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  • EADD Moderators: Shambles

Is this the 'tobacco moment' for cannabis?

There will always be latent loonies out there, ready to fall off the edge at a moment's notice. If it isn't cannabis, then something else will eventually push them over.

Also, it works the other way around: many people with mental health issues find cannabis makes their symptoms more bearable.
 
If cannabis vanished from the earth tomorrow the schizophrenia rates would remain exactly the same.
 
StoneHappyMonday said:
There is no causal link between cannabis and schizophrenia.

The massive rise in cannabis use from about the late 80's onwards is not matched by a concomitant rise in psychosis.

Consequently, the number of people having psychotic episodes who concurrently are cannabis smokers has obviously risen.
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Thats a convincing argument. But from the personal experiences of friends who cained the stuff both daily and very heavily in their late teens, and other anecdotal evidence, cannabis directly triggered schizophrenic breakdowns in them. I dont believe they would have ever suffered those life shattering breakdowns otherwise.
 
On the flipside of things, a good friend of mine whom ive known since his early teens (hes 22 now) has ADHD and was prescribed fairly big doses of ritalin which would make him lethargic and aggressive. He got better relief from his ADHD from cannabis as it calmed him down yet left him with some creativeness and motivation, that the ritalin robbed him of.
 
Is this cannabis "tobacco moment"? No, I don't think so.

I saw a presentation at a conference this summer from Bristol Uni group, so far unpublished I believe, that looked at a longitudinal study on a cohort of young people (n=2040). Their initial analysis showed a relationship between cannabis use and higher risk of psychotic experiences (while sober), but once they controlled for other drugs and tobacco use, the relationship disappeared. These researchers are already the target of hate mail and smear tactics from the tobacco industry.

Ceres already alluded to this upthread, but there is obviously a difference between transitory psychotic episodes under the influence and those when sober. The excellent Dr Atakan in some of her studies reported a massive 30% transitory psychotic episodes in healthy volunteers given pure THC.

She has also written about why schizophrenic patients use cannabis, which I know people were asking about upthread - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22716144
 
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