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U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

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Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#101

Post by yhoneycomb »

high_derivative wrote: post #48
40acres wrote: post #3

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…

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.

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.

Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4988731/

With that said, I think it should be legal. I just think people shouldn’t downplay the risks.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#102

Post by umvi »

stevev wrote: post #97

I’m curious, has there been any related deaths to cannabis usage? Why is this plant illegal when Alcohol has killed millions?

Alcohol is legal because it's impossible to ban it seeing as you can make it from anything that has sugar in it, which is basically all foods.

If cannibis were used as much as alcohol in driving settings, I'm certain there would be thousands of annual DUI deaths.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#105

Post by dragonwriter »

umvi wrote: post #91
dragonwriter wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would legalizing it make it harder for minors to get ahold of it? Legalizing increases the marginal legal risk (and thus expected cost) of selling to minors (still illegal) vs. selling to everyone else. The same is true of non-sale person-to-person distribution.

Ok, so you are saying given X minor marijuana user, it would be harder for X to obtain marijuana post legalization vs. pre legalization. That I agree with because X's dealer is willing to break the law to sell to minors while convenience store employees are less likely to. However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal and thus you'll have more minors us…

> However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal

Availability, sure; legalization is a product of image and appeal already reaching the level of legal recreational drugs, and there's no reason it would raise it beyond them. Might even reduce the forbidden fruit appeal to minors (but maybe not, because it still be forbidden for them.)

> All it would take is for Juul to make THC pods

Something that is unlikely, at least following the product design and marketing approach that had that effect for nicotine pods (for them or others) if the lawsuits against them for illegal marketing to children with their nicotine pods succeed.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#106

Post by AngryData »

40acres wrote: post #21
djsumdog wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as a result developed schizophrenia 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.

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.

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.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#107

Post by yhoneycomb »

wysifnwyg wrote: post #63
bregma wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really think a publication from a place with a URL 'drugabuse.gov' is going to be a reliable source of unbiased information?

Have you checked the math on the statistical analysis?

Really grasping for straws here

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#108

Post by nullc »

djsumdog wrote: post #6
40acres wrote: post #3

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…

> as a result developed schizophrenia 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.

> Can cannibals lead to psychosis in people

There are many diseases known to propagate via cannibalism, including ones with psychological symptoms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#109

Post by umvi »

dragonwriter wrote: post #105
umvi wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you are saying given X minor marijuana user, it would be harder for X to obtain marijuana post legalization vs. pre legalization. That I agree with because X's dealer is willing to break the law to sell to minors while convenience store employees are less likely to. However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal and thus you'll have more minors us…

> However, the point is moot because legalizing marijuana increases it's overall availability, image, and appeal Availability, sure; legalization is a product of image and appeal already reaching the level of legal recreational drugs, and there's no reason it would raise it beyond them. Might even reduce the forbidden fruit appeal to minors (but maybe not, because it still be forbidden for them.) > All it would take…

> legalization is a product of image and appeal already reaching the level of legal recreational drugs, and there's no reason it would raise it beyond them

Sure there's a reason. The reason is that legalization opens the way for marketing. Marijuana companies will want to continuously increase its appeal and image via advertising, just like the alcohol industry aggressively does. We've already started seeing medical marijuana adverts online that do just this in places where it is legal.

Re: U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory: Marijuana Use and the Developing Brain

#110

Post by jsutton »

jfk13 wrote: post #103
stevev wrote: post #97

I’m curious, has there been any related deaths to cannabis usage? Why is this plant illegal when Alcohol has killed millions?

Yes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30925348

No. The subject of your link is synthetic cannabis which is definitely NOT cannabis.
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