[HN Gopher] Schizophrenia linked to marijuana use disorder is on...
___________________________________________________________________
Schizophrenia linked to marijuana use disorder is on the rise,
study finds
Author : pseudolus
Score : 257 points
Date : 2021-07-22 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnn.com)
| theshadowknows wrote:
| I smoked weed the first time when I was 15 or so. A buddy of mine
| bought some from a friend of a friend. And we continued to smoke
| mostly on weekends for years. I stopped right around college in
| 2007 or so.
|
| Then a year or so ago I smoked some legal weed from a dispensary.
| And that shit almost killed me.
|
| I was nauseated and sweating and I vomited repeatedly for like
| two hours. And I couldn't control my thoughts. They got dark very
| quickly. Like voices in my head telling me to kill myself...it
| was fucking insane...
|
| So naturally a few months later I tried it again, assuming it was
| just something with that strain or whatever. And it happened
| again. And I'm not even talking like I smoked a whole joint. I
| smoked maybe four puffs from a bong.
|
| I know that's not evidence of any kind. It's just my reaction.
| And my wife smokes daily to help with the symptoms of medication
| she takes. She smokes fairly heavily and the worst thing that
| happens to her is she gets hungry.
|
| I don't know what the difference is between "modern" weed and the
| grown-in-the-ditch North Carolina weed I smoked in my youth. But
| it is not the same thing.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Tolerance makes a big difference. If you haven't smoked in a
| long time, you'll be sensitive to even small amounts of
| marijuana and it doesn't take much to be too much.
|
| I suspect that cannabinoids and the cannabinoid system act
| somewhat like the opioid system, where the brain will react
| differently to the substances depending on tolerance. In the
| latter system, chronic opioid usage changes the sedative
| effects associated with that class of drugs to stimulant-like
| effects.
|
| Similarly, people with no THC tolerance who consume it get
| anxiety as a side effect, but for chronic users, they get
| anxiolytic responses from it.
| techrat wrote:
| >I don't know what the difference is between "modern" weed and
| the grown-in-the-ditch North Carolina weed I smoked in my
| youth.
|
| Several differences.
|
| You know if the street stuff was an indica, sativa or hybrid?
| Some people react much, much worse to specific strain types
| than others. I'm one of those. I can't smoke strong indicas or
| I basically have panic attacks.
|
| Modern strains can have upwards of FOUR+ TIMES the thc
| content... I've seen cheap strains in dispensaries that were
| above 30%. Old cheap street skunk was maybe 6 to 8% if you were
| lucky.
|
| You smoked like you smoked before, ignoring the differences in
| potency, so you gave yourself a much higher dose right off the
| bat... with no tolerance from being a regular smoker.
|
| Someone who isn't an alcoholic isn't going to be able to drink
| a bottle of Jack like a habitual drinker is.
| clint wrote:
| You smoked "4 puffs from a bong" which is a _lot_ of weed for
| someone who is essentially cold turkey.
|
| The whole anecdote that weed is _exceptionally_ stronger than
| it used to be in the past is not well proven. In the 70's
| people were alleging weed is 20x stronger than in the 60s, in
| the 80s alleging it was 7x stronger than in the 70s. In the
| 90's alleging it was _40x_ stronger than the 80s. And so on.
| People repeat it because someone goes from cold turkey to
| sucking down a huge toke from a vape pen in 2021 and get high
| as balls, not taking into account they probably vaped the
| equivalent of a whole joint in one action.
|
| Its a trope that's never been born out by any real data.
| trutannus wrote:
| > I don't know what the difference is between "modern" weed and
| the grown-in-the-ditch North Carolina weed I smoked in my
| youth. But it is not the same thing.
|
| Doctors in Canada are well versed in this actually. The
| standing advice I have gotten from every doctor I've seen is to
| ensure some CBD content in the cannabis at all times to reduce
| the impact of the substance. That said, there's a push to have
| higher and higher concentrations of THC as a cost-saving
| measure, which is not generally considered a good thing.
| tomrod wrote:
| From my personal observation of loved ones, schizophrenics self-
| medicate, often with what is available.
|
| I plan to read this article to understand if they are just seeing
| selection bias.
| hereforphone wrote:
| I can only speak from personal experience, which is of course
| limited. I smoked occasionally in my 20s, but not since (I'm
| middle-aged now). I've been friends and acquaintances with many
| people that smoke a lot. I see a trend among these people - not
| necessarily schizophrenia (I'm not a psychologist and probably
| wouldn't even notice a mild case) - but instead a consistent
| arrogance and self-importance. It's peculiar - they may be
| contributing very little to society (or maybe a lot), but
| regardless there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up
| among them all. Maybe even narcissism?
|
| I could be completely wrong. I don't express this to assert it,
| but rather to ask if anyone else has noticed anything similar.
| stevev wrote:
| My experience with the substance is similar to yours. I've
| started again occasionally and see that the experience differs
| depending on the strain. I do get paranoia that wears off;
| there were times where I've experience schizophrenia like
| symptoms; where reality seems off or my perception of it
| changes temporarily until it wears off. Hopefully I don't have
| early onset of the disorder.
|
| Regarding your friends, is it possible that the behavior you
| are seeing is when they are under the influence and not during
| sober?
| Ccecil wrote:
| It is entirely possible that this is a misunderstanding of
| their true feelings or intents. To quote Kat Williams "Weed has
| a chemical in it called F*k it..."
|
| Maybe when they use they are not having the same anxious
| feeling that the general public feels and they do not react to
| others who otherwise might be perceived as "more important"
| than them. This would appear to the person who typically views
| themselves as "more important" as arrogance or self
| importance...when in reality they are just mildly happy and
| don't care at that moment about the typical societal norms and
| ranking.
|
| More than likely they are just going about their own business
| and not paying attention to how you are reacting to it. Every
| life has value...every person is equal.
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| Daily toker and edible eater; I'm high now. Hit the bong and
| a cartridge multiple times.
|
| I've also successfully upgraded large chunks of my employers
| infra code; tests green, deploys green.
|
| It's no different than coffee to me at this point; I figured
| out working with those jitters and anxiety. I even saw
| shimmering with caffeine I've never seen on THC.
|
| I'm pretty sure a whole lot of the behavior is just
| subculture stereotypes that become something like a truism;
| correct at any speed of light; which become hard to shake for
| most people (even smart ones).
|
| Personal experience is the science of human existence. The
| anxiety of non-smokers isn't an anxiety I have to take on
| myself.
| 01100011 wrote:
| Sort of sounds like me a decade ago.
|
| If you find yourself still doing the same job in a decade,
| I think you'll know why. Tech jobs are very compatible with
| weed. The sort of tactical, short term thinking you need to
| apply current knowledge to problems works well. It's great
| for crafting clever, short-term solutions and hacking your
| way through things. If that's all you ever want to be,
| smoke weed everyday man, why not?
|
| If you want to achieve more, that, for me and the people
| I've seen, is where the problems start. You might not even
| recognize that this is where you want to be in life until
| it's too late because you're so comfortable with your
| 'smoke weed everyday' job. It really sucks when mid-life
| comes and you realize your skills won't carry you another
| 20 years, or that there's a whole generation of kids coming
| to either push you up the corporate ladder or push you out
| on the streets.
|
| I was literally high all day for 16 years. Grew it. Made
| hash. Supplied edibles to dispensaries. I get it. It feels
| great. Do yourself a favor and stop for 6 months. See how
| you feel about your life and the overall direction. You
| might find you don't want to go back. That's assuming you
| can quit. I tried over and over again and couldn't go more
| than 3 days without it. Anyway, good luck.
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| I am not a grower and have moved up consistently in my
| career over the last decade from IT helpdesk to devops
| lead, with a company that's profitable, and currently
| many rounds of demos deep with two very big businesses I
| can't even tell you what industry we're in that's how new
| and weird this tech is.
|
| Sounds like you made being high your identity.
|
| To me it's like coffee (which I drink sparingly as
| caffeine messes me up worse; biochemistry _shrug_ ). I
| just consume it and go.
|
| I've also never had an issue setting aside when I need
| to. If I want to interview, I can hop off cold turkey,
| give it 3-4 weeks to burn it out of my fat.
|
| My career went nowhere before I started smoking, tbh. I
| was a Linux admin for nothing companies that don't exist
| anymore; think mom and pop offices 20 years ago.
|
| In the last decade I've worked for big tech, startups
| doing actually cool shit, and now for a really neat
| security company.
|
| But that could just be the subjective experience side of
| reality leading to different outcomes for different
| people and have nothing to do with weed for either of us.
| fzzzy wrote:
| Anecdotal, but caffeine is the drug that has messed my
| life up the worst.
| schroffl wrote:
| In what way?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Sounds like you fell into the "subculture stereotypes
| that become something like a truism" trap that the parent
| comment mentioned. I've worked my way up into six figures
| being high on THC most of the time. I've only recently
| cut back, but only to drop a few pounds. Weed doesn't
| make people lazy or complacent, but it can make lazy and
| complacent people lazier and more complacent sometimes.
| ModernMech wrote:
| There's a line from the show "Suits" that really
| highlights your point I think. Essentially the show is
| about this wunderkind who conned his way into becoming a
| lawyer at a top firm. He smokes weed, and the partner at
| the firm wants him to quit. The partner explains "It's
| okay if you want to smoke weed. But that's what weed
| smokers do. They smoke. If you want to do other things,
| like work at this firm, you've gotta quit weed, because
| you can't do both." I think that's very true.
| clint wrote:
| this is a meaningless tautology
| robocat wrote:
| > It really sucks when mid-life comes and you realize
| your skills won't carry you another 20 years, or that
| there's a whole generation of kids coming to either push
| you up the corporate ladder or push you out on the
| streets.
|
| Surely we all see that happen to most people, including
| non-users?
|
| I think you are creating a narrative about pot use, and
| you are ignoring correlation.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| This comment comes across as quite condescending.
|
| I mean, yeah I used to smoke a lot and produce a bit. I
| stopped after a while.
|
| And yeah, I generally recommend that other folks try not
| smoking...
|
| but it's not like you're getting "more" career than other
| folks have. It's just different.
|
| Like good on you if that's what you want to do, but from
| where I sit I could say the same thing about career
| minded folks who substitute their work for an identity.
|
| I get being terrified you're gonna get pushed out on the
| streets and all, but yeesh.
|
| I don't wanna get up the corporate ladder. The people who
| arrange the work I do are nice and all, but it's not like
| the sales staff and the mild sociopathy they develop are
| living some sort of elevated life or something just
| because they make more money and have nicer cars.
|
| Good on you for recognizing that you want something
| different and pursuing it, but not everyone agrees that
| "more career" is the same as more life.
| sunnytimes wrote:
| meh .. my friend and i started what is now a multi
| million dollar company over the past 15 years and we
| smoke weed everyday .. we smoke at work , just only after
| 5 .. no one is pushing me out into a street cause i smoke
| pot , quite the opposite actually.
| jayrice257 wrote:
| Wow your attitude sounds as ill informed and short
| sighted as you think "weed smoking jobs" are as if that's
| a thing or any of this post is more than some subjective
| drivel. Grow up and get over yourself you loser
| sarsway wrote:
| Don't you feel it makes you a bit more stupid? For me, as
| soon as it becomes a daily habit for more then 2 weeks, the
| negative sides start to outweigh the benefits. It really
| does mess with short term memory, they say an average
| person can remember 9 things at once, and I'm pretty sure
| weed drastically reduces that. To the point where people in
| conversations will actually notice you can't remember well
| what you just talked about 5 minutes ago and might think
| you're a bit stupid. For coding it makes monotonous tasks
| more bearable, but I often lose context when tackling more
| complicated problems.
|
| I mean I still love weed, but everyday / all day just isn't
| that great. All good things in moderation.
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| Daily != all day
|
| Honestly, I only care about long term memory.
|
| Short term was mutilated by todo apps and calendars
| already.
|
| I want to reserve my memory for interesting ideas and
| moments. Not groceries and vacuuming.
|
| This thread is making me think my way of prioritizing and
| doing is, not novel, but different than the replies is
| all.
|
| I play guitar and piano, I don't own a TV, I do use a
| tablet for movies but once or twice a week. I play Tetris
| on my kids Switch rarely, otherwise got bored with video
| games years ago, I don't use social media. I exercise
| daily but don't watch sports.
|
| I have a lot less cultural "noise" in my face than many,
| yet I live in a big metro area.
|
| Maybe that affords me the mental bandwidth to work with
| weed?
| babyblueblanket wrote:
| I have a co-worker who I would described as mildly happy at
| all times and doesn't care about societal norms/ranking, but
| I never interpreted them to consider themselves superior to
| me. This doesn't jive with my understanding of mildly happy
| people.
| mikem170 wrote:
| That makes sense. But it also makes sense that someone else
| might look at that same person you know and think to
| themselves "look at them, doing their own thing, they must
| think they are special, how arrogant!"
|
| Guessing what's going on in someone elses head can be
| pretty subjective. Sometimes it's the person looking who
| jumps to conclusions.
| bobthechef wrote:
| > Every life has value...every person is equal.
|
| What was the point of that remark? Persons may be said to be
| of equal _dignity_ , but no two people are ever equal, in
| value or otherwise. But what does that have to do with
| anything in this context? Are you reading things in? The OP
| was not making any point about rank, only haughty behavior
| which has no place no matter who you are.
| Ccecil wrote:
| It was a statement of my personal views. It is OK with me
| if you don't feel the same way.
|
| I do feel everyone is equal in value. Possibly equally
| worthless depending on how you view humanity's place in the
| overall universal timescale.
|
| Whenever you look at someone else and think they are being
| arrogant or self important...likely it is time to take a
| step back and think about why it is OK to think that they
| should not feel that way. Maybe they have good reason that
| day to feel self important :) Take it as a good opportunity
| to take a good look inside and realize...overall...it
| doesn't matter how other people view themselves.
| throwaway803453 wrote:
| That statement needs tuning then. It's doubtful you have
| a 529 for your neighbor's college fund or you are
| bankrupting yourself to pay someone else's medical bills.
| Did you buy a $2 coffee today ? $2 is what the average
| Venezuelan earns in a month.
|
| That quote is often associated with Bill Gates in the
| context of running a charity. In that case it has merit.
| But on a personal level it makes no sense, at least
| literally.
| jayrice257 wrote:
| ROFL the guy says it's my personal view and your
| responses is WELL it needs adjustment then.
|
| Grow up and learn that no, he doesn't need to change his
| perspective and no yours isn't more valid or correct
|
| You actually sound like a sociopath who just wants to be
| right about something no one can even be right about.
| Have some humility and stfu it's an opinion
| Ccecil wrote:
| The discussion was about self worth.
|
| The fact that the response to that is discussing money
| should be a red flag to you.
|
| You can be good to your neighbors without giving anything
| but a smile and a kind word.
| vkou wrote:
| Well, since _I 'm_ spending $2 on a _Colombian_ coffee
| today, instead of supporting a Venezuelan, I suppose I
| should just double-down on my disregard for human life,
| and lobby for the creation of gulags, the return of
| slavery, and a general expansion of the right of the
| strong to dominate the weak.
|
| That would be as silly as that criticism of equality. I'm
| still unsure how we go from 'All people are equal' to
| 'Are they? I don't see you sacrificing <arbitrary amount
| of money> to help your fellow man.'
| wil421 wrote:
| I noticed the opposite. In my 30s now and most of the people I
| know who smoke a lot are pretty relaxed and the complete
| opposite of a narcissist.
| beebeepka wrote:
| What an elaborate way if saying weed smokers are lazy bums.
|
| Have you considered you attract a certain type? The long time
| smokers I know live remarkably normal lives. Kids, jobs, etc
| nimroddy wrote:
| > consistent arrogance and self-importance
|
| Unfortunately, these words are vague and will only facilitate
| people projecting their own definitions onto them in order to
| either support or deny your claim.
|
| If there is a CEO making 500% more than some engineer, and some
| engineer complains about that, then someone may say, "Hey that
| person is just some engineer, how self-important and arrogant
| to complain to the CEO like that", but for me it's self-
| important and arrogant for the CEO to think the pay is
| proportional, and brave and commendable for the engineer to
| speak up.
|
| I have known many assholes. Some were teetotalers and some used
| cannabis.
|
| Be careful to let your own self-importance and arrogance allow
| you to think you can or should outright label someone else, or
| explain another's behavior, especially by pointing at only one
| facet of their life that you happen to be privvy to.
| RIMR wrote:
| Yeah, I'm a daily pot-smoker and many of my friends are too,
| and we're all generally doing great at our careers and
| personal lives. I did some reflecting upon reading this
| comment to ensure that I'm not some sort of narcissistic
| stoner who doesn't get any feedback, but I really can't see
| that in myself or any of the people I know who are heavy
| smokers.
|
| I'm worried that OP is just looking down on their pot-smoking
| peers through the lens of stereotypes with a "that's a lot of
| confidence for a pothead" attitude instead of recognizing
| that they're legitimately happy, confident people - traits
| they likely aren't as critical of when they comes from
| others.
| colechristensen wrote:
| There is the persistent question: does this attract people who
| are a certain way or does it transform some people into being
| that way. But let's be clear, schizophrenia is not a
| personality trait.
| oblib wrote:
| I could certainly be accused of haughtiness when someone made a
| snide remark about me using marijuana. This is because I got
| fed up with arrogant people shitting on me when they found out
| I use it.
|
| In my experience it is those who love to flout their sense of
| superiority by shitting on users who are arrogant. But shit can
| flow both ways and when I'd point out that they too use "drugs"
| they'd get very defensive.
|
| Back in the 80s my cocaine using friends loved shitting on weed
| users. "It makes you dumb" was one of their favorite cut downs.
|
| My alcohol drinking friends who didn't smoke weed loved to cast
| the aspersion that weed smokers were "drug users". When I
| started pointing out that alcohol was a drug too they all very
| loudly denied it because couldn't stand the idea that they were
| "drug users" too.
|
| And along with and within those two groups are those who do
| prescription drugs. It was pretty strange to be accused of
| being a "drug user" by people taking codeine and Xanax and
| Quaaludes, ect.
|
| When I pointed out the serious side effects of alcohol, both
| personal and to our society at large as compared to weed
| smokers they started shutting up about that when talking to me.
|
| Since Colorado legalized it those kinds of encounters have been
| far less common, and I've certainly appreciated it. And because
| of that I'd probably be far less likely to be accused of being
| arrogant nowadays.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| > "It makes you dumb" was one of their favorite cut downs.
|
| Well, it does measurably decrease IQ. And at least in teens,
| this reduction seems like it may be permanent.
| oblib wrote:
| Yeah, I've heard people say that all my life. Some folks
| love to believe that. But there's nothing that really backs
| that up with solid proof. A lot of them whom I've heard say
| that were coke users, which to me would indicate a lack of
| intelligence.
|
| Here's a couple studies that seem to disprove that myth
| about weed users but, like all of these studies, they
| really cannot claim to be conclusive. Still better than
| most I've seen though:
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/marijuana-may-
| not...
|
| https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/twins-study-finds-
| no...
| m0llusk wrote:
| After more than 30 years of daily cannabis use with
| occasional tolerance breaks I recently took an IQ test
| along with a series of mental evaluations and was in the
| 99th percentile. So maybe cannabis took me down just enough
| to avoid being one of those Mensa jerks?
|
| It might be interesting and revealing to see the
| correlation between casual cannabis dismissal and low or
| reduced IQ, but of course that goes against the popular
| narrative and looking for potential errors isn't where most
| scientists focus since that isn't super glamorous or likely
| to get citations from publication.
| slumpt_ wrote:
| That's an excellent line of research to dive down. You're
| going to get some folks here sweating, though.
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| I take the position that it's your biochemistry reacting to
| them.
|
| What words you label it as feeling like are subjective.
|
| I notice people from all walks of life can feel entitled, and
| narcissistic. I'm sure some have been stoners.
| pier25 wrote:
| I think what you describe is pretty common in humans, weed or
| not.
|
| What I've seen in weed users (myself included when I was in my
| 20s) is a tendency towards magical thinking and
| enjoying/accepting fantasies.
| warent wrote:
| That just sounds like people in their 20s in general, even
| without weed. Marijuana might make it seem worse because stupid
| ideas sound much more profound when we're high
| hereforphone wrote:
| Good point, I had in mind friends / acquaintances from 20s to
| 50s however.
| jxramos wrote:
| yah I think there's something to this in an opportunity
| cost motivational angle. Basically there's a cost that
| comes to being in a high state which lowers your thresholds
| for profundity, satisfaction, deliciousness/appetite/taste.
|
| Basically with the thresholds all lowered one becomes
| satisfied with things that are objectively lesser quality,
| less demanding of effort and work. One would be equally
| satisfied eating junk food as they normally would having
| eaten some gourmet meal. There's no fire under your feet to
| hustle or put in the time to need to learn how to cook some
| truly delicious meal let's say or develop skills that bring
| longer term satisfaction that takes a while before payoff.
| Motivation never needs to take off because the cheapest
| junk already meets ones pleasure and satisfaction needs so
| why bother.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| Weed doesn't affect everybody the same. Not everyone is a
| stoner that gets high and says whoa dude on the couch.
|
| I didn't perceive things as more profound rather the
| little voice of anxiety inside by head went away and for
| the first time in my life I was free to figure out who I
| was.
| random_kris wrote:
| Hey this little Voice of anxiety I get it to and weed
| alleviated this.. or so I think. In return it makes me
| lazy and if I smoke too much it makes it louder and it
| wants me to stop smoking weed Soo much. But on other hand
| if I have a steady supply I cannot quit it. So fucked up
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I agree with this. I hang out at this one bar and this 22
| year old I talk to really thinks he "gets it." Incredibly
| cocky and arrogant a lot of times. He's fun to talk to but
| when he get's on a major BS kick I gotta tune him out. I'm
| only 5 years older than him but the contrast in experiences
| is stark to say the least. It really makes me wonder if I was
| ever that arrogant too.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Patronization is a strong suit many people (including
| myself) have nicely ironed at all times in our closet.
| Nothing is more fun than to put that suit on.
|
| The question is, can we tolerate flawed people? Can we
| laugh about it? Can we let them rant and wear that suit
| from time to time?
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It's fine if you dont act like you know how I should
| operate my life.
| krustyburger wrote:
| I applaud the creativity, but the phrase "strong suit"
| originated from bridge and refers to a different kind of
| suit.
|
| I realize I'm probably being patronizing myself by
| pointing that out. As Bart Simpson once said, "The
| ironing is delicious."
| hattmall wrote:
| I think it's a thing with liberalism as well though which
| has a huge overlap with marijuana use. Some people tend to
| think they know what's better for others without really
| considering the impacts it may have. Then you add in the
| existential paranoia brought on by being high all the time
| and you start espousing unconditional support for ideas
| that soothe your fears.
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| You are dumber than a rock.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| I think you might be the kind of person the parent is
| talking about.
| [deleted]
| mnowicki wrote:
| yeah true. I think it'd be best for others if they
| stopped being liberals.
|
| (\s btw)
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| Lol thanks for the good chuckle
| chucksta wrote:
| "Some people tend to think they know what's better for
| others without really considering the impacts it may
| have."
|
| That's hardly limited to that demo. Also generally
| chronic users aren't going to get that existential
| paranoia you get from casual use
| _ah wrote:
| "When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could
| hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to
| be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned
| in seven years."
|
| -- Mark Twain
| topkai22 wrote:
| Yes, I've noticed something simila, although way I phrase it is
| I noticed among high marijauna users from teens to twenties was
| what is a sense of delayed maturity. This overlaps with the
| attributes you described but it also felt like they weren't
| able to accept the increasing responsibility to themselves and
| others that comes with growth out of adolesence. I accept this
| is just one lived experience and there are other possible
| confounding factors, but I've definiutely noticed it.
| sodafountan wrote:
| I'm not a psychologist, but I think narcissism and self-
| importance simply stem from a small world view.
|
| If your main hobby/recreational activity in life is smoking
| weed (certainly not judging anyone) then you'll likely only
| associate with people who enjoy the same things, if anyone at
| all.
|
| This leads to a very narrow world-view where you're the center
| of that world. Going out and meeting people, doing different
| activities, taking on new jobs and roles, going to school and
| getting an education all really help to humble people and make
| people realize that most of us are all very similar in our
| pursuit of happiness.
| dogorman wrote:
| > _consistent arrogance and self-importance._
|
| Would you rather have people demoralized and hating themselves?
| I think we have quite enough of that already. God forbid an
| unaccomplished waggie enjoys life and likes who they are.
| Somebody put these uppity proles back in their place!
| [deleted]
| xwolfi wrote:
| I've had my weed phase between 16 and 19 and I dont know. There
| is a sort of arrogance that comes with ignorance in general
| that subsides as you learn the vastness of what you'll never
| know.
|
| I suppose the intersection of ignorance, criminality and drug
| consumption may make you think that because they smoke, they
| exhibit the other traits, but it could be the contrary.
|
| You need a bit of arrogance to think cannabis is on your side
| and you can dominate it, as I witnessed myself when I started
| stumbling as a teenager.
| jefftechentin wrote:
| > You need a bit of arrogance to think cannabis is on your
| side and you can dominate it, as I witnessed myself when I
| started stumbling as a teenager.
|
| I have had similar experiences. Without your mind you are not
| you, a drug which changes the minds substrate (in some ways
| permanently) is going to be outside the control of the
| effected mind. Beware the Snoop Dogg pool party.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| My experience is the exact opposite:
|
| 1) I would not suggest that marijuana use correlates with any
| particular behavior very much.
|
| 2) The only thing I have noticed in common among _some_ heavy
| users was stereotypical stoner behavior, primarily
| forgetfulness and absent-mindedness. They are usually aware of
| this, which means it does not present as anything remotely like
| arrogance.
| stevev wrote:
| My experience and opinion are similar to yours. A typical
| stoner isn't really there, and when they are there, it's more
| of a questioning or socializing activity. Alcoholic behaviors
| are what I would describe as arrogance and extreme
| impairment.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| It's very possible that those are the stoners that stick
| out. There are a lot of stoners out there that are there
| and you don't realize are high.
| _jjkk wrote:
| > they may be contributing very little to society (or maybe a
| lot), but regardless there's a sense of superiority
|
| A sober individual's brain is operating on standard (often
| societally installed) reward mechanism, including "succeeding"
| on certain self-evaluated measures like "contributions to
| society"
|
| It's commonly said that weed makes you "OK with being bored".
| i.e. standard reward mechanisms mentioned above don't really
| matter much when you're high.
|
| It has nothing to do with narcissism or sense of superiority as
| you call it, just that their reward mechanism doesn't include
| things like "how much am I contributing to society". Apathy is
| a better word for it.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| well apathetic individuals still rely on the society they are
| in, most of the time anyway. I think this is where the
| narcissism perception comes in.
|
| Most stoners in particular people who smoke a lot and for a
| long time at least in my experience become apathetic and to a
| degree dependent on their environment. They rely on others to
| organize their lives, even get simple chores done, they
| become sort of lethargic. And when you have an individual
| like that who also acts indifferently towards it you create
| (I think a justified) negative perception.
| _jjkk wrote:
| Be careful not to over-generalize from personal
| experience... Maybe you've just met a few examples of
| lethargic, dependent narcissists who smoke a lot of weed?
|
| There is selection bias at play, as someone with an
| admitted negative perception of stoners you probably
| haven't put yourself in many situations where you might
| meet counterexamples.
|
| In _my_ experience, I 've met many stoners whose driving
| force is empathy and compassion and not narcissism and
| apathy.
|
| Anyway, keep in mind any substance abuse is often an
| amplifier of issues that already existed.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I did qualify that I'm talking about heavy users but I
| don't think I'm over-generalizing. Any heavy drug use, or
| addictive or dependent behavior in general crowds out
| other things. That's just a fact of substance use.
|
| Occasional recreational use is one thing but people who
| are high every day, they aren't able to be as present as
| they would be if they were sober, and in changes them in
| I think usually negative ways. Not even because of the
| particular drug they're using, but because of the
| patterns of behavior that come with those levels of
| consumption.
| trutannus wrote:
| Most of the lethargic narcists I met were weed (and other
| drug) users. Most weed users I know are not lethargic
| narcists. People who swing in the direction of
| personality disorders already have a predisposition to
| "anti-social" behavioral patterns, and frequent risk-
| taking. It's just as likely that they get into drugs on
| account of existing personality constructs as they
| develop personality constructs on account of using drugs.
| [deleted]
| asdff wrote:
| I think part of that isn't the symptoms of the drug but the
| culture surrounding it. In most places its illegal or at the
| very least frowned upon, so being one who does this regularly
| makes you perceived by some parts of society as some sort of
| black sheep. People wear the black sheep badge proudly and can
| be arrogant and in your face about it. Just look at how techies
| act online. Smoking pot, like knowing stuff about technology,
| makes you 'in the know' relative to the rest of society, and
| can make you feel superior that you are taking part in
| something that most people will never or might outright refuse
| to experience.
|
| Even in parts of the US where its been legal to smoke pot for
| some time like California, the social stigma of meeting up for
| drinks at a bar regularly and meeting up to smoke pot regularly
| are not equivalent. Your employer might even drug test you
| still.
| 01100011 wrote:
| That's just society these days...
|
| Actually I think you have a point and it probably stems from
| the way in which MJ modifies your dopamine system.
|
| In any case, the reason I ultimately gave up smoking it is it
| makes my overall psychological health worse. I take a more
| cynical and negative view of things, even if it makes me
| mellower and temporarily happy. It affects my memory and my
| motivation, even as it increases my interest in things(so it
| slightly helps with ADHD, but effective net benefit to my job
| is zero). It also costs a hell of a lot of money unless you can
| grow it yourself these days(thanks, legal weed).
|
| Smoked for 16 years constantly, quit for 2, resumed a couple
| times to help with various issues in mid life, but at the end
| of the day I quit because it's just not in line with my goals
| for my life. Weed helped me stay in bad life situations and
| compromised my ability to plan an effective way of changing my
| circumstances. It works for some people, I get it. My friend is
| a paraplegic and loves it for pain. I love the benefits to
| joint pain and general mid-life aches. That pain relief is what
| led me to never really dealing with my back problems until now
| though.
| stevev wrote:
| My experience is opposite.
|
| My experience with cannabis use using a simple activity.
|
| Sober, I can clean my office without much thinking and if I had
| to repeatedly do it, I'd probably do it the same fashion every
| time.
|
| On cannabis, I'm able to see what I believe to be the more or
| most efficient way of cleaning my office, garage and rooms. I
| could probably come up with a few ways or road maps for doing
| so.
|
| I don't know what it is. Maybe there's a higher level of
| dopamine from using cannabis that influenced me to have so much
| attention and focus on such a menial task.
|
| I have been told that I'm usually not there mentally and never
| arrogant; and my friends are pretty outspoken.
| dqpb wrote:
| You should record yourself cleaning in both situations and
| then compare. Otherwise, you are merely comparing your
| perception of your self, which obviously is altered in the
| second case.
| samatman wrote:
| Sure, that would be interesting on some level.
|
| But I see the objective as _cleaning the room_ , not
| _having a clean room_ , so a subjective experience of being
| more engaged and enjoying it more is intrinsically
| valuable.
|
| If it takes a lot longer or the results aren't as good,
| that changes things, sure, but this can be settled with a
| timer and a before/after photo. Controlling for degree-of-
| mess probably adds so much noise that this probably isn't
| useful in practice.
| krylon wrote:
| I can only provide a single data point, but I used to smoke a
| lot of weed for a pretty long time, then stopped about 12 years
| ago, and one of the changes I noticed was that I became much
| more able to accept responsibility for my mistakes instead of
| blaming everything wrong with my life on others.
|
| After I stopped smoking, I talked about this a friend who also
| quit weed around that time, and he said it was the same for
| him. (Okay, so it's two data points.)
|
| Make of that what you want, but there is a correlation. That
| doesn't mean weed turns people into assholes necessarily, but
| it can certainly amplify preexisting tendencies in that
| direction. I'm pretty sure the same goes for various other
| drugs as well - I never spent time around cocaine or
| methamphetamine enthusiasts, but I've been told, some people
| have a tendency to become real assholes on cocaine. And of
| course there's alcohol, which definitely helps all kinds of
| unpleasant personality traits to float to the surface.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Maybe growing older and wiser played a part? I've seen some
| of my friends transform attitudes like that significantly as
| the years go by, weed never being involved.
| philote wrote:
| Honestly I've noticed the opposite. The pot smokers I've known
| (which there have been many) have been some of the coolest
| people. They've been very friendly and giving, and definitely
| not arrogant or self-important. Maybe it depends on the area
| you live in and types of social circles you're in?
| bilekas wrote:
| You've hit the nail on the head with my experience. I have
| noticed this with a brother who smoke daily.. I never really
| put it down to the marijuana use entirely, but more of an
| aversion to any kind of confrontation/disagreement that might
| make him second guess himself etc.
|
| Personally I can't smoke it anymore, I get super anxious now
| and nervous. I don't enjoy it, but I can see why some people
| who enjoy it would rather avoid any kind of mental
| doubt/disagreements.
| GordonS wrote:
| > Personally I can't smoke it anymore, I get super anxious
| now and nervous
|
| I've heard so many people say the same thing, that they used
| to enjoy using cannabis, then some years later they find it
| induces anxiety, jitters and nervousness - I wonder what the
| mechanism behind this anxiety is?
|
| Is it as simple as "modern" cannabis strains having much THC
| than older ones, or is it something else, possibly age-
| related, like thyroid hormones?
| codr7 wrote:
| Like Shrooms, Cannabis will sooner or later confront you
| with aspects of yourself that you're not entirely
| comfortable with.
|
| There was always strong weed, and hashish; it just means
| you either consume less or fall asleep.
|
| Hormones are possible, I guess.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| I heard this opinion so many times from new agey types
| who think they know so much wisdom about life. None of
| them are successful in any way or smoked weed in the same
| amounts as I or other stoner friends did.
|
| On the hand every single person I know who abused weed
| (including me) by wake and baking themselves for years
| have stopped smoking basically because every time they
| smoked their heartbeat would go to 9000 and they just
| couldn't feel good on it anymore (by good I mean just
| "not feeling like I am having a heart attack in purely
| physical way")
|
| Just to be clear it has nothing to do with paranoia, just
| physical effects - I don't feel afraid, it's just that
| there are no good effects anymore.
|
| Weed never destroyed my life. I was a hugely high-
| functioning addict to be honest. But there's no way I can
| smoke and not get my heartbeat to the moon.
|
| So please, just stop this misinformation. You just never
| smoked enough of weed to get there.
| GordonS wrote:
| _Was_ there always strong weed though? Modern strains go
| up to 20% THC and 0% CBD.
|
| At least when I were lad (in UK), we only got brick weed
| (which I remember was a good bit less strong than hash),
| but it was almost exclusively Moroccan hash we got, and
| even though that is a "concentrate", THC levels have
| traditionally[0] been lower, and CBD levels significantly
| higher, than much of today's modern cannabis flower.
|
| [0] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303871898_Th
| e_main_...
| eloisius wrote:
| Same observation. I also smoked weed in my teens and early
| twenties and I remember it making some of the most banal horse
| shit ideas seem profound, or like I really understand how the
| universe clicked together. I bet hanging out with a bunch of
| stoners steeping in my own bullshit for another decade would
| make me a(n even more) pompous ass too.
| stevev wrote:
| I doubt this even happened lol.
| brendanclune wrote:
| Realistically it was my teens and early twenties that made
| banal horse shit ideas profound. There's something to be said
| for age.
| alabamacadabra wrote:
| The effect is such that you are activating neurons which are
| engaged in the learning process.
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11064-005-6978-1
| Because of this, to the untrained mind (most humans are not
| given manuals to how their mind works) these firings related
| to any event cause the event to have the perception of
| presenting deep information which one can learn from. This
| state allows one to perceive the banal as sublime, or in
| simpler terms, dumb shit seems cooler, and you can enjoy dumb
| things more, as you are turning on a relational learning part
| of your mind and also engaging in a consumption ritual to do
| so. Genuinely this article and the reactions are giving me
| some confusion in regards to how other people perceive the
| world.
| bobthechef wrote:
| Ask yourself why people smoke weed in the first place. It isn't
| because they're temperate and psychically/spiritually/morally
| in order. Weed stupefies and dulls a person to certain unwanted
| feelings, like guilt or anxiety. That isn't any more medicinal
| than alcoholism.
|
| In line with that, if what you write is true, it would be
| consistent with the idea that they have vices which cause them
| suffering which they then proceed to numb instead of dealing
| with the vices. So if they suffer from envy and pride, this
| will make them miserable people, so they smoke to numb the
| suffering. It's basically a way of coping with the consequences
| of denial about those vices: an intentional disintegration of
| the intellect to prevent conscious realization of one's vices
| because they can bear down on one's conscience. The only true
| way out is moral reform, but if you don't want to repent and
| face the consequences of repentance, if you are a slave to your
| pride and to your passions, then you will look for something
| else to kill the guilt and the pain.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Wow, this is really ignorant. Have you ever tried cannabis?
| My guess is no.
| burnished wrote:
| Where ever did you get your ideas from? A D.A.R.E
| advertisement? Are you conflating marijuana and opioids?
| Seriously. You sound like my grand parents, who ascribe
| frankly magical effects to marijuana. Do you also believe
| that people regularly get high and believe they can fly?
| shoemakersteve wrote:
| This sounds like it's coming from someone who has 0
| experience with weed and has been told their whole life that
| it's bad and only bad people do it for bad reasons. And
| judging by the "repentance" language, probably a religious
| aspect too.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| It may help if you asked yourself why you feel qualified to
| judge a bunch of people's minds.
| trutannus wrote:
| > there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up among
| them all
|
| As a Canadian where weed is legal, I can say I've not had this
| experience at all. A lot of folks here use it, at all ages and
| all personality types. Very unusual for me to meet someone who
| uses it and for them to strike me as any different than the
| average Canadian.
| self_buddliea wrote:
| Reading this article made me recall an incident back in art
| college. A mature student asked if I smoked cannabis, I said I
| do. There was another mature student in the room with us. Upon
| hearing my confession she stared at me with a very serious
| expression, then lunged forward at me and pushed her face into
| mine. I was so taken aback I nearly fell off my chair. I had
| never met this woman before, we were never introduced and I
| haven't seen her since.
|
| I would argue this woman was sufficiently arrogant that she
| thought it was socially acceptable to invade my personal space
| because I was a stoner. Perhaps I myself was more arrogant when
| I was younger, in the spirit that user warent mentioned below.
| On the other hand, I'm not the type to spontaneously invade the
| space of others.
| walleeee wrote:
| > there's a sense of superiority that seems to crop up among
| them
|
| the directionality could be the inverse: e.g. insecurity
| driving people to social overcompensation as well as cannabis
| as a reprieve or escape from their anxieties
| warent wrote:
| This would not surprise me at all. But I'm curious to know if
| they got the causation backwards. Maybe people with schizophrenia
| just have a higher likelihood of smoking marijuana
| jklinger410 wrote:
| Untreated neuro-divergent people tend to use recreational drugs
| for medicinal purposes. And psychoactive drug usage is directly
| linked with the early onset of otherwise dormant schizophrenia,
| as well as a myriad of other mental disorders.
|
| There is no science to state that psychoactives cause these
| mental disorders. In fact, current medical science states the
| opposite, that psychoactives do NOT cause, but exacerbate,
| certain mental disorders.
|
| Considering that both psychoative drug use and mental disorder
| rates are on the rise (some would argue due to improved
| screening, treatments, etc) I'm not sure how anyone could draw
| a conclusion from this.
|
| If they want to prove that psychoactive use can cause mental
| disorder, they should approach it from a bio-chemical
| perspective.
| thaw13579 wrote:
| To be clear, there is science that is compatible with THC
| increasing the risk of psychosis (and perhaps that CBD is
| protective). I would agree that some are self medicating, but
| the data also shows that dosage, THC/CBD mixture, and age of
| use each elevate psychosis risk over random controls [1][2].
|
| It would be great to do double blinded experiments to test
| this more definitely, but we don't due to unethical reasons.
| I think the differential legalization will provide useful
| data along those lines, though it will take some years.
|
| I also think it's important to distinguish between THC
| "exacerbating" an existing mental illness and triggering
| psychosis in otherwise healthy people who have a
| predisposition, due to genes and early life experience. We
| still don't have a clear idea exactly how to say who's
| predisposed. Plenty of reasons to take caution, in my
| opinion.
|
| [1] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/24625/the-health-effects-of-
| cann... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article
| /PIIS2215-0...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > And psychoactive drug usage is directly linked with the
| early onset of otherwise dormant schizophrenia, as well as a
| myriad of other mental disorders.
|
| Citation please. Drug usage tends to begun around the same
| age schizophrenia is typically diagnosed.
| riemannzeta wrote:
| Presented for your consideration without comment:
|
| https://adai.uw.edu/pubs/pdf/2017mjbipolar.pdf
| tartoran wrote:
| I find it somewhat funny that this is written by Susan A.
| Stoner, PhD, Research Consultant.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Pretty standard study that showing two things are
| correlated. The THC/CBD chart is misleading because none of
| the data is actually used to form the conclusions.
|
| The interesting thing is the "Use of Marijuana to Self-
| Medicate BD" study is useless. Monitoring a small number of
| bipolar people for 6 days will give you completely random
| results. It's too short a period to remove moods from the
| equation.
| [deleted]
| mpol wrote:
| Or maybe both are happening.
|
| Some people like the high from THC, which might make someone go
| in the direction of psychosis, it can be very stimulating.
|
| For people whith a background of psychosis, they might like the
| CBD part, which makes them relax and feel less stimulated and
| aroused.
| badloginnew wrote:
| I think any research about cannabis that fails to distinguish
| thc/cbd and other important phenotypical traits of the plant
| will ultimately go nowhere. Thc and cbd have diametrically
| opposing effects. Marijuana is not one substance it is many.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| CBD with Delta-8 THC is all the unregulated rage now.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Yeah this is often the debate. Many schizophrenic people self-
| medicate with drugs and alcohol before they've been diagnosed,
| so it's very hard to get a clear picture.
|
| The "component cause" makes sense... marijuana and other
| psychedelics don't necessarily cause schizophrenia in most
| people, but for some people it may serve as a trigger. There's
| some evidence that trauma in childhood may have a similar
| impact.
| sharklazer wrote:
| I'm curious about alcohol and tobacco usage as well. Tobacco
| usage in mentally ill has generally been higher. It could
| simply reflect over all trends in substance choices depending
| on availability. So many variables unaccounted for.
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| I have a disorder that affects perception (fortunately
| nothing as serious!) and nicotine absolutely helps with
| sensory gating. I quit smoking last year and my focus has
| really suffered for it.
| [deleted]
| rwnspace wrote:
| I've heard it on good authority that schizophrenics find
| nicotine/tobacco significantly ameliorates their symptoms -
| it can be a lesser evil for some.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Plus, if you're going to self-medicate by building a
| psychological addiction, there are worse substances to do
| it with than nicotine. I know many alcoholics, for example,
| who picked up tobacco in rehab. It might not be healthy,
| but it can be a bit less self-destructive to your personal
| life.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Well, tobacco smoke is full of MAO inhibitors. I would not
| be surprised if it was daily abuse of tobacco and coffee
| that were causing mental illness.
| badloginnew wrote:
| I think it's an acetylcholine agonist or something like
| that.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I don't have links but read a lot on this years ago. There were
| multiple UK studies that connected genetic predisposition to
| mental health issues to increased drug use. They're just self
| medicating until it doesn't work anymore. IDK why it would be
| dramatically different for non-genetically predisposed victims.
|
| IMO, drug use is a symptom and not the cause. That said, we
| didn't have 75% THC vape back in the day and now everyone is
| doing CBD with wonderful new Delta-8 and there's not a shred of
| research on it.
| Ccecil wrote:
| I have long thought this for not just mental disorders...but
| also the long standing view that Marijuana use causes laziness
| or "makes you stupid". Perhaps these people have other issues
| they are self medicating for or have a higher probability of
| using illicit substances...for whatever reason they may be
| using it makes it easy to skew numbers to make it seem like the
| substance use is the cause, but to the user it may feel like
| the solution.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| "Lazy and stupid" is a common outsider generalization of
| people with ADHD's primarily inattentive variant.
| badloginnew wrote:
| Like cigarettes. It seems like it could be both self
| medication, but also have negative side effects too.
| Benzodiazepines are my favorite analogy.
| martimarkov wrote:
| Can you share that analogy? I take Benzodiazepam from time to
| time but never more than once every 3-4 months. Keen to learn
| a bit more. :)
| curryst wrote:
| Not OP, but benzo's can be problematic because they can
| exacerbate the condition they're meant to treat. I.e. they
| are often prescribed for anxiety, but one of the symptoms
| of benzo withdrawal is heightened anxiety. It creates a
| feedback loop where the medication builds an addiction, and
| the only way out of that addiction is to suffer a worse
| version of the symptoms you were trying to self-medicate
| away in the first place.
|
| I believe research has said similar of opiates. Heightened
| sensitivity to pain is one of the symptoms of opiate
| withdrawal.
|
| It stands in contrast to other medications where withdrawal
| isn't counter-indicated by the underlying condition. I.e.
| amphetamine withdrawal doesn't really exacerbate ADHD. It's
| not a pleasant thing, but stopping the medication only
| sends your ADHD back to baseline, not below.
|
| Another similarity to cigarettes and opiates is that they
| don't cure anything, they merely treat symptoms.
|
| Not a doctor, but I don't think you're at risk of those
| problems if you take them every 3-4 months. They're great
| for acute symptoms like that because of how effective they
| are. They're not good for chronic symptoms, though, because
| of that feedback loop.
| samatman wrote:
| Sorry to report this, but stimulant withdrawal absolutely
| exacerbates the symptoms of ADHD.
|
| Not so much with amphetamine (which is weakly reinforcing
| at recommended doses), but for nicotine, I know ADHD
| folks who have straight quit for a couple months, then go
| back because their life has become a complete shambles
| and it doesn't seem to be getting better.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| As far as I know, nicotine isn't approved for treatment
| of ADHD.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I can confirm that benzos cause rebound anxiety. I have a
| small supply for as-needed use. A single dose will help
| significantly that day but make the next day or two
| worse. But that doesn't mean they aren't useful.
|
| They are extremely helpful since I'm bipolar. They give
| me a buffer for highly stressful events, so I'm not
| dealing with both anxiety and the event. Having anxiety
| the next day sucks but avoiding a manic or depressive
| episode is worth that.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| One of my high school friends developed severe schizophrenia in
| his 30s. Given hindsight it's clear to all of us that know him
| that some elements of it must have started all the way back at
| middle school. He was _very_ into hallucinogens and doing his
| art, the themes of which are directly in line with his current
| delusions.
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Anecdotal however cannabis has many compounds, The two main ones
| are: THC and CBD.
|
| If your using a strain that has high THC and not much in CBD. CBD
| being the compound to safe-guard, governor the effects of THC you
| end up in a trip that can spiral out of control causing negative
| effects.
|
| If you add a CBD strain to the mix. Which are high in CBD and
| contain trace amounts of THC to your normal method usage, these
| tend to level out the percentages.
|
| My take is this: If your not mentally fit, high THC can cause you
| to go off the edge compared to strains with lower amounts. The
| same can be said for Wine and the alcohol volume.
|
| And I talk from personal experience from being in a psychosis
| episode caused by cannabis.
|
| -- Edit: I have my own downvote brigade. Yay - Just seems odd
| that every post I post on HN gets down-voted.
| stevev wrote:
| I'm upvoting this.
|
| I believe your explanation on the strains are on point.
|
| When using the vapor method, very high in thc, sometimes I do
| experience psychosis or schizophrenic symptoms. My perception
| of reality does change a bit during peak affect but disappears
| after wearing off.
|
| When smoking raw cannabis the regular way, I experience a more
| calming affect; emotionally tolerable and focused mindset.
| saryant wrote:
| This matches my experience as someone who struggles with severe
| anxiety and intrusive/delusional thoughts. THC makes for a very
| bad time for me, but a high CBD edible calms down my mind and
| helps me temper those thoughts.
| slingnow wrote:
| Editing your post to whine about the downvotes will surely get
| people to stop downvoting you. Well played.
| filoeleven wrote:
| Don't forget the terpenes! Terpenes play a big role in cannabis
| effects as well, accounting for the differences between sativa
| and indica strains.
|
| Pinine and terpinaline for example are more likely than other
| terpenes to cause anxiety and paranoia at higher
| concentrations, meaning >1%. I don't know if they contribute
| psychotic episodes though.
| adam0c wrote:
| "heavy use of the drug" ... shocker! problems arise in people
| woth substance abuse problem's :/
| moate wrote:
| People with Schizophrenia may abuse drugs (at up to an 8% rate
| for marijuana).
|
| :O
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| I have enjoyed smoking Cannabis for decades, but a recent bought
| of financial difficulty coupled with a desire to get programming
| last week has shown some teeth on the cute little bubbly image of
| Cannabis in my mind.
|
| I started smoking more (due to stress) and trying to complete a
| new project (financial difficulty) and it was just a nightmare.
|
| It's noticeably more difficult to concentrate and retain new
| information when I am ingesting regularly.
|
| Learning a new programming language, even having just had a few
| joints the night before, is so much more difficult that it would
| be without the Cannabis. I honestly felt like I was losing my
| mind.
|
| I'm not even talking about being high while learning/working...
| just having the cannabinoids in your system from a few days ago
| really soaks and coats the mind.
|
| So I've cut it out, for now.
| fsociety wrote:
| That makes a lot of sense and is smart. Very introspective. I
| want to provide my anecdotal evidence as a counterpoint, with
| the understanding that weed can trigger anxiety in a really
| damaging way and it affects everyone differently.
|
| I'm not in a financially stressful situation, but have been
| under a lot of performance stress in recent jobs. I found the
| best routine for myself was meetings during the day + whatever
| coding I could fit.
|
| Where it gets interesting is at night, I would have a Coke Zero
| for a small caffeine kick and vape a bit of weed - not a lot -
| and put on some tunes. Then I'd be totally in the zone and code
| several day's worth of work in a night. Sometimes even more.
|
| I was praised for high productivity, and got a lot of work
| done. I don't do it as often now, trying to maximize my sleep
| and my current work has more inter-team tension... but overall
| I get less work done now.
|
| It definitely was a cheat code to enter the zone for a good 4-6
| hours at night, and helped me perform at a higher level than I
| normally would.
|
| Worth noting I wasn't avoiding anything or using it as a tool
| for comfort. I think that can blur the line into an addiction
| or avoidance mechanism that can be harmful.
| bjourne wrote:
| A few joints per night? That's a whole lot, isn't it?
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| They're pretty darned small... ~0.2g a piece maybe.. And by a
| few I meant 1 or 2 max.
|
| And I only smoked them right before bed to help with sleep. I
| don't enjoy "being high" typically.
| lma21 wrote:
| Would CBD help in this case? Have you tried it ?
| ipnon wrote:
| Math problems become more difficult after smoking cannabis.
| This has been replicated in many psychological studies. It
| seems we cannot smoke joints and program well all night in the
| same way we can smoke cigarettes and program well all night.
|
| That being said it is much easier to program in the morning
| after a night of smoking cannabis than a night of drinking.
|
| My quest to find the best combination of drugs for programming
| has been long. Just vaping nicotine and drinking strong tea
| seems to be near the pinnacle. Sometimes we miss the simple
| solutions right in front of our eyes.
| animanoir wrote:
| In my case is different. I tend to focus and learn better with
| cannabis, but that might be that it relaxes me to some degree
| that I can take existence better and concentrate stimulating my
| mind.
|
| In fact I believe weed changed me for the better. May sound
| cliche but now I'm deeply interested in philosophy and
| technical concepts and aptitudes (like programming), and
| actually my whole attitude towards life got really bright and
| mature, with myself and with others.
|
| I'm not saying weed alone made that, but definitely helped me.
| As I said, at least for me concentration, in this case
| facilitated by weed, is life changing.
| johnnyApplePRNG wrote:
| I have noticed that a very small dose of cannabis can help in
| work motivation and concentration... but for myself at least,
| it's a slippery slope.
|
| After a few hours of coding well I start thinking about
| another very small dose of Cannabis... which won't work
| because you just ingested a few hours ago and you need to up
| the dosage... rinse and repeat.
| mikkelam wrote:
| Note that cannabis sold in the danish black market is of unknown
| quality. No one knows what strain they're getting even in terms
| of indica/sativa as well as THC/CBD mix. It is mostly illegally
| shipped from Marocco or Albania. Sometimes it is also dusted with
| synthetic cannabinoids.
|
| That said, I would love more research on the topic as it is a
| wild west right now.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Really getting sick of voluntary behavior being labeled as a
| "disease" or "disorder". That's the mainstream, PC way of
| presenting it, and while a number of doctors do support that
| labeling, it's by no means a universal consensus. Plenty of
| doctors push back against this, but most of them just avoid
| picking a fight you can't win against the rabid faction that
| wants to remove any vestige of personal responsibility. And I say
| this as someone who's (ab)used his fair share of substances.
| euthymiclabs wrote:
| Psychiatrist (and addiction psychiatrist in training) here. I
| agree that calling substance use disorders a disease is highly
| problematic. However, I think that while the majority of people
| who use substances don't have a problem, there are many people
| who use substances in a maladaptive (or disordered) way that
| dramatically impacts their ability to function, and we need a
| name to describe that. Substance use disorder is a pretty
| neutral term, and much better than the older "abuse" and
| "dependence" terminology for a number of reasons. The wording
| isn't intended to suggest that personal responsibility isn't
| required--and any treating clinician would quash that idea
| right away. It's a way to describe patterns and determine what
| might be helpful for an individual. It's certainly imperfect,
| but a much better description than past nomenclature.
| caymanjim wrote:
| Thanks for replying. I agree with what you've said, and agree
| that it's helpful to have a term for use that dramatically
| impacts a person's ability to function. "Use disorder" here
| does seem to be a reasonable, neutral term for
| differentiating between normal (or even heavy) use that
| doesn't cause significant problems and use (at any level)
| that does cause significant problems (physical, mental,
| financial, or social).
|
| I have a knee-jerk reaction to calling problematic drug use a
| "disease". "Disorder", as you've described it, does seem like
| a reasonable term.
| euthymiclabs wrote:
| Agreed. This paper
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMra1602872 (which isn't
| available open access, unfortunately) argues that the brain
| changes in substance use are more likely normal learning
| associated with very strong stimuli than actual disease
| processes. I find this to be a more helpful, optimistic,
| and accurate interpretation of the data than the disease
| model. (And it really complements the other evidence-based
| interventions for substance use disorders we have!)
| 74d-fe6-2c6 wrote:
| 1) THC to CBD ratio in Cannabis has been intentionally increased
| in favor of THC.
|
| 2) Cannabis is more and more cut with synthetic cannabinoids
| which are notoriously bad for the brain and mind.
|
| 3) Long-term Cannabis use is not evenly distributed but focused
| on people with a certain personality open for such an experience.
|
| 4) Cannabis has been and still is illegal in most places. That
| alone will foster a tendency for paranoia.
|
| 5) Just as with other drugs, some people aren't able to control
| their consumption and that's never good for you.
|
| 6) Long-term Cannabis enjoyment in the face of prohibition will
| solidify the realisation that our society is inherently fascist
| and narrow-minded. (I can confirm that from personal experience.)
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| > Cannabis is more and more cut with synthetic cannabinoids
| which are notoriously bad for the brain and mind.
|
| Do you have a link to support that?
| t8e56vd4ih wrote:
| that's a pretty well documented trend. Google it.
| wubbert wrote:
| who would have thought that a mind-altering substance could
| permanently alter someone's mind.
| kerblang wrote:
| Purely anecdotal, but a long time ago I read a book by Mark
| Vonnegut, Kurt Vonnegut's son. He explained how he was diagnosed
| with schizophrenia, and warned that for him, marijuana made his
| condition much, much worse, and he learned early on to strictly
| avoid it. From that one could argue that maybe pot aggravates
| borderline cases of schizophrenia to the point of a temporary
| psychotic breakdown & diagnosis. In Mr Vonnegut's case he needed
| long-term treatment for his schizophrenia either way, but the
| marijuana effect was short-term and remedied by just staying the
| heck away from it. Also worth noting that 30+ years ago the stuff
| people smoked was much weaker than some of the high-end product
| you can buy today.
| tremon wrote:
| So, more schizophrenic people are self-medicating with marijuana
| now that it's more readily available?
| Ovah wrote:
| I'm speaking as a medical student. And I can't speak for what
| it's like in the US - only Sweden. Here it's not uncommon for
| schizofrenic patients to self medicate with marijuana. I guess
| it increases their quality of life until they have just a
| little too much and end up having a psychosis. That said, at
| least among Swedish psychiatrists, it's well know that
| marijuana can trigger schizophrenia in people that are ~16
| years old.
| tomrod wrote:
| By what pathway is the schizophrenia triggered?
|
| And is the trigger causal or catalytic?
| Ovah wrote:
| I guess that's the thing with psychiatry: the whole field
| is pretty far away from basic science, mechanisms etc. My
| (second hand) understanding is it actually triggers
| schizofrenia in 16 y.o. people who would not otherwise have
| gotten it. Not sure if it's clinical experience or if there
| is data to back it up. The 16 yo-scenario is one of the few
| medical arguments I've heard for why there should be an age
| limit on marijuana.
| code_duck wrote:
| I had a girlfriend with a brother he was schizophrenic. He had
| a classic break with Ronald Reagan directly addressing him
| through the television and all that. Like most patients, he did
| not like the side effects of anti-psychotics. He tended to
| drink light beer all day. At some point he started smoking
| cannabis and said it was the only thing that had made the
| voices go away for him. However, this effect seem to go away
| with tolerance, which isn't surprising. He also ended up
| hanging out with a different crowd and starting to smoke crack
| about six months later, which probably is related to how one
| was forced to access illegal markets that also sell other drugs
| to obtain cannabis at that time. Not surprisingly, crack was
| not good for his schizophrenia. Cannabis, however, seems
| promising. The way he described it is similar to my experience
| with pain relief from cannabinoids, which is the unpleasant
| sensation is still there but you don't pay any attention to it.
| Animats wrote:
| There have been other studies. Here's a summary.[1]
|
| _From the current data, we can conclude that the
| tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) component of cannabis can be the main
| culprit causing psychosis and schizophrenia in the at-risk
| population. THC can also be the one exacerbating symptoms and
| causing an adverse prognosis in already diagnosed patients. Even
| though CBD shows therapeutic effects and THC opposing effects,
| the data is minimal and low safety and efficacy warrants more
| research. The relation between cannabis and schizophrenia needs
| further investigation. We need more case-control studies and
| clinical trials with a larger population to get conclusive data._
|
| So, something seems to be going on, but there's not enough data
| yet.
|
| Years from now, the cannabis industry may face the product
| liability problems the tobacco industry did in the past, and the
| vaping industry is facing now.[2]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32839678/
|
| [2] https://www.cand.uscourts.gov/judges/orrick-william-h-
| who/in...
| [deleted]
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Last I read that an order of magnitude more outbreaks of latent
| schizophrenia occur with alcohol use, compared to marijuana use.
| bakul wrote:
| Could it be that schizophrenics are more likely to partake
| marijuana? Since it is a mental disorder and tends to run in
| families, the underlying genetics may predispose such people to
| marijuana, or marijuana may have a stronger effect on such
| people. That is, a strong correlation should result in a deeper
| look at this connection rather than directly influence marijuana
| legalization.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Another thing I perceived is would isolate themselves from other
| groups and think of themselves as the cool kids, same with the
| sporty folks. Then you have just the regular nerds who aren't
| impressed by either group. For my college class, the following
| turned true... Group smokers ended on social ladder at the dole
| or slightly above or below it. Sports group, none of them turned
| to Messi or Ronaldo or a new Michael Jordan, they held average
| jobs, did alcohol and other recreational things and created a
| family. Group nerd all ended up in very prestigious job segments,
| some with "global head of " etc titles, some of them went through
| nasty divorces maybe they didn't gain social competence or street
| wiseness while studying but at least they are economically safe.
|
| My take away lesson was that it's too hard to recover from group
| 1 and move on.
|
| That is my personal study and that's all I need to know. The
| scientists can figure out the rest, I don't know how much a
| factor drugs and alc play, there's always other factors as well.
| samatman wrote:
| Cool story bro!
|
| My hometown is notoriously supportive of cannabis consumption,
| and one of my high-schools has a well rated jazz programme.
|
| Of my smoking buddies, one is a multimillionaire platinum
| artist, several are successful and sought-after session
| musicians, and those are just the music geeks. In general my
| social cohort have had successful lives, and cannabis doesn't
| strike me as a relevant variable in that success.
|
| Some of them also fell off and had a hard life. Those tended to
| be the ones from single-family homes, living on government
| assistance. Even that wasn't a universal, but in terms of
| correlation it really stands out.
| CAX wrote:
| Most obvious schizophrenics i have come across were not drug
| users and were just frightened supicious people who couldnt
| navigate a social interaction including but not limited to food
| deliveries, drug deliveries, buying batteries etc. I think the
| uptick in noticed drug user psychosis is Related to something Big
| Bill Orielly warned us about: the confluence of drugs and
| technology, esp social media, implying not taking care of sleep
| hygiene at the least, but at the most you are seeing what can
| only be described as "cyber torture" in which subjects are
| persuaded by those without hands to become retarded. Thats what
| this weapon is
| dkn775 wrote:
| Can you provide a link to oriellys talk on that
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| I suffer from severe restless legs, largely treatment resistant
| unless I acquiesce to opioids. MJ is the only substance that
| provides me relief during the worst times - and it takes a LOT to
| get the effect. Weighing the risks, I am firmly on the side of MJ
| - at least my 'rescue drug'.
| tr1ll10nb1ll wrote:
| Is correlation always causation?
| evgen wrote:
| No, but we are unlikely to find causation without initially
| noticing a correlation.
| kbelder wrote:
| Causation correlates with correlation.
| tomrod wrote:
| Unless there is a mediator
|
| H/t Judea Pearl
| oblib wrote:
| I have some experience with this. My first wife was diagnosed
| with schizophrenia after birthing a stillborn baby. This was
| about 14 month after we had our first child. One of her doctors
| insisted the cause was marijuana, but she really did smoke much
| at all. I did most everyday though and one of the first questions
| he asked was if we used it.
|
| I told him I thought it was caused by losing the baby and he
| insisted that had nothing at all to do with it. I knew for sure
| he was wrong, but he refused to even consider it. But there was
| more to it than that.
|
| Her grandmother was clearly schizophrenic, and her mother was
| probably was too. Just a few months before this her mother told
| me she "hated" our first child because "she looks like you" (it
| was me she was referring to).
|
| This was in 1986. 15 years later, in 2001, a woman name Andrea
| Yates murdered her five children and that was when psychiatrist
| first diagnosed severe "Post Partum Depression" as the cause of
| what led her to do that.
|
| During those years in between I had pointed out that connection
| many times to psychiatrists and everyone of them told me I was
| wrong and they all loved to make the point that I didn't have the
| credentials to offer a diagnoses of cause. But what I did have
| that none of them had was real life experience watching my wife
| slide into schizophrenia.
|
| Schizophrenia is genetic and stress is a trigger. It often
| doesn't show up until one is an adult. By that time almost anyone
| will have taken a puff of weed and if a doctor asks them "have
| you ever used marijuana" and they say "yes", in my experience it
| doesn't matter how often, using it just once, even years prior,
| is enough for them to associate cause and effect.
|
| Truth is you can learn something from anyone if you listen to
| them. If you don't, you won't. What I learned is psychiatry is
| still pretty much bullshit and the medical profession still
| doesn't understand the causes or how to treat schizophrenia
| effectively. They manage it by giving those suffering with it
| drugs that are akin to turning their patients into slobbering
| "zombies" so they can manage them.
| mi3law wrote:
| Thank you for sharing your experience and I'm sorry for your
| losses.
|
| I'm taken away by your story and would like to connect, please.
| I have a similar experience and I'm working on a research
| project in AI that is related to this. Please drop me a note me
| aee at berkeley edu I couldn't find your contact info in your
| profile.
| gsk22 wrote:
| > "One of her doctors insisted the cause was marijuana..."
|
| Anecdotally, this seems to be a common viewpoint among doctors.
| As soon as you admit to using marijuana, in any amount, then
| suddenly any health issues are caused by marijuana. Asthma?
| Caused by weed. Trouble focusing? Caused by weed. You vomited?
| Must be cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "One of her doctors insisted the cause was marijuana..."
|
| "I knew for sure he was wrong, but he refused to even consider
| it... [even with family history]."
|
| I have seen stuff like this a few times, and it is _usually_
| the sign of a bad doctor. If there isn 't a positive test for
| something and you're ignoring other evidence, how can you say
| it absolutely is one thing or the other. This is extremely
| common with vaccines when providers say it is _completely_ safe
| and write off adverse events as unrelated without any evidence
| to support the claim. Vaccines are _generally_ safe, but
| adverse reactions can occur. If you have doctors underreporting
| to the VAERS system, then the system will not catch the rare
| events because the data is too incomplete to show significance.
|
| Edit: why downvote? Here's a paper acknowledging limitations
| like under reporting. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15071280/
| hart_russell wrote:
| I think it's too common a sentiment that psychoactive substances
| like cannabis and psilocybin are harmless and in fact are good
| for mental health. I've had adverse mental reactions to both and
| I would caution people with family history of anxiety.
| omgwtfbbq wrote:
| It's the same for any chemical. For the vast majority of people
| penicillin is a life saving antibiotic and for a small
| percentage it is quite deadly.
| bittercynic wrote:
| Maybe the people I've discussed this with are not
| representative, but it seems to me it's widely known that weed
| can lead to an anxiety event, and psychedelics are sometimes a
| frightening experience.
|
| Usually you'll be back to normal the next day, but will have
| had a memorable experience, and sometimes mushrooms produce
| long-term relief from depression.
|
| I'm definitely not an expert with this, but it seems to me it
| is often a good idea to take a chance with some carefully
| chosen drugs.
| fossuser wrote:
| You're not always back to normal the next day with the more
| intense hallucinogens. I think bad experiences (or good, but
| intense experiences) and the longer term psychological
| recovery from them is often underrepresented online, but it
| does exist. The risk can be high.
| antihero wrote:
| I think a bad trip can be a traumatic experience like any
| other experience.
| remir wrote:
| A past colleague of mine told me a shocking story. He was a
| heavy weed smoker (multiple times a day) and one evening
| couldn't find his weed and as he was searching for it, became
| increasingly furious.
|
| Eventually, he was so angry that he blanked out. He told me he
| found himself in a hyper lucid state, but in absolute darkness
| and in a state of pure dread.
|
| He felt the presense of millions of dead egos that were
| "roaming" like zombies in this strange environment. Some were
| screaming like their skin was being pulled from their body,
| some were tormenting others. A total nighmarish trip.
|
| He was so shocked by this experience that he stop smoking pot
| that very evening and never touched it again.
| runawaybottle wrote:
| I suffer from chronic anxiety and the tales of weed just
| relaxing you sounded like a magic pill. It was one of the most
| intense anxiety inducing experiences I've ever had. Very
| unfortunate, but some people seem to manage it well.
|
| If you can barely manage anxiety on your own, weed is is a
| force multiplier for your fears.
|
| However, I'd be willing to try again in the future as it
| becomes more available in vape form and try micro dosing it.
| The smallest hits to see if I can get a modest calmness.
| handrous wrote:
| > I suffer from chronic anxiety and the tales of weed just
| relaxing you sounded like a magic pill. It was one of the
| most intense anxiety inducing experiences I've ever had. Very
| unfortunate, but some people seem to manage it well.
|
| Low doses (5mg of edible or under, for me) have been
| _amazing_ for my sleep and (very relatedly) anxiety.
|
| The effect of 10mg of same (yes, I know, that's lightweight
| amounts still) on an empty stomach were... very different. I
| can definitely see how that would _induce_ anxiety. The
| disconnectedness and extreme short-term-memory forgetfulness
| was certainly alarming. I felt about as impaired as when I
| 've been pretty damn drunk, but with a much stronger memory-
| related effect.
|
| Luckily, just going to sleep much earlier than I'd intended
| solved the problem. Unlike with alcohol, I woke up the next
| day feeling great, and had, surprisingly, excellent recall of
| the sequence of events the night before, despite in-the-
| moment having great difficulty remembering why I was where I
| was, even.
|
| YMMV, obviously, but now I know to treat an evening with
| higher doses (should I try that again) as rather less
| _medicinal_ than a low-dose evening.
| anxiousanon wrote:
| > The effect of 10mg of same (yes, I know, that's
| lightweight amounts still) on an empty stomach were... very
| different.
|
| That's a really good point. I commented elsewhere in this
| thread, similar experience to you with small doses. I
| _always_ make sure to take the stuff with food.
| rantwasp wrote:
| nah. it's not a common sentiment.
|
| people talk about set and setting + harm reduction over and
| over again.
|
| If you're gonna do a drug and be reckless you're gonna have a
| bad time.
| anxiousanon wrote:
| Just as a counter-anecdote. There's depression and anxiety in
| my family tree, and it has caught up to me too in the last
| year. Among other remedies, I've experimented with small doses
| of edibles (they are legal where I live). I don't particularly
| enjoy the high, but for me it does take the edge off the worst
| times, without side effects. It lets me at least relax/sleep.
| (It kind of takes the edge off _everything_ , which is why I
| don't like it and don't do it recreationally.)
|
| I think this is very much a YMMV situation. I certainly don't
| recommend it as the only solution. It has been useful _to me_
| as a medicine, though, in the same way I might take a cough
| suppressant during a serious cold.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Thats kind of a funny analogy - most cough suppressant drugs
| are either opiates or disassociative - either of which have
| history of recreational use as well.
| anxiousanon wrote:
| That's true, interesting point. :) For me they're both
| strictly medicine though.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| A lot of marijuana smokers like to pretend weed smoke is
| somehow less harmful than any other smoke. It's still CO
| whether it comes from the tobacco or hemp plant. It's still bad
| and creates a tar residue in your lungs. Any time I bring that
| up, somehow I become anti-pot even though it's a genuine
| concern.
|
| Edit: Carbon Monoxide, not Carbon Dioxide. And some additions
| since this is a tad controversial.
|
| Here is one source - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3340105/
|
| Marijuana inhaled is bad for your body. End of story. Let's not
| pretend like it's some panacea that the government doesn't want
| us to know about. It shouldn't be illegal, but a lot of people
| on here lie to themselves that somehow the harmful effects of
| CO aren't bad just because it's marijuana. I feel like there is
| some major cognitive dissonance among pot smokers equivalent to
| religious people that get upset when you say there is no god.
| [deleted]
| mkw2000 wrote:
| There's an abundance of ways to use it that don't involve
| smoking nowadays
| xxpor wrote:
| I don't think anyone who's serious doesn't think the act of
| burning organic matter and inhaling it is bad.
|
| That being said, pot simply has a lot less stuff in it than
| tobacco smoke. Also, almost no one is smoking a pack of day
| of joints.
|
| Fortunately there are other alternatives too, like sugar free
| candies.
| olyjohn wrote:
| You hit the nail on the head. Most people I know will smoke
| like half a joint in an evening and be done. Maybe take a
| couple bong rips. You don't sit there and smoke all night
| long. You'd be passed out long before you'd get through a
| 20 pack of joints.
|
| Meanwhile, it's super easy to pick up a pack of cigarettes
| and suck down 5-10 of them in an evening.
|
| Sometimes it feels like people who don't smoke really have
| to justify it hard. All these justifications they come up
| with which really aren't even an issue. Maybe they're
| afraid of it, and don't want to admit it... If you don't
| wanna smoke it, don't smoke it. There's nothing wrong with
| that. But some of the reasons I read to not smoke weed are
| ridiculous.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| The duration and size of the hit does in fact matter
| compared to cigarettes.
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3340105/
| bittercynic wrote:
| It is definitely still bad, but I think there is some truth
| there because tobacco tobacco is especially, extremely
| harmful.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| And that is why engineers created the vaporizer.
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| Eh, there's also popcorn lung to worry about. Think the
| research is still out on this one.
| rjbwork wrote:
| Is there any research you know of on vaping of cannabis
| flower at sub-combustion temperatures in relation to
| popcorn lung (obliterative brochiolitis)?
| samatman wrote:
| Popcorn lung is called that because of a specific
| adulterant which is no longer used in nicotine vapes, and
| was never prevalent in cannabis vapes.
|
| There is also the risk of getting an illegal cannabis
| cartridge tainted with Vitamin E, which can be avoided
| completely if one is lucky enough to live under a
| medicinal or recreational regime.
|
| It can't be said that vaping is completely harmless, but
| it's safe to say that responsible blends are orders of
| magnitude less harmful than inhaling smoke.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Note that the parent comment only applies to liquid
| vaporizers which function identically to "e-juice"
| nicotine vaporizers (not Juul, which is a nicotine salt
| vaporizer). The safe ones typically contain cannabinoid
| extracts in a terpene solution.
|
| There are also vaporizers that use dry plant material
| directly without liquids, e.g. from Storz&Bickel, Arizer,
| Pax, etc.
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| I stand corrected - thanks!
| burnished wrote:
| I mean, if we want to ignore the additives and difference in
| typical consumption then sure they are just as bad.
|
| I think you'd get a similar reaction if you said "bikes and
| motorcycles both have two wheels, thus riding one has all the
| same risks and dangers as the other". Obviously you'd be
| right, you can split your skull on either, but you don't go
| 70+MPH on both.
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| I won't say it's harmless, but there are material
| differences. Weed is an expectorant. That's why it makes you
| cough. So it also tends to promote the lung functions that
| help clean the gunk out, at least partially. Nicotine and the
| additives in cigarettes on the other hand suppresses these
| same functions. And lastly, pot smokers don't smoke nearly
| the same volume as tobacco smokers.
|
| So no, it's not harmless, but it is in fact less harmful,
| which is why people keep telling you that.
|
| Also, there's plenty of other options for ingesting THC these
| days.
| jborichevskiy wrote:
| Also more transparency and a more limited toxic ingredient
| list in a typical joint than a cigarette. But yes, smoking
| weed isn't harmless.
| rantwasp wrote:
| one word: edibles
| morpheos137 wrote:
| CO also in weed smoke is a hell of a lot more harmful than
| CO2.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| I think the evidence of the amount of replies arguing
| against my comment above goes to show the amount of people
| that still think weed smoke vs tobacco smoke is still a
| legitimate argument against "weed smoke is bad for your
| lungs." It's really funny to see these universally come out
| of the woodwork every single time this gets brought up.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| tobacco smoke is worse but obviously no smoke is good for
| lungs.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Weed actually contains anti-inflammatory and anti-
| carcinogenic components, that's why people say it is
| healthier then other plants when inhaled. I'm not making this
| up, please look for it yourself if you care for the full
| picture and are genuinely interested as to why people say
| that.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| This literally reads like a stoner in denial
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| So you don't want to check some facts, you want to stick
| to your personal opinion, is that what you're saying?
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| It's your obligation to prove me wrong, not prove myself
| wrong.
| winrid wrote:
| What about medicated people diagnosed with Schizophrenia that
| then start smoking?
| vmception wrote:
| One of my main goals is for real research to occur.
|
| People have been saying or alluding to any psychedelics
| triggering schizophrenia for a long time.
|
| Like, its almost dismissive and toxic, people want their
| psychedelics to be safe so bad that they'll tell people "you
| should have known that your were predisposed to schizophrenia
| before you took this, therefore your experience is invalid, its
| safe ya'll!"
|
| Instead of these binary approaches to advocate for legality or
| illegality, I would just like normal clinical trials done and
| side effects listed in tiny print at the bottom of the bottle.
| This shouldn't be that hard of an ask, many approved drugs have
| "you may get suicidal thoughts and also might randomly die
| without doing the suicide" as a side effect, which seems worse
| than schizophrenia and these aren't scheduled drugs at all! Just
| do the studies and let us know!
| tooktomuch wrote:
| Long time lurker here. Not sure if this helps the discussion but
| have actual first hand experience with this. I was a heavy user
| of marijuana (extremely heavy I would say) from my late 20s to my
| early 30s. One day in those 30s (combined with significant
| physical effort that day and heat) smoking my umpteenth spliff of
| the day led to a complete blackout on a public sidewalk. From
| that point I began experiencing persistent auditory
| hallucinations and was eventually diagnosed as schizoaffective. I
| had no prior expression of schizophrenia and no family history
| that I am aware of (though there are clearly other family members
| with some psychological disorders). It is roughly 4 years since
| the last time I touched marijuana and the auditory hallucinations
| persist. Still in favor of legalization, but, as with
| overconsumption of practically anything, it should probably come
| with clear awareness of the risks involved.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I don't buy it. In 2006, tobacco smoking rates among
| schizophrenics was 90% vs 20% of non-schizophrenics. [0]
|
| Now, does tobacco cause schizophrenia or do schizophrenics seek
| out tobacco?
|
| Now, s/tobacco/marijuana/g for the above sentence.
|
| [0]
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6163.2006...
| [deleted]
| ahofmann wrote:
| I know, this isn't scientific, but I met in my life at least 50
| people who did all kind of drugs and two of them have problems
| with schizophrenia and both did smoke much more marijuana, than I
| could ever do or want. Most of the others stopped at some point
| to do drugs and are now more or less normal people in their
| society. I know, this says nothing, but I have become careful
| with marijuana and don't see it as being completely harmless.
| This being said, I think that alcohol and tobacco are much more
| dangerous than marijuana.
| szundi wrote:
| Anything that has an effect has side effects.
| Threeve303 wrote:
| Reefer Madness
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Maybe not cause directly , but seems to trigger something that
| was laying dormant. From the smokers I know or knew , it becomes
| a very addictive habit, where they drift off the norm while
| stoned or worse, while not stoned.
|
| They're not as annoying as coke heads or tweakers, these are more
| extrovert and kinda obvious, while smokers are often more silent,
| God knows what's going on in them.
|
| I wouldn't associate it to weed until it's 100percent proven, to
| understand the human mind will take a lot more time.
| octokatt wrote:
| Prevalence of smoking tobacco is also dramatically higher among
| schizophrenic people [0]. Before marijuana use is demonized for
| causing schizophrenia, it would be worthwhile to more robustly
| prove these results.
|
| [0] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19794359/
| ipnon wrote:
| Nicotine modulating the hyperactive dopaminergic activity of
| schizophrenics I recall being one hypothesis for this
| remarkable connection. 90% of schizophrenics smoked tobacco
| compared to 20% of non-schizophrenics in 2006![0]
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia_and_tobacco_smok...
| NoblePublius wrote:
| The only thing I can reasonably conclude from this study is that
| more schizophrenics are using marijuana because marijuana is more
| available than it used to be. I see no evidence of an increase in
| the absolute number of schizophrenics relative to the
| availability of cannabis. Who funded this, the DEA?
| moate wrote:
| Link to the
| study:https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-
| abst...
|
| I love that they think that smoking weed is causal to
| schizophrenia...but aren't considering the opposite.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| Obvious I hope, but this doesn't prove anything other than
| marijuana use has increased.
|
| If the population, independent of other conditions, has an
| increase in marijuana use disorder, then that same increase would
| be present in the subset of the population that are diagnosed
| with schizophrenia or related disorders.
| leroy_masochist wrote:
| No discussion on this thread yet of the role of AKT1 gene, which
| I find surprising after 300 comments.
|
| If you have a C/C pair at AKT1, your risk of developing
| schizophrenia jumps from slightly-below-average if you don't
| smoke marijuana, to over 7x average if you smoke every day [0].
|
| If you've done 23andMe, you can check your own genotype for this
| risk.
|
| [0]: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-
| reports/mari...
| okareaman wrote:
| I would like to see a study exploring the decline (if any) of
| problems from alcohol abuse in states where marijuana became
| legal. I am fairly certain that if I could have smoked marijuana
| when I was in the military then I wouldn't have developed an
| alcohol habit that has caused me so many problems over the years
| up until the time I quit.
| ipnon wrote:
| Who doesn't know someone who went crazy from drinking? It's
| normalized, especially in the military it seems. A major
| difference between the long term negative effects of the two
| drugs is that alcoholics seem to mostly recover after some
| years of sobriety, but former cannabis users can receive
| incurable disorders like schizophrenia. More simply, the mental
| disorders of alcohol abuse resist being pathologized, we assign
| them sociocultural explanations like "he's going through a
| rough time." Meanwhile, he's clinically depressed, anxious, has
| mood swings, all direct results of long term alcohol
| consumption.
| moate wrote:
| >>but former cannabis users can receive incurable disorders
| like schizophrenia.
|
| No. This is the problem with pieces like the original
| article. "Schizophrenia link to marijuana use disorder"
| sounds VERY similar to what you just said. But they mean
| completely different things.
|
| 1- This study is specifically noting a correlation (note
| _not_ causal relation) between 2 disorders, Schizophrenia and
| marijuana use disorder. Not everyone who drinks is an
| alcoholic, and not everyone who smokes weed has a disordered
| relationship with it. The article about the study even points
| out the methodology shouldn 't be translated to the
| population at large of pot smokers who don't seek treatment
| for their usage. 2- The study specifically notes that their
| results have not been replicated. Their results aren't even
| really anything other than "we crunched some numbers and
| found a relationship between 2 things". There are all sorts
| of great graphs here: https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
| correlations that show exactly how "useful" this information
| might be.
|
| tl;dr- This study is not saying Schizophrenia can be caused
| by smoking any amount of weed, but too many people will think
| it says exactly that.
| okareaman wrote:
| My official diagnosis is Substance Use Disorder.
|
| _The DSM 5 recognizes substance-related disorders resulting
| from the use of 10 separate classes of drugs: alcohol;
| caffeine; cannabis; hallucinogens (phencyclidine or similarly
| acting arylcyclohexylamines, and other hallucinogens, such as
| LSD); inhalants; opioids; sedatives, hypnotics, or
| anxiolytics; stimulants (including amphetamine-type
| substances, cocaine, and other stimulants); tobacco; and
| other or unknown substances._
|
| https://www.verywellmind.com/dsm-5-criteria-for-substance-
| us...
| rantwasp wrote:
| Since we're here I would like to see a study linking sugar to
| the increase of health problems (including mental health).
| Other drugs are small change compared to sugar.
| okareaman wrote:
| I recently gave up sugar when I realized I suffered sugar
| highs/withdrawal depressions and reached for it when I felt
| anxious, just like a drug.
|
| https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318818
| tudorw wrote:
| Food As A Machine Gun (Official Lyric Video) - Enemy Radio,
| Public Enemy
|
| https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJzj4tVP1zc0TCtJMra0yD
| Y...
| okareaman wrote:
| sugar sugar call me late at night by
| daylight stomach busted not feeling right
| heart burnin' I need oxygen sweet and
| sour more addictive than your oxycontin
| lrdswrk00 wrote:
| Maybe more people are borderline schizophrenic than we realize.
|
| Cancer detection improved and people thought that meant cancer
| rates are up but, to my current knowledge, no one knows which is
| true.
|
| I'm not going to accept this is marijuana causing schizophrenia
| given this. Society, their specific DNA, family life, could be,
| and marijuana use is merely exposing it, and enabling proper
| diagnosis.
| subpixel wrote:
| I admit that I was thinking of some armchair diagnoses while
| watching this interview of Lee Scratch Perry, a man who has
| probably smoked more weed than most:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czf9nZFBmnw
| kvathupo wrote:
| As usual, a sensational headline averring a research article's
| causal hypothesis, of which the PI even calls for
| reproducibility. Reading such paltry science articles makes me
| really appreciate papers like Quanta, whose reporters seem to
| actually have a semblance of domain knowledge.
|
| Indeed, no discussion of the existing link between schizophrenia
| and tobacco smoking, in conjunction with the increased
| availability of marijuana?
| gwern wrote:
| The population level prevalence is where we should see this. If
| cannabis really did _cause_ SCZ, as opposed to merely being
| self-medication, general drug use dysfunctionality, or possibly
| just accelerating SCZ onset but not increasing total cases, we
| should see incredibly high rates in recreational legalizing
| jurisdictions where prevalence is now a large fraction of the
| population. Instead, buried at the end, we get
|
| "The findings could help explain the "general increase in the
| incidence of schizophrenia that has been observed in recent
| years" and provides some support that the "long-observed
| association between cannabis and schizophrenia is likely
| partially causal in nature," the study said."
|
| OK then...
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| not in necesity: maybe heavy users are using with or without
| law, maybe law mostly causing casual users to use it but not
| many more heavy ones. If then only heavy use is cause
| schizofrenia, we maybe are not seeing a great growth of
| rates.
| trutannus wrote:
| > If cannabis really did cause SCZ, as opposed to merely
| being self-medication, general drug use dysfunctionality, or
| possibly just accelerating SCZ onset but not increasing total
| cases, we should see incredibly high rates in recreational
| legalizing jurisdictions where prevalence is now a large
| fraction of the population
|
| So basically, let's keep watching Canada's national
| legalization and Switzerland's targeted trials to see what
| the population level impact is.
| ignostic wrote:
| > of which the PI even calls for reproducibility
|
| You mean like every study I've ever read? I can't recall the
| last time the conclusion didn't say something like, "In our
| study X appears to be associated with Y, but more research is
| needed to understand the relationship."
|
| You're right, though, that this article leaves many questions
| unasked. We know that people who are schizophrenic are far more
| likely to smoke cigarettes, but there is evidence to suggest
| they're more likely to smoke before their first episode as
| well. So is tobacco causal? Probably not. Instead, there are
| probably precursor symptoms to diagnosable schizophrenia that
| drive tobacco use: anxiety being the main one. Anxiety and
| marijuana has already been studied with conflicting results,
| probably because it's hard to determine out whether people with
| anxiety are drawn to marijuana (or heavier usage) or whether
| heavy usage causes anxiety.
|
| There are reasons to think marijuana use can cause
| schizophrenic episodes - sometimes a first episode - but that
| use may not increase the risk of developing the disorder when
| viewed in a 20-year window. In other words, it happens sooner.
| So according to the article the number of schizophrenia cases
| linked to cannabis use disorder increased by 4x. I'd like to
| know whether schizophrenia diagnoses overall changed
| significantly.
|
| I am not saying there are no risks. But I am agreeing that the
| article does a bad job of analyzing the science.
| jxramos wrote:
| Reminds me of the opening to this article by a journalist having
| a casual chat with this wife (a psychiatrist at a state mental
| institution) one evening where she stated in passing: _Of course
| he'd been smoking pot his whole life._
|
| https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/marijuana-mental-illness-viol...
|
| I've been meaning to read further about that connection because
| like the author I had never heard of that idea before and
| everything before it was like taken to be Reefer Madness
| paranoia.
| throw420420 wrote:
| I would take this with a grain of salt. Research on illegal
| substances is highly restricted.
|
| That said, a friend of mine developed a psychosis after using
| Marijuana while he was still a teenager. Although there had been
| cases of Psychosis in his family before, not Marijuana induced
| though. It stopped eventually but came back years after when he
| took other drugs as well combined with a very stressful life
| situation, things went downhill afterwards.
|
| That's already years ago, but my understanding that I got from
| reading articles about this topic at the time was that this
| activated some sort of latent psychosis. I also read about a
| proposal to introduce a "Cannabis driver's license" that could be
| made at a pharmacy. So people would be able to check _before_
| they take it. There are also people that feel positive effects of
| Marijuana, me included.
| grouphugs wrote:
| cnn is not here to tell the truth, never has been, never will be.
| two of their reporters just got paid hundreds of millions of
| nazibuxxx to literally keep spilling bullshit on cnn. bye jeff
| bezos.
|
| some idiots figured out that people who deal with schizophrenia
| also smoke pot. there's nothing else in that article.
|
| the rest of this is just regular abrahamic nazi propaganda, gas-
| lighting, attrition, and other harmful things.
|
| even in this thread, these pompous egotistical white supremacist
| clowns show just how little they care and just how little they
| know. the levels of gas-lighting in this thread is a type of
| culture hacker news promotes.
|
| even worse than the microaggression and targeting, they're making
| it more difficult for people who actually have to deal with this
| disorder to find treatment, help, and acceptance in this fascist
| society which already makes it too difficult. even worse, some of
| these dipshits are lying about their own annecdotes and the
| circumstances surrounding them because they're ashamed and guilty
| for what they've done.
|
| fuck off
| subsubzero wrote:
| I don't know about schizophrenia and marijuana use, but a ER Dr.
| friend of mine always complains about the amount of people she
| sees that have a condition where their body can't handle the weed
| they regularly smoke. The symptoms are always the same, extremely
| belligerent, violently sick(constant vomiting), and very
| nauseous. She says that sometimes its the same people as they
| just don't get that weed is making them really sick(stopping
| smoking makes the symptoms go away). For some reason the media
| never reports on this but if you know someone in the medical
| field(ER etc) ask them and they will tell you the same thing. I
| found this medical paper about the issue:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5330965/
| code_duck wrote:
| This was discussed a lot in the cannabis community a few years
| ago though the topic seems to have died down. The consensus
| among people heavily involved in cannabis is that it is related
| to overuse of neem oil, an organic pesticide. Some growers had
| been using neem very liberally without keeping in mind that the
| active ingredients are toxic to humans. The toxicity of neem
| seems to be in line with the effects of cyclical
| vomiting/hypermesis. So, it has been a thing to shun and shame
| people using that pesticide for a few years.
| zwkrt wrote:
| Hyperemesis is definitely real, and eventually affects 1/3 of
| heavy weed smokers. A lover of mine had to self-diagnose
| because their doctor wasn't aware.
|
| The crazy part is as that smoking weed ameliorated the symptoms
| in the short term, so there is a strong psychological
| reinforcement to keep smoking even though it is actually
| causing the background symptoms.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| One potential confounding factor is the massive drop in smoking
| rates, particularly among those in the prime age for
| schizophrenia onset.
|
| The evidence seems to strongly indicate that nicotine is a
| powerful antipsychotic. When smoking was widespread it's possible
| that many schizophrenics were self-medicating in a basically
| effective way. The trend is probably particularly acute among
| cannabis users. 40 years, I'd expect that nearly all cannabis
| smokers were cigarette smokers. (Non-smoke consumption being
| essentially a rounding error back then.) Nowadays the sizable
| majority of cannabis users probably don't smoke cigarettes
| whatsoever.
| solutron wrote:
| Whatever underlying mental state you have running in the
| background will come to surface when you use psychedelics.
| Marijuana is a mild psychedelic. Many people seem to be under the
| impression we should live free from scary thoughts, dark
| thoughts, things that make us worry or anxious. This is all part
| of the human condition though and as long as these states are
| transitory and lead to positive change they're not "bad".
| Recognize there's a time and place for everything. If bringing
| these things to the surface helps you grow and deal with things
| in your life, even if it's scary, good. If not, then stop
| ingesting / smoking it. Really simple. People seem to want things
| to be good or bad when in fact the state of isness really just
| is. It's not good or bad. It just is. What you make of it, how
| you live your life is what matters. If you smoke weed and it
| helps your back pain, or if it helps you think about your
| feelings and deal with something you've been putting off, that
| can be "good". If you smoke it and have heart palpitations and
| freak out about taxes that can be "bad" but the weed hasn't
| changed, it's just brought something to the surface. Our minds
| are complicated. Especially now, in a culture where we're
| overloaded with information, entertainment, manufactured outrage,
| and expectations about what we should or shouldn't be, all
| compared to thousands of other things. How can anyone, smoking
| weed or not, expect to be sane or live a simple life that doesn't
| lead to mental health problems?
| Sunspark wrote:
| I think part of the problem is that people are using the wrong
| stuff. My personal preference is for milder balanced strains that
| are about 50% CBD, or CBD-only strains. The THC-only strains tend
| to have been bred to be strong and if you are not careful, many
| will trigger anxiety etc. CBD modulates or stops this effect.
| Often you can repair a problematic THC-only strain by mixing it
| 1:1 or 1:2 with CBD.
|
| If you live in a legal jurisdiction, please do try a balanced
| and/or cbd-only strain if you are someone who has had problems
| with anxiety from many thc-only strains.
| jefftechentin wrote:
| Seems like we are leaving the cultural moment that presented
| Marijuana as a glorious panacea which would open your third eye
| if only you let go of your fear. Our culture was so scared of the
| stuff before, maybe we needed to paint an unrealistically bright
| picture to find the courage to leave the cave.
|
| To the unfamiliar it can be a thrilling adventure, to others it
| can serve as inspiration. It feels like it has mental costs
| though. Being wary of regular recreational use seems warranted.
| slumpt_ wrote:
| No reason to be wary of recreational use. No more so than you
| might of caffeine.
|
| Not everything is for everyone and that's 100% ok.
| jefftechentin wrote:
| > No reason to be wary of recreational use. No more so than
| you might of caffeine
|
| You should be wary of caffeine use, especially if your
| culture does not have any rules about its use, or complete
| enough understanding about its effects. We like drugs because
| they work, but the problem is we do not know what they do
| over larger timescales or how to fit them into your life.
| Weed is a relative newbie in the average American's life and
| we would be silly to not respect the drug enough to be wary.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| During brain development ~< 25, I recommend against indulging in
| marijuana. It is a psychoactive drug that can alter developmental
| growth processes with long-term consequences. Well into
| adulthood, expression of many of the genes regulating development
| are suppressed, and thus the means for structural change are more
| limited; thus adults tend to be more resilient to psychoactive
| exposures.
| mcguire wrote:
| Original paper: "Development Over Time of the Population-
| Attributable Risk Fraction for Cannabis Use Disorder in
| Schizophrenia in Denmark"
| (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...)
|
| " _Question Has the population-attributable risk fraction for
| cannabis use disorder in schizophrenia increased over time, as
| would be expected with increasing use and potency of cannabis?_
|
| " _Findings In this Danish nationwide, register-based cohort
| study, the population-attributable risk fraction for cannabis use
| disorder in schizophrenia increased from approximately 2% in the
| period to 1995 to approximately 6% to 8% since 2010._
|
| " _Meaning These findings may indicate that cannabis use
| disorders are associated with an increase in the proportion of
| cases of schizophrenia._
|
| "* The results from these longitudinal analyses show the
| proportion of cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use
| disorder has increased 3- to 4-fold during the past 2 decades,
| which is expected given previously described increases in the use
| and potency of cannabis. This finding has important ramifications
| regarding legalization and control of use of cannabis.*"
| pm90 wrote:
| Instinctively skeptical of mainstream news orgs that report on
| scientific studies without linking to the actual study.
| [deleted]
| jl2718 wrote:
| We should all consider what kinds of delusions we've conditioned
| into our brains, and how that might affect our attitudes and
| opinions. Maybe be a little less certain that the right way to
| think just so happens to be the only way that is accessible to us
| personally.
| dna_polymerase wrote:
| Direct link to the journal:
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abst...
| mullingitover wrote:
| I've seen someone have a textbook psychotic break while consuming
| a lot of cannabis. Radio was sending them secret messages,
| coworkers were government spies, believed they were Jesus (and
| normally they'd been a confirmed atheist).
|
| As soon as the cannabis consumption stopped, the psychosis
| stopped. They started smoking again, symptoms came back.
|
| I'd also done some googling to try to understand why some people
| have panic attacks, and there seems to be a link to cannabis and
| hypoglycemia for some people. Hypoglycemia can cause: psychosis
| and panic attacks.
| code_duck wrote:
| It would be interesting to know more about the hypoglycemia
| link. I contracted type one diabetes as an adult, somehow, and
| was hesitant to try anything for the first time after that
| including alcohol or cannabis. I wear a continuous glucose
| monitor and as far as I can tell, cannabis has no effect on my
| blood glucose.
| mullingitover wrote:
| There's this study published in _Diabetes Care_ [1],
| "Efficacy and Safety of Cannabidiol and
| Tetrahydrocannabivarin on Glycemic and Lipid Parameters in
| Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized, Double-Blind,
| Placebo-Controlled, Parallel Group Pilot Study".
|
| > RESULTS Compared with placebo, THCV significantly decreased
| fasting plasma glucose (estimated treatment difference [ETD]
| = -1.2 mmol/L; P < 0.05) and improved pancreatic b-cell
| function (HOMA2 b-cell function [ETD = -44.51 points; P <
| 0.01]), adiponectin (ETD = -5.9 x 106 pg/mL; P < 0.01), and
| apolipoprotein A (ETD = -6.02 mmol/L; P < 0.05), although
| plasma HDL was unaffected. Compared with baseline (but not
| placebo), CBD decreased resistin (-898 pg/ml; P < 0.05) and
| increased glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (21.9
| pg/ml; P < 0.05). None of the combination treatments had a
| significant impact on end points. CBD and THCV were well
| tolerated.
|
| [1] https://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/39/10/1777.long
| ajkjk wrote:
| I've known a few people that this happens to. Not sure it's the
| same as long-term schizophrenia but there's definitely
| similarities.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| No understood method that marijuana could possibly cause the
| condition check. Trivially comprehensible in terms of increasing
| usage or increasing admission of usage check.
|
| > our findings will have to be replicated elsewhere
|
| Check
|
| > "long-observed association between cannabis and schizophrenia
| is likely partially causal in nature,"
|
| Weasel words.
|
| If they had printed their article on toilet paper at least it
| would be good for something.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Rolling papers might be a better medium.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| Too many people might be at risk of contentment and their own
| personal happiness if we let up now.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Sneering at the article doesn't really make your case more
| convincing. Instead it just seems like it provoked an overly-
| defensive reaction.
| michaelmrose wrote:
| The article is so bad it actually denigrates the publication
| by its existence and lends unearned weight to the degenerates
| criticism of CNN. I don't personally have a dog in the fight.
| motohagiography wrote:
| If you want to see mental health problems, force people into
| social isolation for 18months, tell them strangers can kill them
| by not hiding their faces, food and surfaces are contaminated,
| there is conspiracy to eugenicize them encoded in history books
| and symbols, words don't mean what they think they do, truth is
| what you make it, their neighbours are part of a plot, reinforce
| the filter bubbles of the information they consume, elevate and
| exalt unstable personalities, debase the media of the culture
| they trusted, reveal that their electronics are spying on them,
| and wait for it - then give them access to cheap and plentiful
| THC concentrates on every corner. How do you think that's going
| to play out? It's a perfect storm.
|
| Some of my close friends are among what I call the professionally
| sane (they work in mental health) and they seem as susceptable to
| delusion and paranoia as anyone. I don't worry about being crazy
| anymore, as when you see what the bar is, I only need to be be
| less crazy than most of everyone else. 80th percentile is
| sufficient for most purposes. Post pandemic, mental health isn't
| something you manage or exercise, it's just a poker game.
|
| Like a fox. ;)
| random_kris wrote:
| This devil's lettuce... I quit daily 24/7 smoking 10 days ago
| after 6 years of constant smoke. I smoked on 2 occasions with
| friends since then and I liked it...
|
| It makes me calm but lazy and not wanting to socialize. When I'm
| high I want to quit but when I am not high I am quite anxious and
| always looking for something to ease me up...
| macksd wrote:
| >> In 1995, 2% of schizophrenia diagnoses in the country were
| associated with cannabis use disorder. In 2000, it increased to
| around 4%. Since 2010, that figure increased to 8%, the study
| found.
|
| Worded that way, causation isn't the first thing this suggests to
| me. If percentage of cases associated with marijuana rise, it
| could also be that a larger percentage of the population is
| smoking and admitting to smoking marijuana regularly. If cases
| themselves rise, it could also be increases in the percentage of
| cases that actually get diagnosed, etc.
|
| It could very well be that marijuana puts you at higher risk of
| schizophrenia - I certainly have an acquaintance in mind for whom
| recreational drug usage seems to have led them to a paranoid and
| narcissistic personality described here in other comments - but
| the connection in this article feels weak. Certainly weaker than
| the connection we see between marijuana law enforcement and the
| negative fallout of that.
| wydfre wrote:
| Could you go into detail about "paranoid and narcissistic
| personality" specifically the narcissistic personality - I have
| not heard of that.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| I would imagine this is not a medical assessment but a more
| liberal, laymen use of the words paranoid and narcissistic.
|
| After all, MJ does alter the mind and broadens the worldview
| so to say, which could be called paranoid through a certain
| lens, and also dulls the senses and makes more tolerant for
| micro signs and non-verbal communication, which could be
| called, with some exaggeration, more narcisstic.
| macksd wrote:
| Narcissism probably isn't the right word for me to be using
| here. It was on my mind because of this comment, where there
| happens to be more discussion of it:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27920152. And it
| happened to fit the case I was thinking of at the time. But
| it probably shouldn't be part of my original comment.
| Specifically what I'm referring to is an integral part of
| paranoia: someone thinking that, while long-term unemployed
| and living with their parents in their 40s, they are so "in
| the loop" as to be aware of conspiracies and such a threat to
| those conspiracies that they're a target. I have a hard time
| not equating that attitude with a little bit of narcissism,
| though again - probably not the right word to have used when
| discussing specific disorders.
| bombadilo wrote:
| Sorry, but the suggestion that marijuanna use leads to
| narcissistic personality disorder is absurd.
| rhizome wrote:
| When this kind of thing has come up before ("pot causes mental
| illness"), IIRC it turns out more that _people with schizoid
| disorders_ are self-medicating with pot before getting
| diagnosed, rather than having taken harder drugs, alcohol, etc.
| The classic reversed-arrow of causation.
| oceanghost wrote:
| This is the correct answer here in the same way that the
| prevalence of ADHD is about 2x as likely in the population of
| meth addicts as the general population.
| cornel_io wrote:
| Worse, the "classic" studies that claim to show the
| connection between use and schizoid disorders claim to adjust
| for this, but use a method that is _completely_ wrong, and
| would be expected to show the same effect for any disease
| where diagnosis reliability at the start is less than 100%
|
| I don't remember the exact details anymore, but more or less
| they claim to address causation by 1) starting with a non-
| schizophrenic population, 2) segmenting by marijuana use, and
| 3) evaluating schizophrenic status N years later. The theory
| is that by limiting 1) to non-schizophrenics, they've
| factored out the possibility that schizophrenia drives drug
| use rather than the other way around.
|
| Of course, most schizophrenics are not actually diagnosed
| until _waaaay_ past the point where they are showing
| symptoms, and if you 've ever known a schizophrenic who was
| diagnosed in college, for instance, you know that that
| diagnosis usually comes at the end of a _long_ chain of
| subtle and not so subtle mental issues, shrink appointments,
| and life problems that start much earlier but don 't present
| as full blown schizophrenia. So the whole supposed filter in
| 1) is complete trash, and they're probably including a lot of
| people who are already symptomatic, just not to a clinically
| diagnosable degree.
| southeastern wrote:
| That could be a part of it, but there is a documented effect
| of marijuana "triggering" mental illness in those who are
| susceptible to mental illness. For a certain portion of the
| population marijuana use will directly lead to the onset of
| mental illness
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| > It could very well be that marijuana puts you at higher risk
| of schizophrenia
|
| More likely, marijuana use accelerates the development of
| schizophrenia among people already at risk.
|
| > it could also be increases in the percentage of cases that
| actually get diagnosed, etc.
|
| This is generally a valid stock response to these sorts of
| studies. But it strikes me as a bit unlikely that there was
| previously a large amount of undiagnosed schizophrenia.
|
| (Unless we have broadened the definition recently).
| watwut wrote:
| > But it strikes me as a bit unlikely that there was
| previously a large amount of undiagnosed schizophrenia.
|
| Why would that be unlikely?
| whynaut wrote:
| > But it strikes me as a bit unlikely that there was
| previously a large amount of undiagnosed schizophrenia.
|
| As another commenter pointed out, US health insurance did not
| typically cover mental insurance until relatively recently,
| making diagnosis impossible for many.
| mnowicki wrote:
| also it's 2% "of diagnosis" connected to marijuana use. So
| the difference would be if marijuana use is more commonly
| known/reported, regardless of whether they have 100 or 10000
| diagnosis
| steego wrote:
| I think the increase in cases is more likely to be explained
| by a number of factors:
|
| 1. THC concentrations have increased which usually means
| there is less CBD. 2. Legalization probably increased casual
| use. 3. People who suffer from schizophrenia are simply more
| likely to be diagnosed for whatever reason.
|
| The sum of these three things could easily account for a
| significant increase in diagnosis.
|
| Sometimes increases in diagnosis correlate with better
| detection. Sometimes they correlate with incentives to
| diagnose people. I'm not even suggesting a nefarious
| connection. Sometimes incentives with the best intentions can
| have a big impact.
| Weebs wrote:
| The high THC and lack of CBD in today's strains is
| concerning (to me) honestly. I'm worried that a lot of the
| data we've seen in the past about chronic cannabis use
| being relatively safe may not apply when THC/CBD ratios
| approach 50:1, since CBD and other cannabinoids counter act
| some of THCs effects.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Criminalizing is a big part of this problem. With
| "medical" weed you can carefully chose a fitting strain
| just to your liking and condition, like indica for
| calming and sativa for inspiring effect, in hundreds of
| nuances even. But no. Too much money to be made for some
| groups from this prohibition. Can't have that, denied.
| tolbish wrote:
| The equivalent is alcohol being prohibited leading to
| everyone drinking 180 proof smuggled moonshine that makes
| you go blind.
| HillRat wrote:
| The study is also highly sensitive to the way drug use
| disorders are classified by behavioral health professionals,
| particularly due to the changing criteria of various DSM
| editions. I'd want to look at the underlying dataset to see if
| they've properly accounted for exogenous effects like that.
| whall6 wrote:
| Either way, it's not really a risk I want to take
| wutbrodo wrote:
| Yea, this is a very bizarre framing. I understand that
| researchers hypothesize that a Marijuana-driven causal link is
| possible, but theres a well-established, strong causal effect
| in the other direction that first needs to be controlled for.
| In that light, the statistic is framed very dishonestly in the
| article.
|
| (Though perhaps dishonesty isn't the correct word to use here:
| I don't have a high prior on the journalist even understanding
| this complaint)
| mnowicki wrote:
| I have literally seen an article before that said
| prodromal(pre/early onset) schizophrenia leads to Marijuana
| use, and I remember wondering at the time how they knew which
| way the causation went.
|
| I'm also not sure if it's journalists wanting to push one
| narrative over the other, or just a lack of understanding.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was both. What's
| dishonest/incompetent is the framing of changes like the
| statistic as if the causal direction is clear, without
| addressing the (to my mind more plausible) opposite causal
| direction.
|
| Cigarette smoking also has a heavy association with
| schizophrenia, but the biases we have about it don't lend
| themselves to the kind of sloppy causality that you see
| with marijuana. I know you can legitimize biases by calling
| them priors, but then you need to show your work: those
| priors themselves should be based in harder data and
| explicitly referenced.
|
| Otherwise, sloppy science (and reporting) become
| indistinguishable from considered priors.
| qayxc wrote:
| I agree, there's just too many variables here.
|
| The drug itself also changed over the years with current breeds
| having way more active ingredients than the ones used decades
| ago.
| [deleted]
| samatman wrote:
| This part is easy to overstate.
|
| It's mostly true for the United States, although even back in
| the day there were strains (Maui was famous for this) which
| had nice crystals and were grown without males around to
| spoil the product.
|
| In Europe, hashish was the normal form of cannabis, and it's
| hard to make hash more potent than it already is. It varies
| in quality and strength like any natural product, but over a
| range that is higher than a flower can achieve, pretty much
| by definition.
|
| Hard-core concentrates and pure THC products are new, sure,
| but hashish gets you most of the way there.
| [deleted]
| Weebs wrote:
| I don't worry about the increased concentration of
| cannabinoids, but I do worry about the trend towards
| extremely high THC content while other cannabinoids like
| CBD are barely present.
| steego wrote:
| I don't think it's overstating it.
|
| You explain it well enough yourself. The was a wide gap of
| difference hash in Europe in the 90's vs your average weed
| in the US. All too often the stuff in the US would barely
| get you high whereas a few tokes of hash would be pretty
| intense.
|
| Sure, you always had special strains, but they were the
| exception. Now the strains and derived products is
| competitive with hash and you have to be careful.
| bjourne wrote:
| According to studies, cannabis potency has indeed
| increasedi n Europe in the last few decades. See An
| overview of cannabis potency in Europe (https://www.emcdda.
| europa.eu/publications/insights/cannabis-...) and
| Increasing potency and price of cannabis in Europe, 2006-16
| (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.14525).
| From the abstract of the latter study:
|
| "Resin potency increased from a mean [95% confidence
| interval (CI)] of 8.14% THC (6.89, 9.49) in 2006 to 17.22
| (15.23, 19.25) in 2016. Resin price increased from 8.21
| euros/g (7.54, 8.97) to 12.27 (10.62, 14.16). Resin
| increased in value, from 11.00 mg THC per euro (8.60,
| 13.62) to 16.39 (13.68, 19.05). Quadratic time trends for
| resin potency and value indicated minimal change from 2006
| to 2011, followed by marked increases from 2011 to 2016.
| Herbal cannabis potency increased from 5.00% THC (3.91,
| 6.23) to 10.22 (9.01, 11.47). Herbal price increased from
| 7.36 euros/g (6.22, 8.53) to 12.22 (10.59, 14.03). The
| value of herbal cannabis did not change from 12.65 mg of
| THC per euro (10.18, 15.34) to 12.72 (10.73, 14.73). All
| price trends persisted after adjusting for inflation.
|
| Conclusions European cannabis resin and herbal cannabis
| increased in potency and price from 2006 to 2016. Cannabis
| resin (but not herbal cannabis) increased in the quantity
| of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol per euro spent. Marked increases
| in resin potency and value from 2011 to 2016 are consistent
| with the emergence of new resin production techniques in
| European and neighbouring drug markets."
|
| Certainly, the potency is much higher than it was in the
| 1960's and 1970's.
| asdff wrote:
| Anecdotally, I've heard in the 60s and 70s generally
| people would just smoke a lot more weed in a single
| sitting than today. Several joints to a person of harsh
| brick weed vs. half of one with decent modern weed, for
| example.
| subpixel wrote:
| Anecdotally, half a joint of weed purchased from a legal,
| recreational shop is enough to get a dozen people stoned
| into the ground, unless they are regular users of the
| stuff.
| BizarroLand wrote:
| I moved to a recreational state and I tried a single
| puff. I was almost instantly high. Prior to this I had
| not used marijuana since I was a stupid teenager doing
| stupid stuff, so it had been over a decade since the last
| time.
|
| When it was available back then it was always some low
| quality dirt weed that you could smoke for days and still
| function on.
|
| With the legal recreational stuff, I was so blasted out
| of my mind that I couldn't hold a conversation. I had a
| mild panic attack because of slow playing music, and was
| high for the rest of the night. It was not fun, it was
| scary.
|
| Maybe my tolerance has decreased, sure, but the strength
| differences in modern recreational weed are so severe
| that they probably should not be considered to be the
| same drug any longer.
|
| If what was available to me as a teenager was like beer,
| the new stuff starts at vodka and goes way past
| Everclear.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Yes. Typically when I was young, you kept smoking until
| you reached the desired level of intoxication then
| stopped. Do people do it differently now?
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Exactly. The narrative of the "stronger, more
| dangerous(!) weed" falls short because consumers have
| always, and will always, micro-dose. That's just the
| human way to do it. You don't drink 1l of water when you
| are thirsty, you drink until the body tells you it is
| enough. You don't eat until the food is empty (ok well,
| sometimes we do..), you eat until you are full.
|
| I find it disappointing the same'ol propaganda reappear
| still today for MJ...now all left to do is to find out
| who sponsored the study this time and dictated the
| outcome...
| haswell wrote:
| To be fair, if someone gets to the point that they're
| dabbing concentrates, the minimum dose is pretty damn
| high, and it's easy to overdo it. If a casual smoker made
| the mistake of smoking a dab, they might be in for a
| surprise.
|
| Many of the vape pens are also extremely potent, and it's
| even easier to overuse those.
|
| I'm not saying the old propaganda has any value, but I do
| think it's a lot easier than many think to level up to
| "heavy use" very quickly with modern offerings.
|
| But even at insanely high concentrations, you're still
| most likely to just have a bad time, not get seriously
| injured.
|
| This should be addressed by education though, not
| regulation/propaganda.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Ok I was commenting on the false narrative of stronger
| weed strains causing overdosing. If we talk about
| concentrates that's a different situation I agree.
| bjourne wrote:
| I find it disappointing and disheartening that you are
| dismissing peer-reviewed studies as "propaganda". Your
| argumentation is not that different from the one used by
| climate change deniers.
|
| The first study is commissioned by the European
| Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the
| second was funded by a Senior Academic Fellowship from
| the Society for the Study of Addiction.
| watwut wrote:
| Peer reviewed studies disagree and dismiss each other all
| the time. Peer reviewed studies are often "propaganda".
| Peer review guarantees certain minimal bar and that your
| general structure is sane. Reproducibility and actual
| results are not necessary validated.
|
| The larger scientific discussion where study is confirmed
| is after peer review.
|
| On HN, they are specifically disagreed with super often.
| Especially anything "softer" It is not like it was taboo.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Neither your ad hominem attacks, nor "peer reviewed", nor
| the implied credibility of the funding impresses me in
| the slightest... You think state or commision funded
| studies cannot be biased?
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| That's _very_ much not universal. Some people use
| moderation, some people go crazy on it. It 's always been
| that way, for anything. There are drinkers who will have
| a couple of drinks, get pleasantly buzzed, and enjoy
| their evening, and there's people who get completely
| smashed every time. Same thing for food--over 40% of
| Americans are obese now.
|
| It would be very surprising if there _weren 't_ (at
| least) a substantial minority of weed-smokers who have
| trouble knowing when to stop.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Reckless people abusing substances is not a sound
| argumment against the substances.
|
| With food the issue is how our body is tricked to not
| feel full when in fact through more sugar and fat he got
| way too much calories. Then getting addiced to sugar and
| fat. While of course very problematic, that's a different
| matter, not directly comparable.
| asdff wrote:
| That wouldn't change with a more or less potent strain,
| though. People will use until desired effects are
| reached. An alcoholic might drink a liter of vodka in a
| sitting to get hammered, but they aren't going to drink
| only a liter of beer if they were drinking beer, they
| will drink an entire case of beer to get to the desired
| effects.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" The narrative of the "stronger, more dangerous(!)
| weed" falls short because consumers have always, and will
| always, micro-dose. That's just the human way to do it.
| You don't drink 1l of water when you are thirsty, you
| drink until the body tells you it is enough."_
|
| That's not always true -- especially among new, naive
| users.
|
| I knew someone who for their first time smoked an entire
| joint because they thought that was a single dose.
|
| Unsurprisingly, they had a bad time because they
| basically overdosed... and that was more than a decade
| ago, when cannabis was significantly less potent than it
| is now.
|
| I'm sure there are plenty of new users today who repeat
| the same mistake with dire (psychological) consequences.
| jbuhbjlnjbn wrote:
| Right, I made more hidden assumptions, I was not thinking
| of first-timers. If legalized, this could be better
| controlled, similar to alcohol. The information could
| also be more honest.
|
| Of course there are also alcohol first-timers who get
| abolutely shit-faced, that's a really bad trip as well.
| Probably also some who die of alcohol poisoning.
|
| I'm curious, why did you say "dire (psychological)
| consequences", what do you mean by that?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| There was not much testing of cannabis in the 60s and
| 70s, so we can only speculate about how potent it was
| back then.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Worded that way, causation isn 't the first thing this
| suggests to me. If percentage of cases associated with
| marijuana rise, it could also be that a larger percentage of
| the population is smoking and admitting to smoking marijuana
| regularly. If cases themselves rise, it could also be increases
| in the percentage of cases that actually get diagnosed, etc._
|
| I think this is a good explanation. It's also important to
| acknowledge that norms around marijuana use and the perception
| of schizophrenia and its symptoms have changed drastically in
| the last 25 years. So have schizophrenia treatments.
|
| Older neuroleptics have severe side effects that cause
| permanent Parkinson's-like movement disorders and are
| responsible for lowering patients' life expectancies. It wasn't
| until the mid-to-late 1990's that the atypical antipsychotics
| were approved by the FDA, which had significantly less side
| effects than older drugs. And then it wasn't until the mid-to-
| late 2000's that those drugs had affordable generics. Several
| new antipsychotics were approved in the 2000's that have less
| side effects, as well.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I should also note that mental healthcare, in the past, was
| something insurance companies would fight their policyholders
| over, and many policies didn't cover it at all. The ACA and
| earlier legislation are responsible for increasing access to
| mental healthcare[1] for Americans, as they forced insurers
| to cover it.
|
| So in the past, if you couldn't see a doctor, you couldn't
| get a schizophrenia diagnosis even if you had it.
|
| [1] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/aca-10-how-
| has-it...
| seph-reed wrote:
| I get schizophrenia from smoking pot. But I also know people
| who get it who've never been pot heads.
|
| Something about THC is at the center of this. And also
| something about age.
|
| I used to be able to smoke as much as I wanted and just enjoy
| it, then one day it started making me crazy.. and I kept
| smoking for a few years and truly lost my mind.
|
| I've heard this story countless times... something (usually
| around age 20) just snaps, and suddenly THC == paranoia.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| That is about the age when schizophrenia hits, even in people
| who have never smoked.
| tartoran wrote:
| Did your symptoms disappear when you stopped using it?
| mnowicki wrote:
| ~18-25 IIRC is the normal age for prodromal schizophrenia to
| occur(the early phase where symptoms begin to manifest) so
| that makes sense. If you don't get it by that age it's
| extremely unlikely to start experiencing symptoms at an older
| age, there are younger children with schizophrenia but it's
| still much less common than people first noticing it around
| their early 20s.
|
| And in your first sentence, do you mean you get psychosis or
| hallucinations from smoking pot? Or literal schizophrenia?
| Interestingly, around 19-22 years old when I smoked a lot, I
| had some psychosis-like symptoms, mostly auditory
| hallucinations. They weren't very disruptive or paranoid-
| feeling though, it was always the sound of a group of people
| at a party or backyard barbecue or something standing around
| laughing & talking, and I could only actually make out like
| 1/5 words. It felt very real though, I looked out my window
| countless times to see if my neighbors were having a 2am
| party in their back yard.
| oneil512 wrote:
| Did you have these when you were high, not high, or both?
| How old are you now and what has become of them?
| Bombthecat wrote:
| I know someone who went through the same thing... Now
| alcoholic and homeless.. Also around 20...
| dkn775 wrote:
| Is the paranoia thing schizophrenia? I have similar issue
| where around 27 no longer could smoke without getting super
| paranoid. Typically I have found if I am not living right in
| some way weed will bring the fear of it right out. However
| are you saying anything along the lines that this paranoia
| thing is related to schizo?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I've heard this story countless times... something
| (usually around age 20) just snaps, and suddenly THC ==
| paranoia."_
|
| It's common for people to smoke more and more cannabis as
| their tolerance grows, and higher doses of cannabis can
| easily lead to paranoia and other adverse mental effects.
|
| If these people took a long break and then tried the smallest
| amount of the weakest pot they could get, they might find
| that they can enjoy it again without getting paranoid.
| [deleted]
| hirako2000 wrote:
| Anecdotal. Causation isn't that simple to establish. What
| drives people to smoke pot may very well be a factor that
| Will lead to paranoia or other form of mental instability.
|
| Also to note, psycho active drugs are as they are called:
| psycho active. With prolonged use, tolerance increase, with
| further use some imbalance occurs especially when not under
| the influence of that substance. Re establishing that balance
| takes time. We are very poorly educated when it comes to
| mental stability, and pharmaceutical treatment is the de
| facto answer by medical corps.
|
| I do hope you get better, just don't forget substance use has
| an impact on the brain subtle chemistry, that's in a way what
| makes them attractive in the first place, and this impact
| doesn't disappear after a day like a hangover. Take some time
| off stimilant and psychedelics, you will slowly regain your
| normal self.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| Early adulthood is often when schizophrenia disorders start
| manifesting FWIW.
| mthoms wrote:
| Anecdote: My half-sister is a diagnosed schizophrenic and life-
| long weed smoker. It seems to me (and her doctors agree) that
| the two are absolutely related.
|
| She was likely predisposed to schizophrenia (because of her
| father - which we don't share) but I often wonder if it would
| have progressed the way it did absent the heavy smoking.
|
| I say this also as a pot smoker myself (but only lightly in the
| past decade or so). I have nothing against it, and used to
| scoff at those who were against it.
|
| Now... I'm absolutely convinced that marijuana use can have
| absolutely catastrophic mental health implications _for some
| people_. I 'm also convinced it can help people with certain
| conditions.
|
| At any rate, it's much less benign than I long thought.
| dmos62 wrote:
| When you think about it, it's bizzarre to expect weed to be
| benign in the long-term, when it's not benign in the short-
| term (as in, perceptibly alters many biological and
| psychological processes).
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| Similar story. I was a heavy smoker for ~10 years and was all
| for it, but I've since quit and realized how destructive it
| can be at high doses for long periods of time.
|
| The discourse around how destructive it is encourages this
| thinking, similarly to how Americans struggle with alcoholism
| while Italians do not, despite the latter's culture of
| continuous exposure at young ages.
| Shindi wrote:
| > Now... I'm absolutely convinced that marijuana use can have
| absolutely catastrophic mental health implications for some
| people. I'm also convinced it can help people with certain
| conditions.
|
| Absolutely. I am cutting down on weed after seeing it wreck a
| friend. They were really bright and down to Earth, but they
| use weed to deal with anxiety and now need to smoke before
| hanging out with friends. Now they are fully dependent on
| weed.
|
| It has turned them into an unbearable person with no
| motivation. My friend is now totally unaware of how much of
| an asshole they are and no one wants to deal with them.
|
| Weed can be an awesome relatively safe drug but please look
| for the warning signs of dependence and know that r/leaves
| exists.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Is weed legal and culturally accepted where you live?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| People with schizophrenia-related disorders are likely to use
| substances to deal with the negative symptoms[1] of the
| disorders.
|
| For example, there is a high correlation between having
| schizophrenia and consuming nicotine[2]:
|
| > _A strong association between schizophrenia and tobacco
| smoking has been shown in worldwide studies. Smoking is
| especially high in those diagnosed with schizophrenia, with
| estimates ranging from 80 to 90% being regular smokers, as
| compared to 20% of the general population. Those who smoke
| tend to smoke heavily, and additionally smoke cigarettes with
| high nicotine content._
|
| I'd argue that nicotine use isn't a cause of schizophrenia,
| but an effect, as nicotine is reported to alleviate some
| people's schizophrenia symptoms.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Negative_symp
| tom...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizophrenia#Prognosis
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| This is meaningless, since it conflates tobacco smoking
| with pure nicotine. In reality, tobacco smoke contains
| dozens if not hundreds of different psychoactive chemicals,
| and certain ones acting as monoamine oxidase inhibitors
| contribute heavily to tobacco dependence.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Same. I've smoked more than fair share of weed over the years
| and while I turned out ok (I think), two of my friends from
| back then have had their lives ruined due to mental health
| issues. There's no doubt that them smoking cannabis didn't
| help.
| lojack wrote:
| correlation != causation
|
| OP was commenting on why there may not necessarily be a
| causation, and you commented on how the doctors tend to think
| there's a correlation. It just as well could be that
| schizophrenia tends to lead to increased marijuana
| consumption as people are self medicating. I'm no expert, so
| I don't have any strong beliefs around causation, but I do
| think both lines of thought (marijuana causing schizophrenia,
| or vice versa) seem pretty logical to me.
|
| It's pretty widely believed that there is a correlation
| between the two, but the reason behind the link is where
| there's a lot of debate.
| Loic wrote:
| I am sorry to say that you are most likely right. My father
| is[0] a psychiatrist in big psychiatric hospital in France
| (1500 beds, only psychiatry, nothing else) and he told me
| again and again that he was against the legalisation of
| marijuana because of this. The problem is that once you
| trigger schizophrenia you need to live with it, all your
| life...
|
| Note that he told me so, even if his work during the last 15
| years was mainly with the very poor people or refugees
| without health insurance, the ones suffering a lot from the
| drug dealers and all the associated black market,
| prostitution and abuse against minorities, women and kids.
|
| We had lively discussion because I consider that legalizing
| drugs would reduce violence, gangs, etc. but it is hard to
| argue against somebody having clear first hand experience
| with both sides of the problem.
|
| [0]: was in fact, he retired 2 weeks ago.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Same experience with a (art) therapist in a mental hospital
| (less than 1500 beds). Very persistent in asserting that
| weed causes some people to end up there. I don't think it's
| a good argument against legalization. We don't ban alcohol,
| because there are alcoholics. I think it would be smarter
| to regulate the recreational drug industry and use its
| taxes to fund relevant education, research and mental
| health programmes.
| Weebs wrote:
| It's unfortunate research was barred for so long (at
| least in the US), because we could have had a good idea
| by now what risk factors there are and their warning
| signs at onset
| Loic wrote:
| You can drink a bit too much with 18 during a year and
| nicely recover. With marijuana, you smoke a bit too much
| during a year and you are good for life.
|
| This is why I totally understand the point of view of the
| therapists having to deal with the long term effects on
| these unlucky people. Both sides have good arguments, one
| cannot ignore them, only trade-offs to accept one way or
| another.
| croes wrote:
| Nice try. A little bit too much? It's about heavy use.
| Heavy use of marijuana can lead to shizophrenia, heavy
| use of alcohol can kill you or at least severely damage
| your brain or liver. Not to mention the number of
| secondary victims of alcohol through drunk driving or
| violence. Compare that to marijuana and alcohol is the
| bigger problem.
| dmos62 wrote:
| I'll add that alcoholism's social and psychological
| effects can be extreme. Some cultures have experienced it
| more than others.
|
| A close relative had that since ~30 years of age until
| death at ~80 years of age. During his twenties he
| abstained. Then it was social drinking, then it became
| more frequent, then he started becoming dysfunctional,
| not being able to perform in his professional life, all
| the while his mental state degraded, around 50 years of
| age you could still argue with him, around 60-70 there
| wasn't anyone to argue with anymore, there was only a
| craving left.
|
| I don't think it's just the alcohol. I presume that it
| concealed a psychological problem. But, I can't help
| thinking that if it were some other drug the person in
| question would have had a higher life quality. Alcohol is
| very punishing in all ways.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Almost any drug would have been better as long as the
| supply was clean and stable.
|
| Even heroin can be used intravenously for decades as long
| as proper caution is observed, but that tends to become a
| low priority if availability and thus price fluctuates.
| If quality fluctuates, death by overdose is a matter of
| time. The opioid epidemic is no joke, but it took a turn
| for the worse once doctors stopped prescribing opioids
| and supplies dried out, making people pay inflated prices
| and/or switch to fentanyl.
|
| At least alcohol is available, so people don't drink
| mouthwash.
| dmos62 wrote:
| > You can drink a bit too much with 18 during a year and
| nicely recover. With marijuana, you smoke a bit too much
| during a year and you are good for life.
|
| That's contrary to my understanding. I think you're
| overestimating the damage of one and underestimating the
| damage of the other. If you've underlying conditions
| susceptible to drinking or to smoking, indulgence in
| either can have dire consequences. For what it's worth,
| smoking for days straight is much much better in all ways
| than drinking for days straight.
| NeutronStar wrote:
| Still better than death due to alcohol.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| Nope. My first girlfirend's father had a life-long
| schizophrenia triggered with a short series of binge
| drinking when he was 18 (!!!) and never touched weed or
| anything else.
|
| Case point 1 but simple fact is, tons of people have some
| sort of predisposition to some form of mental illness.
| Wife is a doctor and she nicely sums it up - its not
| binary, tons of folks having miserable life are in scale
| 1-10 somewhere in lower part of one or the other mental
| illness (or more). Bipolar, OCD, ADHD, schizophrenia,
| etc., you name it. She deals with them daily.
|
| For some, weed could trigger it. For some, some other
| drug or some big shock (close relative death, accident,
| violent crime etc). Since we don't ban the rest, banning
| the weed is just cargo culting due to US policies re
| hippies from Nixon era, enforced globally due to UN
| treaties. Which led to ridiculous situations where places
| like India or Nepal having marihuana as holy flower of
| god Shiva for literally thousands of years, using it to
| celebrate him, and suddenly had to ban it... at least on
| paper. Because bureaucracy.
|
| Your father is not a good reference for this topic, its
| often a sad story when such people are asked to make
| policies that govern us all. They are always 'too deep'
| in the problem, see only the worst cases, so inevitably
| for them its the source of all evil and extremely
| dangerous. They don't know how happy, connected with
| nature and universe one can feel, how sex can be 10x
| better than best one he ever had, and orgasm can be
| literal nuke in your cranium, by far the strongest
| experience in ones life. Or tons of other, positive
| effects if not used in excess.
|
| Ask doctors who work on alcohol rehab clinics whether it
| should be banned. Most will say definitely, and those who
| don't simply because they use it to self-medicate
| depression. And that is only because its socially
| acceptable drug, although way more destructive than weed
| could ever be.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Islam bans alcohol, but it also requires praying 5 times
| a day and usually a lot of going to Mosque with other
| Muslims and a general belief of unity and being in a
| common struggle against enemy types. I wonder if all that
| cultural stuff protects people from common psychological
| problems which they might otherwise try to stifle with
| alcohol. I think alcoholism is often a coping mechanism
| for some other psychological problem. If you just ban
| alcohol but don't have the culture to help with people's
| problems, maybe you make things worse. Mental health care
| is kind of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and
| doesn't seem very efficient or effective either.
| dantheman wrote:
| So your father is for imprisoning people, gang violence,
| and the overall cartel drug system, because a few people
| will develop schizophrenia -- The question isn't marijuana
| or no marijuana, it's marijuana vs all the problems with
| prohibition.
|
| Also, there's a fundamental right to self medicate.
| alisonatwork wrote:
| I am pro legalization because I think people should get to
| make their own decisions about what they put in their own
| bodies, but I definitely agree that this aspect of
| marijuana use is somewhat downplayed by many of its
| advocates.
|
| Anecdotally, I have seen several marijuana-using friends go
| down the tubes. One became extremely paranoid to the point
| he was unable to maintain relationships with the people
| around him (because he was worried everyone might be a
| spy), and several others became extremely unpleasant and
| irritable when they weren't high on the drug. This is
| perhaps the minority case and most people can partake
| relatively safely, but I definitely don't see it as a
| completely harmless substance.
| chris37879 wrote:
| Yup, I still smoke regularly, but I have noticed that if
| I smoke a lot (and I do mean a lot), I start having
| paranoia when I'm not high, which is odd cause I don't
| have it while high. Once that happened to me and I
| realized the connection, I've scaled my smoking back a
| lot and it doesn't happen. My brother, on the other hand,
| smokes way too much, even when I was living in a legal
| state smoking a lot, he smokes more than I did, and
| you're spot on, when he doesn't have any weed, he is a
| hateful, mean, angry person, I've begged him to stop
| smoking so much, but of course he won't listen to me.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" One became extremely paranoid to the point he was
| unable to maintain relationships with the people around
| him"_
|
| I would bet you anything that this person was using a
| high-potency grade of cannabis and/or smoking a lot of
| it.
|
| If they just used a little bit of a low-potency strain
| it's unlikely they would have suffered from paranoia.
|
| _" several others became extremely unpleasant and
| irritable when they weren't high on the drug"_
|
| So, wait, these people became nicer to be around while
| they were smoking and this is supposed to be a bad thing?
| alisonatwork wrote:
| Well, they used to be nicer before they started smoking a
| lot. Then they developed a newer, more irritable
| personality, which only lifted when they were high. In my
| experience the same sort of thing can happen with
| alcoholics.
| projectazorian wrote:
| Worth nothing here that both alcohol and cannabis can
| compromise sleep quality, and poor quality sleep is very
| well known to make people irritable and paranoid. I've
| definitely gotten in this trap before when using them as
| sleep aids.
| projectazorian wrote:
| The reality is that many people in legal weed states
| consume cannabis via edibles these days. Manufacturing
| techniques have greatly improved in the past couple of
| years and they aren't nearly as gross tasting as they
| used to be, often they have almost no weed taste at all.
|
| Edibles are usually highly opaque in terms of the strains
| used and tend to contain at least 5mg THC per dose,
| sometimes 10, and that's if you trust what's on the
| label. Due to how edibles are metabolized, the THC
| remains in your system for longer, too.
|
| You no longer need to "smoke a lot" to consume a great
| deal of THC, a couple of edibles will do the job. A lot
| of edible fans don't smoke or vape at all.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| When consumed as high-potency edibles, cannabis has the
| effects of a psychedelic.
|
| We know when using a psychedelic dose, set, and setting
| become critical.
|
| People taking a strong dose of a psychedelic and
| expecting it to be no more than a regular pot high might
| be in for a rude awakening, especially if they treat it
| casually instead of with great respect, take it in
| inappropriate circumstances (like at parties or clubs
| full of people they don't know or trust), etc.
|
| It's no wonder that many people suffer from paranoia and
| other adverse effects from casual use of edibles. They
| should really be treating a strong dose of edible
| cannabis like they do a strong dose of LSD.
| Agenttin wrote:
| There's a relationship between smoking cigarettes and
| schizophrenia too. I think this may be a case of people trying
| to self medicate for their conditions.
|
| > "There has been emerging evidence of an association between
| tobacco smoking and schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD). Two
| meta-analyses have reported that people who smoke tobacco have
| an ~2-fold increased risk of incident schizophrenia or
| psychosis, even after adjusting for confounding factors."
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6255982/#:~:tex...
| .
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I agree 100%, I believe schizophrenics with symptoms seek out
| marijuana, just like they do with tobacco.
| tomphoolery wrote:
| To me it's about as strong as the correlation between
| schizophrenia and _any_ use of psychedelics. THC's effects have
| more in common with a psychedelic than they do an analgesic or
| stimulant. It's not a body drug, even if it sometimes makes you
| feel that way. If we legalized psilocybin nationwide, I would
| bet money that these kinds of studies would show "correlations"
| in schizophrenia use among those who have taken mushrooms as
| well. And they would probably be the similar, if not follow the
| same exact curve, as what we see for MJ.
| samatman wrote:
| Yes indeed.
|
| I used to think cannabis was relaxing.
|
| Then I started wearing a watch which doubles as a heart-rate
| monitor.
| effingwewt wrote:
| To be fair, that could be just normal paranoia from smoking
| too much, or perhaps your body doesn't agree with that
| strain.
|
| I have what's called a paradoxical reaction to whatever
| they use to put you under anesthesia. I wake up in a rage,
| they have to take me out very slowly.
|
| I have a friend like this with marijuana. She finds indicas
| make her euphoric and energized and creative, when she
| should be couch-locked with a body high. Until she swapped
| types she kept getting super anxious and it led her to bad
| trips. But the benefits outweighed the downsides for her
| (she was able to eat and sleep normally).
|
| Also- coughing (which you almost certainly will), will
| raise your heart rate.
|
| So how do we know what is a bad effect of the plant in
| general? This is worrying to me, and as a marijuana smoker
| I would really love more studies to be done on it.
| samatman wrote:
| Well, no. So there are the occasional 140-160 BPM panic
| attacks now, so I approach the substance with caution and
| respect. But that's quite distinct from going from a
| resting rate of, say, 80 (about my serum maximum of
| caffeine rate) to a nice 100, while feeling great and
| getting a bunch of stuff done around the house.
|
| Euphoria and relaxation aren't identical concepts...
| eyelovewe wrote:
| Since we are in anecdotal territory, let me state that I've
| been a heavy smoker since I was 13, and I'm 46 now. I find
| it difficult to concentrate on coding without weed. I have
| a very low resting heart rate and enjoy hill climbs on my
| bicycle and am quite fit, motivated, and not lazy, etc.
|
| I generally suffer exclusively the singular negative effect
| of others finger wagging and disapproval of a rather
| pleasurable funcional vice or medication or whatever you
| wish to call it.
|
| I've quit a few times for up to a year and always decided
| consciously to go back. One of the times I left tobacco
| behind. Countless studies will only ever have access to
| what users are willing to divulge, to the degree that it's
| not an open regulated or at least informed market.
|
| There is an interesting singular fact. Not one single
| overdose death has ever been conclusively linked to
| cannabis. The LD50 is something crazy like 15kg in the span
| of 15 minutes for a 75kg human.
| samatman wrote:
| I would be astonished if, in tracking your first tokes of
| the day on a heart rate monitor, you didn't get around
| 20bpm faster. While feeling great, I'm sure! I'm not
| saying for an instant that it's dangerous or bad, but
| "relaxing", well not in any straightforward way.
|
| A practical application of this is to suggest that those
| who want to use cannabis for a good night;s sleep, get
| started two or three hours before bedtime.
|
| I got twenty excellent years out of regular cannabis use.
| Tradeoffs there were, but worth it.
|
| I'm a lot more sensitive now and sometimes it gives me
| panic attacks. But even when it doesn't, cannabis
| consistently raises heart rate and lowers blood pressure,
| that's just how it works.
|
| I still employ it, carefully, from time to time.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" I'm a lot more sensitive now and sometimes it gives me
| panic attacks"_
|
| Have you tried using the minimal amount of very low-
| potency weed?
|
| In my experience negative effects like paranoia and panic
| attacks come from overdose, either by using high-potency
| weed and/or smoking too much.
| gfody wrote:
| based on my own anecdata i suspect that you're an indica
| user and that all the schizophrenia links are from
| sativas
| antihero wrote:
| I've always found that psychedelics are a far far different
| experience than THC, do you have anything to back this up
| other than "they both make you sorta hallucinate"?
| slingnow wrote:
| OP made none of the claims you stated. Only that
| THC/psilocybin had more in common with each other than
| THC/stimulants.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| The psychedelic effects of pot usually come from using
| edibles or smoking high potency preparations like hash.
|
| The effects also vary from person to person, and even in
| the same person at different stages of their life.
| ameixaseca wrote:
| Anything can be a trigger, including alcohol:
|
| "Researchers have mostly studied the effects of cannabis and
| nicotine on people with schizophrenia. But they've also found
| that other things that alter your nervous system and mood (called
| psychoactive substances), like alcohol, can trigger first-time
| psychosis."
|
| Source: https://www.webmd.com/schizophrenia/features/alcohol-
| schizop...
|
| IOW, if you have predisposition to schizophrenia (family history,
| previous psychotic episodes), you should avoid mind-altering
| substances.
|
| Edit: word
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| That _might_ help. Other things can trigger it, like going away
| to college, or a breakup with your first girl /boy friend.
| whytaka wrote:
| I'm a big proponent of marijuana. I recommend it to others almost
| as a rite of passage and I'm eager to see a world where marijuana
| use trumps alcohol consumption. But I admit that it's not without
| risk.
|
| I like to think I am of stable mind. I have never had a drug
| experience that had overwhelmed my sense of self or being. I have
| a couple times felt overwhelmed physically, to the point of
| exhaustion, but my mind kept pace and knew how to navigate the
| experience. But I've also experienced moments where I sensed a
| certain line was on the verge of being crossed, where the sense
| of self/being would not be my ultimate experience. Again, I don't
| feel as though I've crossed that border myself but I have a
| rather high tolerance.
|
| I recognize these moments to be quite dangerous to those less
| grounded in their sense of self. I would not be surprised that
| such an experience could lead to psychosis.
|
| The potency of commercially available strains now are on a
| completely level to the ones I consumed during college. This
| research is absolutely necessary.
| obsequiosity wrote:
| How do you develop a stronger sense of self?
| whytaka wrote:
| I can't answer that. I don't think I did anything to be this
| way. As far as I know I was born with it.
| rantwasp wrote:
| Alcohol consumption is not without risk. It literally kills
| your brain cells and has many negative side effects associated
| with it. Alcohol is widely produced, distributed and consumed.
| To me this comes down to having the choice. Do the research,
| document the possible side effect, give me the choice is I want
| to drink/do the drug. Also, anecdotally based on my own life
| experience, I think overall marijuana is less harmful than
| alcohol.
| whytaka wrote:
| I completely agree.
| clint wrote:
| This doesn't even take into account the damage it does to
| your body's insulin resistance and blood sugar levels.
| Alcohol is damaging on a systemic level that most people
| never consider.
| moate wrote:
| Tl;dr- People who have Schizophrenia are more frequently found to
| also have marijuana use disorder than before.
|
| Correlation. This is not been proven causal (which, btw why is it
| never phrased such that "people inclined towards schizophrenia
| are more inclined to abuse drugs" which seems like a pretty
| obvious line to me but I just work in medical publishing, I'm not
| the actual doctor).
|
| Remember everyone: someone is funding all research, often times
| they have an agenda and a good press agent when they get some
| results they like. That said, this piece very specifically says
| "we can't conclude a causal relationship, we need further
| research" (or, more specifically, funding for _our_ research)
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