Dagga users 5 times more likely to develop schizophrenia

[saturnz]

Only years later it catches up to you that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to be altering your consciousness with such regularity.

I've been smoking weed for 20 years with very little (if any) regret, in fact I'm about to light up again shortly to enjoy my lunch.

I'm also not sure what psychological alterations there have been, and whether they are significant.

 

[DarthCat]

Which makes it tricky to define use & abuse. It's extremely easy to start smoking and thinking it's ok to do every day because it feels pretty good, you enjoy it with some friends and there's no immediate negative feedback from it. Only years later it catches up to you that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to be altering your consciousness with such regularity.

And that's part of why this "hey weed is totally cool no matter how much you use bro" attitude pisses me off: It encourages people to regard weed as this thing that's as natural as eating apples, and it's also being deliberately blind to the consequence of subjecting our most precious possession - mind - to daily psychological alteration.

I have no issue with weed.
I have an issue with this stupid carefree attitude toward it.

this. a lot of people don't use it for its medicinal attributes

 

[skeptic_SA]

I've been smoking weed for 20 years with very little (if any) regret, in fact I'm about to light up again shortly to enjoy my lunch.

I'm also not sure what psychological alterations there have been, and whether they are significant.

^How many times did you carefully proof read this before hitting Post Quick Reply ^ ?

 

[JerryMungo]

I've been smoking weed for 20 years with very little (if any) regret, in fact I'm about to light up again shortly to enjoy my lunch.

I'm also not sure what psychological alterations there have been, and whether they are significant.

Lunch time toke? What do you do for a living?

 

[The Horseman]

Cannabis saved my life. Simple.

What nearly ruined my life was cigarettes and alcohol. Both of which are proven to be serial killers if you will. Cannabis however is rather the opposite. It has numerous healing properties and a whole lot of junk about it, just like this article.

These are the things I like to bring up when discussing cannabis use with anyone who only knows what their parents told them about this "evil" weed:

Weed has been around for thousands of years and has been used by man for a multitude of uses. Its earliest documentation is 2737 B.C by the Chinese that used weed for many ailments. It is only in the last 100 years that man has all of a sudden demonized weed. The horse radish movie "Reefer Madness" portrayed stoners as crazy lunatics that worshiped the devil and raped women or some rubbish. Seriously?? Then Ronald Regan declared the war on drugs, and look at us now.

I have sickly relatives who have suffered through a multitude of traumas. They are on man made medications that pretty much make their everyday lives miserable just based on the side effects. They use cannabis as a incredible pain reliever and an all round anti depressant.

You cannot overdose on weed. In fact you can only really get "so high". Yes if you are new to it that is not wise. But you can never die from it, unless you do something stupid which is unlikely.

Don't try weed when you are drinking. If you have never tried weed and you decided to try it, do it when you are sober else you will instantly have a negative experience.

Weed doesn't give you a hang over. You may feel a bit funny the next day if it was your first time but weed is NON toxic and believe it or not your body actually likes it. Unlike booze which is poison.

There is no difference between medical and recreational cannabis. Seriously, weed is weed. Yes you can get it in oil form, mostly that way you don't get as much THC which is the stuff that gets you high.

Cannabis in my life is more of a multivitamin than it is a recreational drug or crutch. I went through my entire childhood and teenage years believing the crap like in this article. Seriously people, do your research, read up on weed, see how it can save the planet just as a renewable resource.

Just saying

 

[saor]

Weed has been around for thousands of years and has been used by man for a multitude of uses. Its earliest documentation is 2737 B.C by the Chinese that used weed for many ailments. It is only in the last 100 years that man has all of a sudden demonized weed. The horse radish movie "Reefer Madness" portrayed stoners as crazy lunatics that worshiped the devil and raped women or some rubbish. Seriously?? Then Ronald Regan declared the war on drugs, and look at us now.

So has opium.
How long it's been around says nothing about it's safety.
Natural doesn't always mean good.

weed is NON toxic

Which still doesn't address the psychoactive property of weed and the concerns regarding mental health raised in the article. Do you think pregnant mothers should be using it? And you've also avoided the subject of what frequency of use = abuse. The issue of toxicity is a moot point when dealing with psychoactive compounds as the psychological impact is so difficult to correlate to chemical properties of the substance.

I welcome any studies on weed that allow me to have an informed opinion rather than rely on hippie science: "Feels good man - must be good man."

 

[rietrot]

this. a lot of people don't use it for its medicinal attributes

Most of the stuff I do I don't consider the medicinal attributes why should smoking weed be any different, people can do stuff for fun.

 

[copacetic]

Since we are getting anecdotal, my feeling is that I probably incurred some level of lasting cognitive impairment from my many years of cannabis use (from around age fifteen to twenty five). Or perhaps I'm looking for an external cause for my internal shortcomings, it's impossible to know, really.

What I did was certainly abuse (my personal definition of abusive behaviour is that behaviour which you feel is destructive and want to stop, yet are unable to).

Personally, I think cannabis is just about innocuous in terms of danger for the average non-pregnant, mentally stable consenting adult. For anyone outside of those parameters, caution ought to be advised, but this is patently obvious I should think.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Surely schizophrenia isn't something that you develop, but rather something that was already there.

So maybe the pot has an influence on accelerating that coming to the surface...but I very much double it causes it.

 

[saturnz]

Lunch time toke? What do you do for a living?

not much...

I'm that kind of stoner loser

 

[biometrics]

not much...

I'm that kind of stoner loser

stranger danger!

 

[The Horseman]

So has opium.
How long it's been around says nothing about it's safety.
Natural doesn't always mean good.

Which still doesn't address the psychoactive property of weed and the concerns regarding mental health raised in the article. Do you think pregnant mothers should be using it? And you've also avoided the subject of what frequency of use = abuse. The issue of toxicity is a moot point when dealing with psychoactive compounds as the psychological impact is so difficult to correlate to chemical properties of the substance.

I welcome any studies on weed that allow me to have an informed opinion rather than rely on hippie science: "Feels good man - must be good man."

Except opium is deadly and is mixed with god knows how many other deadly substances, hence it is toxic and can kill you. It is also highly addictive, another tick missing from the weed chart.

Abusing weed is relative to the person. Some people function better on weed some don't. Reality is that there are many, many people out there that function 100% daily on the stuff, in fact some people find it easier to function when on cannabis.

Why don't you go check out some youtube videos on cannabis? I can recommend the Culture High as a great starter.

Surely schizophrenia isn't something that you develop, but rather something that was already there.

So maybe the pot has an influence on accelerating that coming to the surface...but I very much double it causes it.

Exactly this. Weed does not cause any mental illness. It may bring it out in people that already have a underlying issue.

In fact if you read you will find a number of articles where cannabis is actually been seen to repair brain damage and other brain issues like alzheimer's and parkinson's.



People can say what they want about pot, 99% of the time it comes from someone who is just spewing what they have been told rather than facts and their own research.

 

[saor]

Except opium is deadly and is mixed with god knows how many other deadly substances,

What deadly substances were the Chinese & Victorians mixing with their opium?

Why don't you go check out some youtube videos on cannabis? I can recommend the Culture High as a great starter.

Have spent a fair amount of time learning about it in addition to smoking. I don't have a problem with weed. I have a problem with this view of weed as a benign thing when there's so many anecdotes about how weed impairs psychological functioning. So much of the 'pro weed' camp relies on positive anecdote, surely it works the other way round too?

Exactly this. Weed does not cause any mental illness.

I don't think the research is deep and diverse enough to make such statements. My own experience (and that others) is that being high can bring about certain negative ways of thinking. But because it's accompanied by other positive aspects - I'll just continue to smoke it daily and not focus on that negative thought process. Given enough time that negative thought starts bleeding out into the mind and takes hold as part of one's thinking in general.

Take LSD for example. Basically zero toxicity and dependency but if one were to use 250ug+ doses every day for a year I have no doubt the psychology of the user would be affected. And yeah - I know weed is different and not nearly the tornado that LSD is but - it's still a psychoactive which has the potential (imo) to affect the mind with regular use.

Since we are getting anecdotal, my feeling is that I probably incurred some level of lasting cognitive impairment from my many years of cannabis use (from around age fifteen to twenty five). Or perhaps I'm looking for an external cause for my internal shortcomings, it's impossible to know, really.

I agree and have a similar story. So while I'm not entirely sure about specifically schizophrenia - it just seems foolish to think that taking a psychoactive daily will have zero effect on the mind.