Cannabis use 'raises psychosis risk' - study

[nabraxas]

2 March 2011

Using cannabis as a teenager or young adult increases the risk of psychosis, a report suggests.

The study published in the British Medical Journal involved tracking 1,900 people over a period of 10 years.

Although the link between cannabis and psychosis is well-established, it had been unclear whether cannabis triggers the disorder.

This research strongly suggests that cannabis use comes first, rather than people taking it for their symptoms.

The research was led by Professor Jim van Os from Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and included researchers from the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and the UK.

They excluded anyone who reported cannabis use or pre-existing psychotic symptoms at the start of the study, which took place in Germany.

The participants in the study, aged between 14 and 24, were assessed for cannabis use and psychotic symptoms at three points over a 10-year period.

It found that cannabis use "significantly" increased the risk of psychotic symptoms, even when other factors such as socio-economic status, use of different drugs and other psychiatric conditions were taken into account.

Skunk

Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric research at the Institute of Psychiatry, said the study added "a further brick to the wall of evidence" showing that use of traditional cannabis is a contributory cause of psychoses like schizophrenia.

He said it was one of 10 prospective studies all pointing in this same direction.

However it did not answer the question of whether skunk and other potent types of cannabis carried a higher risk of psychosis than traditional resin and marijuana, he added.

Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool, agreed the study offered more evidence of the psychotic risks from cannabis.

Three years ago the Labour government reclassified cannabis up to Class B from C - against the advice of its own drug advisers who said cannabis played only a "modest" role in the development of psychotic illnesses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12616543

[applesnail]

2 March 2011

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12616543

 

These reports suck! One person can smoke the shit all there life with no probs, whos not to say the case studys,are not inherently prone to neuropsychological vulnerible problems in the first place...Just another diagnostic publication in the war against cannabis, hell a person can have psychosis issues just from watching the 6pm news with all shit the government & media does to subliminally mindscrew us and brainwash us in to believing!Many more problems and addictions etc occur from clinically prescribed pharmaceuticals, ive met more people with screwed up life issues from anti depressants etc in my life, then psychotic nutters with self induced schizophrenia from pot!Unfortunately i base my pessimistic views on actual life base occurances, not publications from psychiatrists who have had little life experience then a university degree and are preconditionally educated to individually treat people like lab rats for some kinda professional recognition. Throughout the whole history & profession of psychiatry they have tried to label and diagnose ppl with there theorys & diagnoses, We never hear or read of them diagnosing mother nature as a schizophrenic and her moods and appearances change daily and the chemical processes and collisions of galaxys that take place & occur in her universe are probably much more of a representation of mother natures psychosis, then to individually find some kinda scientific proof to condemn a plant that exists in nature, whos not to say were not all meant to be somewhat inherently & genetically crazed, i once read somewhere that most geniuses actually encounter madness to find there enlightenment, but i guess thats just another theory and just my thoughts on this article!

Edited March 3, 2011 by applesnail

[Guest svarg26]

i wonder what the "psychosis risk" for prozac is.

[Neoshaman]

Persobnally I have known a lot of smokers over the years, a main obsevation is that there does seem to be some degree of the issues which nabraxas raised I have seen people who use to be really nice turn into bottom feeding arsewipes that would beat their own mother for $1 however from personal experience this tends to realte only to a minority of users

I needed to read the entire study to determine if the weighting placed on socio-economic status and other mental illness has been applied in a way that is effective.

The main downfall with any illegal drug is you are studying it after the fact .... IMO this means studies that are either for or aginst cannabis should not be given a great deal of weight ........ Personally whatever the case it gets pretty repeditive and depressing to see organisation after organisation fund what is basically invalid research and no one seems the slighest bit interested in trying to determine a fully valid way to test these theories not saying that there is no truth to them whatso everr but itis impossible to eliminate or account for all variables and the studies will always be skewed as a result Personal preduices are another major issue wuith Drug studies as irt would seem that 95% of the time the studies seem to find what ever the organisation funding them wants foun d and due to ingrained bias to one side or the other the research is in many cases led towards that bias

Finally a study must be able to be replicated to be scientifically valid , time and time again we see similar studies produce entirely contradictory results so honestly what do you believe

[synchromesh]

I could give two shits, nabraxas.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=26870

If you got drunk and climbed a palm tree, would this mean that you had Alcohol-Induced Psychosis? And if not, then why is every introverted teenage stoner looked at as a psycho; simply because they're a little bit anti-social?

[Sonny Jim]

Thanks for posting these when you find them nabraxis

"I have seen people who use to be really nice turn into bottom feeding arsewipes that would beat their own mother for $1 however from personal experience this tends to realte only to a minority of users"

That's a pretty unfair thing to say about cannabis users. The fact you know people who would beat their own mother for $1 could been seen as a negative aspect of your personality based on that logic. Plus a person who is dealing with psychosis is not necessarily a “bottom feeding arsewipes”. What does that even mean? Apart from that I agree with your reply.

I think there is an important idea raised in these studies that have been coming out lately about young people and cannabis but it is an idea that I hoped would be obvious to most mature minded adults. Maybe the fact that most a lot of mature minded adults have little understanding of cannabis or any kind of recreational drug other than alcohol is a factor in this lack of understanding. The first sentence in the article should be all the lay person needs to know about young people and drugs. I mean this sentence, "Using cannabis as a teenager or young adult increases the risk of psychosis, a report suggests". I think you can replace the word “cannabis” with "any drug that has a powerful psychoactive effect" and it would be really good advice. I am sure it also increases peoples need to use drugs later in life. How can you expect someone in their formative years to grow up well and be happy if they have spent a significant amount of time effected by drugs which artificially changes their perception of life experiences or their emotions. Cannabis has undesirable effects on many people who use it, which include that it can make you feel paranoid and cut of or isolated from the world or other people. Artificially inducing that state regularly on a mature minded person is not helpful let alone a teenager/young adult. Cannabis has a powerful effect on most peoples emotions. This powerful effect on emotions is what makes cannabis a fantastic a drug. Cannabis is particularly fantastic because it has such a powerful effect with relatively little in the way of negative physical draw backs. YAY! That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to be stoned all the time. Alcohol is legal but it’s not a good idea to be drunk all the time etc, etc, etc.

Come to think of, I have not met any people worth listening to that think having your psyche effected by drugs all or a lot of the time is a good idea. So what is this study trying to tell us. That there may be a correlation between smoking a lot of pot and becoming unwell psychologically. Yeah, well I am pretty sure a lot of people would already know this and I don’t think we need studies to tell us this although the data can be interesting. The reason I don’t like these kinds of studies is because all they tend to do is fuel anti cannabis propaganda. Which tends to drown out all of the good things we are coming to understand about cannabis. Most importantly to me, it makes the possibility of mature adults ever having the chance of enjoying cannabis with out the threat of being seen as criminals in the eyes of the law further away.

edits: can't spell for shit!

Edited March 3, 2011 by Sonny Jim

[ThunderIdeal]

Thanks for posting these when you find them nabraxis

 

[Neoshaman]

Thanks for posting these when you find them nabraxis

That's a pretty unfair thing to say about cannabis users. The fact you know people who would beat their own mother for $1 could been seen as a negative aspect of your personality based on that logic. Plus a person who is dealing with psychosis is not necessarily a “bottom feeding arsewipes”. What does that even mean? Apart from that I agree with your reply.

 

Well when you have to beat the living fuck out of a guy and throw him out of his own house cause he's beating the fuck out of his misses cause he can't get any pot , I really don't have a more apt description for a person like that ..... People like this give those people who uses the stuff sensibly a bad name ...and as for associating with people like tht well it was my misses( at the time ) brother so trust me I wasn't associating with a wanker like that by choice

those who realise they have slipped and seek help i have no issue with but those in utter denial they have a problem while persistantly acting like I have described above yes I have amjor issue with if it affects people so badly said people should attempt to be responsible and avoid it

Edited March 3, 2011 by Neoshaman

[Sonny Jim]

Sorry, I did not make my self clear.

I am saying that it is a big leap to go from "this guy was using canabis" to "this guy beat his mum/girlfriend in some cannaibis induced rage". Just like it is a big leap to go from "Neoshaman knows some body who beats his own mum/girlfriend" to saying that "Neoshaman is of questionable character because he knows a guy who beats his own mum/girlfriend". It wouldn't be fair to say things about you based on you knowing someone. That's guilt by association and nobody likes to be put in that situation, you certainly didn't and rightly so. I thought what you said about cannabis was equally unfair.

[Zen Peddler]

Long term alcohol intake can also cause alcohol-induced psychosis. Drink hard for many years and if your not alcohol hepatic, you could potentially find yourself getting increasingly paranoid... A bloke at my work was an alco that went mad basically.

Edited March 5, 2011 by Zen Peddler BlueGreenie