Scans "reveal brain damage from cannabis is like schizophrenia"

Well I for one WANT to know if cannabis causes brain damage and how and why. But you don't have to be a scientist to see that this study isn't all the headlines crack it up to be. Some people here have posted detailed, relevant explanations why. It's not just basic questions about the method, really look at what they've discovered and ask yourself if this evidence is as conclusive as they make it out to be. Nobody that I see is saying that since all potheads don't have full blown schizophrenia this can't be true, or any such crap, but take a look at the title of this thread. What side is being sensationalist here?

This kind of thing matters unfortunately. The UK is apparently reconsidering the legal status of cannabis in light of studies like this. Didn't I read the other day that China is drilling holes into drug user's heads now? Now China's a bad example and there's a lot of other things that factor into these problems, but blindly accepting oversimplified bunk science from "experts" is one of them.

I wish we could make a film that consisted of a comprehensive list of all the drug headlines that came out of the media the last 100 years, and play about 15 minutes of it for anyone who wonders why the drug community would be skeptical when a study like this comes out.
 
I think it's pretty common knowledge that pot can induce schizophrenia in people with VULNERABLE GENETICS. But who's to say that those people weren't going to develop it later in life anyway? In addition, people with ADD are also known to sustain damage to their white matter in later life. Saying that pot causes "white matter damage" isn't exactly all that specific.
 
Just to consider: Most studies involving brain scans don't have huge samples of people. It's not just this study...there's a ton of costs associated with this type of research, and it's more difficult to get participants that are eligible for it. So, as far as these researchers go, they're part of the norm, but not odd by general participant standards.
 
uacvax said:
I think it's pretty common knowledge that pot can induce schizophrenia in people with VULNERABLE GENETICS. But who's to say that those people weren't going to develop it later in life anyway? In addition, people with ADD are also known to sustain damage to their white matter in later life. Saying that pot causes "white matter damage" isn't exactly all that specific.
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and who's to say they were going to develop it later in life? this is another of the argumnets constantly used by drug users to shift the blame of drugs when someone is harmed by them. "oh, lsd made you psychotic? well that must mean you would have gone psychotic anyway".
 
Well, it's most probably true as well. LSD is the catalyst not the cause, lot's of things can trigger a psychotic breakdown, if LSD can trigger it something else can as well.

You've already made your point by the way. You're just nitpicking silly things now.
 
vietnam also triggered psychtoic breakdowns, are you saying that all of the soldiers who had mental problems as a result of their time in vietnam would have had the same problems anyway? the whole point here is that people are trying to say "well [drug x] is perfectly safe for a healthy person". but how is healthy person defined in this situation? it's defined as someone who doesn't experience problems do to [drug x]. if they experience problems then that automatically means there was something wrong with them to begin with and [drug x] cannot be to blame. a study could come out that demonstrated there was a higher rate of mental illness among users of [drug x] but of course this wouldn't prove anything because correlation does not equal causation. do you see what i'm saying? it's very hard to determine this sort of thing. you can find problems with the evidence that something is dangerous but often the evidence that it is safe suffers from the same problems so why jump to conclusions? and i dont think ive made this point yet.
 
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the seeker said:
vietnam also triggered psychtoic breakdowns, are you saying that all of the soldiers who had mental problems as a result of their time in vietnam would have had the same problems anyway?
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No. I'm saying that LSD, vietnam, lot's of things, CAN, but do not have to trigger a psychosis. Pre-dispositioned people get psychotic when they aren't able to cope with something anymore, there's a trigger and a breaking point, this does not mean they will ever have to experience a psychotic breakdown if this doesn't happen. It just means that there are triggers; be it LSD or vietnam, and that it can happen anytime.
 
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what sucks is that im starting to fear this is exactly wat i have

I hear entire conversations about me which never take place a lot of the time , now only im starting to think of paranoid schizophrenia.I don't think the weed is really to blame but i might have been normal without it , I always thought i suffered from anxiety but schizphrenia makes more sense.
 
I have been through psychosis first hand. That's a pretty generic term tho as all people go through all sorts of unique 'illness'. Some will cling to the Light and others will cling to the Dark side. Typically you get someone declare themself god on earth and assume a messiah role or on the other hand someone can declare themself archangle lucifer or whatever (I've had that said to my face). These are the extremes. Science really just likes to 'clutch at straws' on these topics, as do many- why not- you can probably see something from a brain scan or two. One is not genetically pre-disposed to an experience like that because it basically originates from the spirit and the polarities (which have very little to do with the physical - if they did all men would flip Light side and all females flip Dark side because that is the physical polarity). This isn't the case - however what is true is that drugs do lower astral defenses somehow so one may become possessed/manipulated easier (degrees of possession of course) by polaric entities which may be heard audibly or seen visually (i've spoken with people who had this). The genetics may make a difference to ones natural psychic sensitivity but genes are in no way the ultimatem and do not limit ones abilities generically speaking I guess. There are no shortcuts with this stuff because its for the individual to experience. I agree that drugs can tip the scales (did with me!), but ultimately science can jump up and down all it wants but if theres no experience theres no wisdom! I wouldn't be writing what I am now if not for alot of what I've been through. What they want is a place where these experiences don't exist? I do not see a good reason for that. They are just making careers out of it. The ones making the claims are NOT the ones who have been through the experiences - which is the best teacher obviously! Differing to science is giving away ones power which is exactly what they want. I say this because I've never read anything that explains much at all actually on these topics. Absolutely impossible to understand mental illness to any significant degree unless one is spiritually aware (gaining this is the actual purpose of such experiences in the first place you stupid scientists!). The bottom line is if you go psychotic you end up with a sense of balance or a 'reference'. Experience of the extreme - something you no longer need. It wouldn't happen if you are in control and know better. There's no randomness about it. You can take drugs after but you are much more careful if you've actually learned anything if not your probably back to the looney bin lol.
 
My point was not to defend using cannabis, but to point out that the findings of the study are unsubstantial until it can pinpoint just who pot turns into schizophrenics.


the seeker said:
and who's to say they were going to develop it later in life? this is another of the argumnets constantly used by drug users to shift the blame of drugs when someone is harmed by them. "oh, lsd made you psychotic? well that must mean you would have gone psychotic anyway".
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This thread also made me realize perhaps how people came to believe that substances like lsd stayed in your spinal fluid forever. I suppose post traumatic stress disorder's psychosis is pretty similar to schizophrenia.
 
the seeker said:
this may be a poor article but im convinced that marijuana does indeed cause brain damage and heavy use is mentally unhealthy. i base this on my personal experience with heavy marijuana use. even after a year of cessation daily use my mind is still greatly affected by the years i spent smoking cannabis throughout the day.
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^I wouldn't doubt that grass may have had a long lasting effect but I believe a lot of this poor performance post cessation many speak of (not schizophrenia, just mental acuteness) is actually an indirect effect.

Personally I think years of toking up from the am to the pm really alters the rate of an individuals' neurogenesis. While we still produce new neurons, we do it at slower rates as we age, especially when considering lifestyle choices.
Three of the six most significant things you can do to increase or simply maintain neurogenesis rates are: 1) Exercise 2) Intellectually stimulating environments 3) caloric restriction.

Normally I'd apologize for a stereotype, but you can offer me all of the exceptions from people that you know of and I'd still stick to my observations that IN GENERAL, heavy smokers 1) Enjoy sitting on their asses 2) Would rather watch tv than sit through an organic chemistry lecture 3) Eat like a motherfucker.

Point being that I don't think marijuana necessarily damages the brain directly over time, it is simply a matter of "use it or lose it" as far as mental acuteness. The brain might indirectly be affected after the unhealthy choices people make after they've hit the bong, not necessarily because of the decision to toke up.

Obviously one's mental acuteness would not be drastic, but I believe those who are aware of their mental capacities are very likely to notice slight changes in performance after years of living a typical stoner lifestyle.
 
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It's an interesting enough media digest... but we really need to see what they hell they are actually talking about. This is just a 10 minute talk given at some meeting, the following is the abstract
PURPOSE

Convergent data from epidemiological studies have found an association between CANNABIS use in adolescence and schizophrenia. Previously we have shown that schizophrenia is associated with FA abnormalities of frontal lobe. Present study describes the impact of CANNABIS use on frontal white matter development using DTI. We hypothesized those areas of the brain where there is ongoing development of white matter might be most susceptible to the neurotoxic influence of CANNABIS.

METHOD AND MATERIALS

Subject consisted of two groups of 28 adolescents with schizophrenia (CANNABIS-users=10) and 28 healthy volunteers (CANNABIS-users=6). A 3D SPGR and 25 directions DTI with matching FSE sequences were obtained. DTI images were corrected for spatial distortion and were transferred into Talairach space. Voxelwise statistical analysis was carried out using a t test (p<0.01) and an extent threshold of 200 voxels. Since the supplementary motor area (SMA) is consistently been observed as the area with ongoing development during adolescent we have primary focused on this region. Additionally, we have found a significant relationship between age and FA values in healthy comparison subjects (without substance abuse/dependence) in this region.

RESULTS

A two-way ANCOVA was performed with FA levels in the SMA as the dependent measure, patient grouping and CANNABIS status (+/-) as main effects and age as a covariate. The overall model was significant (p<0.001) with CANNABIS status (p<0.002) and age (p<0.003) as significant main effects. In patients, after controlling for gender and premorbid social deficits, CANNABIS use accounted for 20% of the variance in FA values of SMA. In patients, abnormalities of FA in the SMA region were significantly associated (r=0.55, p=0.008) with worse performance of working memory.
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Now I'm not a research radiologist, so I have no fucking idea what the crap a FA value or an SPGR is. So we'll have to wait for the full paper. But from the paper, it looks like there are no controls for drug use comorbidity (i.e. you're more likely to be poor and dumb if you use drugs, which adverse effect brain function). This could be what they are seeing. And studies have given massive doses of cannabis to animals for huge periods of time, and never reported white-matter atrophy.

And studies like this have been done before, lots and lots, and never seen anything like this.
 
uacvax said:
This thread also made me realize perhaps how people came to believe that substances like lsd stayed in your spinal fluid forever. I suppose post traumatic stress disorder's psychosis is pretty similar to schizophrenia.
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I can relate to that. I get called schizo a lot now from mine. (PTSD)
 
I would bet it can cause shchizo in some people, but that would be a very small % of the population. I've met one guy who smoked since he was 14. He smokes more weed in a week then I used to in a month, and he is always dipping into the honey oil. And he's a pretty normal guy. He seems to have less mental problems than anyone else I met.. Me on the other hand, one dip of that honey oil and I go into a psychosis state of pure fear and madness. I had to stop smoking because I was getting very sketched out, even the day after. I think if I kept smoking I woulda have ended up in the nut house for awhile. You don't get billions of different human beings without having billions of diffrent wirings in the head, so who the hell knows what does anything really?
 
*Venus* said:
^I wouldn't doubt that grass may have had a long lasting effect but I believe a lot of this poor performance post cessation many speak of (not schizophrenia, just mental acuteness) is actually an indirect effect.

Personally I think years of toking up from the am to the pm really alters the rate of an individuals' neurogenesis. While we still produce new neurons, we do it at slower rates as we age, especially when considering lifestyle choices.
Three of the six most significant things you can do to increase or simply maintain neurogenesis rates are: 1) Exercise 2) Intellectually stimulating environments 3) caloric restriction.

Normally I'd apologize for a stereotype, but you can offer me all of the exceptions from people that you know of and I'd still stick to my observations that IN GENERAL, heavy smokers 1) Enjoy sitting on their asses 2) Would rather watch tv than sit through an organic chemistry lecture 3) Eat like a motherfucker.

Point being that I don't think marijuana necessarily damages the brain directly over time, it is simply a matter of "use it or lose it" as far as mental acuteness. The brain might indirectly be affected after the unhealthy choices people make after they've hit the bong, not necessarily because of the decision to toke up.

Obviously one's mental acuteness would not be drastic, but I believe those who are aware of their mental capacities are very likely to notice slight changes in performance after years of living a typical stoner lifestyle.
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i dissagree with your theory. according you to then someone who spent a couple years being lazy would notice the same mental decifits. i have spent time being lazy even before i started weed and it never affected my mind to any significant degree, it certainly didn't have an effect that could be felt over a year afterward. secondly i am not your typical stoner. i found weed intellectually stimulating and i spent much time studying philosophy and spirituality during the years i was smoking. in addition, i maintained a healthy diet and moderate food consumption throughout my stoner days. i actually lost over 30 pounds while smoking weed which i have not gained back. i went from 185 to 155. anyway my piont is that the mental changes i have experienced are most certainly to do cannabis itself and my experiences with it and not the other behaviors i engaged in while using it.
 
Psyastic said:
Also, it seems that the study only focused on adolescents from the age of 15-18. What about people who start smoking after their brain has already gone through the adolescent stage of development?
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This is what I was wondering. I never had a smoke till I was 18.
 
i didnt start smoking til i was 18 and i still got the brain damage. i don't know if it would have been worse had i started earlier but don't think you're immune just because you're no longer an adolescent.
 
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