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Cannabis use disorder and subsequent risk of depression and bipolar disorder

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41–50 of 330 posts

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

#41

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…

Indeed. Your reasoning was echoed in this critique from Prof David Curtis, Honorary Professor, UCL Genetics Institute.

> “Around 20% of young people in Denmark use cannabis but in this study fewer than 1% of the sample had been assigned a diagnosis of cannabis use disorder and these may well have been people who had a pre-existing susceptibility to depression and other psychiatric disorders.

> “Other studies have shown that cannabis use itself is not associated with increased risk of depression, so perhaps we are seeing that people with a pre-existing susceptibility to depression are more likely to be diagnosed with cannabis use disorder. This clearly does not mean that we should infer that cannabis somehow causes depression.

> “I don’t think that this study provides us with much information to help decide the extent to which cannabis use is, or is not, harmful.”

[1] https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-...

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

#42
post #39
post #10

prohibition of cannabis has perpetuated greater harms than those it would attempt to mitigate.

Agreed. Edit: I misread your post earlier. Apologies.

edit: apology accepted, glad we're on the same side here I was too lazy to argue my case anyways. the demon weed strikes again

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

#43

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…

This precisely. Who’s going to utilize weed more? People going through mental anguish. You know what causes major depression anxiety and psychosis? Trauma. Read the ACE study. A cruel traumatizing environment and behaviors are far more to blame than cannabis.

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

#44
post #42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Edit: I misread your post earlier. Apologies.

edit: apology accepted, glad we're on the same side here I was too lazy to argue my case anyways. the demon weed strikes again

Way too much travel today for me to do anything more than lurk. Edited comment, apologies, I actually agree with you and completely missed the word "prohibition."

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

#45
Just a reminder for anyone reading this that CBD has been shown to be an effective antipsychotic in its own right [1], and particularly in regards to THC related psychosis [2].

It's probably not a great idea that the industry is moving towards high concentration THC and low to zero CBD product.

The "naturally occurring plant" is getting further and further from what's naturally occurring with the psychosis inducing compound coexisting with the psychosis mitigating compound.

It's quite disappointing to walk into a dispensary and see only a tiny shelf in one corner of the store with 1:1 or greater CBD products and 95% of the product on offer as a race to the bottom in CBD potency.

In the majority of people, this won't necessarily result in a psychotic issue, but it's going to happen commonly enough that we're going to have continuing and expanding social issues if 1:1 products don't become more commonplace.

I'd strongly encourage any future legalization legislation to consider marginally subsidizing product that has higher CBD ratios, as often I see that the consumer push towards THC only is related to cost saving against more expensive mixed products.

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1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7955839/

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7955839/

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

#46
Cannabis should be legalized and regulated. Period. People that want to partake ofc should have safe access to it.

That doesn't means and has never meant it is a harmless thing, like some groups portray it to be. "it's just a naturally ocurring plant!"

Education, more information and less zealotry help on both sides of the discusstion. It's not the devil's lettuce they had people think with 60s propaganda, but it's not a panacea either. Extremes are not good.

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

#47

I just quit weed after getting addicted for almost 2 years. There is a large community of people who are trying to quit: /r/leaves The article is nothing new to me. Read a few posts from the subreddit and you'd see a pattern. Three weeks ago, I was pro-weed recreation legalization. Today, I'm strongly anti recreation use. Edit: I'm not against decriminalization of weed. I'm highly against pro-recreational use. I'm ag…

>> Today, I'm strongly anti

Haha like all reformed addicts of anything. I'm strongly anti cigarettes.

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

#48
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

More like society has trouble facing the truth about one of it’s popular vices. The empirical evidence is overwhelming that there are very serious public health issues, yet so many people have an extremely biased vested interest in either continuing their vice, profiting from others, or simply getting votes. It will probably go down in 20 years as a disgraceful period of denialism, the promotion and legalization and…

Maybe I’m just biased because I’m from an area where they grew a lot of weed before legalization anyhow, but I don’t know that the youths are consuming any more cannabis (or that a larger proportion of them do it) now. It was already there, readily available, and highly prized amongst the same kind of people 20 or 30 years ago. So to me, the major difference is…how bad they’re made to feel about their drug of choice, I guess?

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

#49
post #11

Seems like every week, the health aspects around marijuana become more bleak. In the past few weeks alone: (1) Cannabis is a scavenger of metals and users had higher levels of lead and cadmium https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-high-blood-urinary-me... (2) "there's a lot of overlap in terms of the toxins and carcinogens that are in [both] cannabis and tobacco smoke" https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-08-american…

[flagged]

"Astroturfed" is baseless, but yeah there are a lot of boring nerds who don't do drugs and don't want anyone else to have fun either.

Cannabis is an order of magnitude less harmful than alcohol, who cares. More science is great and helpful, but this doesn't actually move anybody's needle on legalization, it just gives them an excuse to yell about it.

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

#50
post #2

"Cannabis Use Disorder", not "Cannabis use". The appropriate title is "Cannabis Use Disorder and Subsequent Risk of Psychotic and Nonpsychotic Unipolar Depression and Bipolar Disorder".

Have you ever met someone with schizophrenia? I would never engage in any activity that increases the likelihood of a permanent life ruining mental illness!

I have.

I worked inpatient psychiatry for ~6 years.

All substances you consume have non-zero risk associated with them.

Including seemingly benign things like milk.

It's the job of every person to understand their body and to do a risk/reward analysis on anything you consume.

For many, the benefits of THC/CBD/cannaboids outweigh the risks.

> I would never engage in any activity that increases the likelihood of a permanent life ruining mental illness!

I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount that you already do.

Sugar, antibiotics, medications, heavy metals... take your pick.

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