Marijuana and Mental Illness

Beth said:
Really interesting downward trend from 1982 through 2007. Why do you think that has occurred?
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I personally attribute it to tougher drunk driving laws, better social awareness (drunk driving isn't cool anymore) and better safety equipment.
 
Halfcentaur said:
You seem to be saying Mexico has a problem with violence and crime because it turns a blind eye to drugs, and this same violence and crime would come to America (more so than it already has) if we were to lighten up on our own enforcement of prohibition.
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It was actually more of a question than a statement of opinion. I'm just not as sure I'm ready to legalize everything at the moment, or that legalization would automatically resolve all the problems.

I would think the crime in Mexico comes from a direct result of the black market our prohibition creates a demand for. If marijuana was legal here, people would no longer be dealing with criminal elements, they would not need to.

This is what funds the crime and violence in Mexico. If Americans were no longer funding the cartels in Mexico, and buying their products in coffee shops, or pharmacies, or growing it themselves, why would there be an increase in crime at all?
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Frankly I find that logic hard to argue against. I tend to agree with you on that point.

You think the effects of the substance are driving these people to commit criminal acts?
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No, I personally think it's the money that drives the crime.

I just don't understand how this fear and prohibition has been going on for so long while beer and liquor gets a free pass. Like I said earlier, maybe it has to do with xenophobia. Alcohol seems domestic to the average American, and other inebriating substances have an exotic strangeness to them, I suppose.

Whenever I spend time in Amsterdam or other "free minded" countries, it all seems so obviously insane. It's really tragic we even have to have this sort of debate in the first place.
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FYI, I don't give alcohol a free pass. As it relates to MJ, I frankly don't care if it's legalized. For all intents and purposes that has already started to happen here in California. In fact, we already have a 'medical marijuana' shop in Mt. Shasta. Unfortunately it's already been robbed and it has already changed ownership and it's been open less than a year. :)

I guess my question is "where do we draw the line"? Maybe in Amsterdam everyone walks home from the bar, but here in the US everyone drives. I'm not sure I'm ready to share the road with someone who's been doing a combo of drugs all night and still thinks they're good to drive home. I'm sure that complete legalization might work in many scenarios, but I'm not sure it works in all of them.
 
The possibility of someone driving on a substance is not grounds for prohibiting it. And while I am not advocating driving under the influence of anything, the way alcohol warps and distorts balance and spatial awareness is not shared by marijuana or many other drugs. Indeed, judgment could be impaired, and there is a danger of drowsiness with many illicit substances, but the dangers are not any worse than what we face already with alcohol or many prescription and over the counter medications for a wide variety of the substances we're discussing.

ETA: In fact, I would rather have people high on most of the illicit drugs and driving than I would alcohol. Alcohol impairs your spatial awareness and balance as well as judgment, while marijuana may only impair some people's judgment and alertness. Methamphetamine would probably improve many people's ability to drive and reaction time (never mind the sleep depraved insanity :O ) While I am not advocating that people allow others to drive under the influence, if I were to choose what is more dangerous, outside of potent and vividly intense hallucinogens, I would say driving while using alcohol is far more dangerous than any of the illegal substances we're talking about. If you're going to to actually present the situation that this somehow opens a slippery slope, beer has already done this.
 
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Dancing David said:
So when you show one that has a large pool randomly assigned, then we can talk
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That's not really fair is it? The study you ask for is one that would never be approved for ethical and legal reasons.

ETA: I'm pretty sure they never did a study like that to determine that cigarette smoking causes cancer. And yet we know that it does.
 
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Aquila said:
If the cause of depression is a chemical imbalance, the cure is nutrition, - B vitamins are said to be good for the nervous system (plus good life style, more sleep and removal of stress, which all effect health) not a temporary fix of marijuana.
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Isn't there some kind of Godwin-esque law about mentioning nutrition when discussing mental health?
 
A rational (IMHO) look at the evidence from all sides here:

http://www.health.vic.gov.au/drugservices/pubs/cannabis.htm

I was diagnosed with Drug-Induced Psychosis after years of heavy marijuana use. My symptoms (paranoia, a myriad of delusions) lessened then disappeared after I gave it up. I started smoking it when I was 18. There was no history of mental illness in my family.

I don't think cannabis should be illegal. One of the things that made my paranoia worse was the illegality of what I was doing. And I was pigging out on the stuff. Moderate use can help depression and anorexia, and be very pleasant recreationally. It was my own fault for taking it too far.
 
Aquila said:
At the suggestion of another forum member on another thread which was becoming off topic, I would like to discuss marijuana, and its link to adult onset schizophrenia, schizo-affective disorder and Bipolar Disorder. This is the post I left on the other thread:


IMO, it's time we stopped the denial about the harm caused by marijuana. I think that the modern weed makes people go crazy. It alters the ventricles in the brain. One doctor I heard said that he's seen brain scans of people who chronically smoked marijuana and their brains showed the same sort of damage as heroin addicts.
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I'd be instantly suspicious about this claim because heroin is in no way neurodegenerative. GP's can talk a lot of **** when it comes to illicit drugs, their definitely not the best source of information. That being said, I'm familiar with the study, or at least remember when it first came out. This article gives a brief rundown. Might be worth looking up the abstract on Google Scholar?

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL3026841220070430
 
Halfcentaur said:
The possibility of someone driving on a substance is not grounds for prohibiting it. And while I am not advocating driving under the influence of anything, the way alcohol warps and distorts balance and spatial awareness is not shared by marijuana or many other drugs. Indeed, judgment could be impaired, and there is a danger of drowsiness with many illicit substances, but the dangers are not any worse than what we face already with alcohol or many prescription and over the counter medications for a wide variety of the substances we're discussing.

ETA: In fact, I would rather have people high on most of the illicit drugs and driving than I would alcohol. Alcohol impairs your spatial awareness and balance as well as judgment, while marijuana may only impair some people's judgment and alertness. Methamphetamine would probably improve many people's ability to drive and reaction time (never mind the sleep depraved insanity :O ) While I am not advocating that people allow others to drive under the influence, if I were to choose what is more dangerous, outside of potent and vividly intense hallucinogens, I would say driving while using alcohol is far more dangerous than any of the illegal substances we're talking about. If you're going to to actually present the situation that this somehow opens a slippery slope, beer has already done this.
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IMO, it's really tough to argue against that logic. Thanks for the food for thought.
 
Puppycow said:
That's not really fair is it? The study you ask for is one that would never be approved for ethical and legal reasons.

ETA: I'm pretty sure they never did a study like that to determine that cigarette smoking causes cancer. And yet we know that it does.
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The issue is that there is no demographic and longuitudinal data that shows mj use causes brain damage, despite what some people think.

I was responding to Aquilla's OP wherein an unmatched study allegedly showing brain damage.
 
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Aquila said:
Please excuse me for asking if this is too personal, but are you of average weight? The reason that I ask is that I know several people who are, let's say, "large" and seem to be able to tolerate prescription medications with less side-effects than my average to under-weight friends.
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Not in the least. I am 5'9" and my weight is always in the 140-145 range. I exercise and weight lift on a semi-regular basis throughout the year depending upon how much free time I have. According to recent fitness tests conducted in a PE class I'm quite health and if anything I am above average in my fitness. Assuming I put in a little more effort than I do now I could probably have a 6 pack within a month or 2.

As others have said there are numerous other things which are legal that cause more damage, cost more money, and are generally unhealthier both physically and psychologically than marijuana. The fact that alcohol is legal while pot isn't is insane. The fact that overeating and underexercising to the extent of obesity is legal and pot isn't is insane. The fact that cigarettes are legal and pot isn't is insane. But most of all trying to police something that is unpolicable and wasting billions of dollars, law enforcement time, jail space, and ruining people's lives in the process is utterly illogical.

After a long day of school, doing homework, working, or in some other way being productive I enjoy having a couple hours to myself at night to sit, smoke pot, and relax whether that is playing games, watching tv, listening to music, or some other form of entertainment. What is wrong with that? I am a productive member of society so why should I fear being persecuted for doing something that harms no one while other people can go out and get drunk off their ass, light up cigs, or even sit at home and do exactly what I do minus the addition of smoking pot?
 
Michael Mozina said:
I guess the problem I have with outright legalization of all drugs is the fact the over 50,000 people a year die in this country as a result of drunk driving. Legalizing more drugs (yes, I would say alcohol is a drug) would IMO only complicate things, and would likely lead to more deaths on the road. How do you define "over the limit" when people start "mixing and matching"?

I also question whether or not the "war on drugs" works or not when I see countries like Mexico today. It may not "work" here in the US in quite the way we planned, but there is a "social" structure aspect that seems to factor into this process. Mexico (and other countries ) have turned a blind eye to drugs only to find the level of violence simply goes off scale and a full "war on the streets" occurs. Do you really think Mexico would benefit by "legalizing" drugs?
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Yes. One only needs to look at the short time in US history in which alcohol was illegal to understand how things work when substances are made legal or illegal. When illegal there is a huge black market for the substance. Any industry which can make large amounts of money will attract people to capitalize on that money. If the industry is illegal then only criminals, mobs, crime syndicates, gangs, or whatever term you would prefer, will be the large suppliers. This directly leads to violence for control of these markets as no other legal recourse can be taken. This is why during prohibition gangs and criminal groups formed to supply alcohol and this lead to deaths to maintain these organizations and their power and money as well as deaths due to improper making of alcohol. When it was legalized the government could control its creation and distribution and people would buy it legally. So what happened? Criminal organizations could no longer compete and so they left the alcohol market and instead went to other illegal markets such as pot.

As for driving while intoxicated I think that shouldn't be allowed. However, people drive intoxicated on alcohol, or on pot, or on meth, or any other mind altering substance. This tells us people will do it regardless of the legal status of the substance. People drive while sleep deprived and get in accidents too, but nonetheless I bet you'd think that mandatory sleeping laws or making driving while tired illegal is silly.
 
I bet a lot of anti-pot tards would also find outlawing professional football to be silly. The average NFL player will live to be 55 years old...compared to the national average of around 77. That's 22 years less. Yet no one is up in arms about football, no one is trying to ban the sport or take away scholarships...

There really is no scientific debate left on the issue. Marijuana is far less harmful than many other celebrated aspects of our society (and in many cases is actually beneficial).
 
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ThunderChunky said:
I bet a lot of anti-pot tards would also find outlawing professional football to be silly. The average NFL player will live to be 55 years old...compared to the national average of around 77. That's 22 years less. Yet no one is up in arms about football, no one is trying to ban the sport or take away scholarships...

There really is no scientific debate left on the issue. Marijuana is far less harmful than many other celebrated aspects of our society (and in many cases is actually beneficial).
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The greatest harm from Marijuana is from law enforcement...
 
2 years ago when I looked at all the evidence, all I could find is that some psyche changing substance (not only MJ, but also alcohol, and other drugs list being quite open) could be told in some case to make a latent condition surface (or seemingly make the symptom more pronounced). But there wasn't a single article showing that drug *caused* a psychosis. Unless I missed something this did not change.
 
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Halfcentaur said:
They seem to think the lack of a family history means the cannabis did it.
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Lack of family history on my side showing insanity depression or whatnot (ETA: I meant to say there are none with such "official" diagnosis). At least as far as my granduncle or grand grandma goes. Ditto. But still I don't smoke MJ.

So what now ? Anecdote for anecdote, mine at least *shows* that psychic illness with similar symptom can come up in absence of MJ.
 
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Aquila said:
I know people from then who are still pot heads and have done nothing with their lives - mostly been unemployed and living on welfare or legacies.
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I know pot heads who are working towards getting their PhDs in the hard sciences, I know pot heads who have started and run their own businesses and employ dozens of people, I know pot heads that are tenured research professors and leaders in their field...and I don't even know that many people.
 
What about THC ending up in fat tissue and being released throughout 1-2 weeks after smoking? I've heard it many times, but I wonder if it's true or if it's a myth? Because if a high can last that long, that could be a problem.
 
Metabolites from thc and other cannabinoids are deposited and are detectable infatty tissue. This isn't active in any sense of the word, it's the waste byproducts that remain behind.

Intoxication is temporary, mild and relatively harmless from a comparison pov.
 
TubbaBlubba said:
What about THC ending up in fat tissue and being released throughout 1-2 weeks after smoking? I've heard it many times, but I wonder if it's true or if it's a myth? Because if a high can last that long, that could be a problem.
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Um, it is true but tolerance means they don't feel high. (But it likely explains the hangover effect I experienced.)

The levels exist for about thirty days after use, depending on the amount the blood levels can be substantial. So say they used a very sensitive test, there are probably trace amounts for a very long time. The gubermint takes a hair sample when they test you for employment, your urine is clean after a month, the hair has it until it falls off.
 
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