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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."
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.
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
"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.
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.
..... where weed IS decriminalized.
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.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
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.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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.
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.
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.
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..
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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
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.
the data was inconclusive; which means exactly that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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/
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
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.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
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...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Myth.
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/stronger-weed.htm
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
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.
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.
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.
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.
Be seeing you...
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.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
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.
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.
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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? =)
-Myke
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.
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.
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!)
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.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
What are anon cow and why we keep getting post from it?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Pot has absolutely nothing to do with psychosis. The voices say so, too.
Oh, the beautiful gloss of greality!