
The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women - nashke
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032716304906
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calgoo
So the cause could be that there are a lot of depressed men that smoke
cannabis to try to escape their depression instead of taking medication?

Maybe it shows a tendency for women to seek professional help where men do
not? Especially in cases regarding depression or other "non-physical"
illnesses?

~~~
nashke
We adjusted all analyses for depression and other mental disorders.

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nashke
I am one of the authors, AMA

~~~
cpncrunch
Thanks for doing this research, and for posting this...it's a very important
field right now, considering that many countries/states are legalising
Cannabis. I live in Canada and cannabis is in the process of being legalised.

I haven't read the full-text, but how well have you figured out the causation?
The study seems to show that in women suicidal ideation causes cannabis use.
In men it _seems_ to be the other way around (cannabis use causes suicide
ideation). However I'm wondering if even in men the desire to use cannabis is
influenced by some kind of mental instability, which would have caused
suicidal ideation even in the absence of cannabis. Perhaps you address this in
the full-text.

Also, I'd suggest paying the $3k open-access fee to make this article
available to everyone. It's a small price to pay for increased exposure, more
citations, etc.

~~~
chatmasta
It's fucking nuts that you need to pay $3k for anyone to be able to read your
work.

~~~
cpncrunch
Perhaps you should start up a peer-reviewed journal that doesn't charge
anything. I wonder how you'd afford to pay your employees.

~~~
cairo_x
They don't pay their employees though -- if you count the people who _generate
the actual content_ as employees. Nor do they pay the academics _who do the
actual peer review_.

They pay editorial staff and tech dudes. I guess a metric shit-ton.

~~~
vacri
Retail stores don't pay their employees either, if you count the people who
manufacture the actual goods. Nor do they pay the truckers who actually get
the goods to the store.

They pay janitorial staff and retail assistants. I guess a metric shit-ton.

Yes, it's an imperfect metaphor, but it's showing that you can still provide
value without being the origin of the object.

~~~
ajb
You missed his point, which was NOT that the journal didn't originate the
article.

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nashke
[http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1TQFMbXYiRe8A](http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1TQFMbXYiRe8A)
This link should allow access to the full text for the next few weeks.

~~~
sandstrom
Why only for a few weeks?

~~~
nashke
The publisher gives a link for sharing on social networks which works for 50
days, after that, it's paywalled.

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dietrichepp
So, since the authors are here, I have a couple questions.

How is this correlated with legalization? From an intuitive standpoint, it
seems like someone who thinks they have "less to lose" would try illegal drugs
which carry risk of incarceration, and that same kind of person might consider
suicide.

To me, the fact that the effects happen in reverse order (whether suicidal
ideation precedes cannabis use or vice versa) indicates that there could be
some kind of common cause for the two effects, and that it just manifests
differently for men and women. Unfortunately the full paper is paywalled.

~~~
nashke
Regarding legalization- we had no relevant data, so I can't say. The
bidirectional association may indeed indicate a third cause, as discussed in
the paper. I have added a link that should allow access to the full-text, let
me know if it doesn't work for you.

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heisenbit
Suicidal ideation is a serious problem for the person and also for anyone
close to them who learns of it. Finding evidence that it is associated with
cannabis use may be helpful in directing attention.

It is interesting that unlike ideation suicide attempts were not associated
with cannabis use. How is this to be understood? Suicidal ideation is often a
precursor to suicide attempts. Is the number of suicide attempts in cannabis
users equivalent to the general population or to a population with the same
level of suicidal ideation?

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nelxaretluval
Here is the article: [http://sci-hub.cc/10.1016/j.jad.2016.07.010](http://sci-
hub.cc/10.1016/j.jad.2016.07.010)

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byteface
Becuase it's illegal it causes people to be isolated and hide their behaviour
for fear of persecution. This I imagine increases depression and anxiety.

I only smoke it to stop me from wanting to kill everybody else :)

~~~
nashke
Illegality is indeed one of the possible mediators of the association. A
recent study has demonstrated decreased suicidality in states where cannabis
was legalized

~~~
byteface
Ye I wasn't being facetious, more drawing from personal experience. Amazing to
hear that it is actually correlated though. It does cause users stress from it
being illegal and hard to get hold of. It means lying to friends, colleaugues
and also maintaining unsavoury aquantances to be able to score etc. Many also
genuinely smoke it to block out the bullsh!t of the world and reality which
can make them feel helpless, angry or depressed.

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youngButEager
The very interesting thing is the degree of denial - of ANY negative side
effect -- of using pot among any user. The vast majority of smokers would
laugh it off if they were told "there's a notable correlation between suicide
and pot use."

I smoked it for about 3 years as a teen, between 1976 and 1978. In those days
about zero 'horticultural engineering' was done to the stuff -- the potency
was low.

But the effects were dramatic. And negative.

Now? The stuff out there now simply MUST be highly 'engineered' after 40 years
of time from when I used it recreationally. The odor is so overwhelming, so
strong. The 'skunk' odor.

Back in my day the stuff consisted of stems, leaves, and a bud here and there.
The buds had seeds. The seeds would sometimes explode like popcorn. All the
pictures of the stuff I see nowadays -- it looks like all buds, and seedless.

In the 1970s, what made me stop it was this. Recall that if you're riding a
bike on the right side of the road, cars pass by. Okay, imagine a huge truck
passing you and suddenly it swerves to the right -- the huge truck _almost_
hits you but you escape being hit/run over by steering your bike into a ditch.

You are quite shaken, lots of anxiety.

It's NORMAL to feel anxiety at a time like that.

The "I'm in trouble" indicator is -- feeling anxiety for no such reason. No
imminent threat, no "I'm late for my final exam", etc. Just smoking the stuff
and then feeling anxiety.

You know you're in trouble with that stuff when _you cannot seem to shake off
the anxiety._

Contrary to what 99.99% of pot users say, the drug -- like most drugs -- HAS
SIDE EFFECTS.

I stopped because I felt anxiety and could not shake it.

Stopping the recreational use solved that problem.

Suicidal tendencies from pot use? I had friends back then going to psyche
wards and rehab to try getting off that stuff. In the 1970s. When it was FAR
LESS potent than today. I don't know if any of my friends/acquaintances back
then ever got low enough to off themselves.

I never argue with anyone these days when they discuss how 'wonderful' pot is.
My only wish would be -- remember, it's a drug and drugs have side effects.

You'll know you're in trouble when you have anxiety for no reason -- other
than the pot use -- and you cannot shake it.

~~~
nashke
I personally am in favor of decriminalizing cannabis use, as well as other
drugs. Unfortunately, the debate regarding legalization is very polarized, and
tends to not be based on scientific findings. One side tends to demonize
cannabis while the other dismisses any information regarding negative effects.
I believe there are many reasons for legalization, but mainly as a method for
harm reduction, not because cannabis is some sort of a wonder-drug. Here are
some studies regarding long-term negative effects:
[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1402309](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1402309)

[http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=24880...](http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2488041)

Our findings in no way imply cannabis use causes suicidality. There are many
other factors we couldn't analyze which could be the cause of this
association. The reality is that these two behaviors (cannabis use and
suicidality) are very complex, and this study is just one small step in the
understanding of how these complex behaviors interact.

I believe proponents of cannabis legalization should look at all the data
regarding long-term effects of cannabis with as little bias as possible -
there are enough good reasons for legalization, it is dangerous to ignore
scientific data regarding risks.

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cik2e
People are always looking for something to blame other than themselves. I'm
sure there's at least one person in history that committed suicide solely due
to weed consumption, but I would wager a guess that there haven't been more
than 10.

~~~
dwaltrip
> People are always looking for something to blame other than themselves

More often, people are looking to blame the moral failures of others rather
than acknowledging and addressing the complexity in life that results in
unfortunate situations.

