Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

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Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Sri Lanky » Mon Feb 07, 2011 5:27 pm

Studies have shown that 1 in 6 individuals may develop schizo-type symptoms if they have used cannabis excessively in their youth.

I had a friend who definitely fit the bill unfortunately and at the onset of these symptoms he started wearing rubber boots almost all the time. Years later I read an article about him in our local paper about him being rubber-booted and wading in a wishing well for coin. Fuck,what is it with some people and rubber boots?
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Woodsman » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:01 pm

Well here is the thing:

Does pot cause schizophrenia or...

Does schizophrenia promote pot smoking.

THAT, essentially is the question.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Sri Lanky » Mon Feb 07, 2011 6:15 pm

Ah,chicken or the egg.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby kilroy » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:33 pm

high use of marijuana does not 'cause' psychoses, but it has been shown in clinical studies to activate or accelerate psychoses that a person is already predisposed to or at risk for. this is not limited to only schizophrenia, but also stuff like bipolarism and so on.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Rapier09 » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:39 pm

Woodsman wrote:Well here is the thing:

Does pot cause schizophrenia or...

Does schizophrenia promote pot smoking.

THAT, essentially is the question.


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Postby el3so » Mon Feb 07, 2011 10:54 pm

schizo-type symptoms
Broad brush much?

If it were true however, it be about frickin' time one of my alter-egos rolled a spliff.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Caliban » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:34 am

Sri Lanky wrote:Studies have shown that 1 in 6 individuals may develop schizo-type symptoms if they have used cannabis excessively in their youth.

I had a friend who definitely fit the bill unfortunately and at the onset of these symptoms he started wearing rubber boots almost all the time. Years later I read an article about him in our local paper about him being rubber-booted and wading in a wishing well for coin. Fuck,what is it with some people and rubber boots?


Undoubtedly it can. Ive seen it in prisoners loads of times. I recall Police Surgeons diagnosing them as having cannabis psychosis twenty years ago, long before the downgrading of it ,then the backtracking and the ensuing medical backlash some four or five years ago. (in this country). Obviously it must have been well known within the medical world for the potential harm many years ago but you didn't hear a peep about it publicly, it was all about how cannabis was the happy and harmless drug.....obviously.... until you went zip ding or developed cancer, at the same rate as tobacco smokers, but at the average age of 35 instead of 55.

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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby redharen » Tue Feb 08, 2011 5:07 am

Dude, you're harshing everyone's buzz.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Texas Carnie Roadshow » Tue Feb 08, 2011 6:26 am

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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby rickshaw92 » Tue Feb 08, 2011 9:27 am

I like being skitzo, it gives me someone to chat with on the tube.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby friendlyskies » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:31 am

Well, Caliban, I don't know where you got that lung cancer stat, considering it goes against pretty much every scientific study ever done. Please post a link. Here are the results from the largest study trying to link marijuana to lung cancer in history, as published in several major newspapers and scientific journals:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01729.html

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection
The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.

"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."


As an on-again, off-again cigarette smoker for 20 years, and social drinker (alcohol, unlike marijuana, is a known, proven carcinogen), I might very well develop lung cancer. But it would be deliberate disinformation, with malintent, if anyone tried to blame it on marijuana, considering my regular use of two known cancer-causing agents, and exposure to radioactivity as a child.

Here's some info from Wikipedia about how alcohol is a carcinogen:

Alcohol is associated with an increased risk of a number of cancers.[2] 3.6% of all cancer cases and 3.5% of cancer deaths worldwide are attributable to alcohol drinking.[3] Breast cancer in women is linked with alcohol intake.[4] Alcohol also increases the risk of cancers of the mouth, esophagus, pharynx and larynx,[5] colorectal cancer,[6][7] liver cancer,[8] stomach[9] and ovaries.[10]
...
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (Centre International de Recherche sur le Cancer) of the World Health Organization has classified alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen. Its evaluation states, "There is sufficient evidence for the carcinogenicity of alcoholic beverages in humans. …Alcoholic beverages are carcinogenic to humans (Group 1)."[12]


And as for marijuana causing schizophrenia? Well, I know one diagnosed schizophrenic - visions, voices, the whole bit - and she did smoke marijuana, but only three or four times, and after she had been diagnosed. I know scores of stoners, and none of them has been diagnosed as schizophrenic. If there is one common psychological paradigm we fall into, it is a rejection of cultural norms that some people classify as eccentric or crazy. For instance, fashion. Many non-stoners will go into debt to stay in fashion throughout their 20s and 30s, because they see commercials and buy new clothing before their old clothing wears out. This is percieved as normal, and is socially acceptable. Most stoners I know are more likely to keep their out-of-style boot-cut jeans until they are torn up, before buying the more stylish skinny jeans, or whatever comes next. This is seen as antisocial, and odd.

But is it? I mean, I have a pair of rubber boots, too, and I sometimes wear them hiking, because I don't own hiking boots and in rainy season, the jungle gets really muddy, too muddy for my sneakers. I'm not going to spend US$150 on new boots, which would be more fashionable (but less effective, frankly). Marijuana costs US$10 per ounce; one ounce lasts me about two weeks, so that would be giving up seven months worth of weed just so people think I'm socially acceptable!

But, yes, I've been accused of being crazy, and since I am stoned, all the time [rolls another joint, noting it is 5am], I suppose you could call it cannabis psychosis. Regardless, I think at least some of this informal diagnosis is more likely to be the result of three things:

1. Being high. I smoke weed all day, every day, because I am an addict. People who don't know I'm high probably think I act weird, even crazy. Seriously, if you didn't know I was a stoner, and you read my posts here, wouldn't you think I was an absolute nutcase? OK, maybe I am, but it might be because I am high all the damned time.

2. DTs. One thing in the "marijuana is harmless" literature that I do disagree with, emphatically, is that marijuana is non-addictive. Sure, it's not intensely addictive in the way alcohol or cigarettes are. If you put an alcoholic in one jail cell, and a stoner in the other, the alcoholic is going to have a much more severe reaction, and may need medical help. The thing is, this reaction is recognized as normal, not "crazy," even though the shaking, screaming obscenities, sweating, and moaning incoherently for several days would seem crazy if you didn't know that alcohol was addictive and those were the standard withdrawal symptoms.

The stoner, on the other hand, is going to be irritable, have difficulty sleeping, and display symptoms I have heard described in actual literature as "bipolar," "manic-depressive," and "chemically depressed." These last about three weeks. These, I believe, are standard withdrawal symptoms, and should be expected from any marijuana addict who has her drug taken away. But it's not! Alcoholics get special treatment and pity, we get ridicule and accusations of insanity. There isn't even a medical description for marijuana withdrawal. Regardeless, what you call marijuana psychosis displayed the first three weeks in jail can and should be attributed to our version of delerium tremors. Also, since marijuana is illegal, we can't just go down to the 7-11 and buy some, like alcoholics can. So at any given moment, we might be suffering from DTs due to a lack of access.

3. Self medication. Like alcohol, cigarettes, and most other drugs, people use marijuana to self-medicate for a number of psychological problems. So perhaps a person is more likely to be nutty to begin with, and turn to drugs.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby rickshaw92 » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:50 am

There isn't even a medical description for marijuana withdrawal.


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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Penta » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:19 am

I believe the evidence supports what kilroy said.

In anecdotal evidence, I know a lot of people who have been smoking a lot of dope for a very long time. Yet only two of them have developed any sort of psychosis. One in each generation: a man a bit older than me who is bipolar and a man of my sons' age (early thirties) who is schizophrenic. The older man was mildly bipolar when I first met him over 30 years ago, also suffers from the long-term effects of torture and for the last few years has been sitting steaming and raging against his misfortune and the world, playing chess with himself, and smoking, always smoking, usually alone - and is naturally becoming ever more psychotic. The young man was always odd (his parents sent him to live with us and our sane sons for a while in an attempt to help sort him out - we failed, though we had more success with other troubled young people), has some family history of mental illness, so there may have been a genetic propensity, and smoked a lot from a very early age (as did my sane sons). Both of them have always refused any medical treatment, which is their right, but doesn't help those who live with and care for them.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby Caliban » Tue Feb 08, 2011 11:59 am

Friendly
Can't give you a website because I read about it some years ago. Research in USA showing that the cancer occurence in smokers and cannabis smokers was exactly the same percentage in both groups but the average ages for occurence were 55 and 35 respectively. It was some years ago so maybe the research has modified or maybe it or the current studies are partisan, much as they became over here when the government wanted to downgrade the legality of its use and then turned the other way when the Government U turned on the issue.

Im not talking about people three weeks in jail withdrawing. Im talking about people brought in for an offence, who show all the signs of mental illness on being brought into the Police station and were seen by Police surgeons to establish their fitness to be in custody.

I have heard numerous police surgeons use the phrase cannabis psychosis over more than 20 years. Whether it is chicken or egg, with mental illness and cannabis, I can't believe they all independently came up with that title, so there has obviously been a recognised direct link between one and the other for a long time. What are we suggesting here? These people had a medical propensity to mental illness, so the fact that smoking weed brought it on a bit earlier isn't important ! There must undoubtedly be some kind of discernable traits that are readily identifiable and seperate from other symptoms of, for examplebipolar, for them to use such a specific phrase as cannabis psychosis.

Im not talking about people beig "crazy" on a high acting a bit strange. The people I saw weren't just a bit psychotic and moody because of a withdrawl they were the full head swivelling zombies lost to the World and that was at a time when the promoters of cannabis were telling us that it was a harmless recreational drug. Seeing just one of those people would be enough to disuade me for life in the same way that seeing some of the people destroyed by drink will always stop me well short of resorting to drowning my sorrows. Not because I thinksomething is right or wrong but because of the fear that I might be one of those susceptible minority.

The point Im making is, I don't have a problem at all with people smoking cannabis if they wish , just don't trot out to me that it does no harm.
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Re: Can Cannabis Cause Schizophrenia?

Postby kilroy » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:26 pm

marijauna is not an elixir of health like the norml nuts would have us think. but it is without a shadow of a doubt the least harmful recreational drug out there, and probably less harmful than many non-drug substances.

anyone who shows withdrawal symptoms while being brought in to be processed by police is guaranteed to be fucked up on something stronger, but of course, they're not gonna admit that while they're in the clink. not to mention not all weed is weed. beware the heron blunt. as talib kweli says, 'be careful [...] who you cheefin with, you never know, they might've added some secret ingredients'.

caliban, as a heavy user for years, and having known heavy users for years, and having a keen interest in the substances i pollute my body with, i can say with a high degree of certainty that what you're describing, if accurate, would be such extreme outliers that they would be discarded in a statistical analysis and there is probably more going on there than just smoking the ganj. and as for those 'researchers' talking about 'marijuana psychosis', they sound like quacks to me.
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