http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23431966-details/Cannabis+casualties+at+12/article.do

Quote :

"Experts blame the rise on the emergence of skunk, the extra-potent strain of the drug. Cannabis has until now been regarded as a "soft" drug which scores relatively low on the harm scale. But there is now growing scientific evidence that increased availability of skunk is behind the rise in cases of teenage paranoia and schizophrenia. Ministers are now planning a U-turn on cannabis classification in response to warnings from experts. Government drugs advisors are carrying out a review but it was revealed this week that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made it to clear he intends to reclassify cannabis as class B. A spokeswoman for The Priory said that the link between cannabis use and schizophrenia was now well established. She said: "We know that adolescents who smoke cannabis just 50 times before the age of 18 treble their chances of developing schizophrenia." "

i've not heard language like this from scientists before.

1/11/2008 1:26:15 PM

The referenced study actually doesn't say that cannabis causes schiz. it says those who smoke marijuana have personalities that are more prone to schiz.

1/11/2008 1:33:23 PM

It's maghty jolly gad resurch it is.

1/11/2008 1:34:09 PM

Let me guess this "research" was funded by the UK ministry of narcotics.

I'd give a lot of gov't "research" on illegal drugs the same credibility as I give tobacco companies on their "research" on the harms of cigarettes.

1/11/2008 1:34:54 PM

::yawn::

Another alarmist, patently-retarded confusion of correlation and cause.

I wonder if the PM would agree that a ban on all forms of alcohol would make a fitting reaction to the psychological problems associated with use of Absinthe.

Follow the story if you must, but I assure you, it's going nowhere.

1/11/2008 1:51:08 PM

Look asshole

I don't try to take away your marijuana anymore, so you leave my absinthe out of your nasty little comparisons

1/11/2008 2:14:55 PM

What tha Fuck????

they're smoking pinners full of seeds??





no wonder they're going schizo

1/11/2008 2:19:22 PM

^ Yeah, that's a toothpick joint where I come from--I don't care if it's killer. Why don't the Brits just deseed their weed on album covers or Hardee's trays like Americans?

1/11/2008 2:37:00 PM

Quote :

"Another alarmist, patently-retarded confusion of correlation and cause"

1/11/2008 3:05:32 PM

i like how "experts" are all like "the marijuana nowadays is 50x or 100x stronger than in the 1960s"

plants when grown in healthy environments (not just chronic plants either) will get slightly stronger over the years, but nowhere near "50x" stronger in a few decades

these dumbasses were smoking brick seedy shit in the 60s, even though there was still killer back then, and they finally get some headies to test nowadays to make those claims

1/11/2008 3:57:20 PM

for someone who apparently smokes pot all day, you sure don't know much about the science behind growing various strains of plants.

i guess its no surprise, though.

1/11/2008 4:02:19 PM

Quote :

"i like how "experts" are all like "the marijuana nowadays is 50x or 100x stronger than in the 1960s""

I don't think its an issue of environment but of selective breeding. I'm assuming marijuana growers, in their efforts to produce a better product like all other farmers, do their best to breed plants with better traits to create more potent and effective pot. I agree that the 50x to 100x stronger claim may be exaggerated but there's probably some merit to the claim that can be explained beyond a little bit of TLC.

Four decades provides a lot of room for some crop improvements.

1/11/2008 4:06:56 PM

^^ idiot

^its environment as well as breeding...but they have to have the strains to breed...you don't just create a hybrid of 2 kind of crap weed with low thc% and have them turn into some really good high potency shit

1/11/2008 4:19:54 PM

you really are that clueless, aren't you?

1/11/2008 4:23:41 PM

you're the dumbass who thinks there are seeds in that picture

if you don't even know what weed looks like i don't think you're a very credible source

1/11/2008 4:24:34 PM

i see quite a few seed husks.

sorry if i'm not quite the connoisseur of shake as you are.






[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:41 PM. Reason : V is it that you can't read, or won't?]

1/11/2008 4:37:01 PM

there are zero seeds in that picture, you simply don't know what you're talking about

there are also zero seed husks in that picture

you should go ahead and quit while you're behind

1/11/2008 4:39:17 PM

there most certainly are seed husks.

Quote :

"sorry if i'm not quite the connoisseur of shake as you are."

[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:43 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2008 4:42:13 PM

Yeah, there's definitely no seeds in that pic. It's all just fluffy goodness. Also, weed isn't 50x stronger than it used to be. It might be like 5x stronger than ever before at the most. There's only so much THC you can cram into the plants and doing so affects the type of high moreso than the intensity or the high.

1/11/2008 4:42:39 PM

^^its not that you dont know, its that you so arrogantly thought you did know when you had no fucking idea

oh and look, you still wont admit you dont have a clue what you're talking about

^yep

[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:44 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2008 4:43:25 PM

Weed of that particular coloration simply does not grow with seeds in it. I do see a stem though. Plus the paper from that joint is gonna make whoever smokes that feel shittier than the weed will make them feel high...

[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:46 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2008 4:45:05 PM

whatever, it looks like a lot of premature buds and shake to me. i swear i see seed husks.

1/11/2008 4:45:18 PM

it looks to me like you've been full of shit all thread

which i didn't really care about until you tried to tell me that i was full of shit when i actually know that i'm correct

1/11/2008 4:46:10 PM

^^ I see what you're talking about in reference to the seed husks, but they aren't really there. Bud that fluffy and nice just breaks up in little chunks and it takes on the illusion of seeds.

P.S. I'm sorry I had to call you out and agree with Twista... seriously.

[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:48 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2008 4:47:30 PM

^ shall defer to your superior weed-ness. -- (i deserve calling out, when ever possible)

^^ yeah, fuck you




[Edited on January 11, 2008 at 4:52 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2008 4:49:11 PM

i always get told to stay out of soap box cause all i know about is nba, weed and hiphop

here i come and tell you about weed and i get shit anyway by somebody who doesnt know what theyre talking about

1/11/2008 4:50:23 PM

Can't we all just get along?

1/11/2008 4:51:24 PM

Maybe if we had some of that skunk we could...

Either that or we'd all develop schizophrenia.

1/11/2008 4:56:50 PM

Hey. . .I bet. . .I bet if we burn one we could all get along--but just don't fish-lip it.

1/11/2008 5:17:52 PM

Quote :

"Another alarmist, patently-retarded confusion of correlation and cause. I wonder if the PM would agree that a ban on all forms of alcohol would make a fitting reaction to the psychological problems associated with use of Absinthe. Follow the story if you must, but I assure you, it's going nowhere."

1/11/2008 5:22:02 PM

^ I'm gonna get me some of that Lucid--no shit. I'm going to order some this week--and all the paraphernalia, too.

1/11/2008 5:28:20 PM

I definitely see a big ass stem.

1/11/2008 5:57:09 PM

http://www.schizophrenia.com/prevention/streetdrugs.html

1/11/2008 6:23:49 PM

God, the history behind marijuana has everyone so twisted on the issue.

It's bad! It makes you crazy!

No, it's good! It has absolutely no ill-effect on your health at all!

1/11/2008 6:35:58 PM

weed sucks anyway.

the time i had the most fun on weed, i watched count de monte cristo on dvd with a few friends. I didn't meet anybody, do anything intersting, or really have any substantial fun, i just watched the movie and asked my friend what was happening every five minutes.

made me paranoid.

i did end up dating an ncsu volleyball player from it, but that was unrelated. boring drug, usless time spent at the risk of doing something illegal.

it's alcohol and uppers for me.

though i am pro-legalization. alcohol is far more dangerous and much less restrictid than weed.

1/12/2008 5:34:42 AM

not that many people smoke bud anymore anyway

1/12/2008 5:58:04 AM

not true

1/12/2008 11:04:12 AM

Quote :

"i always get told to stay out of soap box cause all i know about is nba, weed and hiphop here i come and tell you about weed and i get shit anyway "

haha

1/12/2008 2:02:14 PM

MANY words- sorry.

The statistics on schizofrenia in which cannibis was a suspected contributor are laughable. More people suffer brain damage from aspartame aggravated phenylketonuria than develop real schizophrenia from THC. If you read the studies they actually say things like:

Quote :

"Smoking cannabis virtually doubles the risk of developing mental illnesses such as schizophrenia,"

http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/001475.html

Keep in mind that psychological dependence on a substance is considered, in many countries, a mental illness. So those 500+ people being treated for "mental illness" might just be seeing a shrink because they feel they're psychologically dependent on pot and use it as a coping mechanism. That's not to say developing a powerful dependency on a drug (legal or otherwise) isn't a terrible and pitiable thing. The articles are extremely disingenuous about what they mean by "mental illness" for the vast majority of the people included in the statistics.

Also be careful to read the text of articles in regards with what they mean by "schizophrenia." The Yale study that a lot of these claims are based on described:

Quote :

"transient schizophrenia-like symptoms"

That's fairly different from actually developing what people usually mean when they talk about schizophrenia. They're describing a temporary state of paranoid delusions as opposed to the guy from a beautiful mind minus math skills. Still, if you have a history of schizophrenia in your family you should stay away from pretty much any mind altering substance not meant to treat a disease. Amphetamines in particular are known to be able to trigger schizophrenia in people who are predisposed.

Here is the actual cannabis study:


http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/184/2/110

It's an interesting read and it's obvious its findings have been bastardized horribly. The researches suggest that cannabis, like many other drugs, may be able to trigger schizophrenia in those who are pre-disposed.

Quote :

"On an individual level, cannabis use confers an overall twofold increase in the relative risk for later schizophrenia. At the population level, elimination of cannabis use would reduce the incidence of schizophrenia by approximately 8%, assuming a causal relationship. Cannabis use appears to be neither a sufficient nor a necessary cause for psychosis. It is a component cause, part of a complex constellation of factors leading to psychosis."

Note that the authors specifically deny that there is a direct causal relationship- the assertion in many of the articles that cite this study.

Quote :

"most studies were unable to establish whether prodromal manifestations of schizophrenia preceded cannabis use, leaving the possibility that cannabis use may be a consequence of emerging schizophrenia rather than a cause of it."

They're suggesting a relationship- but saying that it may be a symptom (self treatment) as opposed to a cause. Sure, under some interpretations it appears to double your chance to develop schizophrenia- but what does that mean? Well the normal US prevalence rate is roughly .72% so double that and you have... 1.44% When you think of it like that it's not nearly so frightening to the individual user since it's still a relatively small chance of developing any form of schizophrenia. That does however seem to suggest that widespread use of pot by teenagers might pose a public health burden. The problem with that is that it's not compared with the rate at which other things may seem to alter an individual's chance compared to the average rate. Does this mean that your chances of developing schizophrenia are greater than someone taking aderall, ritalin, large ammounts of caffeine, or suffering from alcoholism?

Well the only information on Ritalin I could find was that it caused psychotic symptoms in 9% of children who used it. That's pretty damn high compared to pot- but yes it is being used to a real but often over-diagnosed problem. Caffeine has some interesting prospects as a contributor to the onset of schizophrenia:

http://psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/49/11/1415

Referring to schizophrenic patients:

Quote :

"The mean caffeine intake of 26 patients was 503 mg a day, and 38 percent reported using more than 555 mg a day"

Small sample yes, but keep in mind the average American takes in 210 mg a day and only 6 percent of the general population uses more than 500mg a day. Also, the study noted that surveys have shown that upwards of 80% of schizophrenic patients are heavy smokers. These studies, while not done to adequate scale to even begin to suggest causal relationship with any confidence, do suggest (in their analysis of its effects on brain chemistry) that it may play a role in onset.

The bottom line? Be careful about taking in large amounts of any mind altering substance if you have a family history of psychosis. Yes, that means pot too but it MIGHT also mean coffee and cigarettes and certainly strong stimulants like coke, adderall, and meth.


[Edited on January 13, 2008 at 1:05 AM. Reason : ]

1/13/2008 12:56:11 AM

Weed is soooo freshman year. Let's grow up people.

1/13/2008 3:49:53 AM

yeah grow up, upperclassmen use CRACK

1/13/2008 12:22:51 PM

in a related story, being homeless increases you chances of getting stone cold crazy.

1/13/2008 12:53:12 PM

people who smoke are more likely to earn F's and D's in high school

i think this is a favorite propraganda piece with the anti-drug associations. however, they completly ignore that perhaps its the rebellious kids who do not give a shit about school who decide they do not give a shit about society's rules to ban pot.

1/13/2008 2:41:41 PM

Just to wrap up, this thread's all about bad statistics and nanny state-ism.

For example, an increase of average THC concentration per confiscated bud (i.e. potency) from 3% to 7% is a 233% increase over time! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!1

Similarly, if your odds of developing schizophrenia over time are low as it is, like 0.5%, and the study's findings show a 2% chance that a daily pot user will develop schizophrenia, why that's a 400% increase! Nevermind that 98 out of every 100 will still get along just fine.

1/14/2008 1:11:37 AM

Quote :

" Similarly, if your odds of developing schizophrenia over time are low as it is, like 0.5%, and the study's findings show a 2% chance that a daily pot user will develop schizophrenia, why that's a 400% increase! Nevermind that 98 out of every 100 will still get along just fine."

For a problem as serious as schizophrenia, that's a significant increase.

Look at it this way...

For a typical couple, the birth defect rate is about 2% or so. For an incestuous couple, that shoots up to about 3-6%. Not a huge difference, really, but incest is still considered pretty bad. But by your logic, that's an insignificant amount, and we shouldn't even worry about incest (on this basis, at least). Which means that incest really would then only become a "lifestyle choice" issue.

1/14/2008 1:19:47 AM

I think there are a lot of people who are far too willing to attribute causality to studies where the order of pot use vs. schizophrenia presentation is not known.

We know that inbreeding increases the chance of recessive genetic defects presenting themselves. With caffiene, tobacco, and marijauna use it's unclear whether the substance use is symptomatic or causal. By your logic suicide is a probably cause of depression since depressed people are much more likely to kill themselves.

While a pot user is statistically more likely to present symptoms of schizophrenia, that says nothing about whether one actually causes the other. The actual studies show good reasoning for either possibility. But yeah, it's probably good advice to people who are at risk to avoid things that are statistically associated with schizophrenia.



[Edited on January 14, 2008 at 1:35 AM. Reason : ]

1/14/2008 1:30:27 AM

^ If that was for me, you misread my post.

GC was saying even if it was the MJ that caused the schizo, it's too small of an amount to matter. I was saying even though it looks like a small amount, it's still pretty meaningful in context.

1/14/2008 1:32:03 AM

Hah yeah I thought you were quoting and responding to me Guess my late night rambling mess was long enough that I kind of forgot what I actually wrote in it.

[Edited on January 14, 2008 at 1:37 AM. Reason : ]

1/14/2008 1:33:48 AM

Quote :

"moron: For a problem as serious as schizophrenia, that's a significant increase."

Increase to what? Quite unlikely from extraordinarily unlikely? And even then, let's be clear about what we're discussing: correlation. The odds that two facts are simultaneously true, not that they had any causal relationship between one another.

What's significant is the author's alarmism and piss poor logic.

Ice cream sales and violent crimes are highly correlated, and data on the fact has been available for years. What classification for Rocky Road, I wonder, would help British parents sleep better at night?

Quote :

"moron: But by your logic, that's an insignificant amount, and we shouldn't even worry about incest (on this basis, at least)."

How, exactly, do you arrive at that conclusion by my logic?

The article:
Heavy MJ Smoking = Increased Risk of Schizophrenia to Self

Your analogy:
Incest = Risk of Deformity to Another[/b]

Your analogy is clearly incomparable on the merits. Unlike in your analogy, the health risks posed do not extend to those who abstain from the behavior. If you disagree, please clarify your position.

Even if true, the study's findings that heavy use increases your statistically-negligible risk of developing schizophrenia to a slightly higher statistically-negligible probability of developing the disease do not justify rescheduling the drug. The discovery didn't make the drug more dangerous.

Quote :

"moron: Which means that incest really would then only become a "lifestyle choice" issue."

Incest is a lifestyle choice issue. The fact that most unanimously agree to abstain from it lends no substance to your argument, however. The analogy remains invalid and I'll waste no more bandwidth addressing it here. Suffice it to say that deformed children lack any culpability for their consequent condition.

Quote :

"moron: GC was saying even if it was the MJ that caused the schizo, it's too small of an amount to matter."

Too small of an amount to matter, or too small of an amount to justify a greater infringement of personal liberty?

If a study revealed a quadrupling of the risks of serious, permanent psychological injury associated with heavy use of absinthe--or just Bud Light, would a rescheduling of alcohol be appropriate?

Of course not.

1/14/2008 2:50:36 AM

Quote :

" But yeah, it's probably good advice to people who are at risk to avoid things that are statistically associated with schizophrenia."

Definitely.
For these genetically predisposed people, if its a choice from smoking weed or becoming like golem from Lord of the Rings (mindset that is) then it's practically a must.

1/14/2008 2:54:30 AM