http://authors.elsevier.com/a/1TQFMbXYiRe8A This link should allow access to the full text for the next few weeks.
Why only for a few weeks?
The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
41–50 of 57 posts
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#42So, 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…
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.
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#43So, 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…
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Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#44Suicidal 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?
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
You missed his point, which was NOT that the journal didn't originate the article.
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#46People 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.
> 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.
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#47Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#48Becuase 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 :)
Illegality is indeed one of the possible mediators of the association. A recent study has demonstrated decreased suicidality in states where cannabis was legalized
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.
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does cannabis use compare to alcohol use with respect to suicidal behavior or depression?
Alcohol is strongly associated with suicidality, but again, it's difficult to prove causality (Try randomizing people to "alcohol binging group" or "suicidal ideation group"). The association is more robust than that for cannabis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2872355/
Do you know if there have been any mendelian randomization studies looking at alcohol and suicidality?
Re: The association between cannabis use and suicidality among men and women
#50I am one of the authors, AMA
I don't have a question, but an observation, and some unsolicited advice. You said "AMA" hours ago, and haven't returned (as of my comment timestamp) to answer the questions that have been posted here. On HN, the story may fall off the homepage before you have a chance to come back, which would limit the audience that would see your answers. I've upvoted it, because I think it's an important study and the conversatio…
It looks like it might've been more of a time delay issue as it seems like they've answered lots of stuff in the intervening hours. I'm not entirely sure how much answering questions late at night actually affects the audience. I do definitely hope that this post stays relevant because it's always great when the authors are around to answer questions on posts.