concentration loss, raise of pulse and blood pressure and even panic attacks. So even if it's less healthy I'm saying the quality of my experience is also a factor (actually of most important ones) in which one to consider, all accounted, to be the better drug (or in this case... well, drug - in non-medicinal meaning ;) ).

As a scientist

Somehow I doubt this.
Now, I know I might be totally wrong here, and I apologize for the insult and bad feelings caused if that's the case, but frankly with what you wrote I'm not seeing your rationale that much above the one of the "it's herbal so it's better than evil synthetic *chemical* " crowd - but at least you do have some kind of logic behind this, just erroneously interpreted as far as my opinion goes.

But I've personally witnessed the same psychosis described in the TFA occur 2-3 years after cannabis usage started. And mathematically speaking, with a mixture of a thousand chemicals, chances are that the compound responsible for that is different from the compound that's beneficial to you.

Forget the mathematics - studies have already established that to get the most beneficial effects you need both, CBD and THC. CBD alone would be poor one, and THC would not work as well as the two together either but there's a study suggesting that it would also have higher probability of causing psychosis.

Sometimes with plants, herbal medicines, it's not a one chemical you can extract and get the benefits, hell sometimes it's not enough to have just one plant!
The same is true with synthetic pharmaceuticals in medical treatment.

Re:Correlation not cause

[robsku]

Which is more likely: 1) People with psychological issues seek pharmaceutical drugs to help them stay calm and not screw up their lives even though they are hearing voices and other psychotic issues.
2) Drugs cause the problems - but no one ever noticed before.

2b) Marijuana causes the problem - and everybody has already noticed this before?

Nope - and that's why were having this argument, silly.

The connection has been known as long as Marijuana has been forbidden, it is reason it is forbidden in the first place.

Sure, that's why it took little time to forbid it, while tobacco in comparison was known so long and yet attempted to prohibit later. The others you're arguing with are just living in the opposite land.

If they could manage to prove the correlation worked the other way it would remove the main reason doctors still recommend not to legalize it completely. This has not been proven so far everything points to 1) or both like this one.

Talk about "loss of contact from reality" - delusions, impaired insight, but are there hallucinations? Now, I'm not a doctor, but this has a word in common with title of page: psychosis.

Re:Correlation not cause

[techhead79]

In all of the above scenarios you put forward it required another active influence in the local government. Regardless if it is criminal bribery, lack of proper environmental regulations, or legalized brutality towards civilians the point is it would not be possible if there was not already some form of corruption already in place in that 3rd world country. It is not as if these companies just got up one day and decided they would invade and kill civilians to make a point. Their motive was greed. Terrorists may claim their motive is freedom but it's far more likely their motives are more about staking a claim to power either global or local regardless of why their movement may have started....it is usually quickly forgotten from what I've seen in my limited view through US media.

My point is a corporation can not wilfully go into any governed state and decide to do as they wish. Their actions are sanctioned by the local corrupt government. Even though taking a stand against a corrupt government becomes more and more difficult with the influence of technology, it is still the responsibility of the people of a government to ensure their government listens to the people and does right by them. Surely you could even say the US government with bought laws in congress has its own problems.

A terrorist actively seeks out to murder and inflict great harm to a civilian population to try and deter the will of the people (which as we've seen will never ever work but only aims to polarize the world. Yet we've seen a few terrorist leaders attempt to appeal to the common civilian population of an enemy state because they realize once the people are united with the government in arms against them...no terrorist group can fight against hundreds of millions of people hell bent on their destruction). If you are to equate the active murder of civilians with that of collateral damage or that of the wake of a corporation's greed...then I'm afraid your moral code has been a bit to much open for discussion with college kids looking for a good paper to write...or maybe you're watching the wrong kind of media brainwashing?

The taking or harming of any life is wrong, period. To excuse a terrorist act as an eye for an eye or as some form of retribution is ignoring the entire grey area between what an evil corporation does and what a terrorist does. While I would never agree with any terrorist movement (because they have explored about zero other options and they are not attacking or dealing with their real issues but instead feeding pre-existing feelings of hatred for a grab at power...local multi state government reform is honestly what the focus should have been for them...but that's a bit more risky than pissing off the big oger in the corner) I would at least accept their actions if they kept all of their acts of violence towards valid targets. But then you have to ask yourself of what qualifies as a nation or a voice that should even be listened to.

As horrid as our planet is the point is there are a lot of ways for a terrorist organization to get what they want. The second they attack a civilian population they are immediately viewed by the entire world (rightly so) as a criminal organization that must be put to death. Maybe if they want it to be socially acceptable to kill people they should've started a corporation and bribed off some local government to allow them to pollute and kill off villages of civilians...hmm sounds like a bond movie or something.

I don't believe any civilian in the US is ignorant to the fact that corporations control their lives and the laws they must abide to. Government corruption is nothing new. Based on your sig I would assume you're well aware of the very large LEGAL movement to separate this connection. Anger, hate, and a lust for power are very different vices than greed. You should know the difference. They are both fools you can control with a few carrots in the right places...but one is a lot more destructive than the other. I know that

Inconclusive conclusion

[tverbeek]

So the only clear conclusion is that we need further study. Which will be made more difficult by the criminalization of the substance in so many jurisdictions where that research could be performed.

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[cheekyjohnson]

I don't see where he made any such argument. He merely said it would be more difficult to study since it's criminalized.

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[jamstar7]

It's only illegal because there is so much money to made from the illegal trade. A legal trade would kill profits.

Not to mention the money to be made on the 'legal' side of the street with larger police budgets, more private prisons, the billions of dollars spent in the 'War On Drugs' that the US has clearly lost. It's in their self-interest to keep grass illegal, that's how they make a living.

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[spire3661]

Why only at home? Or do you think the only way to ingest cannabis is by smoking it?

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[geekoid]

US didn't loose becasue there was no clearly defined Win.
It's just a pointless circle of action.

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[tverbeek]

Um.... what argument?

If you'd like one, I can offer several good arguments for the legalization of recreational use of marijuana, such as those revolving around the monetary and social costs of criminalization. But all I was doing was pointing out that the criminalization of marijuana – even for legitimate, supervised scientific study – prevents the kind of research which might better establish whether the recreational use is harmful, and to what extent. To use your half-baked analogy, we do permit the possession of lead, so that its impact on lab animals could be tested... but apparently not possession of cannabis for that purpose.

Re:Inconclusive conclusion

[jamstar7]

US didn't loose becasue there was no clearly defined Win. It's just a pointless circle of action.

The stats from the Feds claim there is more drug activity now than when they started the War on Drugs. More being smuggled in, more people using them, That constitutes a loss in my book. Of course, any drug stats from the Feds might be highly inflated to keep the cash flowing to their buddies/campaign contributors...

STILL doesn't prove causation!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The researchers wanted to examine what caused the relationship — was marijuana use leading to psychosis, or did those suffering from psychosis have a higher tendency to seek out marijuana?"

Just because one event happens after the other doesn't prove ANY causation in this case - even the summary lifted from the article clearly points this out, and in fact the author of the article makes no claims as to cause.

And calling it a "bidirectional link" is mostly pointless, it's only "bidirectional" in temporal sequence. It's still completely possible that it is totally unidirectional in cause and effect, ie. as one of the quotes at the end states, increased usage may just be a risk factor for existing (possibly undiagnosed) psychosis with genetic basis.

Re:STILL doesn't prove causation!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many existing studies that have already proven several things about marijuana use:

1. Smoking (anything) raises your risk of oral and lung cancers, including marijuana.
2. Marijuana lowers IQ in developing brains, e.g. children and adolescents. If you've seen the kind of permanent damage neurons experience after smoking marijuana, this is hardly surprising.
3. Marijuana causes psychosis in healthy people and worsens it in those with existing conditions.
4. Marijuana is addictive. It's a hotly debated point but the fact is that many people really struggle to stop using it and relapse.

Denying or arguing any of these points would seem fruitless in light of medical evidence, yet people insist on claiming marijuana has no side effects and is completely harmless. That's a great pipe dream, but we'd have to assume it is literally the perfect drug and works in a way that no other drug has ever done. Sadly, that's just not the case. Like any other drug it has its pros and cons.

Marijuana advocates reject all criticism, and assume all scientific studies are somehow flawed or are the result of anti-marijuana conspiracies. To them marijuana _has_ to be the perfect drug, even if reality contradicts that viewpoint. Sounds crazy, but it's roughly what you'd expect from people who are no longer living in our reality.

Re:STILL doesn't prove causation!

[germansausage]

1. Smoking (anything) raises your risk of oral and lung cancers, including marijuana.

So vape it or bake it into cookies or whatever. You don't have to smoke it.

2. Marijuana lowers IQ in developing brains, e.g. children and adolescents. If you've seen the kind of permanent damage neurons experience after smoking marijuana, this is hardly surprising.

Citation pls. Also who says kids should have it? This is for grownups only, same as tobacco and alcohol.

3. Marijuana causes psychosis in healthy people and worsens it in those with existing conditions.

Again Citation needed. We have just barely started to study this. RTFA.

4. Marijuana is addictive. It's a hotly debated point but the fact is that many people really struggle to stop using it and relapse.

No it isn't.It isn't addictive, and the point is not hotly debated. It is as habituating as any other pleasant pass-time, but addictive, in the way a doctor would define it, it is not. Damn near everyone I knew at school who smoked weed, (which is damn near everyone i knew) doesn't smoke any more. It was no big hardship, you just stop. Coffee is actually more addictive, it will give you withdrawal symptoms, marijuana will not. Look at it this way, over 50% of Americans have tried weed, under 5% smoke it daily.

Re:STILL doesn't prove causation!

[crunchygranola]

There are many existing studies that have already proven several things about marijuana use:

1. Smoking (anything) raises your risk of oral and lung cancers, including marijuana.

In fact studies show the opposite for marijuana.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=large-study-finds-no-link
Cannabis smoking appears to protect against lung cancer. This study is now seven years old, and an even larger one fifteen years ago found the same thing:
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1018427320658
Can't be cannabis interfering with your ability to process information. I guess we will just have to chalk it up to prejudice and willful ignorance.

3. Marijuana causes psychosis in healthy people...

Link please?

4. Marijuana is addictive. It's a hotly debated point but the fact is that many people really struggle to stop using it and relapse.

Meaning... you know there is no real support for this, but you want to throw it out there as a claim anyway. You do know that by this same standard tanning is addictive too, right?

Marijuana advocates reject all criticism, and assume all scientific studies are somehow flawed or are the result of anti-marijuana conspiracies. To them marijuana _has_ to be the perfect drug, even if reality contradicts that viewpoint. Sounds crazy, but it's roughly what you'd expect from people who are no longer living in our reality.

Looking glass time. You are describing your own rejection of scientific evidence.

Re:STILL doesn't prove causation!

[Jmc23]

So you're on your soap box because both the article and the summary are accurate and don't confuse causation??

Having a bad day? Need a little pick me up?

Re:STILL doesn't prove causation!

[robsku]

Marijuana advocates reject all criticism, and assume all scientific studies are somehow flawed or are the result of anti-marijuana conspiracies. To them marijuana _has_ to be the perfect drug, even if reality contradicts that viewpoint. Sounds crazy, but it's roughly what you'd expect from people who are no longer living in our reality.

Perhaps it sounds crazy because you only count a vocal minority as advocates - doing so you sound quite like the equivalent of opposing side (...and I don't know whether you're pro or con, just saying what it makes you sound like).

It's not like it's a new drug or small sample size

[Rougement]

Given humans have been using weed for millennia and it's used recreationally all over the world, surely this means something? Even anecdotally, most people would know of several cases of hospitalization/institutionalization due to cannabis use if this drug was a real threat.

Not related to TFA

[BlackPignouf]

It's not exactly related to TFA, but my girlfriend has been diagnosed with post-partum psychosis a year ago.
She's been treated with many different medications that didn't work that well.
The end result is that she's been in a clinic for 9 months out of 12, and I've been a solo dad meanwhile.
She often looks like a zombie, and still hear voices even though she's under heavy medication.

Any advice from a fellow geek?
Any happy-ending related story?

Re:Not related to TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Coming from somebody who suffers from schizophrenia, I'll tell you the drugs never helped kill the voices or the thoughts of paranoia. They worked as a tranquilizer, I was taking Clozapine in the end (all the milder drugs did nothing for me and in many cases made it worse). The only thing that helped was learning to cope with the voices and paranoid thoughts, and put them where they appropriately belong (in the garbage). Lots and lots of therapy.

The unfortunate reality is I lost about 6 years of my life learning to deal with it, 3 of those years spent in a hospital. I've been off drugs for several years now, I still struggle from time to time, but I'm able to actually live my life without losing control of my emotions, and I'm able to hold a steady job. The unfortunate reality is you'll be dealing with this for many years if she has any serious psychiatric problems. Patience and being her rock is all you can do, and encourage her to seek help.

Re:Not related to TFA

[ewieling]

LSD with her therapist present or MDMA with her therapist and the kid present. Marijuana is not the only currently illegal drug with serious medical uses.

http://www.maps.org/

Re:Not related to TFA

[towermac]

I went through the same thing. Families often hide this well, but you'll generally find a strain of it in the family. When they grow up, it takes something to kick it off. Men usually "get" it at 18 - 21; just the tribulations of growing up is often enough to do it. Women often hang on quite some while. I suspect early birth control, possibly combined with pot use, can stave off the onset of inherited mental illness. Both of which stop abruptly upon pregnancy. And then childbirth, the single most emotional moment in a woman's life. (Women are emotionally stronger than men though, and that may provide some inherent advantage.)

In either case, some emotional event, trivial or significant, will cause them to go about a week without sleep, and that's when the real 'snap' occurs. Takes them years to recover from that, assuming they don't have another episode that does more damage. Meanwhile, they will pick someone or something as the focus of their paranoia. Usually the person closest to them. In the case of 18 year old boys, it's usually the mother. In the case of older wives, it's often the husband. Everyone is an individual, so it varies. Probably the most common theme is religion, which is actually not a bad thing from your point of view; as it means the world is the focus of the paranoia, not just you.

The only thing that really works is lithium, which sucks. There is such a thing as lithium aspartate (supplement store), which doesn't have the heinous side effects of lithium carbonate, but they won't prescribe it medically. All the other traditional drugs won't help. And they're not supposed to prescribe the newer serotonin brain drugs for this (it's on the label that it might cause this); but they throw them at everyone, they might be throwing them at her too. And the victim poster above is right, in that the long term goal is to get off the lithium; hopefully she knows she needs a coach she can trust with that route, it can't really be done alone.

I believe it is possible for a person with the inherited form to not ever have an actual episode. It's the week of no sleep that does the real damage, and maybe a person can come back from one of those, but not multiples. These people that escaped the family fate, either knocked themselves out and got some sleep during that crucial period, or maybe they had family that already had experience and helped them. Both seem rare. Victims usually go through this alone, or with someone totally unprepared.

If I have advice, it would be to knock her the hell out if you have to, to make sure she gets good sleep and decent nutrition. Exercise is a big part of both of those. Of course, dominating an already paranoid person is probably not good for the relationship. She will resent you for making her take medicine, etc. A unified family front is difficult for all but the most paranoid to contradict. Good luck.

Re:Not related to TFA

[Jmc23]

Food is the best medicine. Educate yourself.

Positive feedback loop

[K. S. Kyosuke]

So, does that mean that there is a positive feedback loop? Sounds like a rather disconcerting notion for any person concerned.

But this study was done in the Netherlands....

[m.shenhav]

..... where weed IS decriminalized.

REEFER MADNESS!!!1!!

[John Hasler]

n/t

XKCD

[stms]

So you're saying Psychosis causes marijuana to grow? This is going to do wonders for the grow op I have in my basement.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Cryacin]

I personally find studies out of Amsterdam to be the most unbiased in the world. Remember that it's tolerated there, not promoted, like cigarettes in America, for instance, by the tobacco lobby.

If the drug does cause psychosis, then society as a whole can react to it accordingly. Conversely, if people with psychosis are attracted to the drug, then there must be an underlying reason for that.

I look forward to seeing what else comes of this.

One Result

[SmaryJerry]

I think the only result that you can derive from that is that people like try marijuana around ages 16 to 19..

Re:One Result

[geekoid]

No...
Why to they try it? how does it effect other aspects of their life. Those are the questions.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[cheekyjohnson]

If the drug does cause psychosis, then society as a whole can react to it accordingly.

The reaction would probably be along the lines of banning people from putting it inside their own bodies entirely. Safety is always a nice excuse for getting rid of freedom to many people, it seems.

Confounders

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Wonder if they corrected for SES (socio-economic status). The common causative link may just be chronic unemployment, and growing up in a neighborhood where there is a lot of chronic unemployment and drug use.

Wonder if they corrected for IQ. In my experience, people are often labeled 'psychotic', 'schizophrenic', 'schizoaffective' or whatnot when their main problem is borderline mental retardation. (Mild MR leads to a lot of things that are almost indistinguishable from "schizophrenia". That gives you an idea of the sorry state of our diagnostic system.)

Wonder how well they corrected for concurrent use of other drugs (especially alcohol and cocaine), both in the subjects and in their biological mothers.

Point is, the devil's in the details here. Those details will only be in the journal article (NOT in the article Slashdot posted). I'm too lazy to look it up. Has anyone in this thread looked at it?

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

I don't know what kind of expansion you are talking about. After years of watching pot smokers I can't actually say their minds have expanded at all. Some of them seem to have lost a bit of functionality, actually.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Rougement]

Disingenuous. This is a study of cannabis and psychosis. Tobacco has other harmful effects but nothing I'm aware of that can harm mental health. Alcohol on moderation has been proven time and time again to be safe, or even beneficial. You might as well advocate banning aspirin. I've heard that if it's not used in moderation it's a stone cold killer.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Dahamma]

Ironically your sarcasm just makes his point stronger.

His argument not only applies to but is based on the comparison to alcohol and tobacco, which have many well-proven side effects and long term medical issues. As he pointed out, Marijuana on the other hand does not have such clearly proven effects, and certainly none as serious as liver disease or lung cancer.

They keep trying and trying and...

[future assassin]

yet none of them has found any serious and life threatening illnesses caused by weed smoking/eating compared to alcohol, alcohol mixed with Tylenol, pharma drugs, side effects of chemical leeching out of every day plastics or even walking down the road and breaking a leg. YET they try and try and try and....

How about some food allergies http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db10.htm Peanuts can be deadly too..

Re:They keep trying and trying and...

[future assassin]

Try smoking some skunk sometime. It'll mess you up pretty good.

Well yah I'm sure a skunk will mess you up if you try to light it on fire. They got claws and a nasty spray so not paper or vaporizer compatible.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[dinfinity]

You'd think that, but 'hard on crime' and 'good (Christian) morals' have been pretty influential there lately. The current thing is that weed sold in the infamous coffee shops may only be sold to residents of the country (although enforcement is left to the cities):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/10/30/dutch-amsterdam-weed-marijuana/1668761/

Disinformation combined with demagoguery is a powerful tool in any country with very capable profit-oriented media organizations. Apparently, science is becoming more and more corrupted in the necessary quest for money as well.

The researchers here do not deserve their titles. From the *abstract*:
"Conclusions: Cannabis use predicts psychosis vulnerability in adolescents, and vice versa which suggests that there is a bi-directional causal association between the two."

Please tell me nobody here on Slashdot gives any credibility to that 'suggestion'. If you do, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#Third_factor_C_.28the_common-causal_variable.29_causes_both_A_and_B

What this cant be..

[nurb432]

That people with issues seek out ways to numb themselves from them and not even know it?

Kidding aside, i'm impressed that they were not just doing a 'study' to push an agenda. that is far too common these days.

And another thing...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Sorry for the double post, but I just thought of another important (to me, anyway) objection.

All the pot smokers in the study have one major attribute in common: They started their *regular* drug use *early*-- many of them at age 16 or before. Which frankly, is probably not the best thing for a developing brain. It's also a socioeconomic red flag that suggests a lot of confounders: these kids came from the wrong side of the tracks, they've had crappy and neglectful parenting, they've dropped out of school or are on the verge of doing so.

So it's not especially surprising or interesting to see correlations between early onset of drug use with 'psychosis' and other vague terms of mental disability. You'd expect to see a similar correlation between 'psychosis' and teenage onset of regular beer-drinking.

Re:And another thing...

[geekoid]

"is probably not the best thing for a developing brain"
speculation.
" It's also a socioeconomic red flag "
nope. But please, constinue with your wild ass statemnets based from 1950.

" these kids came from the wrong side of the tracks"
define wrong side of the tracks.

" they've had crappy and neglectful parenting"
Based on.. what? Oh right, the do pot therefore they were neglected and drop outs.

WTF?seriously, did you just crawl out of a rock from 1950? You sound like an episode of Batman.
"You can't blame them Robin, there parents are divorced, so there is no hope for them."

The other thing they have in common is that they are from a place were it's more socially acceptable to smoke pot.

Have you been reading the lies being spread from CALM?

Studies in the use of Marijuana have a tendency to support whatever the researcher was looking for. See Selection Bias.

Here is one of the best reviews of the literature to day:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910149/

"So it's not especially surprising or interesting "
yes, it's not surprising your wrong assumption meet your conclusion.

Re:And another thing...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

Listen, Geekoid, you've missed my point. Or perhaps I didn't express it as well as I should have. It might have been clearer if you had also read my earlier post on the topic (which is halfway up the thread now).

My point is that I *don't* think this paper provides any evidence that pot is bad for you. (Just wait and see, though... the media will spin it into another Pot Is Bad headline).

I *do* think that people who start using drugs regularly at an early age are probably more likely to have brushes with the mental health system, and to get diagnosed with a mental illness, than people who don't. (By "early age", I mean onset of use in childhood or adolescence). Here are two hypothetical reasons: 1) Maybe regular drug use is not so good for the child/adolescent brain-- for the brain which is still growing and developing. 2) Maybe kids who regularly get wasted on booze/pills/pot are a more disadvantaged group to begin with. They're statistically less likely to be the ones who are taking AP Calc and gunning for an Ivy League education.

Do I have any proof for hypothesis (1)? No, geekoid, you're right, I don't. It's just an educated guess. But I think it's a reasonable one to live by. I have no problem with an adult who wants to enjoy a beer or a Beaujolais or whatever. But when the time comes, I think I'll tell my kid to hold off on all that stuff until she's of legal age. Hypothesis (2) is probably self-evident.

The citation you gave was an interesting one. It basically argues that hypothesis #2 is important, and that most studies on pot and teenagers do not control for it adequately.

Re:And another thing...

[bogjobber]

You are vastly underestimating the prevalence of marijuana use. Check this survey out. 36 percent of high school seniors report having smoked marijuana in the past year, 23 percent in the past month, and 6.5 percent are daily users. These *are* the kids that are taking AP Calc and gunning for the Ivy League.

You are correct that disadvantaged or troubled kids are statistically more likely to be using drugs, but everything you say after "socieconomic red flag" in your original post is so wildy off base it almost seems like you're trolling. Very successful people are regular marijuana users, most of those people started in their teens, and they are not in any way statistical outliers. The idea that a teenager smoking marijuana implies that they had poor parents or are on the verge of failing out of school is absurd.

Re:And another thing...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

You are vastly underestimating the prevalence of marijuana use. Check this survey out. 36 percent of high school seniors report having smoked marijuana in the past year, 23 percent in the past month, and 6.5 percent are daily users. These *are* the kids that are taking AP Calc and gunning for the Ivy League.

You are correct that disadvantaged or troubled kids are statistically more likely to be using drugs, but everything you say after "socieconomic red flag" in your original post is so wildy off base it almost seems like you're trolling. Very successful people are regular marijuana users, most of those people started in their teens, and they are not in any way statistical outliers. The idea that a teenager smoking marijuana implies that they had poor parents or are on the verge of failing out of school is absurd.

Bogjobber, you're misrepresenting what I said. I never said that "a teenager smoking marijuana implies X, Y, and Z". I agree that such a statement would be absurd. What I said was much more limited and cautious: "Teenagers who use drugs/alcohol *regularly* at an *early age* are statistically more likely to be disadvantaged or troubled to begin with, and more likely to have brushes with the mental health system". Do you really take issue with that statement?

 

Re:And another thing...

[bogjobber]

...you're misrepresenting what I said. I never said that "a teenager smoking marijuana implies X, Y, and Z".

I'm not misrepresenting it. That's nearly word-for-word exactly what you said:

It's also a socioeconomic red flag that suggests a lot of confounders: these kids came from the wrong side of the tracks, they've had crappy and neglectful parenting, they've dropped out of school or are on the verge of doing so.

See? That's literally exactly what you said, right down to the x,y, z structure of the statement. The only difference is you used the word suggest rather than imply.

The issue I take with that is that regular marijuana does not imply either 1) the kid is poor 2) they have neglectful parents or 3) they are failing at school. In my personal experience all of those things are wildly off-base, and I've never seen any scientific study that shows otherwise.

Yes, because marijuana is mostly illegal and people have a tendency to self-medicate, kids who are troubled are going to be more likely to use drugs. But marijuana use is so commonplace that this fact in no ways implies any of those things you are suggesting. Maybe in extreme cases where you have kids starting at age 12 or earlier, where recreational drug use is still an exceptional case, but 15 or 16 is a perfectly normal age for an average high schooler to start experimenting with marijuana use.

Re:And another thing...

[Harvey Manfrenjenson]

It's also a socioeconomic red flag that suggests a lot of confounders: these kids came from the wrong side of the tracks, they've had crappy and neglectful parenting, they've dropped out of school or are on the verge of doing so.

See? That's literally exactly what you said, right down to the x,y, z structure of the statement. The only difference is you used the word suggest rather than imply.

The pronoun "it" in that sentence did not refer to "marijuana use". It referred to *early onset* of *regular* drug or alcohol use.

Obviously that wasn't too clear in my original post (since I've clarified it 3 times now for two different posters), and for that I apologize. Sorry to beat this to death.

Also, please bear in mind that I was simply making a statement about statistical tendencies. In the same vein, I might say "Children in Chicago are statistically less likely than children in San Diego to graduate from high school; they are less likely to obtain a bachelor's-level degree; and they are more likely to be shot to death". This is quite different from stating "If you were born in Chicago, that implies X, Y and Z". Again, the phrasing of my original post may not have made my intended meaning clear.

Re:And another thing...

[bogjobber]

No, I understood what you meant to say. I think you're the one that doesn't understand me :)

Like I said, regular marijuana use before 16 does not imply any of those things you said.

Let's say 10% of kids 14-16 are classified as "troubled" (whatever the hell that means, but I'm just using numbers as an example). Of those, 40% are regular marijuana users. Let's say 90% are "normal." Of those, 10% are regular marijuana users. That means, 4% of kids are "troubled" students who regularly use marijuana, 9% are "normal" kids who regularly use marijuana. That means 70% of the kids who are smoking weed are perfectly normal high school students who are trying out marijuana.

Now in that situation, the statement "troubled kid are more likely to be marijuana users" and "marijuana use does not suggest that the kid is troubled" are both true statements. That is what I am saying is what is actually happening. Obviously I just pulled the numbers out of my butt, but the example holds true.

They did not find evidence of both

[geekoid]

the data was inconclusive; which means exactly that.

Re:They did not find evidence of both

[skine]

How was the data inconclusive? It seems to me that the data is as conclusive as a single study can be.

It shows that there isn't a simple relationship where either one causes the other, or the other causes the one. In that respect, it may be similar to alcohol, where people tend to drink more when they're depressed, and alcohol is a depressant.

Re:They did not find evidence of both

[Nyder]

How was the data inconclusive? It seems to me that the data is as conclusive as a single study can be.

It shows that there isn't a simple relationship where either one causes the other, or the other causes the one. In that respect, it may be similar to alcohol, where people tend to drink more when they're depressed, and alcohol is a depressant.

Well, in over 30 years of smoking weed and knowing people that smoke weed, I have NOT found one person to have Psychosis.
Yet in over 40 years of living I have found a shit load of religious people that have Psychosis.

This study is a nice idea, but it has no bearing at all on reality.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[gl4ss]

well, there's plenty of cases where people blame weed for stupid shit they've done - so you'd have no trouble finding institutionalized people who would claim their cannabis use caused them to become institutionalized and well, you'll find plenty of people who were institutionalized to jail for it of course too - though strictly speaking in those cases it's the law and other people who have caused them to be institutionalized and isolated(again compounding possible mental locks and general unhappiness with life).

just as there's plenty of cases where people blame alcohol for the stupid shit they've done. AA is full of them.

still, if an alcie goes to doctor because of anger issues/unstability(that they blame on drinking) around here it's quite usual they're given diazepam. which would be all good if they weren't unstable alcoholics and the pams just enhance that. giving them a bag of weed would be much better, at least if someone is going too deep with weed they're not 99.99% of time going to hurt anyone, themselves or others, except through inactivity. someone with anger issues gets alcohol+diazepam psychosis and someone is going to get hurt - via physical assault.

this study doesn't really surprise me at all though, it's even on the "no shit sherlock" level, it's so blatantly obvious. still, it's nice that they bothered to make a real study about that unhappy people seek a fix.

I don't drink anymore due to health issues(pancreatitis is a bitch that wont let her eye off you) and would be very glad if they legalized weed around here. Sure, it might make you spend a lot of time thinking with yourself and laughing at stupid shit along the way but quite frankly what's so bad about that?

Psychosis as a term is so fucking all over the place that it's almost useless as a word too, since it can mean fucking anything - even me wanting to emphasize things with "fucking" is a form of psychosis if you ask the right idiot. basically most weedsters use psychosis as a word for being bored nowadays(they're out of weed it's "psychosis", they got some good weed but nothing fun to do while smoking it and it's psychosis again! they smoke enough that they're practically sleeping and that too then is psychosis.) - it's so fucked up thanks to the prohibitionists. hell, even being drunk is "psychosis" nowadays, fucking pansies.

Learnings = People like Weed

[ImLou]

News just out - being normal leads to smoking weed, and some users who smoked weed turned out to be pretty normal people.

Kettles

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to be on the safe side, I'm only using kettles from here on out.

Hmm

[Greyfox]

What if being a teenager causes marijuana use. Or maybe marijuana use causes being a teenager. Mmm no, given all the aging hippies in Boulder, I think we can rule out the latter...

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[geekoid]

Myth.
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/stronger-weed.htm

Pot and tachyons

[greg_barton]

If people who were psychotic at 16 sought out pot at 19 then clearly pot causes the brain to release tachyons and cause psychotic breaks in the past. Its the only plausible explaination.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[flaming error]

"humans have been using weed for millennia and it's used recreationally all over the world, surely this means something?"

Yes, it means that so far, marijuana hasn't caused humanity's extinction.

Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable?

[__aasehi2499]

Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music? - Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (2000)

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[FatdogHaiku]

I'm about half-baked already but I am going to find some citations to dispute you. I think... ohhh man, cupcakes! They are like a whole little world with frosting on top of it...

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[sound vision]

It is the same plant with the same genetics and the same active constituents (THC and friends). While there are different strains, it's like smoking a Camel vs. smoking a Marlboro - one might be a bit stronger, taste a little different, but the health concerns are identical between the two varietes.
Now, the *average* potency has probably increased in the last 50 years, due to advances in growing technique and pressure from the drug war. Higher potencies mean a lesser amount of material to smuggle for a given profit.

Re:Get a life.

[FyberOptic]

If you're going to split hairs on what constitutes Slashdot-worthy science, then how about we post about all the newest Botox technologies while we're at it?

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Rougement]

Amongst other things.

whom do you trust?

[slick7]

So many lies, for so long, for all the wrong reasons, what is the truth?

Re:whom do you trust?

[Nyder]

So many lies, for so long, for all the wrong reasons, what is the truth?

This is your brain (frying pan).

This is your brain on drugs (egg frying in that frying pan).

You know, I stopped believe in what adults told me as a child. Why?

They said Santa was real, he isn't.
They said The Tooth Fairy was real, she's not.
Easter bunny? Not real.
This will hurt me more then it will hurt you? Lies!
Do as I say, not as I do? Set a better example!
Babies come in storks!

With adults spending a lot of time lying to children, is it no surprise when they don't believe you about anything?

Re:whom do you trust?

[Jmc23]

Silly you, babies don't come in storks, the storks carry them. Everybody knows that.

Re:whom do you trust?

[slick7]

So many lies, for so long, for all the wrong reasons, what is the truth?

This is your brain (frying pan).

This is your brain on drugs (egg frying in that frying pan).

This is your brain with a side of bacon and hash browns.

Ahh, the S word

[flyneye]

Ah, yes, the infamous S word strikes again.
What mightier weapon could you have for disinformation and propaganda?
You could fork over money to an " independent" research facility to get "findings" spun to order or you could just wait for the avalanche of college studies to spill a particularly inept one that supports your agenda before review demolishes it next month. No matter who you are, no matter what your agenda is, there is a study out there for you. The public mistake these for scientific fact and actual hard research on a minute to minute basis. What is there to lose? Everyone knows actual science was obscured by politicians and nutballs years ago. Welcome to the digital dark ages!

I didn't RTFS

[konohitowa]

But from the headline, I'm excited to see that psychosis causes marijuana. Groovy!

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[flaming error]

Sorry for the cliche, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[germansausage]

As far as i know the active ingredient is the same as it has always been. You have modern strains of weed that might produce more of it, but so what. We have always had the ability to concentrate high levels of THC into things like hashish and pot oil. The dose you ingest has always depended on what you smoke and how much. Three fat stogies of 1978 Columbian gold or one medium sized J of 2012 Northern Lights and you are in exactly the same place.

Its like arguing that wine is twice as bad for you as beer because it contains twice the percent of alcohol.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, personally, after 35 years of regular marijuana smoking , I'm still not in Mensa, but neither was Einstein, we both sit in only the top 4%.
I don't find marijuana so much expanding as I find it a quiet place to study, a land of engineering fully loaded, and a gift directly from God himself, who makes no mention of regulation.Right there in the first book of Genesis. "All the seed bearing plants"
Sounds like you just run the same tape you heard, out your mouth like all the rest of the sheeple who can't think for themselves but were told it was BAAad, BAAad, BAAad.
I attribute mind expansion to Psychedelic drugs and pay little attention to agenda funded research.
Life is far too short to let others decide it for you, let alone do any other thinking for you.
If you haven't paid attention, evolution takes care of those who can care for themselves, the rest we just let nature weed out.
When nature starts weeding out potheads, then we will see whose is the superior mind.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[flyneye]

Citations? I mean besides your mother...

I've been smoking weed for 3 decades

[Nyder]

and this sort of shit cracks me up.

I looked up the meaning of psychosis: Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality that usually includes: False beliefs about what is taking place or who one is (delusions); Seeing or hearing things that aren't there (hallucinations).

That describes religious people, not stoners.

I've known people that smoke weed for over 40 years, and none of them see shit that isn't there. None of them believe in false stuff, except the religious ones. Most the others have businesses, jobs, responsibilities they take care of.

I've known druggies that lost reality after ODing on coke or heroin, but I have NEVER seen anyone do that on weed.

What I gained from the article was kids that have psychosis are more likely to use drugs, which doesn't surprise me. I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia when I was in my mid 30's. Growing up I had no idea why people heard me say different things then I was saying, why people always took what i said or did at it's worse instead of how it was intended and why I had a hard time functioning socially with people. During my 20's I did a shit ton of drugs. I gave up, I didn't understand why I had problems with people. Drugs (heroin) made me feel better, or made me not care for a bit, made life a bit more bearable (so i thought). After I found out about my dyslexia and ADHD and got help for that, I understood finally what the problem had been. I had no problem quitting my heroin addiction after that. In fact, in almost 10 years since I found out, I've been clean. (I don't count weed as a drug like heroin, coke, benzo's, etc).

Funny how people have been smoking weed since it's been around and in over 100 years of recorded medical history we still get stories like this, that really have nothing to do with anything.

Re:I've been smoking weed for 3 decades

[techhead79]

None of them believe in false stuff

What if believing that smoking weed has no bad side affects...is a false belief!?!?!!!!

Reeves

Re:I've been smoking weed for 3 decades

[avandesande]

I had a friend who was a heavy pot smoker and started have a psychotic break... eventually he blew his head off with a shotgun. I always had the feeling the weed aggravated his condition. I know plenty of pot smokers are fine too. Can't we entertain the idea that for certain people pot may be deleterious?

Re:I've been smoking weed for 3 decades

[Nyder]

I had a friend who was a heavy pot smoker and started have a psychotic break... eventually he blew his head off with a shotgun. I always had the feeling the weed aggravated his condition. I know plenty of pot smokers are fine too. Can't we entertain the idea that for certain people pot may be deleterious?

You ever consider that weed kept your friend from blowing his head off sooner then later?

His psychotic break most likely had to do with other things that never got treated. Mental trauma or something, and he eventually snapped. Question I have is, was he stoned when he blew his head off?

I knew this girl who went bat shit crazy when she was stoned. Did it stop her from getting stoned? No. Is it weeds fault? No.

If you have mental problems and do NOT get the proper help for it, then shit is going to happen, whether you smoke weed or not. Blaming weed for the problems isn't going to help, the problem isn't weed.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[symbolset]

Alcohol was already illegal then in Egypt, and they didn't lack for a local population to oppress either. And then there's the "League of Nations" business, which makes the UN's ability to write a stern letter an overwhelming show of force.

Tobacco use and Mental Illness

[Guppy]

I'll just leave this here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia_and_smoking

this is so dumb....

[harley78]

in other news, alcohol use has been linked with bad behavior. Granted it's the alcohol that leads to the bad behavior...oh wait,.....blanket illegality solves nothing.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[crunchygranola]

The myth would be the claim that it is very different.

If you look at the charts two things stand out - that the most potent commonly consumed cannabis, sensimilla, has not changed in potency since 1990, that is more than twenty years. So this product is exactly the same as it has been for a couple of decades or more.

The second is that the generic "marijuana" has over the same time inched up by 80% over the same time, less than a single doubling, and is still half that of sensimilla of 20+ years ago.

Let me put this question to you: is a Sam Adams Boston Lager very different in its health and drug abuse risks than a Sam Adams Double Bock? The latter has 80% more alcohol than the former. You will not find anyone in the alcohol abuse treatment community claiming that alcoholic proof has the slightest bit of difference in the risk and harm of alcohol consumption.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Dahamma]

Except medically and scientifically that's an inane and inaccurate cliche.

Medically, absence of evidence (those being said side effects and long term issues/diseases) is just data in a massively complex multivariable system. If (taking into account other factors) there is no increase in a disease in a population using a drug, it statistically doesn't cause an increase in risk. With risk being a statistic assessment, the POINT is to use statistical analysis, and absence of a result can be just as significant.

Anyway, you can go back to your beliefs in creationism, the tooth fairy, and Santa Claus, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say the absence of any evidence of their proof is scientifically significant enough for me.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a pretty heavy pot smoker myself and know potheads of all types. Smart, stupid, lazy, motivated etc. Just like the rest of the population. But, anecdotally I have always thought smoking pot (or doing any drug) at a young age was bad. I noticed that most people I know who used to smoke when they were young can't now because it makes them way too paranoid or zone out and shut down. People I know who started smoking when they were older don't see to have this issue. Myself included.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm going to assume you've never taken a statistical methods course. The conclusion says they key phrase: "suggests".

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Runaway1956]

Ever wondered how much less shitty the world might be if people like yourself just minded their own business?

Potheads want to smoke? What does it cost you, exactly? Put a price on what it actually costs you, for potheads to light up. No, you can't count the exorbitant costs of maintaining the DEA, the narc squad at your local police department, or the drug interdiction teams at the state level. You can't count all the costs involved in smuggling drugs. Those costs are created by nosy bastards who can't stand the idea that potheads might want to get high.

Pot can be grown in backyards for little to nothing. The pothead grows his own, dries it, rolls it, and smokes it at almost no cost to society, but people like yourself want to get involved. Why? Let the dopehead do his thing. That mellowed out bastard poses NO THREAT to you and yours.

So, just maybe you're partly right. Maybe if he spent all that energy and resources on bettering himself, or helping the community, the world just might be a little better.

Then again - I've met a lot of dopeheads who were veterans. They've already given to the communities across America. Leave them the hell alone!

Whatever their reasons for smoking pot, that's THEIR problem, not yours.

Shut up, sit down, and learn some tolerance. Maybe the potheads will allow you to sit with them, eat some munchies, and sing 'Kumbayah'. Think about it. Free munchies and some comaraderie. You don't even have to light up, they aren't as prejudiced as you are.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[poetmatt]

Just like the study, ignorance goes both ways as well.

Weed isn't about to expand people's brains, but to say that a single study is even remotely relevant without research and validation from those who can analyze the study is questionable at best. Add this to the mix of "people just don't like that other people smoke weed", as opposed to anything based on facts.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Runaway1956]

Heh - I never gave a thought to the timing of criminalization of Mary J, that way.

I think the more important timing is, nylon rope became commercially available right about then. You know, the then new technology developed by DuPont. All that cordage that the Navy required prior to nylon rope was replaced by Nylon, which the DuPont companies had a monopoly on. Prior to uhhhh - was it 1942? farmers were actually REQUIRED to produce so much hemp each year. Hemp was a vital resource, and Uncle had plenty of regulations in place to ensure that he would never run out of that resource.

But, yes, I'm sure that your observation had some influence on passage of the criminalization laws. DuPont won, the prison industries won, and only dopeheads lost. That almost certainly swayed some undecided representatives who hadn't been bribed enough.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[symbolset]

Heh - I never gave a thought to the timing of criminalization of Mary J, that way.

I think the more important timing is, nylon rope became commercially available right about then. You know, the then new technology developed by DuPont. All that cordage that the Navy required prior to nylon rope was replaced by Nylon, which the DuPont companies had a monopoly on. Prior to uhhhh - was it 1942? farmers were actually REQUIRED to produce so much hemp each year. Hemp was a vital resource, and Uncle had plenty of regulations in place to ensure that he would never run out of that resource.

But, yes, I'm sure that your observation had some influence on passage of the criminalization laws. DuPont won, the prison industries won, and only dopeheads lost. That almost certainly swayed some undecided representatives who hadn't been bribed enough.

Thanks. Agree about the commercial interests. You glossed "the prison industries" too quick. You want to linger on that one for a while. There is a reason we call them "prison industries". Employees of the court, lawyers and "prison industries" are the self-centered "law and order" contingent that needs a legally oppressed legally criminal minority to maintain their quality of life. They have a profit motive. It falls down when they sentence a killer to 9 Months, and a weed dealer that never hurt anybody to five years.

A dispassionate economist would say that with surplus productivity the imprisoned minority help to serve the purpose of depleting the surplus productivity. We find arbitrary reasons to imprison otherwise productive folk to make jobs for courts, lawyers and jailers. But I haven't got the gut to be an economist.

Agree that the textile issue is important. Disagree that it is the prime motive. We humans have been using some method of depleting surplus productivity through oppressing a minority for a million years and more. It's literaly in our genes. It seems to be a part of what we are.

An epigenetic study

[Anonymous Coward]

There have been other studies of cannabis and psychoses prior to this study too.

Epigenetic Mediation of Environmental Influences in Major Psychotic Disorders (From the Netherlands and UK)

Over recent years, evidence from epidemiological studies and meta-analyses has established cannabis as a clear risk factor for later psychotic symptoms or psychotic disorder. Interestingly, the age (or developmental stage) at which individuals start using cannabis influences this association. Further evidence suggests that cannabis use is also associated with a decreased age of onset of psychotic disorder and that gene-environment interactions are likely implicated in the association between cannabis and psychosis. For example, a longitudinal study by Caspi et al showed that cannabis use increased the risk for developing psychotic symptoms and schizophreniform disorder only in carriers with the valine158 allele in the gene encoding COMT. The primary psychoactive component of cannabis is 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which is thought to exert its psychological effects via the disruption of normal cannabis-1 receptor–mediated signaling in the brain. Administration of THC or cannabis elicits long-term molecular and cellular changes in the brains of mice and humans. In animals, cannabis had prolonged impact on electrophysiological and biochemical measures of neuronal signaling in brain structures such as the nucleus accumbens and hippocampus, with differential effects depending upon duration of exposure and timing during development. The underlying mechanisms mediating these prolonged effects have, however, remained elusive. It is tempting to suggest a role for epigenetic factors herein, especially given the recent observation that THC induces expression of histone deacetylase 3.

Psychotic symptoms, 3 years before even using?

[xanadu113]

Where can I find the pot that causes psychotic symptoms, 3 years before I even smoke it! Must be truly amazing!

Did I miss something? =)

Twinkies Cause Murder

[huckamania]

What this study boils down to is that any two groups of people will have some correlation. X number of people do thing 1. Y number of people do thing 2. The intersection of those two groups can be correlated. In San Francisco, this same logic was used to outlaw Hostess Twinkies.

Take any two people in the study and you will find that there are vast differences in physiology, personality, childhoods, etc. Al Franken did a great parody during a past election, before he became a senator, breaking down the statistics of people who answered "I don't know" to a survey
question. One of the follow up questions was "Why don't you know" and there was a percentage of people who answered "Because I'm high".

The current and prior President of the United States smoked pot. The one before them didn't inhale, wink wink. I'd bet dollars to dougnuts that all three did coke at some point. To me, it is one of the greatest injustices in US history that 4 terms of PotUSes in the White House and cancer patients still can't eat a brownie.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

How the random anecdotal evidence of a poster gets modded up I have no idea.

http://norml.org/component/zoo/category/cannabis-and-the-brain-a-user-s-guide

Perhaps he is referring to the fact that smoking cannabis and then stopping causes neurogenesis and thus an literal increase in mental capacity?

Ah but wait. That is NORML the hippy pot smoker site (nevermind the couple dozen independent sources cited correctly) so maybe we should see what the NIH says about it http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253627/. Yup, turns out the moron burnout you knew growing up was a moron to begin with and avoiding reality by staying baked out of his mind because Cannabis actually increases brainpower rather than decreasing it.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253627/

I cite the NIH who says that in the case of Cannabis you are mistaken. It causes neurogenesis. You literally are less intelligent for not having used it.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

Here in the US we tend to do as we like without regard to any treaties we may or may not have been a party to. Cannabis was outlawed in the US mostly because it was incorrectly equated to heroin and opium use and grouped in with these substances. These substances were in turn negatively associated with the Chinese and Mexican immigrants. At least these were the justifications, the ones who pushed them were those with financial interests served by the outlawing of cannabis which had quite a few potential industrial uses that conflicted with those of the oil industry.

Henry Ford had developed a car body that combined corn plastic and hemp fiber to make a very strong composite. There is an old video of him smacking a car with such a body with a sledge hammer. This was a serious threat to the oil and plastics industry.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[flaming error]

In the cases of the tooth fairy and Santa Claus there is not only no supporting evidence, there is verifiable and reproducible counter-evidence.

In the case of marijuana, to my knowledge there's little clinical data to support any interesting medical or scientific conclusions one way or the other. Hence the absence of evidence, which tells us nothing.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/marijuana

I cite NIDA who says that marijuana users suffer from severe memory problems, social problems, lowered IQ and much higher risk of heart attack. You literally are deluded for using it.

causation

[dutchwhizzman]

They statistically have factored out all other known causes and then compared to a "natural" percentage of both marijuana by itself, and at psychosis by itself. It turns out that there still is a statistical association between the two. Since there indeed is no clear causation, they say "suggests that there is a bi directioal association". I may not be a native English speaker, but even I can see rather clearly that they aren't saying that one causes the other. They have merely statistically proven that there is a common factor

Now, if I had to guess, I'd say that getting high up to a certain rate would stop the mind raging on of those that have psychosis. However, smoking too much would cause anyones mind to start going places that would be a cause for psychosis in itself. In medical terms: "self medicating" THC tends to give unwanted side effects if you get the dosage or timing wrong. The proper dosage varies from individual to individual and can differ depending on the circumstances and time and can sometimes be zero. That doesn't make it any different from any other psycho-active substance, whether it being administered through medical care or by personal experimentation.

People that are either high or in a psychosis usually aren't the best judge of what's good for them, so resorting to more THC, since it's "what makes them feel better". is usually the option they choose. That would be a likely explanation for these results, but again, it's just a guess; no scientific research was done to come to this conclusion.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[jhol13]

Why the fuck I get this same bullshit link every time someone shows there is likely causation? Do you really think those researchers do not know your "link"?

Deal with it, cannabis is bad for you. Maybe less so than alcohol, but it is bad.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[StoneyMahoney]

In that case, I'd like to cite the film "Superhigh Me". (Don't laugh... yet)

During this film, a guy spends a month not smoking pot does a bunch of tests, then spends a month smoking pot 24/7 and retakes them. In a basic SATS test, his score and psychic ability (I wish I was kidding about that soooo much) go up after spending a month high and his ability to do mental arithmetic goes down, along with taking away his ability to drive.

Discuss.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[StoneyMahoney]

A study in 2005 confirmed the previously discovered link between increased rates of psychosis-related mental disorders and cannabis use in the general population, but went on to show through statistical analysis of data from The Netherlands that this link was greatly increased by a genetic pre-disposition to suffering from those same mental disorders, and that the actual increase in mental disorders that could be attributed to cannabis use was much lower than previously feared, 1.5-2.5% overall IIRC*.

Link to study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC539839/

It was briefly talked about in the UK on Radio 4 (gotta love the BBC) but it was greatly under-reported compared to the previous news there was a link between psychosis and cannabis use. There was also some criticism of the study from both sides of the argument - in my experience that's pretty cast-iron proof that it was a truely neutral study, a pretty rare and precious thing given how devisive this issue is.

(*There was an article comparing the 2005 study with the previous study that came up with the cannabis-psychosis link on the BBC website, it went into quite a lot of depth on the numbers and used the conclusions from the 2005 study to analyse the UK's mental illness numbers to debunk the idea that there was about to be a big jump in the psychosis numbers because of very strong "super-skunk" strains hitting the streets. Instead it showed that the rise in figures had already happened and that rates had flattened off a year previously, the same as The Netherlands. Unfortunately, I can't find that ****ing page now!)

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[flyneye]

LOL, I'll cite Dr. Timothy Leary who conducted research at Harvard as well as many other facilities for years and years.
Did you really think I was just running my mouth? Why do you think the government put ANY money into it at all? Military applications? Don't make me laugh! Except for the obvious use, it didn't need much research for the Military.
Now quit playing back the garbage you hear in lieu of thought you honestly generated yourself.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[flyneye]

What are anon cow and why we keep getting post from it?

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't establish any causality about marihuana being nocive, I just said I hadn't seen any evidence of the mind expansion asserted by the AC I answered to. I didn't say anything about other psychedelic drugs either.

I would talk about your being paranoid, but you might consider it another attack on your beloved plants (anxiety attacks and paranoia having occurred some times after consuming marihuana -perhaps not directly related-), so I will let you have your fun with them and keep waiting for evidence of mind expansion.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

Actually, I didn't expect to be modded up. As you say, I'm talking about my experience. That said, the people I talk about are all over the spectrum, so few if any fit the "moron burnout" term: several have university careers, for example. If you are going to accuse me of jumping to conclusions (which you did), at least take care of not doing the same.

While we are at it, the NIH study talks about neurogenesis in the hippocampus, which can be a good thing, but I don't remember the hippocampus being related to the neocortex besides its memory function. But the study doesn't research memory effects, but anxiolitic and anti-depressive ones. Since there is no mention of marihuana's effects on memory and the neo-cortex I can only conclude that this study doesn't show anything about mind expansion.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

As I answered before, that study only shows ansiolytic and anti-depressive effects related to the hippocampal neurogenesis induced by marihuana consumption. No evidence of effects on memory or the neocortex is shown. Sorry, but that study, while interesting, has almost nothing to do with "mind expansion".

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

That's an interesting point. The people I talk about started smoking pot quite soon.

Nonsense!

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Pot has absolutely nothing to do with psychosis. The voices say so, too.

Re:Conclusive research.

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Yeah. It's the bathrooms! Isn't it? I always knew it. But ...ssshhh! They might listen!

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Psyborgue]

I was in Amsterdam this summer. They had no issues selling to me although I am not a citizen. Some coffee shops even had signs saying "no wietpass, tourists welcome". I have a feeling it's only enforced in the border regions. Amsterdam would take too big a hit to tourist revenue if it was actually enforced there.

The Beatles beg to differ

[codewarren]

The Beatles' use of drugs is epic and is regarded by the band members and others as a huge contributing factor to their work.

There seems to be a lot of evidence that the brain's ability to be logical and to be creative are actually competing functions. You can have both, but an expansion of one is often a contraction of the other. That drugs seem to diminish rational thinking and promote creativity is not exactly controversial.

For jobs that require a lot of both creativity and rational thought (e.g. software development) people report getting a bit stoned during the creative aspects, then doing the rational thought parts sober.

Yes, but smoking might fade away with legalization

[Ellis D. Tripp]

Smoking or vaporizing is the most "efficient" method of ingestion, in that it gives the maximum effect (and fastest onset) from the minimum amount of marijuana. This is important for most smokers considering the price of an ounce of good grass these days.

If the stuff were priced more in line with what it is (a dried herb), rather than an illegal black market commodity, users could afford to use it is less harmful ways. But spending a couple hundred dollars to make a batch of brownies is kind of prohibitive for a lot of people...

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Runaway1956]

The humorous bit here is, someone wasted mod points to mod your original post down to zero. It's not really funny that you were modded down, the real humor is in wondering who it was, and why they wasted a mod point on something that should at least be "interesting".

Of course, maybe you and I are just cynical SOB's, and the moderator dude isn't really a brainwashed dupe. Let me do a quick reality check here . . . . . . . .

"reality.sys is corrupt - reboot universe?"

Damn, we can't be sure with those results!

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[Zeromous]

so basically, FUD.

Ever wonder why youths have no idea and think weed is harmless? Because they are not actually educated about it in any meaningful way, and then when they try it for the first time they realize one joint is no more potent than two Robaxacet.

Weed's dangers are VERY WELL understood. We have been consuming it for millenia as a people. They are simply not talked about honestly. Especially by the likes of AC on /.

Re:Reefer Madness Continues

[Larryish]

Education is NOT telling kids that a single dose of MDMA can cause Parkinson disease or that 1 joint equals 20 cigarettes. This causes people to lose faith in the government, potentially making them think that it's all lies and that drugs are harmless.

THIS.

The D.A.R.E. program has been shown to be ineffective.

Why?

Check this out:

My daughter comes home from school sometimes with D.A.R.E. literature from her school.

D.A.R.E. pamphlet: "Alcohol and tobacco are drugs! They are terrible and evil! Run away!"

It doesn't really touch on scheduled drugs (pot/coke/heroin/etc.) but focuses on tobacco and booze, both of which are readily available in stores.

Does anybody see the problem with this approach?

I don't get the whole drug thing...

[dtjohnson]

People here are saying that weed is better than 'big pharma' drugs. TFA says that weed may cause psychoses. Three quarters of the celebs in Hollywood seem to have 'substance abuse' problems. What no one ever seems to say, though, is 'why do psychoactive drugs...ANY of them?' The chemistry of your brain is complex...incredibly so. Deliberately putting chemical substances in your body to artificially stimulate your nerve endings is nuts. It makes no difference if it is an artificial sweetener, glutamate, weed, meth, acid, coke, heroin, adderall, ritalin, doctor-prescribed psychoactive crap, whatever...it's all the 21st century equivalent of doing brain surgery with a stone knife. Okay, maybe there are a relatively tiny handful of people who have neurological conditions or chronic pain sufficiently-serious enough to justify using some sort of brain crap from their doc. For the rest of you, though, stop putting junk in your body, suck up your physical and psychic 'pain', and start using your brain and body for something useful during the short life that God has given to you on this earth.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[ukemike]

Not myth. In fact proven by your link. http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/stronger-weed.htm

The charts show show an increase in THC content from 1-2% to 5-6% in marijuana sold with seeds (low quality) and an increase from around 6% to around 11% for marijuana seized without seeds (higher quality). At the same time the percentage of the higher quality seedless mj seized increased from almost a negligible amount to about half. So if in the past you smoked the typically available low quality weed from the 1970s and now you smoke the typically available higher quality available today you have gone from 1-2% to about 11% THC content. That's like going from lite beer that's been watered down by half to wine. That's a big jump. The charts show hashish as going from around 2-3% to the high 20s. That's an order of magnitude.

Psychotic Reaction

[hoboroadie]

I once had a cop spazz so hard over finding a tiny roach in the back of my car that he broke one of my fingers subduing me. I was sitting calmly on the ground as ordered when he lost control and had to practice his sloppy version of a Felony Take-down. (He wasn't quite freaked out enough to call his accomplice back from looting my car, in case I tried to defend myself from the unprovoked assault.)
I'm fairly certain there was a causative relation, maybe from his apparent steroid abuse?
Has Officer S.D. (Short Dong) Wong of the EBRPD gone to rehab yet? Danger lurks in the Oakland Hills.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[hoboroadie]

Maybe if he spent all that energy and resources on bettering himself, or helping the community, the world just might be a little better.

What exactly makes you think that that energy will be applied in a positive direction? I think if you listed the top twenty catastrophes that have occurred to MY PLANET in the last hundred years, you'll find the perpetrators were all sober and ambitious.
More Human Beings and fewer Human Doings will be the key if Human Civilization is to continue.

Why is it?

[jeff13]

Why is it that every dodgy study on marijuana comes from some scientists from the Netherlands or Finland??? Think about it, do you really think weed can have such a massive affect on a person, that we've only now discovered? Heck, every synthetic drug advertized on the TV has far weirder effects such as, ooooooh, death, and yet they aren't part of some press release. Sheesh.

Sugar high

[iMactheKnife]

Real coders prefer a sugar high, or maybe potato chips.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Hatta]

You will not find anyone in the alcohol abuse treatment community claiming that alcoholic proof has the slightest bit of difference in the risk and harm of alcohol consumption.

Drinking high proof liquor increases your risk of mouth and esophageal cancer.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

Yes they do. Of course those results from old studies with monkeys where they asphyxiated the monkeys with smoke. Turns out asphyxiation will damage your brain no matter what you use. Go figure.

The study I cited was one of many more modern follow-ups because the methodology used in those studies is known to have been bogus. The DEA likes those old studies too.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

You are missing the portion of the test where he stops smoking for a month and all his scores revert to the same or higher levels across the board.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[shaitand]

Last I checked neurogenesis of any form is literal mind expansion. If you are referring to something else you are going to have to define it. As for memory, there aren't any credible studies I am aware of showing any form of long term mental damage as a result of marijuana use. And don't bother pulling out the DEA's favorite old studies where they asphyxiated primates to cause mental damage and happened to use marijuana smoke to do it. I've shown a benefit and the default is that the substance is harmless so the net ESTABLISHED result is that the substance is beneficial.

Regarding memory, there is evidence that there is a temporary decrease in short term memory capacity on marijuana use but the said impairment is completely reverted upon stopping use. So that does not qualify as long term damage.

Anything you come up with is going to be from addiction clinics which are essentially just profit mills who make serious money pretending marijuana has significant addiction potential. Anything coming from them on the topic is equivalent to listening to the tobacco lobby on the health effects of tobacco. It is biased garbage. More than 30% of the population uses marijuana and addiction research indicates a 30% addiction rate but I've yet to meet a marijuana addict. I have met people who went for treatment for other things who admitted they smoke marijuana and got a checkmark for marijuana addiction on the sheet. I've also known teens whose parents discovered they smoked and admitted them who similarly were listed as marijuana addicts.

I work at a technology firm. I am surrounded by people who mostly have genius level IQ's on a daily basis. Programmers, engineers, scientists, and people in the aerospace industry. Their incidence of smoking marijuana is far far higher than that 30% of the general population. I think I know three guys professionally who don't smoke and dozens if not hundreds who do. There certainly is no evidence of impairment there.

I'm not saying marijuana is harmless. I don't know of much of anything that is. But it is fairly benign as most things go if used in moderation and there is no especially compelling evidence that it damages your brain.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[dinfinity]

Which still does not imply or suggest causation.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[dinfinity]

The recent election brought the Christian parties to an all-time low (21/150, not in coalition government)

Yes, let us forget that the largest Christian party has been part of the government as either the nation's largest or second largest party from 2002 until the recent election, which made a decidedly right-wing party the largest.

Also, there are about 23% less coffeeshops in The Netherlands than there were in 1999. Starting in 2014, all coffeeshops within a distance of 350m of a school will have to close.

As for the suggestion that the politics are captive to the media, facts speak against you again. This theory originates in countries with a two-party system and doesn't effectively work in multi-party systems. The chances of backing "the wrong party" are too big, and therefore the mass media befriend all parties. Also, the larger amount of parties causes a far larger amount of political brokering. The scoop will go to a friendly media organization.

Yes, because populism hasn't gained any traction in the Netherlands. It's not like there's a Dutch politician that has become a worldwide celebrity because of his populistic approach?
Also, do you really believe that there hasn't been a stable government in The Netherlands since 1998 because they just couldn't get along?

Finally, your scientific argument fails too. WP notes a number of possible explanations, and a common causal variable indeed is one of them. But besides that failing Occam's razor, even the presence of a common causal variable would not disprove bidirectional causation.

I didn't say it would disprove anything, Occam's razor has nothing to do with this and no mention of a common causal variable is in the abstract (which the scientists themselves wrote). The 'suggestion' adds nothing to the correlation.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[dinfinity]

I don't care whether cannabis is bad for me, I don't use it.
There is no likely causation. That's the point. Even if the correlations were 1, no causation can be proven or deemed likely from them.

Scientists should be careful with their suggestions, as we all know that the media will have a field day further mangling their words. Unless that was the whole point of the suggestion.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[dinfinity]

You assume wrongly. Technically, the bi-directional association makes it _less_ likely that A is caused by B and vice versa; it makes it _more_ likely that a third factor is causing them both.

Was it the chicken or the egg?

[HHealthy]

If we take into account that pot eases the way in presence of pain and some cases of mental disorder it makes some evolutive or even epigenetic sense that the brain ask more for some drug-induced settlement in some stressful situations. Not saying that it has to be that way, but it certainly makes sense. Of course pot, especially in case of severe usage, can cause brain and consciusnees alterations, so it is certainly double-edge when it comes to mental disseases. For funding, research and peer finding please refer to the non-profit Aging Portfolio.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[Dahamma]

There is absolutely as much scientific evidence for the existence of the tooth fairy as there is for God. The only difference is we tell our children a different story about one after they get older.

And there is a plenty of clinical evidence that marijuana has a much lower incidence of fatal health problems than alcohol of tobacco (and the LD-50 of THC is astronomical compared to ethanol or nicotine). Your knowledge is seriously lacking, but the data is not.

Scientific Method

[alistairk]

We should educate oureselves to understand the essense of the scientific method, basic statistics and fallacy such as correlation does not imply causation. Then we will have the tools to analyse such reports and understand what they really do and do not mean.

Its true

[sonamchauhan]

A friend of mine is a heavy pot smoker in his late 40s. It has damaged his intellect and health (shaky hands, etc.) But he continues to defend his drug habit, except for this one thing...

He told me about a young friend of his, that he once introduced to pot. The young fellow had a psychotic episode _when smoking pot the first time_. Since then, he's not been right in the head (i.e its caused some sort of permanent mental damage).

Others can count this as hearsay, but I heard this first hand from someone who _loves_ pot. This study just backs that up. I'd urge you to kick the habit.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

Implying nothing. I'm not denying that cannabinoids induce neurogenesis in other parts of the brain because I know of no studies about it. But this study only concludes effects in the hippocampus and memory-unrelated behaviors. Thus it is insufficient evidence for any kind of "mind expansion", which is what we are talking about.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[gomiam]

Last I checked neurogenesis of any form is literal mind expansion.

Check again, please, because the brain is quite a bit more than the "mind": there are all these neuronal groups dedicated to controlling things like hormonal production, blood pressure and the like that take no part in our conscience of ourselves, ability to predict the environment or other higher-order functions.

And don't bother pulling out the DEA's favorite old studies where they asphyxiated primates to cause mental damage and happened to use marijuana smoke to do it. I've shown a benefit and the default is that the substance is harmless so the net ESTABLISHED result is that the substance is beneficial.

The did that? I didn't know. But once again, I have never asserted that marihuana harms the brain, only that the "mind expansion" argument needs proofs. And I have hardly seen any yet.

Regarding memory, there is evidence that there is a temporary decrease in short term memory capacity on marijuana use but the said impairment is completely reverted upon stopping use. So that does not qualify as long term damage.

That may be true, but since we are discussing "mind expansion" I would follow from your argument that no, marihuana doesn't actually help mind expansion.

Anything you come up with is going to be from addiction clinics which are essentially just profit mills who make serious money pretending marijuana has significant addiction potential. Anything coming from them on the topic is equivalent to listening to the tobacco lobby on the health effects of tobacco. It is biased garbage. More than 30% of the population uses marijuana and addiction research indicates a 30% addiction rate but I've yet to meet a marijuana addict. I have met people who went for treatment for other things who admitted they smoke marijuana and got a checkmark for marijuana addiction on the sheet. I've also known teens whose parents discovered they smoked and admitted them who similarly were listed as marijuana addicts.

I'm not coming up with anything, mind you. If you re-read, I'm using the references you so kindly provided.

I work at a technology firm. I am surrounded by people who mostly have genius level IQ's on a daily basis. Programmers, engineers, scientists, and people in the aerospace industry. Their incidence of smoking marijuana is far far higher than that 30% of the general population. I think I know three guys professionally who don't smoke and dozens if not hundreds who do. There certainly is no evidence of impairment there.

You see no evidence of impairment, which may be true, but it is not the point we are arguing. We are arguing whether marihuana "expands your mind" or not. My experience (basically as anecdotical as yours at your technology firm) doesn't lead me to consider marihuana something that makes people think better (for some values of "better"). Yours leads you to consider that it doesn't make people think worse. At most, both our experiences together might be evidence that it does nothing one way or the other. But for the memory issue you mentioned, of course.

I'm not saying marijuana is harmless. I don't know of much of anything that is. But it is fairly benign as most things go if used in moderation and there is no especially compelling evidence that it damages your brain.

I'm not saying marihuana is harmful either. I'm saying it is not beneficial, as far as I can tell. And, like everything else, in its right dose it can be harmless. But pot smokers don't get marihuana in medically tested doses, as far as I know, so their "moderated level" is actually unknown.

Side effects

[sonamchauhan]

Cool, but keep count of those rapidly decreasing neuronal telomeres... as pot snips them away.

Me, I prefer my brain cells regenerate when I need them. Like, when I get old

One last thing - marijuana is neuroprotective, but the likely mechanism is this...
[ http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_science1.shtml ]

"Perhaps the current best guess for how these chemicals [Cannabinoids] provide their protective effects is that their general dampening of neural activity reduces excitotoxicity (damage caused by overly excited neurons)."

That's right, it dopes the brain down...

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[flyneye]

I'm talking about LSD. I can cite others as well. You have some proof that Leary is a crackpot along with a certifiable definition of crackpot?
As for marijuana I cite the vast billions who have used it over the ages, thousands of years. Funny it only became dangerous and illegal in a few places in the last few years for purely political purposes. Now what was that toilet paper flimsy claim you were making on something your mama told you?

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[robsku]

Damn I'm high right now :)

But as to your question, I haven't ignored the fact that pot can have negative psychological effects on some people and cases (especially in chronic use [pun unintended]), I'm not going to ignore this, especially without reading it - if it's correct then it is.

PS. Assface.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[robsku]

Drug users claim that they use drugs because they supposedly expand their minds.

Not "drug users" but psychedelics users - they are drug users but drug users are not all (most really) them, sadly.

That is squarely where the burden of proof lies for that claim lies.

Yes it does - but I still can believe in my "mind expanding" (it's a tricky & wide concept, often misunderstood by those who haven't experienced it - and of those who have there are people who do think it wasn't real after all. Just to be fair) LSD experiences (as some experiences with other psychedelics) to be real.

For me it's hard (impossible really) to prove it and I don't know studies proving it so I'll leave it at that - it's my belief, nothing more as far as I can prove.

Still there are also people who claim it absolutely does not happen - but they have no proof either, so it's rather poor argument too.

Re:Wonder drug? I think not.

[robsku]

On the whole I agree with the principle, but at the point where someone is making a boatload of money selling something that might be dangerous, it deserves some medical attention to determine what the risks actually are. I don't care if it's marijuana, alcohol, or tobacco. Companies and individuals shouldn't be able to sell this stuff without the users of the product being made well-aware of what the hazards are.

Some pothead with experience of wide variety of drugs - mainly positive.

I agree with you on this fully.

For informed adults and responsible companies, yeah, who cares? It's their business. But for youth and irresponsible businesses, the rest of us do have some obligation to care about what is going on. Same for tobacco and alcohol, same for weed.

And this as well.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[robsku]

Let me put this question to you: is a Sam Adams Boston Lager very different in its health and drug abuse risks than a Sam Adams Double Bock? The latter has 80% more alcohol than the former. You will not find anyone in the alcohol abuse treatment community claiming that alcoholic proof has the slightest bit of difference in the risk and harm of alcohol consumption.

Your points above were all good, but this - which I consider bollocks. I'm assuming that it's because you know less about alcoholism and alcohol abuse treatment community than you know about Mary Jane. Or perhaps you know a large number of people from the community and it just happens that they fit into your claim, which maybe has caused your belief? I wouldn't know, and it doesn't matter - it's OK.

I'm not putting any arguments about the difference in harm between mild and hard liquor, I just wanted to friendly tell you that there are people in the community including alcoholics themselves (like my best friend who is recovering alcoholic with quite a bit of experience of that claimed difference - as his friend I share some of his experience, having seen enough to share his belief on this) as well as people working to help them.
As said, I wont argue anybodys views about this subject in this message - but if you want to discuss about it I will reply :)

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[robsku]

just as there's plenty of cases where people blame alcohol for the stupid shit they've done. AA is full of them.

still, if an alcie goes to doctor because of anger issues/unstability(that they blame on drinking) around here it's quite usual they're given diazepam. which would be all good if they weren't unstable alcoholics and the pams just enhance that. giving them a bag of weed would be much better, at least if someone is going too deep with weed they're not 99.99% of time going to hurt anyone, themselves or others, except through inactivity. someone with anger issues gets alcohol+diazepam psychosis and someone is going to get hurt - via physical assault.

Of course there are also very similar people with very different story. My friend is much like your alcie, except that his doing quite well on not drinking in excess. He has severe anger issues and unstability, which alcohol doesn't help but which actually existed before it and is the no. 1 reason he became alcoholic - poorly misguided attempt to self-medicate his mental condition.
He would need some diazepam - I've seen it and he doesn't have to drink if he has some, but currently his only source is street dealers. He has tried doctors for help - being honest (and also trying to get help with alcoholism too) he has told about his problem with alcohol and that he wants to be without it. His told about his mental issues, and asked for benzos because they would help - the doctor agrees they would probably help. He has also told that when he gets medication he doesn't have the need to drink - because the big reason for drinking in the first place is gone.
You know what the problem is? The damn stupid ass doctor, after all this, tells that he can't write prescription for such drugs because of the alcohol problem! Flaming fsck!
Yes, I'm angry - not only does his problems spread into my life too but he is also my best friend. I see him suffer, I feel him suffer - and a dipshit like this is appointed to my friend at local public healthcare station (this is Finland). Now when he lived in Tampere, different city with different healthcare policies, he actually got help. Since he now lives in Helsinki there is very little hope for him to get the medication *proven* to help tho two major problems, one which causes the other, and the other that causes him to not receive medication in this city from public healthcare.

this study doesn't really surprise me at all though, it's even on the "no shit sherlock" level, it's so blatantly obvious. still, it's nice that they bothered to make a real study about that unhappy people seek a fix.

I don't drink anymore due to health issues(pancreatitis is a bitch that wont let her eye off you) and would be very glad if they legalized weed around here. Sure, it might make you spend a lot of time thinking with yourself and laughing at stupid shit along the way but quite frankly what's so bad about that?

Psychosis as a term is so fucking all over the place that it's almost useless as a word too, since it can mean fucking anything - even me wanting to emphasize things with "fucking" is a form of psychosis if you ask the right idiot. basically most weedsters use psychosis as a word for being bored nowadays(they're out of weed it's "psychosis", they got some good weed but nothing fun to do while smoking it and it's psychosis again! they smoke enough that they're practically sleeping and that too then is psychosis.) - it's so fucked up thanks to the prohibitionists. hell, even being drunk is "psychosis" nowadays, fucking pansies.

Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s

[robsku]

Sorry for accidentally leaving the end part of your message into end of my reply below btw...