Link Between Marijuana and Psychosis Goes Both Ways 358
An anonymous reader writes with news of a study out of the Netherlands (abstract) about the link between psychosis and marijuana use. The researchers wanted to examine what caused the relationship — was marijuana use leading to psychosis, or did those suffering from psychosis have a higher tendency to seek out marijuana? As it turns out, they found evidence for both. From the article:
"... using pot at 16 years old was linked to psychotic symptoms three years later, and psychotic symptoms at age 16 were linked to pot use at age 19.
This was true even when the researchers accounted for mental illness in the kids' families, alcohol use and tobacco use. Griffith-Lendering said she could not say how much more likely young pot users were to exhibit psychotic symptoms later on. Also, the new study cannot prove one causes the other. Genetics may also explain the link between pot use and psychosis, said Griffith-Lendering."
Correlation not cause (Score:5, Interesting)
2) Drugs cause the problems - but no one ever noticed before.
3) Some idiot won't even consider option #1 and go right option #2 - without any evidence at all, let alone proof.
Note, I have kidney disease - and as such do not take pot, drink alcohol or do any other drug without my doctor's express advice. My body can't handle it - but I'm not stupid enough to think other people have the same problem I do.
Re:Correlation not cause (Score:3, Interesting)
Big Pharma is scared shitless of the prospect of Marijuana legalization. Both the Alcohol and Pharma lobbies have a lot to lose with the legalization of Marijuana.
Speaking of big Pharma, I wonder how many of the recent modern spree killers were prescribed and taking psychotropic drugs around the time of their killing sprees? Is it possible that had they been smoking marijuana without taking taking Paxil and Zoloft, they'd have just played a lot of games and eaten a lot of twinkies rather than murdering?
-- Ethanol-fueled
Re:Wonder drug? I think not. (Score:3, Interesting)
You'd think that, but 'hard on crime' and 'good (Christian) morals' have been pretty influential there lately. The current thing is that weed sold in the infamous coffee shops may only be sold to residents of the country (although enforcement is left to the cities):
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/10/30/dutch-amsterdam-weed-marijuana/1668761/ [usatoday.com]
Disinformation combined with demagoguery is a powerful tool in any country with very capable profit-oriented media organizations. Apparently, science is becoming more and more corrupted in the necessary quest for money as well.
The researchers here do not deserve their titles. From the *abstract*:
"Conclusions: Cannabis use predicts psychosis vulnerability in adolescents, and vice versa which suggests that there is a bi-directional causal association between the two."
Please tell me nobody here on Slashdot gives any credibility to that 'suggestion'. If you do, read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation#Third_factor_C_.28the_common-causal_variable.29_causes_both_A_and_B [wikipedia.org]
Re:It's not like it's a new drug or small sample s (Score:4, Interesting)
well, there's plenty of cases where people blame weed for stupid shit they've done - so you'd have no trouble finding institutionalized people who would claim their cannabis use caused them to become institutionalized and well, you'll find plenty of people who were institutionalized to jail for it of course too - though strictly speaking in those cases it's the law and other people who have caused them to be institutionalized and isolated(again compounding possible mental locks and general unhappiness with life).
just as there's plenty of cases where people blame alcohol for the stupid shit they've done. AA is full of them.
still, if an alcie goes to doctor because of anger issues/unstability(that they blame on drinking) around here it's quite usual they're given diazepam. which would be all good if they weren't unstable alcoholics and the pams just enhance that. giving them a bag of weed would be much better, at least if someone is going too deep with weed they're not 99.99% of time going to hurt anyone, themselves or others, except through inactivity. someone with anger issues gets alcohol+diazepam psychosis and someone is going to get hurt - via physical assault.
this study doesn't really surprise me at all though, it's even on the "no shit sherlock" level, it's so blatantly obvious. still, it's nice that they bothered to make a real study about that unhappy people seek a fix.
I don't drink anymore due to health issues(pancreatitis is a bitch that wont let her eye off you) and would be very glad if they legalized weed around here. Sure, it might make you spend a lot of time thinking with yourself and laughing at stupid shit along the way but quite frankly what's so bad about that?
Psychosis as a term is so fucking all over the place that it's almost useless as a word too, since it can mean fucking anything - even me wanting to emphasize things with "fucking" is a form of psychosis if you ask the right idiot. basically most weedsters use psychosis as a word for being bored nowadays(they're out of weed it's "psychosis", they got some good weed but nothing fun to do while smoking it and it's psychosis again! they smoke enough that they're practically sleeping and that too then is psychosis.) - it's so fucked up thanks to the prohibitionists. hell, even being drunk is "psychosis" nowadays, fucking pansies.
Learnings = People like Weed (Score:1, Interesting)
I've been smoking weed for 3 decades (Score:4, Interesting)
and this sort of shit cracks me up.
I looked up the meaning of psychosis: Psychosis is a loss of contact with reality that usually includes: False beliefs about what is taking place or who one is (delusions); Seeing or hearing things that aren't there (hallucinations).
That describes religious people, not stoners.
I've known people that smoke weed for over 40 years, and none of them see shit that isn't there. None of them believe in false stuff, except the religious ones. Most the others have businesses, jobs, responsibilities they take care of.
I've known druggies that lost reality after ODing on coke or heroin, but I have NEVER seen anyone do that on weed.
What I gained from the article was kids that have psychosis are more likely to use drugs, which doesn't surprise me. I was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia when I was in my mid 30's. Growing up I had no idea why people heard me say different things then I was saying, why people always took what i said or did at it's worse instead of how it was intended and why I had a hard time functioning socially with people. During my 20's I did a shit ton of drugs. I gave up, I didn't understand why I had problems with people. Drugs (heroin) made me feel better, or made me not care for a bit, made life a bit more bearable (so i thought). After I found out about my dyslexia and ADHD and got help for that, I understood finally what the problem had been. I had no problem quitting my heroin addiction after that. In fact, in almost 10 years since I found out, I've been clean. (I don't count weed as a drug like heroin, coke, benzo's, etc).
Funny how people have been smoking weed since it's been around and in over 100 years of recorded medical history we still get stories like this, that really have nothing to do with anything.
Re:Wonder drug? I think not. (Score:4, Interesting)