Even The Brits Have Drug-War Loonies???

[tobyjug]

:Either way, if something grows out of the earth, then no fucker politician is going to stop me from doing whatever i want with it.

Even if it kills you.

 

[tobyjug]

My own experiences in life tell me that cannabis is no more a cause of mental ill-health than, say, chocolate or red traffic lights. Just depends on the existing state of play, as it were.
.

Unfortunately it is not possible to extrapolate your or anyone else's personal experience of drugs or a particular drug in any meaningful way.
I, for instance am very resistant to anaesthesia/muscle relaxants and a wide range of drugs that have dramatic effects on most people.
I have been given doses of tranquiliser that would stun an elephant that have had no effect on me at all.
(This is noted on my medical records as doses at a level not normally considered have to be used in my case).
It is now very obvious that a significant minority of cannabis smokers who started at an early age and used/use heavily have ended up with very serious mental health conditions at young ages. Far younger ages than was previously usual for these mental condition to happen.

 

[fela fan]

Even if it kills you.

Okay, no fucker politician will stop me choosing what to do with it. Obviously if i'm enjoying my life i'd hardly just kill myself just to make a point.

 

[tobyjug]

i'd hardly just kill myself just to make a point.

You might if you make a mistake in identification.

 

[fela fan]

It is now very obvious that a significant minority of cannabis smokers who started at an early age and used/use heavily have ended up with very serious mental health conditions at young ages. Far younger ages than was previously usual for these mental condition to happen.

No, c'mon mate, that's a lot of claims and no meanings there.

Not obvious to me. How do you know it's obvious?

How many is significant?

And how many is minority?

Very serious, not just serious?

Early age? What age is that then?

And anything to back all this up?

 

[fela fan]

You might if you make a mistake in identification.

Well, it'd just be bad luck then. We're all just tiny dots on the landscape of time anyway...

 

[fela fan]

Unfortunately it is not possible to extrapolate your or anyone else's personal experience of drugs or a particular drug in any meaningful way.

Apart from making generalisations, agreed. But even those are useful in their own way.

But that is also an argument against anyone telling me i can't use the drug, just coz another person went mental after a few spliffs.

 

[fela fan]

And anyway mate, if you ask me work provides people with far more reason to go insane than dope...

 

[tobyjug]

No, c'mon mate, that's a lot of claims and no meanings there.



And anything to back all this up?

You have already stated on this thread you do not beleive already referenced medical research so what would be the point.

 

[fela fan]

You have already stated on this thread you do not beleive already referenced medical research so what would be the point.

I also stated that i was prepared for my mind to change. Did you miss that bit mate?

 

[tobyjug]

I also stated that i was prepared for my mind to change. Did you miss that bit mate?

If 27 years of painstaking research won't convince you, (which is what has been referenced), there is no point in me putting the reference here again.

 

[Crispy]

This is, of course, for another thread. Often the state are bigger criminals than the criminals themselves...

Either way, if something grows out of the earth, then no fucker politician is going to stop me from doing whatever i want with it. It's not their earth, they can fuck off.

I didn't really like typing 'state' either But you know what I mean. Better in the hands of pretty much anyone than criminals. Doctors, therapists, pharmacists. If the aim is reduce the total harm that drugs do to sciety, then prohibition is a rotten way to do it, because it only increases the overall harm.

Personally, I see the desire to alter the mind as a fairly fundamental part of being human - be it through alcohol, meditation, fasting, mushrooms or whatever. Trying to stop this is doomed to failure, IMO.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Mental health professionals and other medical professionals are not exactly drug war loonies. One can hardly call Prof. John Henry and Susan Greenstreet drugs war loonies. Some cannabis users, especially those who started use at a very early age and use heavily are presenting with mental health problems in ever increasing numbers. About the only argument is whether cannabis is a cause or a trigger.

Baroness Greenfield (you could have at least tried to get the name right, toby) was/is a professor of pharmacology, not psycho-pharmacology, nor neuro-chemistry. Her comments are those of an informed dilettante, not of an expert in the field. She also happens to be retained by several parts of "big pharma" as do many other "cannabis as social evil" doomsayers such as professor Robin Murray and his cronies at the Institute of Psychiatry.

That isn't to say that cannabis isn't a problem, it is to say that it is in the interest of some parties to publicise the problem.

 

[tobyjug]

Baroness Greenfield (you could have at least tried to get the name right, toby)

Just checking whether anyone was awake. She came in for no criticism when she made mental health problems from drugs part of her series or Royal Institution Christmas Lectures a few years ago.

 

[nino_savatte]

Cannabis and cannabis users are soft targets for desperate politicians. If it wasn't pot it would be single mums or youths. There is nothing like a moral panic to get the politicians and the press into a lather. Of course most moral panics are created by the media to sell copy.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Just checking whether anyone was awake.

Yeah, right.
That excuse didn't work for Captain Mainwaring, so it certainly won't work for you.

She came in for no criticism when she made mental health problems from drugs part of her series or Royal Institution Christmas Lectures a few years ago.

Because she was presenting a condensed summary of the work of other people, pretty much the sort of thing any halfway competent teacher can do, if it's related to their speciality. That doesn't make psycho-pharmacology her area of expertise, except insofar as the pharmaceutical development company she part-owns does any research on the subject.
Like I said, she isn't a "disinterested party" in the drugs debate, therefore it is sensible to take what she says with a pinch of salt and a soupcon of "well you would say that, wouldn't you"?

 

[Yossarian]

"For over 11 years of working as a psychotherapist, I have worked with many clients/patients who are, from their own wording, addicted to cannabis or are suffering from the effects of the drug. It causes mood swings, inability to relax unaided by the drug, paranoia, psychosis, insomnia, depression, anxiety and panic attacks, to name but a few of its side-effects.

This doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me, if you smoke skunk every day for years of course it's going to fuck your head up a bit.

 

[tobyjug]

Like I said, she isn't a "disinterested party" in the drugs debate, therefore it is sensible to take what she says with a pinch of salt and a soupcon of "well you would say that, wouldn't you"?

I have to differ, I think she has a lot of integrity over the issue. I am more than fully aware of being a systematic sceptic when it come to checking for a bias in any research conclusions. (If one has ever study social science beng scecptical of social science research conclusions is essential).

 

[tobyjug]

This doesn't sound all that far-fetched to me, if you smoke skunk every day for years of course it's going to fuck your head up a bit.

Judging by the state of some of the skunk smoking home growers in this area it would be very difficult to come to any other conclusion.

 

[Yossarian]

Yeah, but I bet they're nothing in comparison to the long-term scrumpyheads...

 

[tobyjug]

Yeah, but I bet they're nothing in comparison to the long-term scrumpyheads...

At least the scrumpyheads have jobs, the skunk smokers, some of them nearing 40, have done fuck all since the left school.

 

[Crispy]

At least the scrumpyheads have jobs, the skunk smokers, some of them nearing 40, have done fuck all since the left school.

Plenty of long time drunks like that too.

 

[Yossarian]

I think heavy smokers are *loads* more employable than career pissheads.

 

[Jo/Joe]

In every case I've (personally) known, of younger peoples' use of drugs and/or alcohol, those people had serious (usually, family) problems, looooooooooooooong before the drugs & alcohol came-along!

Even if that is the case, the effect of cannabis use still has to be understood doesn't it? Or should we just leave people to their fate?

Fela - the state might have its own criminals, but it also has plenty of people dedicated to helping the vulnerable. The criminal underworld, your classic capitalist model, doesn't.

 

[TeeJay]

Ok, so it's a common belief, with a fair amount of supporting evidence that it helps contribute to these mental health issues. Not quite the same as it being the work of a "drug war loony" is it?

I agree. You will see I said exactly that in my first post on this thread.

 

[TeeJay]

...Medical studies may well show an enhanced risk of this or that cancer or mental condition - but nothing devastating...

Both cancer and skizophrenia etc can be devastating.

I am unhappy with the current level of knowledge. Just saying "too much alcohol is bad for you" is pretty useless unless you define what "too much" means. The same apllies to all drugs surely?

Re. mental health - people talk about a 'pre-existing condition' - but how many people here actually know if they have an underlying risk of skizophrenia, manic-depression etc? I certainly didn't know I was "at risk" until I actually had problems a few years ago.

I still want cannabis to be legalised however (just like tobacco and alcohol).

 

[TeeJay]

I've been thinking - couldn't an awful lot of cannabis research be skewed by people smoking soapbar, which contains god only knows what sort of impurities that may have adverse effects?

It's worse than that: cannabis contains 16 or so active compounds. Some of them even have opposite effects to each other. These chemicals will not be at the same levels in different batches of cannabis.

Most studies do not have any method of quantifying how much people are smoking. They might ask them how many times a week they smoke or how many spliffs they smoke a week, and describe them as 'occasional' or 'heavy' - but again this is hardly rigourous science is it?

There really needs to be some properly conducted research on cannabis - which controls and defines what is being taken and also properly defines any 'ill health' that is observed. Often psychiatric terms are vague and inexact as well, relying on interviewing people and using spurious checklists which contain some very subjective aspects.

 

[Bob_the_lost]

I agree. You will see I said exactly that in my first post on this thread.

Yes you did indeed.

Felan, you're a lazy idiot, but just for you:

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5. Hall W, Degenhardt L. Cannabis and psychosis. Aust N Z J Psychiatry 2000; 34: 26-34[CrossRef][ISI][Medline].

6. Rey JM, Sawyer MG, Raphael B, Patton GC, Lynskey MT. The mental health of teenagers who use marijuana. Br J Psychiatry 2002; 180: 222-226[Abstract/Free Full Text].

7. Bovasso GB. Cannabis abuse as a risk factor for depressive symptoms. Am J Psychiatry 2001; 158: 2033-2037[Abstract/Free Full Text].

8. Andreasson S, Allebeck P, Engstrom A, Rydberg U. Cannabis and schizophrenia. A longitudinal study of Swedish conscripts. Lancet 1987; 2: 1483-1486[ISI][Medline].

9. Zammit S, Allebeck P, Andreasson S, Lundberg I, Lewis G. Self reported cannabis use as a risk factor for schizophrenia in Swedish conscripts of 1969: historical cohort study. BMJ 2002; 325: 1199-1201[Abstract/Free Full Text].

10. Van Os J, Bak M, Hanssen M, Bijl RV, de Graaf R, Verdoux H. Cannabis use and psychosis: A longitudinal population-based study. Am J Epidemiol 2002; 156: 319-327[Abstract/Free Full Text].

11. Arseneault L, Cannon M, Poulton R, Murray R, Caspi A, Moffit TE. Cannabis use in adolescence and risk for adult psychosis: longitudinal prospective study. BMJ 2002; 325: 1212-1213[Free Full Text].

12. Patton GC, Coffey C, Carlin JB, Degenhardt L, Lynskey M, Hall W. Cannabis use and mental health in young people: cohort study. BMJ 2002; 325: 1195-1198[Abstract/Free Full Text].

13. McGee R, Williams S, Poulton R, Moffitt T. A longitudinal study of cannabis use and mental health from adolescence to early adulthood. Addiction 2000; 95: 491-503[ISI][Medline].

 

[Mungy]

i smoked pot heavily for about 10 years. i was addicted to it in the sense that i couldn't function without it and once i was stoned i didn't need to function. i was pretty fucked up before i started smoking it and by the last time i smoked it, i was even more fucked up. i guess it just amplified what was already in there. i've been clean for 8 years and i'm still fucked up a bit, but at least i can live with it these days.

the fact that pot is illegal is a disgrace though. in fact all drugs should be legal. at least then there would be some hope for quality control.

 

[fela fan]

Felan, you're a lazy idiot, but just for you:

Fuck off, i'm not an idiot...

furthermore you'd best not get my name wrong if you're wanting to bandy about words like 'idiot' at others. Kind of makes you look a wee bit like one yourself mate.