My brother smoked heavily during his teens and as a result developed schizophrenia / substance induced psychosis. It was generally terrifying to see him unable to complete thoughts and lose his train of thought. He's fine now but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if you told me those years knocked a couple of points off his IQ.
I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects. Unfortunately the politicization of marijuana has led it, similar to guns, to be woefully understudied as a topic of public health in the US.
It totally weirds me out how defensive people are about your anecdote here. Talking to any clinical psychotherapist dealing with young adults, you will hear lots of stories about weed-induced psychosis and anxiety.
What I wonder is why it matters to people that it's not as safe as they may believe? Cognitive dissonance? We do lots of unsafe things.
I think it's because for many years anecdotal reports from clinical psychologists and psychiatrists drove a narrative (convenient to pro-prohibition authorities) that cannabis caused psychosis. Large epidemiological studies now suggest that's probably not the case, but the original narrative is often parroted uncritically by news outlets and others.
There are almost certainly risks from taking cannabis, but they are almost certainly an order of magnitude smaller than the risks of drinking and smoking (individually... not just becase A and T are more widespread)
It’s not even anecdotal. The relative risk for developing schizophrenia for cannabis smokers vs non cannabis smokers is 2.3. This means that you are 2.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia if you smoke cannabis.
Reporting relative odds or risks without a baseline is very misleading. The absolute risk in either case is still very low. People aren't downplaying risks.. they are setting them in a proper context (where other legal recreational drugs cause substantially more harm).
Schizophrenia is an imbalance in the polyphony of minds occupying our heads. Our minds and bodies take training to pilot properly. If we want to have agency, we need to be methodical and purposeful in what we do and don't vastly surpass our current limits. You can't go squat 400 lbs w/o training. The same goes for mind altering substances.
there's a fairly deep schism between the "I should be free to harm myself however I want" crowd and the "we need to protect people from themselves" crowd. the first group doesn't necessarily believe drugs are as safe as they publicly claim, but they fear that discussions about harm are the first step towards issuing or doubling down on bans. they don't think it becomes safe by winning a debate; they just don't want to let the second group win the debate on the record.
the second group, for their part, tend to come off as sanctimonious busybodies.
I think this is essentially a tribal, not a logical issue. A nuanced view is not welcome on these kinds of issues, you're either with us or against us.
You can be against the prohibition of marijuana while also thinking it's a bad idea to smoke it all the time, or at all. Laws don't have to match your personal beliefs.
I agree thet debate is polarised. But I sympathise with the irritation caused by the focus on poor quality evidence linking cannabis to psychosis when the widespread harms of alcohol and tobacco are basically ignored.
Disappointed in the comments here. There are NO studies involving psychosis and schizophrenia that factor in weed actually helping (hint: it contains an antipsychotic). Schizophrenia involves a defect in the gene responsible for producing the protein FABP5[1] which delivers our bodies naturally produced cannabinoids (eg, Anandamide and 2AG) to where they're needed[2]. Therefore it is not surprising there is a 'link' between those using cannabis and mental illness: flooding the bloodstream with cannabinoids somewhat makes up for the deficit in endocannabinoid delivery.
Unfortunately the fallacy of correlation-is-causation muddies the water here. Does self-medication cause incipient psychoses to fully manifest, or do those with incipient psychoses resort to self-medication in early stages in seeking to treat their symptoms?
Fortunately, it's still illegal to even study these things in America so we can comfortably resort to what we have faith in without the scourge of proof.
This goes just as much for the miracle of CBD oil (CBD rhymes with 'znake').
There are estimates that 60-90% of schizophrenics smoke cigarettes, which is 2-3x the normal smoking rate. I think schizophrenics are more likely to smoke marijuana around the time the disease begins to manifest. It's a lot easier to look at your child/brother/uncle/whatever and say "weed did this to him, it's all weed's fault" vs "the disease presented concurrent with a time period where person used cannabis".
I'm not even slightly convinced that weed induced schizophrenia is real.
Cannabis gives me manic and schizophrenic symptoms. I feel emotions I don’t have names for. I don’t get these symptoms without. This is a strong psychedelic with a very long binding time deep inside our neurobiology.
I'm just not convinced we have adequate information to formulate an educated opinion either way. More, better, validated research would help, but like nutrition and much in medecine, the nature of the problem precludes ever gaining a rigourous scientifically robust result.
Not only that, I lack the confidence we as a society can make adequate decisions on restrictions to freedoms based on the sorts of numbers and correlations that are currently being published. Does the expected reduction in harm justify the restrictions of personal freedoms imposed in its name? Does it help more than, say, banning high school sports would?
> I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects.
This is sort of the inverse of the anti-GMO position: "we should ban GMOs until we understand them". I wonder if there are many legalize-weed / ban-GMO folks, and how they would defend their position?
That combination of positions is incredibly common. Their argument generally stems from a belief that natural things are inherently good and artificial things are inherently bad.
GMO's are potentially dangerous to introduce into the environment. Lot's of shoddy science by Monsanto around them. They don't stand the test of time and aren't necessary. When introducing new potentially dangerous things into the world, the burden of proof is to prove them safe. This is hard to do.
Weed has been around forever. Your use doesn't affect me(unless you are driving).
We do understand GMOs though, after decades of broad testing in both the lab and the field where they were proven safe, with anti-GMO proponents choosing to ignore it.
There hasn't been the same degree of controlled scientific testing performed with marijuana as of yet, so calling for it should be welcomed.
Mostly GMOs are used so they can spray more glyphospate. Not sure why anyone thinks this is a good thing. We have had enough discussions on this very forum about insect collapse etc
Ha, call it the libertarian / data-driven approach. Frenzy over drugs like marijuana and cocaine fueled the "war on drugs" which devastated communities -- so I'm a proponent of throwing out simple possession convictions and decriminalization, legalization in my mind will help keep it out of the hands of minor (I have no data). I'm for everyone knowing what they're getting into.
My question was about squaring the "legalize-weed" position with the "ban-GMOs" position. You only addressed the first part of my question as far as I can tell.
Cannabis is not "meant" for anyone. It is a naturally occurring substance. Whether it has a negative impact on teens or adults is a completely separate question. Just like with alcohol.
The association between cannabis and schizophrenia remains, as far as I'm aware, primarily statistical, and other factors like familial history are significantly more predictive.
EDIT: That is, I don't think we have sufficient understanding to say whether pot abuse causes schizophrenia, or schizophrenics are more likely to abuse pot. Given what I know of how awful a ride that is, self-medicating that devolves into abuse seems far more plausible to me. Further, there's research that takes into account family history of these mental illnesses out to 3rd — and further — degrees, and which suggests a much stronger link between that and the illness, than the drug use.
This is correct. But we do have sufficient statistical evidence to rule out _large_ negative effects. We do know that cannabis is very unlikely to be as harmful to physcal and mental health as alcohol.
The thing for me is the fact that it might lead to schizophrenia is still scary. I've met a lot of people on the "it's not proven so I'm going to assume it's safe" side and I never understood it but then again I'm fairly risk averse.
It's broken thinking to assume something is safe on the basis of a lack of proof otherwise. We have a pretty substantial body of research exonerating cannabis of a lot of the harms other drugs of abuse can bring. Literally no-one ever has died of a cannabis overdose, that we know of. We know it's safe that way.
There is of course a risk with any mind-altering substance that it might trigger a latent or occult mental illness. Those odds go up, sometimes significantly, with more powerful substances, and even more so when the user has any genetic predisposition towards those conditions. There's also a risk of having a difficult or traumatic experience, which can likewise increase with dose or different substances. That said, those of us who work with these substances intentionally often find that those experiences can be where the really transformative stuff happens.
Anyone who's taken it should have no problem understanding how easily this drug can create a disturbed state of mind. It has quite powerful psychoactive effects.
I do a lot of work with psychedelics. I'm very, very well aware of the power of consciousness-altering chemicals to have profound effects. That's kind of the whole point of using them. They should be respected but I don't see how that implies they should be feared.
I think you meant to say "Induced schizophrenia by weed could be a thing, but more research is needed". The causation and correlation between existing mental health issues and weed is not well understood. Correlation is not equal to causation...
Given the link between inflamation due to infection and schizophrenia (here's a radio documentary on the subject, 'The Inflamed Mind', https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpjYmYPKZNE ) and the fact that joints and bongs are very often shared, any correlation could be entirely down to the increase in disease transmission vectors rather than the cannabis itself.
I'm sorry about your brother, but I want to point out this is anecdotal. Can cannibals lead to psychosis in people who are prone to it genetically, or are people who start experiencing delusions, bipolar and schizo-effective conditions just likely to escape using alcohol and marijuana? The exact cause/effect conditions here are a big unknown.
> The strongest evidence to date concerns links between marijuana use and substance use disorders and between marijuana use and psychiatric disorders in those with a preexisting genetic or other vulnerability.
> After adjusting for various confounding factors, no association between marijuana use and mood and anxiety disorders was found. The only significant associations were increased risk of alcohol use disorders, nicotine dependence, marijuana use disorder, and other drug use disorders.
It's pretty well established even in hardcore drug communities that drugs aren't for everybody and it's rarely ever the drug itself that caused it. Even without scientific evidence.
And then even the devil gets pointed out how they used the scripture wrong. The point being that the data itself is addressed, rather than just ad hom'ing the devil.
It's a division of the NIH and the article cites a peer-reviewed paper in Biological Psychiatry, so yes, I do think that this is a reliable source of unbiased information. The original study carefully describes its methodology (which is as sound as any neuroscience paper I've read), and was done in London, so you can't argue that the researchers are biased by American government attitudes toward drugs:
Every country, city, and government has a bias and an attitude toward drugs, including London. I hope you're not suggesting (perhaps you improperly worded your comment) that the US government is biased toward drugs but English government is not biased at all and is completely neutral scientifically. If that's what you meant, I think it's specious.
Every person has a bias towards or against anything they choose to take a position on.
I'm saying that the biases of the U.S. government, UK NIH, King's College London, and Palermo University, Italy (the other sponsor of the researchers) are likely to be largely uncorrelated when it comes to drugs. The U.K. does not have the U.S's history of criminalizing specific drugs (marijuana, heroin) simply because they are used by marginalized groups while legalizing others (nicotine, alcohol, caffeine) because they have powerful corporate interests backing them. They undoubtedly have other biases, but in a study of the genetic effects of THC on psychosis those are less likely to be relevant.
One way to minimize the effects of bias, despite its ubiquity, is to seek out multiple independent POVs. Each one of them is individually biased, but when you average them together you get something approximating the truth.
> ...was done in London, so you can't argue that the researchers are biased by American government attitudes toward drugs
Ah, my naive little cultural hegemonist. Sounds like you've live all your life in America. Have a Coke, turn on some Hip Hop, and watch your Mickey Mouse.
If you want to nitpick on the source, this is another source with a full publication:
> Variation at the rs2494732 locus of the AKT1 gene predicted acute psychotic response to cannabis along with dependence on the drug and baseline schizotypal symptoms.
Thanks for this specific info! If anyone reading this has done 23andMe, your ATK1 / rs2494732 genotype is available on there (search for those terms, it comes right up).
The way to contest evidence is to show that either: the statistical analysis has an error in the math, or that there is an issue with the scientific process used to obtain those results.
Wow what a paragon of truth and levelheaded reason, posting some propaganda article that any dumbass can poke holes in and which every dumbass has poked holes in. I love society now, and all of its earnest regard for public discourse and truth instead of just commies, who think they know whats best for everyone, marketing their worldview at any cost.
So that's as far as you got? Didn't like the domain, therefore the study results are bunk?
75% of the authors are affiliated with other institutions, only 3 are with the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NIDA itself is well-grounded. There have been some instances where they take a more conservative stance given uncertainty in results, but this is still a national scientific institute - not DARE or the DoJ.
Would you care to speculate again about how much time I've spent reading their literature before this discussion? I promise you, it's non-zero. Please try not to dismiss people's positions that shallowly; it's a disservice to the conversation we're trying to have, and it's rude.
I am involved in a number of communities that engage intentionally, even sacramentally, with psychedelics. The amount of sheer bullshit they continue to promulgate on that matter, about which I consider myself advanced-lay to burgeoning-expert, is staggering, and is sufficient for me to be default skeptical of anything else they might have to say. When you lie to me about things I know something about, I'm obligated to trust the rest of your oeuvre somewhat less, aren't I?
Finally, I said nothing whatsoever about the conclusion of the paper under general discussion. In point of fact, I generally agree with it.
Not OP, but FWIW your italicizing of drugabuse.gov also gave me the impression that you were dismissing it purely by domain. I did not ready any rudeness in your parent.
Thanks for your perspective, I appreciate it. I can see that being a legitimate read of the comment, if one punts on the guideline to assume good faith, and interpret people's arguments in the strongest light, rather than, e.g., dismiss them on the basis of formatting.
It's just disappointing when that happens, because I try to engage that way, and assume my comments will be treated the same.
EDIT: That said, I didn't exactly offer much in the way of argument there, did I?
oh thank the cosmos there is someone else who notices. im absolutely fascinated with psychedelic inspired communities, but that being said i certainly do notice a lot of people that tend to just devolve into a mostly coherent glossolalia in order to fit into some perceived archetype of a "woke shaman" or some such, and as someone with a vested interest in the pursuit of shamanism as an aspect of spiritual pursuits, it certainly frustrates me. i mean, to each their own, but i think it kinda poisons the well a bit. words and stuff ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'm not quite sure what you're referring to with "glossolalia", offhand. The shamans I work with variously use a mix of Spanish, English, and Quechua, or Shipibo-Conibo, and although all of those (if moreso the indigenous tongues) have what seem to be "filler words" with no specific (known) meaning, the overwhelming majority of the sounds they utter are recognizably from those languages, or whistling, or whatever.
your statement is soundly countered in a similarly unsupported opinion above. You may not like their domain name but the paper and science behind it appear pretty sound.
Can we stop with the downplaying when it comes to drugs?
Drugs should be guilty until proven innocent. Comments like these attempt to make them innocent until proven guilty. History has shown that there are very few "safe" recreational drugs.
This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.
"My mom died of cancer from smoking tobacco"
"Sorry about your mom, but I want to point out this is anecdotal. Can tobacco lead to cancer in people who are prone to it genetically? Or are people that are genetically prone to cancer drawn to tobacco? Or does it affect everyone? Lots of big unknowns here, so let's play it safe and not jump to any conclusions about the harm tobacco potentially may cause."
>This attitude is one of the reasons it was so hard for public opinion to change on tobacco usage.
With tobacco use, there was a huge amount if money spent selling the public on the idea that it wasn't dangerous. In contrast, there has been a large amount of money spent selling the idea that marijuana is incredibly dangerous. More accurate conversations would be
"My mom died of lung cancer"
"I'm sorry to hear that, would you like one if my doctor recommended cigarettes? Marlboro published a study saying smoking helps grieving people with no side effects."
Compared to
"My mother has schizophrenia"
"It's her fault for smoking marijuana. At least they locked up your father for selling it."
Meanwhile we all keep ignoring that the booze industry has worked tirelessly to make sure we use the phrase "drugs and alcohol" so alcohol isn't recognized as a drug by most of the population
Yes, and even more damning is the language used by DARE:
> D.A.R.E. America's Commitment to Prevention In its 35 year history, D.A.R.E. America has constantly improved its science and evidence based education programs to provide students with the knowledge and tools they need to resist drugs, alcohol, and other high risk behaviors.
Alcohol gets classified as separate from drugs. Wouldn't want kids telling their parents to not do drugs, right? And if their parents drink, that would just signal drugs are OK... etc etc
The person you are replying too understands that it is anecdotal, which is why they mentioned that it's a woefully understudied topic and needs more funding for long term studies.
It’s going to be difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions as you would need to construct identical environments with and without access to marijuana combined with cloned DNA or twin studies. Even then, will that be enough to predict if someone will have an adverse reaction to marijuana based on their DNA?
A simple test to determine if a teenager who tries marijuana should be forced to stay away from it is whether they have an extreme reaction to it.
I can't say what truly caused it or what factor cannabis played, all I know is that the diagnosis was 'substance induced psychosis' and 'schizophrenia' -- the doctors were pretty stumped and that leads to my point that a lot more research is needed.
It has been known for a while that certain drugs (also LSD) can induce psychosis' in certain people. The problem is that you cannot know if you are one of these people until you tried for a while. So it's a bit like playing Russian roulette. If you don't develop a psychosis when doing LSD, marihuana or shrooms, chances are that you will be fine. But if you do, you have a problem, possibly destroying your whole life.
I have a similar situation with my own brother- skipping over many details for brevity. What I've always wondered was whether the marijuana caused the mental illness or whether the mental issues developing lead to a dependence on the marijuana to cope with the stress, anxiety, etc. Sure, there is a correlation there, but how certain are we which causes which?
Then again, psychotropic drugs when you're already dealing with problematic brain chemistry probably isn't a great idea for anyone.
A number of studies ive read seem to point towards marijuana and hallucinogens as merely aggravating symptoms of mental disorders that were already present, but hadn't yet easily or fully expressed themselves. Things like bi-polar, schizophrenia, and other disorders are commonly known to grow in intensity going into adulthood, so even if the first time a breakdown or episode happens is actually triggered by something like marijuana, does that mean they could have never been diagnosed if they never used that drug? Or does it just mean they would have had a breakdown in the near future regardless? Maybe they just set the trigger of slightly earlier.
My experience is that many of the negative side effects of recreational drugs come from the culture in which they are taken, and the habits associated with them.
Taking ecstacy, for example, often involves staying up all night and dancing. I also feel terrible if I deprive myself of sleep without taking drugs, but I tend not to do that so often. So are the drugs dangerous, or are we just failing to construct heathy social norms around them?
Currently we strongly think that cannabis use can cause psychotic illness in some people, and that some of those would not have gone on to develop psychotic illness if they had not used cannabis.
But it's really complex.
People with schizophrenia smoke. They start smoking early, they smoke more frequently, and when they smoke they inhale deeper. EG, this, but there are lots of similar: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/25991762/
It's hard to unpick the causal directions. But the precautionary principle is sound: there's not many benefits to children of smoking cannabis, so they should probably avoid it.
It’s not anecdotal. The relative risk for developing schizophrenia for cannabis smokers vs non cannabis smokers is 2.3. This means that you are 2.3 times more likely to develop schizophrenia if you smoke cannabis.
Your post annoys me because it might actually lead people astray. Please try not to talk about things you know little to nothing about.
Marijuana is well known for causing psychosis, paranoia, panic, and other disturbed mental states. There's a reason they tell you not to eat the whole brownie - once the bad trip comes on, you're stuck with it and just have to ride it out. It can be quite harrowing. I also don't think marijuana is at all safe to take regularly, just looking at people who do so. It seems to incur actual neurological changes - you even stop having dreams. I understand that it can be fun, but all things must be taken with moderation, and people's increasing obsession with this psychoactive drug is worrisome.
> I also don't think marijuana is at all safe to take regularly, just looking at people who do so
I suspect lots of people around you do so without you knowing it; as it remains a federal crime and not protected from employment and other discrimination, many people are discreet about it and the non-discreet are not a representative subset of the using population.
It's worth noting that this is even more true of 'hard' drugs than cannabis. There are a surprising number of fine upstanding citizens with a heroin addiction...
i wonder how psychiatric drugs effect the developing minds of children - pediatricians prescribe them to children as young as 10 and most stay on them throughout their teens
You can also nuke points off your IQ by drinking acetone or inhaling the fumes.
I'm all for solvents to continue being legally offered for sale in hardware or paint stores, as they have for a hundred umpteen years, but we need funding for longer term studies ...
Weed, in its consumption form, (i.e. not hemp) doesn't have practical uses except maybe covering odors. Acetone does.
That said, hardware stores should be able to sell weed right beside the hand grenades and hard drugs should be available over the counter at any pharmacy that feels like stocking them.
I'm for decriminalization and legalization but at the core we need funding for long term studies to better understand marijuana's effects. Unfortunately the politicization of marijuana has led it, similar to guns, to be woefully understudied as a topic of public health in the US.