My interpretation of their findings is that it doesn't provide safe assertions that Cannabis is the cause or the effect.
Or in other words, does Cannabis usage create psychosis or do people with psychosis choose to use Cannabis?
Similarly, there are unknowns with mental illness and tobacco smoking. Some think that those with mental illness are more likely to smoke as self-medication.
Exactly. It just basically says, from the people who requested mental health care, more of them used cannabis than from the control group. Great. They also present higher rates of smoking, alcohol use, self harm, obesity, and various disabilities. Some may be cause, some consequence, some none of them. The title is correct, there is a link, but that link has not established causality of any kind. This is basically repeating uncountable studies saying the same thing.
CBD, present in cannabis, is known to be antipsychotic, so the self-medication hypothesis is pretty strong. It's the same case as nicotine, schizophrenics have way higher rates of smoking, only because nicotine has a mild antipsychotic effect, not because smoking turns people crazy.
I'm saddened to read a plea for more causality (a topic that should definitely be more popular in all social and scientific claims), followed by personal and very unproven opinions, presented as tangible hypotheses.
I have not read the study so I can’t confirm that this one does not establish causality, but how are studies that don’t establish causality still published? At least shouldn’t they be appropriately labeled? We get some much pop sci drama from misinterpreting papers like that, it seems like it should be standard practice to show whether strong causality was or was not found/proven.
Paranoia from weed is a well-known phenomenon among smokers, and was so even long before clinical discussions about the effect became common. I'm surprised how defensive some (usually liberal-leaning) people become when the connection is suggested. I guess they have limited experience with cannabis, or they feel the need to protect a certain narrative.
Or they like good science that doesn't attribute causality without evidence? "Cannabis use increases the chance of psychosis" is just one of the three potential relationships. The other two are "The chance of psychosis increases cannabis use" and "A third factor increases both the use of cannabis and the chance of psychosis".
In reality, the effect is probably not just one, but some mixture of all three. It is extremely likely that people are self-medicating against psychosis with cannabis, that cannabis can increase the risk of psychosis in some people, and that the risk of psychosis is usually co-morbid with other mental health issues for which people also self medicating.
A study like this does nothing to help us understand the link, but yet the Authors seem willing to make strong claims about that link:
> The researchers suggested that if high potency cannabis was no longer available, the incidence of psychosis in Amsterdam would be expected to halve from 37.9 to 18.8 per 100,000 people per year, while in London, it would fall from 45.7 to 31.9 per 100,000 people per year.
That is irresponsible and bad science. It should be called out as such.
The article does mention that they studied subjects who had their "first episode of psychosis". You could still argue a person predisposed to psychosis can become a cannabis user as self-treatment even before their first episode happens, but that would be a stretch unless explicitly proven true.
Similarly, people who do illegal drugs and end up committing suicide. Some people point at that and say things like "damn, those drugs made them commit suicide!", when, more likely, they were self-medicating a mental situation that made them more likely to commit suicide in the first place.
Fair point, I should've left off the conjecture in the second part of my comment. I was trying to illustrate the point but, indeed, it did propose a cause where there's nothing beyond my own anecdata to back it up.
It's very hard to draw conclusions about causality from these sorts of a posteriori studies. That is, as you say, does cannabis cause psychosis, or do people with psychosis self-medicate with cannabis?
In order to get at that, you'd need to identify people with and without psychosis, and then follow them for many years. See who was more likely to use cannabis. And see whether using cannabis worsened psychosis. Not an easy thing.
No, it is impossible to draw conclusions about causality from such statistics only studies. The only way to establish causality is a randomized experimental intervention.
The sort of study you describe can distinguish to some extent between "A causes B" and "B causes A" but can't tell them apart from "C causes A and B"
They clearly stated in the "study" that they assumed (!) the causal relationship and then created their findings based on that. It is basically another science fiction paper for prohibitionists to use against people.
I arrived in London with nothing from post Soviet block country.
I was burned out within 6 months.
Then I started partying and one friend introduced me to Cannabis, I started doing it every weekend and made it a point to stay away from it during the week, so it doesn't affect my work in anyway
I managed do lot better, make better connection, climb the corporate ladder faster and make a lot of money
Now, I've my own startup
Not all my friends have been this lucky with their Cannabis use
What I believe is that Cannabis has potential to unlock some capabilities of your mind. Wether it unlocks positives or negatives depends entirely on the person and can't be generalized.
This is an old recycled study and far from being scientific. They assume causal relationship (yup!) and it's based on surveys. It basically looks like the authors had their pet theory and then build the paper around that to make a perfect headline maker to fuel government agenda.
The simple fact that people with mental health issues self-medicate wouldn't stroke prohibitionists.
Cannabis is so popular that person with issues sooner or later try it and find it helps them.
This study is essentially the same as finding people taking paracetamol for headache and saying paracetamol causes headache. The stronger dose people take, the stronger headache they have.
I think publishing such things should be illegal because it causes harm to public.
They may look deeper and see that childhood trauma is a predictor for psychosis. And many people who are dealing with trauma symptoms find relief in cannabis.
Because of a history of psychosis in my family I decided to never take drugs in my life, not even cannabis while I life in a country where it's legal. I still got a heavy psychotic episode last year. Turns out the (heavy) drinking I participated in my student life was to blame. Research has shown that alcohol abuse causes an 8-fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in men and a 3 fold increased risk of psychotic disorders in women. [0] Not telling this to undermine the danger of cannabis for psychosis, but I wish I knew alcohol is unresponsible too I you have a high risk for psychosis. Sleeping enough, excercise, healthy diet and not numbing my stress with any substance has greatly helped as well.
Yes, I learned it the hard way. My reasoning was that alcohol doesn't "free" your mind like cannabis or LSD does, so I will not trigger psychosis. But it still has effect on your brain chemistry.
Not usually, no, but at least for me it can induce a similar effect. Though most of the time that is only after I have used something else in the week before.
Do you exercise? I used to use ridiculous amounts of cannabis just so I could sleep at night. When I was quitting, tiring myself out to the point of exhaustion at the gym was about the only thing that worked. Another big thing that has contributed to my overall sleep was weaning myself off caffeine.
Also, possibly consider talking to a therapist about anxiety disorders. The self medication and your description of going to bed really resonated with me. Doing drugs just turned all that "off". I'm not a mental health professional, so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt. But anxiety was definitely a reason why I personally was self medicating so much. Either way, good luck on your journey.
Yup. I exercise an hour a day during lunch most days of the week. Wrestled in high school and college and worked out much more and while that is helpful sometimes I'm often physically tired but my brain is charged. In fact, I feel like working out helps recharge my brain.
Got off caffeine fully a year ago and that has helped some.
I've got a few diagnosed anxiety disorders. Those certainly contribute. I'm hesitant to try any actual medication though as I've seen it change friends significantly in the past.
As the other person says, exercise in the form of lifting weights has helped me. I always thought it was not for me, but lifting something heavy several times until you're tired makes me feel good.
I also focus on finding the source of my stress symptoms and resolving them. That's of course easier said than done. I decided to not pursue an advanced degree and currently work not a high amount of hours.
I notice I am becoming less anxious without alcohol as well after being sober for a year.
It happened a few days after a heavy weekend of drinking, but before that weekend it was months of getting drunk at least two times a week.
The medical professionals explained that heavy use of alcohol screws with your neurotransmitters. Especially dopamine might play a big role in causing psychosis.
I hate seeing science abused for political reasons, and this study is ripe for that.
Why doesn't the study talk about the reason those high THC strains are so popular in the first place? That to me is the real tragedy. Ultra high THC strains are the "moonshine with too much head" of cannabis prohibition.
Where I grew up, basically every youngster did drugs to escape the boredom of the 90s, as being trapped in their smallish german home towns. People did mostly cheap drugs like cannabis, binge drinking, magic mushrooms and crystal.
Many of them eventually abandoned their habits, apparently without much damage.
But I know quite a few who suffered from drug-induced problems like psychosis at some point in their life. Many of them are basically disabled now. Some of them live still with their parents, condemned to take medication for the rest of their life. All of them smoked weed, but only one of them smoked it exclusively. In the other cases where in addition drugs like crystal meth involved.
My guess is, that for some people those drugs act like a tipping point, and bring underlying problems into full blossom.
In my case, it was developing an anxiety disorder. Thus, as you don't know where or what your tipping point is, I'm strongly against taking those drugs. Even a one-time experiment with mushrooms can wreck your life.
Sorry, I agree with your full statement except the last 5 words.
Did you hear this from someone who knows someone or do you have the science for that? Because as far as I know, all scientific research on psilocybin conclude the same. If you have experience where someone "became weird after first use" they were probably already weird but hiding it from you.
Mushrooms are banned in the Netherlands because too many tourists died from incidents involving the drug. I figure many of those tourists used it for the first time.
>Nevertheless, medical intervention was needed for 149 incidents involving mushrooms in 2007, an increase of 19 percent over the previous year. In 2005 there were 70 incidents. Among the high-profile cases was an incident in which a Danish tourist raced his car across a crowded camping. Several tourists jumped or fell from hotel windows.
>In the case that led Ab Klink to propose the ban in October 2007, a 17-year-old French girl committed suicide by jumping from a bridge into busy traffic. It was later revealed that the girl, not old enough to legally enter a smart shop herself, had asked a friend to buy her some mushrooms.
I was sort off hoping you would give those examples.
The devil is in the details here.
We have a long history of problem with tourist coming to Amsterdam and live like animals.
Simultaneously in 2007 after a long time of having barely any seats in Amsterdam, the CDA (Christian Democrats) were looking for a reason for a stricter drug policy.
Now I do agree with having more control on the abuse of the freedoms in our city, but I am convinced the ban on mushrooms has been a superficial fake solution.
Yes, mushrooms are no longer being sold in the city, but now it's "truffels".
The bigger problem, as was in this case with the unfortunate French girl, people come here and have absolute no control.
What has been conveniently left out of this story is that the girl was already depressed and had been partying for days.
Mushroom usage has been a very safe practice for millennia and some party girl and zealous political party ruined it for us.
One could argue that one has to be weird to try drugs.
I know one guy for sure how went straight to psychiatry right after first time mushroom usage. I don't know whether he was beforehand that weird, but he needed a long time to recover afterwards. And he did never drugs again afaik.
I have a big problem with teenage culture. I didn't really have one but I see a lot of unhealthy escapism (I'm not an orthodox). It seems that teenagehood amplifies every emotion including need for social bonding, affection, status, excitement, self worth.. and the recent decades answer was: we are comfortable let them indulge in pleasures, you only get one childhood. While this is totally understandable, I feel these decades had a bogus point of view. The more I grow the more I think teenagehood energy should be channeled into adulthood smoothly but swiftly (granted variations between individuals). Instead of smoking to avoid anxiety or boredom, you get to throw all your creative energy, even anger in a way into craft/skills that will be very useful for adulthood.
I also believe that this was helped by the advanced education motto (the longer the studies the better).
I know this is 100% anecdotal, but a good friend of mine who was a brilliant programmer discovered cannabis in his late 20s after moving to the bay area for a well earned high-paying gig. Prior, to my knowledge, he didn't even drink alcohol. After about a year of extremely high dosages, something in him snapped. He just lost his mind. He became convinced the internet was sentient and was speaking through him and all kinds of other nonsense. He's been under psychiatric supervision near his family home back on the east coast ever since.
Again, it's anecdotal, and there could be a myriad of contributing factors - I know he had also begun drinking during that time period. But, until this happened, the idea of anyone going mad from cannabis was laughable to me. Now, I think about him sometimes when I'm visiting legal states and indulge myself in some quality edibles.
Apologies for repeating myself from elsewhere in this thread, but the 'paranoid from the weed' effect is extremely well known among smokers. I feel the need to stress this, coming from someone who has had more experience with weed, both personally and from social circles, than probably most in this forum (even accounting for the California contingent).
Some can deal with it easily and are unaffected, many are eventually a bit debilitated by it, and for some it triggers major problems. No need to sweep this under the rug.
Yes but paranoid doesnt mean psychosis. Inexperienced users will tend to get paranoid more so.
I believe people with psychosis are drawn to weed as they are to other substances.
This study adds nothing new. It just demonstrates that people predisposed to psychosis are more likely to smoke weed. Anyone here could've told you that without a study being done. There is no cause and effect demonstrated in the paper.
Notice they did not say smoking weed causes the psychosis even though they found a 'strong' link.
I'm no expert, but isn't paranoia one of the most significant, if not the primary, characteristic of psychosis? If cannabis triggers one, I'd say the 'strong' link is well warranted.
Ive had several friends become paranoid while smoking pot. Some of them have been daily for years.
While they may have had some paranoia not a single one of them suffered from psychosis. On the contrary most seem quite happy, laid back and well adjusted. Most have the same issues we all have, weed or no weed.
Problem with anecdotes is that your perceptions really affect them.
For example, I've been hit much more heavily by stress than by substances and consider the use of medical grade marijuana one of the reasons I'm still able to work in a competitive environment.
When I read this story, I think of how a high paying gig in the bay area sounds super stressful and would absolutely wreck me.
Someone else might pick up on the drinking, or perhaps his age, location, etc.
Why does all the research on cannabis and psychosis always rely on correlation as if its causation? This isn't the first study to prove this correlation, and then let the media imply causation.
If truth was their goal why keep doing the same broken study with pitiful sample sizes. 2000 samples is too small to a/b test a site, but good enough for a medical study?
If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1].
Obviously you would need to take into account population and other proven causes of psychosis such as alcohol[2]. Similar studies have been done[3] with much larger sample sizes than these clowns.
> If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1].
You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis.
Also, cannabis doesn't increase risk for all types of psychosis. There are different types. Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.
> You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis.
True but the countries I listed are first world countries where accurate diagnosis is common.
The third reference I give is to a study on the prevalence of psychosis across 52 countries. It takes in to account that in developing countries diagnoses is uncommon and not accurate, any decent study would do this. The world health organisation study I linked used a sample size of 200,000 compared to the 2,000 sample size the cannabis study used.
> Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.
Then the study should only target those types of psychosis.
Yes other studies with larger sample sizes have proven this correlation before, but correlation in itself is meaningless. My argument was that if they really wanted the truth they could have done a study to show causation, but instead they showed correlation using quack sample sizes and then a bit of choice wording to scaremonger.
The fact that people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis, doesn't mean cannabis will increase your risk of psychosis. It just means people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis.
Western society has a serious issue with nuance. No, we should not throw people in jail and ruin their lives for smoking cannabis. Yes, cannabis has some health benefits for specific people in specific circumstances. No, that doesn't mean that cannabis is somehow "good for you" in the standard sense of the the term.
This is why the "health benefits" arguments for legalization of drugs are generally a bad route to take. It would be far more fruitful to argue for legalization based on individual responsibility, personal choice, and related themes.
To me, the best argument (not only for cannabis, but for stronger drugs too) is that illegalization has been tried for a long time and it just doesn't work in practice.
I don't consume any drugs other than alcohol and don't have any interest in doing so, but if I did, it would be trivial to obtain them in my (smallish) city. Everyone knows where to go.
So illegalization doesn't meet its purpose (making drugs difficult to get) and yet it does have negative effects (the drugs sold have no quality control at all -which often causes deaths-, pay no taxes, are sold without any legal warranty, etc.) I'd rather they were sold in pharmacies, being dispensed together with reliable information (like tobacco), forbidden to minors (which could actually work reasonably well, because no one would go to the trouble of setting a black market exclusively to sell to minors) and paying taxes that could be used to fix the problems they cause.
To me, this is enough grounds for legalization, regardless of the exact health effects of drugs.
"...illegalization doesn't meet its purpose (making drugs difficult to get)..."
This is a common assumption about the purpose of drug prohibition, but historically things are more complicated. Racism played a much bigger role in drug prohibition and the war on drugs than genuine concerns about public health. The basic concept is that some non-white group is corrupting white youth/white women with drugs; therefore, to protect white people, the police are empowered to imprison/kill those scary drug peddlers. On some level it was about making drugs harder to get, but the assumption was that white people have no interest in drugs until some non-white person pushes it on them. The assumption was always that the impact of drug prohibition would be mostly concentrated on non-white populations.
> At the time, I was writing a book about the politics of drug prohibition. I started to ask Ehrlichman a series of earnest, wonky questions that he impatiently waved away. “You want to know what this was really all about?” he asked with the bluntness of a man who, after public disgrace and a stretch in federal prison, had little left to protect. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
For examples China under Mao, 'cured' the opium problem using extreme repressions [1].
Have you got any evidence that Singapore or Duterte's repression was requested by the US?
Drug laws vary wildly in the regions you mentioned. Just about the only thing that they have in common is that drugs are illegal.
And it's not just a question of laws, either. Laws are one thing, and policing is another. There are countries which don't really enforce the law for personal use amounts.
The US has draconian laws, and punitive policing. There's your problem. It turns out that the worse you treat your criminals, the worse your crime problem gets.
>the best argument (not only for cannabis, but for stronger drugs too) is that illegalization has been tried for a long time and it just doesn't work.
This is a pragmatic perspective, but if you care I will share a principled one.
I think the bigger problem is with the principle of individual liberty. What right has a king or bureaucrat to order armed thugs to enter my home and tell me what plants I can or can't eat, smoke, or whatever?
I also think if you look at history, one of the most glaring lessons is that authoritarianism "has been tried for a long time and it just doesn't work."
"I also think if you look at history, one of the most glaring lessons is that authoritarianism 'has been tried for a long time and it just doesn't work.'"
This isn't really true from a historical viewpoint. By far the most common societal regime in history is empire, nearly all totalitarian empires, from the Babylonian totalitarian kings/emperors on forwards to the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Aztecs, Incas, etc. If you want more on this, refer to the writings of Yuval Harari in his book Sapiens, as well as podcast with Sam Harris, where he lays out how empire is indeed the most frequent/stable regime we've devised.
While I make no claim for the superiority of any particular governmental regime, totalitarianism has worked for itself for thousands of years, proving itself out far more than democracy has yet to do. If we look to the height of democracy in the USA, it had not even existed for 100 years before a savagely brutal civil war to end slavery, the scars of which are still open sores upon our American psyche. In a totalitarian regime, it may have been possible to dispatch slavery in a far less bloody and scarring manner. Therefore, I do not agree that history has shown totalitarianism to not work, perhaps you care to elaborate.
I ask you then, which other democracy or form of govt is truly the shining example that you would point to?
>While I make no claim for the superiority of any particular governmental regime, totalitarianism has worked for itself for thousands of years, proving itself out far more than democracy has yet to do.
I was speaking with an assumption of prosperity and liberty as inherent virtues in humanity. You seem to be suggesting that other forma of governance, totalitarianism, is better because it has existed for longer periods of time.
> In a totalitarian regime, it may have been possible to dispatch slavery in a far less bloody and scarring manner.
Under every other regime (except perhaps Haiti) slavery was "dispatched" without a bloody civil war.
And the US civil war wasn't fought over slavery as they want you to believe, freeing the slaves was merely a byproduct of the war between the industrialized north and agrarian south (mostly) over tariffs.
> And the US civil war wasn't fought over slavery as they want you to believe,
As who want you to believe? Because if you read the declarations of succession and the words of senators from confederate states at the time, they clearly cite slavery and "property" (read: slaves) rights.
That's true, the south's wealthy leadership was fighting to keep their slaves as their wealth depended on it.
But Lincoln, and before him, Jackson, specifically said the northern aggression towards the south was not because of slavery. Jackson even made a very explicit statement that exactly this was happening, and that slavery was only a "pretext" and not the real reason.
That is reality though it is very unfortunate that humans can often be like this.
They say it was "the war to free the slaves" but before the southern states seceded the federal government had no intention of starting a civil war and in fact had no legal basis to conduct military operations on US soil even if they wanted to forcefully end slavery.
> Because if you read the declarations of succession...
It's painfully obvious the southern states wanted the institution of slavery to continue but they knew that having been outlawed in the territories that its days were numbered, they would easily be outvoted as new states were formed and slavery would be (peacefully) ended.
And, no, I'm not some kind of pro-slavery crazy person it's just one of my many pet peeves that it's taken as dogma that was the justification for the US government to invade the southern states when slavery was ended everywhere else on earth without a massive civil war.
"Everyone knows where to go." - No, most people don't actually.
Most people definitely do not know how to get something beyond weed.
Most people live really normal lives, the might 'know someone or know someone who knows someone' who smokes weed, but not coke, lsd, mushrooms or crack.
Illegalization 100% makes things 'hard to get' - it's a game of supply and demand: if opiates were legal, they would be infused into coca cola, cigarettes, candy and orange juice and be available in every corner store tommorow.
I'm a fairly 'experienced' individual and as of today I'd have zero idea how to get a hold of opiates. If they were legal, they'd be within arms reach.
Legalization of hard drugs, particularly opiates would cause a public health crisis like we've never seen. Only a small percent of people can handle that stuff, the rest go downhill very quickly and our health services would be overflowing, people would not be showing up for work.
And fentanyl basically closes the argument. That drug is like Russian Roulette and has caused a marked upswing in overdoses around the world - and it's something the junkies are asking for (because they like the potency). Legalize that and it would be like the plague.
I would legalize weed but not allow for commercialization, and then make hard drugs a health issue not a criminal issue.
And of course, open things up for research. It's really silly universities can't experiment safely with weed.
Well, for opiates specifically all one really needs to do is visit a doctor. It's gotten better, but in the past 5 years I've been offered a prescription for painkillers after nearly every doctors visit where I could have conceivably used them. I needed 5 stitches on my leg, and was offered 4 weeks worth of drugs. Ridiculous, considering the stitches weren't even in a month, and after 3 days I wasn't even taking acetaminophen.
> To me, the best argument (not only for cannabis, but for stronger drugs too) is that illegalization has been tried for a long time and it just doesn't work in practice.
Maybe only in the US. Drugs are illegal in places like the UAE or Singapore, and the prohibition seems quite effective there. There seems to be more things involved here.
There will always be tragedies with drugs but criminalization only compounds the tragedy. It is not a problem you can fix with the kneejerk violence of placing people in cages. At the root I think the problem is addictive drugs remove people from society. Incarceration all but guarantees that removal is maximized.
Portugal legalized everything a while back and it was a major success. It is worth reading up on their experience. A great quote I heard a couple years back: "It is an atrocity what we do to people when we don't like what they do to themselves." - Anon
you seem to be right, prohibition does not have the effect it was meant to have.
but too many people have a job through this regulation as is (police can easily improve quotas, prosecutors/legal advice etc., in my country there are medical staff in state institutions doing nothing else but testing people if they used cannabis/again ...), so the resistance is great to change anything.
I'm pretty sure prohibition had the exact effect it was actually intended to have. There's a reason US prisons are a big business now and US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Weed accounts for a huge portion of incercerations in the states. Also, many of these "hard drugs" like LSD or MDMA have legitimate medical uses. The motivation here was never to protect the public, and if you want to see what that actually looks like check out countries like Netherlands or Germany.
Having lived in Germany and visited the Netherlands on a number of occasions, I can assure you that opioids, LSD, MDMA are not remotely legal in those areas. They have slightly different take on those drugs, but they are definitely out of bounds.
Opioids have legit medical use obviously, and they are legal for those, and even then we have to be very careful.
> This is why the "health benefits" arguments for legalization of drugs are generally a bad route to take. It would be far more fruitful to argue for legalization based on individual responsibility, personal choice, and related themes.
There's the second-order phenomenon sometimes called the "iron law of prohibition" at work as well -- legal regimes of prohibition tend to incentivize optimizing potency per unit volume above everything else (including safety).
Since THC is the chemical in marijuana that, to first approximation, gets you high; prohibition (through that "iron law") has engineered a prevalence of high-THC marijuana strains. These strains tend have lower amounts of other, less/non-psychoactive cannabinoids such as CBD. Notably, there is research showing that CBD has anti-psychotic properties, which likely counteract the deleterious effects of THC that are mentioned in the article.
For the record, I'm not a marijuana user (the smell alone disgusts me), I don't subscribe to the "weed is a harmless drug"/"weed is good for you" meme-theories, and I don't wish to promote irresponsible drug use -- I'm just pointing out that the set of incentives that prohibition creates are very strongly responsible for making drug use needlessly dangerous (for users and society at large alike). It's not about the health benefits of the drugs, it's about the health benefits (or the lack thereof) of prohibiting the drugs.
And yes, prohibition is definitely still the law of the land, regardless of state/local-level "legalization" initiatives that withhold punishment for small "personal use" amounts or the like. People _still get_ searched/arrested/convicted/jailed for marijuana-related crimes, and as long as that is the case, the "iron law of prohibition" will keep doing its hideous work.
Right. Prohibition favored distilled spirits over beer and wine. The Drug War has favored cocaine over marijuana. Crack over cocaine HCl. Potent hybrid marijuana over traditional strains.
In practical political terms (western and otherwise), "because freedom" is rarely a winning political tact. The legalization of cannabis was driven by cannabis being normalized. The news presenter and your daughter smoke grass.
It was similar with gay right. Marriage rights, parental rights and such were driven first by "born this way," argueing that sexuality is unchangeable. Then, it came via normalisation as people came out and your friend end turned out to be gay. Eventually people concluded that homosexuality is fine, not a vice. "I think it's wrong, but freedom" only plays a role after the gay rights side wins. The dissenters can console themselves with it and put the issue to bed.
That doesn't mean no one actually idealises freedom, but it rarely adds up to political change.
>> In practical political terms (western and otherwise), "because freedom" is rarely a winning political tact.
Isn't it? It seems to me that Brexit in particular happened because the people who voted for it embraced a message of "taking back control", and similar arguments about political freedom from the EU that was portrayed as oppressive and undemocratic, etc.
(Though it's hard to know- I think a much more accurate model of the Brexit vote was that the country flipped a coin).
This is freedom in a rhetorical sense, and a national sense. The argument is/was that the UK isn't free because of europe, not that individuals aren't free. This is a lot different then the personal freedom I refer to, IMO.
You could also argue that remain is the "liberty side," freedom of movement, capital & goods. Being rhetorical and abstract, it just begets abstract questions like "what is freedom?" or "what's a nation?" Cannabis & gay rights are personal, so less abstract. There's no sane way to argue that freedom to be smoke pot (also crack, cyanide) is not a freedom.
In any case, no brexiter argues that europe works great, but we need out because freedom. That'd be the test, IMO. I think cannabis, homosexuality or whatever is bad, but it should be legal because freedom.
My point/argument is that this doesn't work politically. People may justify the (new or old) status quo with because freedom, but it doesn't drive change. Cannabis & homosexuality laws change because people stop considering it a terrible vice, generally.
People are social animals. Our opinions on norms (homosexuality, cannabis, murder, monogamy..) are are generated socially. Individuals forming their own opinions, sharing them, dissenting and such is what social norms are made from... Individuals are drawing from the herd brain and contributing to it.
No one's opinions are their own. If you grew up in a different time and place, your opinions would be different.
It's not just Western society, it's humans in general. The rest of the world might not get so wound up about narcotics as the West does, but there are plenty of other things that the mob makes unhelpful binary judgments about.
I'm also sceptical of the "cannabis is harmless" argument popular among advocates of legalization. no psychoactive substance is harmless or good for you generally speaking. having said that the most powerful organization in Germany fighting for legalization is the Hanfverband around Georg Wurth and they do avoid this simplistic stance.
my position is that people should only be held accountable for harming others or risking doing so. for example by driving while intoxicated with whatever drug. but every adult should have the right to do with themselves whatever he or she pleases. from that perspective the question of whether weed is harmful becomes secondary and reduces to harm reduction and medical assistance.
Why present this as a "western" thing? Where exactly is there more nuance? More willingness to admit exceptions to a general rule, law, or social norm? It rather seems that people have a serious issue with nuance. A tendency to see (or portray) everything in terms of pure black or white is one of the most universal of human traits.
And is that decision based on a genuinely objective far-ranging cost-benefit analysis of the likely effects of legalization? I mean a report produced in the style of the green warriors who want us to recognize the true cost of industrial and consumer products to everyone on this planet.
I'd like the see the score card for the pros and cons.
I mean compare chronic use with any other common drug. Say ibuprofen. You're gonna have adverse affects in both groups. It would be retarded to say that because of this well make it illegal and take away the benefit of people.
Somehow, if you suggest that smoking too much weed is bad for you, you're branded as some sort of puritan who isn't "getting with the times". I have never seen the kind of propaganda for any substance as I have for weed, with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects.
> with almost zero discussion about its harmful effects.
Where do you live? Because growing up in the Netherlands I can say all the negative side-effects were very clearly explained to us in high school, without stigmatizing it.
EDIT: it is a sincere question - obviously the Netherlands is in a kind of special position here. And my experience is from the late 90s, so who knows how things have changed since then too.
First, we should keep in mind that I can only speak anecdotally and by extension of that only for people with a higher education.
But with that said, yes, we do. I even know someone who had it, and they quit using weed after that. It's kind of treated like the complicated thing that it is: genetics and existing mental and physical health are all risk factors, and as a teenager there is the still-developing brain to consider (just like with alcohol). You basically have to decide for yourself if all of that seems worth it.
I am also interested in where you're from, because that really hasn't been my experience. Talking about baseless propaganda, don't forget that cannabis was deregulated for political reasons (in the U.S., then due to politics again, pretty much the whole world followed), not because of social or scientific ones. So your complaint about positive propaganda without discussion of harmful effects is very ironic.
I grew up in the Soviet Bloc. I didn't assume you were from U.S., not sure what gives that impression. I was talking about U.S., because it originated the current drug policy of the Western countries, roughly speaking.
I've seen some of my really bright friends get hooked on to it and become slow and lazy (anyone who says weed isn't psychologically addictive is lying), and it's just sad.
Not to mention that it is almost always mixed in with a little tobacco which is a smell I can do without.
That's their choice though. Are you really going to blame a plant for their becoming slow and lazy versus their decision to use it? Furthermore, I'd just point out that people who seem bright and happy on the outside can actually be suffering on the inside. It's possible they're happier and "brighter" now, just not in the same metric you were measuring them by.
(Note: I don't have a horse in this race- I don't use marijuana because I don't like the effects, but I'll be the last person to act like it's some demon plant out to hurt capitalism's productivity.)
Cynicism is nothing but a mechanism of self-defence against this evil and degenerate world; I encourage others to become cynics too before they go mad.
Cynicism is when this self-defence enters a degenerate state. This kind of negative outlook is an actual precursor to various kinds of psychosis widely studied with causal links established. You should check yourself.
Still a rather sad story on your side, sorry to hear that. Don't want to stir up things more but maybe have a smoke and relax a bit, world is just fine ;)
On a more serious note, cynicism is one way to fail to cope properly with reality, not something that gets you far and high in life. But hey, more jobs for us positive folks compared to bitter sad cynics!
I'm schizotypal and I do. For me, weed is how I get my brain to shut up long enough for me to get in the groove when I'm working on my artwork. My symptoms are primarily issues with thought disorganization and it's often a struggle for me to sit down and get to work because my behavior is often very disorganized as well. I've been treated for ADHD since I was little, but I see my ADHD and schizotypy as two sides of the same coin.
I don't smoke a lot, though. Just a hit every few hours, enough to give me a buzz. If I get too stoned to do anything, that defeats the purpose for me. Weed is a tool, weed is for work. If I want to just have fun, I'll drink.
It does, however, contribute to psychotic episodes sometimes. But it's never the only contributing factor, it's usually in combination with too much isolation and/or not eating/sleeping properly. If I feel like my thoughts are starting to get more and more unorganized, I generally take that as a sign I need to get out of my apartment and go see my friends. My psychotic episodes are pretty benign, though, all that really happens is my thoughts get too rapid fire and disorganized for me to do anything but sit there in a stupor because I can't get it together enough to execute tasks. They're over when I wake up the next morning. (I will also say, they were pretty frightening before I realized what they were just because it's frightening to feel like you've lost control of your own brain like that.)
I love how when the topic is climate change or vaccines or diet/nutrition everyone here is all "Science! Science!" but when the topic is adverse effects of vaping or smoking pot the preponderance of comments are "This science sucks!" Cherry-pick much?
Not really, the amount of quality studies done in relation to climate change dwarf those done around cannabis. Cannabis studies are still incredibly rare due to its legal situation.
Talked to a psychiatrist some years ago, he said it would create the biggest health crisis in Germany if cannabis would be legalized, as there is a strong connection to schizophrenia for cannabis use. This link is only in a small portion of people, but when millions start to smoke it's going to be a very large issue Germany is not prepared to tackle.
The psychatrist doesn't seem to know much about schizophrenia. If you compare worldwide prevalence [1], you'll see that the difference between countries of lowest prevalence and countries of highest prevalence only differ by about a factor of two. If you only compare developed countries, the difference is less than 50%. So even if everyone in Germany would start daily consumption of high THC cannabis, and IF that would be the only cause of schizophrenia besides a societal baseline, there would be about 8000 new cases per year. If we assume that each case costs about 16k EUR per year [2] for health care, that would result in additional costs of only about 130M EUR per year. That's .003% of GDP, so completely insignificant.
But what's way more important: The study shows that the only correlation is with daily use of high THC consumption. No correlation with low THC products (see figure 2 in the study). Results from e.g. the alcohol prohibition and recent cannabis legalization in the US suggest the share of high THC product would actually decrease once cannabis would be legal in Germany. So IF high-THC cannabis is the main cause of schizophrenia, it would actually be probable that legalization would decrease schizophrenia incidence in Germany.
Going into psychosis you aren't working either. And schizophrenia will decrease your lifetime working hours. So you need to add those too. And you'll need $$ for disability (beside healthcare) to also help your children. And housing etc. (not everyone, but many)
But yes, if the number of people is low it won't be a problem..
Actually many schizophrenia patients are in fact working and living relatively normal lives. The costs I linked are the actual current costs for Germany and include reimployment measures (have a look at the second link). But you're right, it is of course an outcome we as society should try to prevent anyway.
My point was that there won't be a societal crisis, even if the assumption of THC being the main cause of schizophrenia were true.
With or without legalization, better drug abuse prevention through education, widely accessible addiction treatment and de-stigmatisation of mental health issues are things we should strive for - because those measures actually affect peoples lives for the better.
Which country comes to your mind with high usage of cannabis and not a crisis? Looks like the Netherlands (which came to my mind) has rather low cannabis use.
There also wouldn't be a statistic if people do not report to a doctor about 'hearing voices' for example.
Also the Netherlands has shown the increase in schizophrenia
Cannabis is not actually legal in the Netherlands (rather somewhat "tolerated"), but your point is still mostly valid as there's no real reason for people not to smoke if they want to.
My interpretation of their findings is that it doesn't provide safe assertions that Cannabis is the cause or the effect.
Or in other words, does Cannabis usage create psychosis or do people with psychosis choose to use Cannabis?
Similarly, there are unknowns with mental illness and tobacco smoking. Some think that those with mental illness are more likely to smoke as self-medication.
http://ash.org.uk/download/smoking-and-mental-health-2/