UK - In Reply - Can Cannabis Drive You Crazy?

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edgarshade

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Huffington Post

Jason Reed

Posted: 8/02/2012 15:31

With reader comments

I'm not a fan of rebuttals, they can often be interpreted as rude or standoffish. This is certainly not the flavour of my reply, and so with this ample disclaimer in place, I would like to politely address Mr Rupert Wolfe-Murray's first HuffPo blog; Can Cannabis Drive You Crazy?
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The logic is simple, and it's one that the Home Office acknowledges. When addressing the legal high market, the government did not choose to criminalise those in possession once the ban came into play. It was said that the criminalisation of the young has no societal benefits - this is owing to the lack of prospects due to a criminal record. Emphasis was placed on chasing supply routes. This, in essence, is how Portugal handle their drug policy.
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The 'it can drive you mad' statement is a gross misinterpretation to say the least, no scientist will put their name to such a overstated claim. The ACMD undertook one of the most comprehensive reviews of cannabis to date. The conclusion? To stop 1 case of cannabis psychosis, you'd need to stop 5000 young men from using, and 7000 young women. And if that's not enough, I often use Dr Ben Goldacre of Bad Science at this juncture, and I should do so once again, he is indeed hard to argue with. By anyone's measure, the risks of psychosis are incredibly slim.
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More...
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jason-reed/cannabis-does-not-drive-you-crazy_b_1261427.html
 
When I was a student I thought cannabis was a harmless pastime, no worse than alcohol, and I was encouraged by the fact that it's not addictive.
Many years later I ended up working for an addiction rehab clinic in Scotland where I found out that not only is cannabis addictive but the skunk version of the drug is known to send as many as 20% of users into a psychotic state. In other words, it can drive you mad. And everyone knows that the THC content of street cannabis has been going up for years.
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Wow, that writer really can spew the propaganda.
20% of skunk users become psychotic? 8o
THC content has gone up, so therefore....???
Calling cannabis addictive is a stretch, as well. It is possible to get addicted to it, but it is also possible to get addicted to gambling, or shopping.

And he originally thought cannabis was no worse than alcohol - that is simply wrong.
Cannabis is far, far safer than alcohol, by any measure. (Except one thing: you are forced by the law to buy it on the black market.)
 
At any rate, the risk of psychosis from even heavy Cannabis use pales into insignificance compared to the number one cause...

...wait for it...

...Stress. Thats right. So for the Cannabis to cause psychosis argument to remain valid and significant, then they would (being equal about this) need to be looking to reduce stress as it is a far higher cause of psychosis. Clearly that would be somewhat unachievable. I often wonder how the level of neurotoxicity between long term use of an antipsychotic drug compares to long term, regular use of Methamphetamine.
 
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