
The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids - ghosh
http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/reports/2017/health-effects-of-cannabis-and-cannabinoids.aspx
======
akiselev
TLDR: conclusive research on Schedule I substances is practically impossible
even when it's one of the most used drugs on the planet.

~~~
smsm42
I have no idea how hard it is really but if it's true it is impossible, it is
infuriating. People do research on substances that can kill a person with an
invisible amount, blow up buildings, poison vast areas, all kinds of deadly
things. But take a drug that any smart high-schooler can (and frequently does)
access it - and it's impossible to research it! This is so infuriatingly
insane.

~~~
yomly
There are plenty of pharmaceutical drugs out in the wild that have known side-
effects. Chemotherapy completely nukes a person's body but is legal because
the harm it induces is deemed worth the problem it solves (cancer).

Despite this, marijuana which is in easy circulation on the streets in dubious
forms of dosage/strength, has such a political air over it that most countries
still won't even look into the medical applications of it!

As a scientist, the double standards are incredibly frustrating!

~~~
smsm42
In US I think it's even worse - it is known there _are_ medical applications
of it but the federal government just pretends they do not exist and still
qualifies cannabis as "drug that has no known medical use". They don't refuse
to look - they look, see, know it exists and still say "no, it doesn't exist".

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dekhn
Speaking of alternative facts, this report basically demonstrates the the DEA
and NIDA have been promoting "alternative facts" about marijuana and
cannabinoids for some time (even self-contradicting themselves by paying UMiss
to grow marijuana for glaucoma patients).

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nautical
Highlights PDF :
[http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20File...](http://nationalacademies.org/hmd/~/media/Files/Report%20Files/2017/Cannabis-
Health-Effects/Cannabis-chapter-highlights.pdf)

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Madmallard
Yikes @ the mental health conclusions

~~~
neoeldex
Hmm, they state this in "Injury and Death": > In states where cannabis use is
legal, there is increased risk of unintentional cannabis overdose injuries
among children.

But then there's no LD50 determined for cannabis. So how could one overdose on
cannabis?

~~~
Beltiras
Read a funny statement in a study the other day. The lethal dose of cannabis
for dogs is 3g/kg. Don't know if it translates to humans but if the order of
magnitude is about the same then it takes on the order of 300 grams _ingested_
to kill a human.

~~~
chimeracoder
It's true. Marijuana is actually one of the very few substances with no known
LD50. Technically there is hypothesized to be one, but it is so high that it
would be literally impossible to ingest that much (you'd suffocate from lack
of oxygen first, and that's assuming you somehow weren't incapacitated from
being so high that you were able to keep smoking. So medically, that's
considered equivalent to "no lethal dose exists".

[http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-
mari...](http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2013/03/25/how-safe-is-marijuana-a-
toxicological-perspective/)

~~~
Beltiras
If you eat it you can ingest the dosage confirmed to kill dogs.

~~~
NTripleOne
It starts to get really complicated once you involve edibles, though - you
can't just straight up eat plant matter and have it take effect as if you'd
eaten a brownie, even though the dosage would technically be much, much higher
if you straight up ate a bud.

I'm no scientist nor a baker so I don't know the details behind it, but as far
as I know the THC needs something to bind to before it's digestible, usually a
fat - probably why cannabutter is the most common way of getting it into
edibles.

And that doesn't even account for the CBD which I have zero idea about with
regards to edibles.

~~~
pmoriarty
THC is far from the only compound in cannabis. There are hundreds of them,
with virtually all of them having had far less study done on them than THC
has.

If a human were to die of cannabis inhalation or ingestion, it's not clear
which of the hundreds of compounds in cannabis would be the one most
responsible for the fatality. It's quite possible that it wouldn't be THC.

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pmoriarty
One of the most surprising findings in this report for me was:

 _" There is moderate evidence of no statistical association between cannabis
use and: • Incidence of lung cancer (cannabis smoking)"_

I thought it was pretty well established that inhaling any burning plant
matter increased the chance of lung cancer. But I guess not.

Not surprising was:

 _" There is moderate evidence of a statistical association between cannabis
use and: • The impairment in the cognitive domains of learning, memory, and
attention (acute cannabis use)"_

and most worrisome was:

 _" There is substantial evidence of a statistical association between
cannabis use and: • The development of schizophrenia or other psychoses, with
the highest risk among the most frequent users"_

