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Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

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201–210 of 330 posts

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Three weeks ago, I was pro-weed recreation legalization. Today, I'm strongly anti recreation use. The other posters here have a point. If one is vocal against cannabis while mostly giving alcohol a pass - it makes it harder to respect warnings of harm. After 5 generations of lying drug war PR and ridiculous propaganda, this deeply incredulous debate needs a lot to be worth considering.

Just because alcohol is bad for you, doesn't mean weed is good for you. I believe it's easier to get addicted to weed than alcohol. I think time will prove me right. Think of it this way. Let's say there are 100 people in a society. Without weed, 5 are addicted to alcohol. With weed, 20 are addicted to weed and 3 are addicted to alcohol. Yes, there will be fewer alcohol addicts, but we added 20 weed addicts. Is this…

Being addicted to alcohol is easily an order of magnitude more destructive to a person and the people around them than chronic marijuana use. It’s not even close.

I’ve been to inpatient chemical dependency treatment twice, once for opiate addiction and once for alcohol addiction. There were 0 people that were inpatient for marijuana use.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#202
post #86
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As it naturally occurs it probably was fairly innocuous in longer term psychoactive effects. Heirloom strains had CBD alongside THC. CBD on its own has been as effective in research as antipsychotics in treating schizophrenia, and very much mitigates the OP effects in research. But the vast majority of product today has selectively bred out the CBD. It's time we stop talking about cannabis use and start regarding it…

The THC levels in Canadian cannabis is f'd. Of all the things, I wish the gov. had put mandates that there must be a minimum level of CBD and maximum level of THC. It's bonkers.

Its like going to a pub and the only beverage is 95% ethanol.

I just hope in few years/decades we will have our well-bred 3% THC joints sold as equal.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few issues with what you're saying. 1. Weed has a mostly benign image right now. It has good PR. 2. It's much harder to realize that you're addicted to weed - unlike alcohol. Alcohol addiction is obvious to people around you as well. Not weed. Many weed addicts do not have the self awareness. 3. Weed can be significantly cheaper than alcohol per session - thus consuming more is economical for many. A few…

None of those are issues with what I'm saying. Many millions of people are able to use cannabis moderately and responsibly. If for whatever reason you can't, that's up to you to deal with--there are many resources available that can help. Taking it away from everyone because you have a problem is not a reasonable solution.

If you legalize cocaine and meth, some people will use it responsibly too. ;)

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#204

Every single chemical I put into my body has risk. Too much salt, caffeine / coffee, cheese, pasta / carbohydrates. When I drive a car I’m rolling the dice. When I let my 10 year old walk by himself to the subway, ride it to his friend’s house, and then ride it back, my mind can wander to all sorts of dangers. Marijuana is absolutely a drug with downsides. There are also upsides - for example I enjoy my life more. I…

Of course, I have no complaints or problems with things people do behind closed doors.

I only have issues with those who smoke so much it reeks even when they are not smoking or I am 10ft away from them and still smell it.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#205
This is potentially interesting, but it is important to bear in mind just how tricky mental disorders are to characterize robustly. Psychiatry does not have a record of strongly reproducible results. All of these primary criteria, cannabis use disorder, bipolar disorder, and depression are frequently diagnosed differently by practiced professionals.

One of the more academic investigations of addiction, the book High Price by Carl Hart, suggests that the real experience of addiction is substantially different from the way most people think of it and most addicts eventually quit on their own for a range of reasons. This suggests that the very concept of "cannabis use disorder" may not really make sense.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we have a weed epidemic then we certainly have an alcohol epidemic too, as well as an obesity epidemic, as well as a traffic accident epidemic, and so on. Making everything that can be harmful to some subset of the population illegal is not the way to deal with these issues. It's reductio ad absurdum into a totalitarian nanny state that literally controls your diet and makes you drive 25 mph on the highway. It's n…

There are a few issues with what you're saying. 1. Weed has a mostly benign image right now. It has good PR. 2. It's much harder to realize that you're addicted to weed - unlike alcohol. Alcohol addiction is obvious to people around you as well. Not weed. Many weed addicts do not have the self awareness. 3. Weed can be significantly cheaper than alcohol per session - thus consuming more is economical for many. A few…

[deleted]

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#207

Obviously people with mental discomfort are more likely to seek comfort in mind altering substances. That said, as someone who is bipolar, has bipolar friends and has used cannabis for a significant portion of my half-century on Earth, cannabis usage is proportional to mood instability in myself and my friends. I have taken extensive breaks and noticed I am much more mentally resilient and less emotionally labile whe…

> have taken extensive breaks and noticed I am much more mentally resilient and less emotionally labile when taking breaks.

For sure, but that's an association. Which one actually caused the other? eg. perhaps you got into a state of mind that was less emotionally labile and so decided to take a break.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#208

I can't see the full study methodology without an account. That said… The challenge with running studies ethically is that you can't split your test groups into two groups and somehow induce cannabis use disorder and see if major depression, bipolar, etc results from it. Rather, you can see if the people who naturally develop the disorder also have those problems. The flaw in this reasoning is that people who develop…

How is correlation vs causation determined in other studies where a control group cannot be used?

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Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Three weeks ago, I was pro-weed recreation legalization. Today, I'm strongly anti recreation use. The other posters here have a point. If one is vocal against cannabis while mostly giving alcohol a pass - it makes it harder to respect warnings of harm. After 5 generations of lying drug war PR and ridiculous propaganda, this deeply incredulous debate needs a lot to be worth considering.

Just because alcohol is bad for you, doesn't mean weed is good for you. I believe it's easier to get addicted to weed than alcohol. I think time will prove me right. Think of it this way. Let's say there are 100 people in a society. Without weed, 5 are addicted to alcohol. With weed, 20 are addicted to weed and 3 are addicted to alcohol. Yes, there will be fewer alcohol addicts, but we added 20 weed addicts. Is this…

I dont think its fair to just pull those number out of your bottocks and use them as argument. The same way I could argue "100 people, 20 addicted to alcohol, with weed 5 are addicted to weed and 5 to alcohol, while 30 begun to use alcohol/weed responsibly after broadening their views on how substances affect their mind.

Now the argument looks completely different, yet still holds 0 value.

It seems to me you are scared of weed now, and with your honest good will want to save others from it as well. That's nice and all, but please don't presume you know better than everyone, or even better than "those who haven't tried it yet".

I have had my fair share of experiences with weed, and while I agree that mindless consumption will bring harm (ask me how I know), I also believe that just landing hard in this case helped me discern this pattern in other areas of my life too - so (in my subjective experience) even this harm it brought me _directly_ improved my life in the long run. And that's before I start talking about effect it had outside its most obvious harm.

I advocate for education, and responsible trials for anyone curious, and I believe it can bring many positive changes into ones life. One just have not to abuse it.

Re: Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

#210
post #96

I can't see the full study methodology without an account. That said… The challenge with running studies ethically is that you can't split your test groups into two groups and somehow induce cannabis use disorder and see if major depression, bipolar, etc results from it. Rather, you can see if the people who naturally develop the disorder also have those problems. The flaw in this reasoning is that people who develop…

Obviously this is not a real argument against what you said, but the same thing happened with smoking. The tobacco companies said that there might be some set of factors that both caused lung disease, and caused smoking. As opposed to the alternate hypothesis that smoking caused lung disease. As is generally thought now, umbrellas do not cause rain but smoking does cause lung disease. Cannabis is federally illegal in…

> Obviously this is not a real argument against what you said, but the same thing happened with smoking. The tobacco companies said that there might be some set of factors that both caused lung disease, and caused smoking.

Mental illness and substance use both affect/are effected by the Brain. It seems less likely that the same cause would affect both the Brain and the Lungs.

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