Again, just say no. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6629828/ mar1juana may increase risk of psychosis Drug makes some users more vulnerable to mental problems Updated: 2:29 p.m. ET Dec. 1, 2004Teenagers and young adults who frequently use cannabis are increasing their risk of suffering from psychotic symptoms such as bizarre behavior and delusions later in life, Dutch scientists said on Wednesday. Young people with a family history, or pre-existing susceptibility to mental instability, are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of the drug. “Cannabis does not act in the same fashion on psychosis risk for everybody. There is a group that is particularly susceptible,” Professor Jim van Os, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, told a news conference. He and his colleagues studied 2,437 young people aged 14-24 and identified those with a predisposition for psychosis. They also questioned them about their cannabis use and followed them up for four years. “The results show that in the group without vulnerability to psychosis, there was a small effect of cannabis on the onset of psychotic symptoms four years later,” Van Os said. “But this risk was four times bigger in individuals who had a personal vulnerability to psychosis.” Van Os said the study also showed the odds of experiencing symptoms of psychosis were higher for people who smoked cannabis more frequently. The findings, which are reported online by the British Medical Journal, are consistent with the results of other studies. Doctors do not understand how cannabis increases the risk of mental illness but they suspect it affects the dopamine system in the brain which is associated with pleasure.
you're missing andy's point entirely... "just say no" is still the most ineffective slogan ever. you live in a fantasy land if you think that works, or that our "war on drugs" is even moderately successful. it has been a complete failure and will remain so. for a conservative, you apparently don't mind throwing away hundreds of billions of dollars on a completely pointless program. interesting....
Young people with a family history, or pre-existing susceptibility to mental instability, are particularly vulnerable to the negative effects of the drug. Hmmm. If you have a family history of mental instability and you become mental instability at some point in your life, you can blame pot. How about this title instead: Family history may increase risk of pyschosis.
I have never claimed that mar1juana is harmless. Like ANY drug, it needs to be taken with a full awareness of the risks involved. Unfortunately, our current policy ensures that kids will have ready access to ALL drugs and also guarantees that kids will not listen to warnings about them since all of the messages coming from authority figures come from a prohibitionist stance that makes patently false claims about drugs, particularly mar1juana. Open, honest education about the risks of drug use prior to licensed sales could alert people with a family history of psychosis (the people most predisposed to such ailments) that pot (and other drugs) could exacerbate these problems. Alcohol also has the same types of deletorious effects on the minds of the mentally unstable. This is why treatment professionals stress to their patients that alcohol and other drugs could worsen their condition and could cause many other issues as well. There are plenty of people that should not use ANY type of mind-altering chemicals. This is one of the reasons we need a regulated market so that we can identify those individuals and alert them to the facts so that they can make an informed decision about their use of intoxicants. This article bolsters my argument that regulation would be a better policy when it comes to the issue of drug use and abuse in our society.
maybe a little personal for this board but i cant remember a single personal fact about any of you, so just return the favor and forget about this later: my mother was bi-polar, tried to kill her self several times- history of problems on her side of the family. i am minorly bi-polar, dont take medication just man-up about it... i will smoke almost every day for up to a year at a time then take maybe 3-5 months off- done this for over 12 years the only way it has affected me mentally is the "transition" period from smoke to no smoke- my mood swings will be really tough for maybe 3 days......but thats it... of course, just a single case but one nonetheless
I always thought the reason kids tried drugs (self included) was that they had too much free time on their hands. It certainly helps having positive role models, but that probably doesn't work anymore. I blaim it all on the Portland Trailblazers.
Actually, this observation is true, but I add a caveat. One reason kids use drugs is the near total lack of events that actively promote and enforce drug free behavior. I was lucky to find a support group that provided exactly that when I was 17 (when I quit using drugs), but most of those programs have folded due to lack of funding. One of the things a regulated market could do is fund these types of events for kids as well as provide support groups for kids who want to live a drug free lifestyle. If the message is unified and comes from ALL adults (even older siblings and friends), kids will choose not to use drugs in droves. That is what has happened in Holland with marijauna, where teen use of pot is half what we see here, and we could see results like that too if we could get over the "drugs are evil" hysteria and treat this issue in the most effective way. We can get our kids off of drugs, but we will have to regulate the market in order to accomplish that.
I support the legalization of drugs, but one reason people that smoke pot should quit is that they look rediculous doing it. There is this chick that always gets high and then comes down to my apartment <she gets high a few doors down> and the last time she was over here she put her hands in her pocket and started freaking out when she felt the plastic candy wrappers in her pocket. Really looked like a r****d...haha. Then when I asked her if she was high she responded "how did you know? I thought i was being cool about it..."
What about just saying no to beer? A war on alcohol would really work too! Oh wait, we tried that (and still didn't learn much)... Alcohol Psychosis Background: Alcohol-related psychosis is a secondary psychosis with predominant hallucinations occurring in many alcohol-related conditions, including acute intoxication, withdrawal, and alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication. Alcohol is a neurotoxin that affects the brain in a complex manner through prolonged exposure and repeated withdrawal, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality. Alcohol-related psychosis is often an indication of chronic alcoholism; thus, it is associated with medical, neurological, and psychosocial complications. Alcohol-related psychosis spontaneously clears with discontinuation of alcohol use and may resume during repeated alcohol exposure. Although distinguishing alcohol-related psychosis from schizophrenia through clinical presentation often is difficult, it is generally accepted that alcohol-related psychosis remits with abstinence, unlike schizophrenia. If persistent psychosis develops, diagnostic confusion can result. Comorbid psychotic disorders, eg, schizophrenia and bipolar affective disorder, may exist, resulting in the psychosis being attributed to the wrong etiology. Alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication is an unusual condition that occurs when a small amount of alcohol produces intoxication that results in aggression, impaired consciousness, prolonged sleep, transient hallucinations, illusions, and delusions. These episodes occur rapidly, can last from only a few minutes to hours, and are followed by amnesia. Alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication often occurs in elderly persons and those with impaired impulse control. Unlike alcoholism, alcohol-related psychosis lacks the in-depth research needed to understand its pathophysiology, demographics, characteristics, and treatment. This article will attempt to provide as much possible information for adequate knowledge of alcohol-related psychosis and the most up-to-date treatment. Pathophysiology: Alcohol-related psychosis most likely relates to dopamine in the limbic and possibly other systems. The dopamine hypothesis often is applied to psychosis involving excessive activity of the dopaminergic system. Animal studies have shown dopaminergic activity to increase with increased release of dopamine when alcohol is administered. On the other hand, alcohol withdrawal generates a decrease in the firing of dopaminergic neurons in the ventral tegmental area and a decrease in release of dopamine from the neuron. The pathophysiological systems of intoxication, withdrawal, and alcohol idiosyncratic intoxication all are different, and their relationships to psychosis are unclear. To some degree, they all involve the neurotoxicity of alcohol with resultant neurological, genetic, biochemical, and physiological pathology. Alcohol intoxication results in disinhibition, sedation, and anesthesia. Acute depression of the cerebral cortex and reticular activating system results. The pathophysiology of alcoholism involves alterations in short-term membrane regulation and long-term effects on gene expression. In patients who are dependent on alcohol, alcohol withdrawal results in adrenergic hypersensitivity of the limbic system and brainstem. Thiamine deficiency also is a contributing factor and is known to be associated with more severe episodes of withdrawal psychosis, which may present as a delirious state known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS). Psychosis is not considered a symptom in uncomplicated alcohol withdrawal in patients who are not dependent on alcohol. The psychosis often is self-limited and recurs with subsequent withdrawals. http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic3113.htm
Hey twhy, Will answer your God post later. Thanks for the response. Sorry but on this you are not wrong but dead wrong. Both are habit forming, but alcohol is physically addictive. Pot is not. And if someone fails to behave moderately with pot, they get hungry and fall asleep. If they are not moderate with alcohol, they can not only become completely debilitated, abusive or sick. They can die and many have. No one in the history of the world has died from mar1juana poisoning. Neither is good for you, and I wouldn't recommend either to anyone. But the dangers of alcohol blow the dangers of mar1juana out of the water.
And you know this how? Alcohol (and tobacco) is way more addictive than pot. Trust me. But if that were true, it is only be because it is illegal. If it was legal, you could be guaranteed the grade and THC content. You could smoke nothing but low-grade weed. Kind of like Olympia beer.
I'm not disagreeing. I'm saying, there is no way to moderate pot, usually one or two drags gets you high, wheras with alcohol you have to drink a lot to get to the point where you can die. It is very easy to have a safe night with the boys having 4 beers over the course of 5 or 6 hours. It is a lot harder to smoke a J and then just get in your car and drive. Weed is more potent in its effects and as such is harder to moderate. I wasn't really trying to argue for against it, just pointing out what I see to be one of the big reasons against it. From a religious standpoint let me sum it up, and this speaks nothing about the legal issues of which, I'm leery but I'm not against the pro-pot movement or for the anti-pot movement. Let me give you an example of how I view it. If I were to get drunk, I would consider it a sin. I would be out of my nature as a human acting against God's will. If I were to have 4 or 5 beers over the course of a night, then I would not consider that being out of my nature, thus not sinful. If I were to take one drag off of a joint, I'd more than likely (although not always) get high, and thus be working contra my nature. If I was to have 4 or 5 drags I'd be contra nature. There's just no real room for moderation from weed. People smoke weed to get high. People sometimes drink alcohol to get wicked plastered. People also drink alcohol not to get wicked plastered. Its hard to smoke weed and not get high or not have it be for the purposes of getting high.
I have personally witnessed people piss their life away by smoking weed. It strips you of all your motivation and can destroy your career. It should not be portrayed as harmless.
