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Is this the 'tobacco moment' for cannabis?

There is no evidence that cannabis causes schizophrenia, rather it brings it out in the predisposed. The development of schizophrenia in adolescents and those in their early 20's involves an excessive reduction in surface level brain mass in the cerebral cortex. Cannabis can't cause that.

Also, just because someone has been diagnosed with schizohprenia doesn't mean they actually have it. Doctors make mistakes all the time about disorders, and temporary states. Modern psychiatry loves to label and over-diagnose. The fact is, we don't really have solid scientific research on the misdiagnosis level, but it is likely notable. A lot of diagnoses are later modified based on trial and error treatment plans that revealed new information about the case.

I do think though that regular heavy use of cannabis can cause psychotic breaks or in the least a great deal of disassociative behaviour. But isn't that to be expected? Most general drug use can lead to that. If you're so doped up you can't even tell what's real anymore then you should consider lowering your dose.
 
Completely with you on not demonising smokers and drinkers. id be a massive hypocrite if I did! Im not even argueing about their taxes supporting the ecomony to a huge degree. what annoys me is hypocrisy inherent in saying that drug A (illegal) is dangerous and could wreak your life, while alcohol is just as bad but doesnt a mention. Advertising for drinking are everywhere while smoking advertisements are mostly banned. Its all the double standards that really bother me.
 
^ this is why I think the term 'alcohol and drugs' should stop being used, alcoholics are drug addicts, is the distinction made by 'alcohol and drug abuse' services just to avoid offending the sensibilities of people with alcohol related issues?
 
I apologize if I offended anyone that wasnt my intention. I agree there shouldnt be a distinction between drugs and alcohol they are all drugs as far as im concerned . my point meant to aimed at the government and the inadequte system of laws used to classify all drugs.
 
Ceres said:
Psychiatry has changed a lot over the last 100 years, the range of disorders that might have been lumped in with the term schizophrenia at first has gradually been refined and expanded and diagnostic criteria has changed aswell, something to bear in mind.
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Well, say 50 years ago then or even 30. You should still have seen a massive explosion in schizophrenia as the use of cannabis exploded throughout the western world.

It's actually been quite a surprise to medical science that schizophrenia rates have remained the same or fallen - the only places it seems to be increasing is out of the way places in the third world where drug use is practically zero.
 
Ismene said:
Well, say 50 years ago then or even 30. You should still have seen a massive explosion in schizophrenia as the use of cannabis exploded throughout the western world.

It's actually been quite a surprise to medical science that schizophrenia rates have remained the same or fallen - the only places it seems to be increasing is out of the way places in the third world where drug use is practically zero.
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Have you got any links about this?
 
Ismene said:
It's actually been quite a surprise to medical science that schizophrenia rates have remained the same or fallen - the only places it seems to be increasing is out of the way places in the third world where drug use is practically zero.
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I think Ceres was pointing out (quite rightly) that 'schizophrenia' is now seen as a 'spectrum condition'; what was once diagnosed as common-or-garden 'schizophrenia' would now be identified as something different. Which has to be taken into account.

Though I also concur that the lack of the explosion in 'schizophrenia' over the past fifty years more than accounts for any fall in rates of 'schizophrenia' that can be attributed to progress in understanding the condition(s).

Let's not forget that we're living in the age of scientific chauvinism - when it comes down to it, we know more about the outer reaches of the solar system than we do about the intricacies of our own 'mental health'.

Though credit to the people making inroads into improving that situation.
 
The lack of explosion of it is even more surprising when you consider that the spectrum of mental health disorders has stretched at least 100x in the last 40 years, and the diagnosis are tossed around like leaves in the wind, they love labeling everybody, problems or not
 
Coming from someone who doesn't really have much knowledge on schizophrenia, etc. Same as always for me after reading this. Just the way some people get no 'ill-effects' whatsoever from smoking grass all day, every day, for years on end, some people get worse results than someone who was eating acid everyday. Varies from case to case, but tobacco moment definitely not in fact there wasn't really anything new (maybe apart from the scientific results), but conclusion wise there was nothing really new here.

Can testify though that smoking grass from 14 did me no harm and I'm certainly not an under achiever. Without a few pipes everyday after school there was no way I would've made it to uni etc. I swear by grass as that thing that helps me chill after each and every day and to be honest if it brought out a mental disorder in later life I'd accept it but wouldn't blame it on weed/drugs because without grass during those years I'd have no idea what I'd have done. My memory is shit, but it always was.

At the same time I've friends who did the exact same route as I did and ended up loosing the plot in serious ways. There's always a lot more factors to consider than something like smoking grass. In my experience though, if someone is starting to have a bit of trouble mentally then they should get off recreational drugs entirely, including grass, as I noticed massive changes in character with my mates from it, where as before things started happening they could smoke grass and be fine - smoked every day, the same way lots of other things can trigger the exact same situation.

Interesting to see this come out shortly after what's happening in America. Is there nothing to show from the states that have had medical weed for a good few years now? Medical grade is the most potent smoke I've ever had - could give BHO a run for it's money in some cases, so surely the high thc levels will have sped things up? But I haven't really heard of any of this being an issue.
 
The medical uses for weed are endless, there is this documentary I forget the name of where two doctors sit there and desribe all of them and its truly astonishing how many ailments and serious diseases it helps considerably. With FAR less side effects in many cases. Add in the fact that its one of the most physically benign drugs known to man (apart from the obvious negatives of smoking which can be alleviated by eating or vaping) and you have a wonder drug which is tragically underused by the medical community.

And this will never, ever be reported in mainstream media.
 
^ I think we all know why that is.

Just in case someone's had their head in the sand for years though - If weed was the cure (or at least beneficial) to whatever medical ailment I had then after a couple hundred quid initial investment I could grow my "medicine" at home practically free & completely bypass the pharmaceutical industry & the obscene profits that it makes. It takes medication out of the hand of global businesses & into the hands of wee Davie in his greenhouse.

My mate's dad has MS. Quite bad afaik, I've never actually met him. He started growing weed a while ago. I think his GP actually said to him on the fly that, although he obviously can't give him it, he should try smoking dope. My gran also used to look after a woman (it was her job, not for a laugh) who smoked weed for her MS. My (now-dead) absolutely anti-drugs gran would occasionally go & pick up the weed from this woman's dealer because even she could see the blatantly obvious benefit it was having so could ignore whatever else she felt about the use of "recreational drugs" & go get this woman the one thing that clearly helped her. It was definitely this woman's doctor that had told her to get some weed. It's sad when he's had to do that, risk his own job & send someone to go buy black market drugs because he knows 100% that it will help her far better than anything that he can give her.
 
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StoneHappyMonday said:
the mental hospitals are NOT full of the reefer (and other drugs) madness casualties ever predicted by the WOD warriors.
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Dunno, my missus works in mental health and says the wards are made up of a large proportion of males in their 20s and 30s who smoke weed. I personally only know 3 folk who got sectioned, all smoked weed heavily. Im not saying these people would not of had mental issues, but im convinced smoking weed WAS a major factor in them having an episode.
 
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Yup been there and witnessed it. All but 1 though had major other blatent previous problems, weed just triggered a massive mental relapse, this 1 was just downright nuts, a christian rastafari muslim mormon, but only ever when he smoked, completely normal other wise. A cunt of a man, but 'normal' when he hadnt had a spliff for a few days. And the number of weed smokers was matched or exceeded by the ones addicted to crack, and slightly less so the h addicts, but they were usually on crack too. Smuggled in some damn good shit though! Best white i've ever had by a wide margin, thought theres not much to compare with,m and pretty good b considering it was height of the drought. Oo fair share of alcys too, we always forget about the alcys
 
I'd really love to try out Cannabidiol solely.
Sounds fantastic and, when I have the odd toke on a spliff, I enjoy it much more and with less ARG! symptoms when it has more traits of an Indica strain.
 
swedger77 said:
Dunno, my missus works in mental health and says the wards are made up of a large proportion of males in their 20s and 30s who smoke weed. I personally only know 3 folk who got sectioned, all smoked weed heavily. Im not saying these people would not of had mental issues, but im convinced smoking weed WAS a major factor in them having an episode.
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Yeah but it's anecdotal isn't it swedge. The fact is schizophrenia rates arn't exploding - which they definately would've done if cannabis was triggering it. You can't introduce a schizophrenia-causing drug to a population and go from no-one in the population using it 50 years ago to 5 or 10 million people using it heavily every day and not see a massive increase in schizophrenia rates. It simply isn't possible.

It's to do with the culture and prejudice that we live in. It's like if we were living in 1930s Germany we'd all have a story about a bad jew that we knew. There wouldn't be any truth to it - that was just the prejudice of the time. If you go to a doctor and say "I smoked pot the other day" he'll immediately go "There's your problem mate". It's a self-reinforcing myth. The more stories you hear, the more willing you are to believe it.
 
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