The following debate originally took place upon the Facebook wall of an ex-acquaintance…
Madeline F.: Pot, the “safe” drug thought to be innocuous, proved to be linked in study to early psychosis:
Cannabis May Influence Onset of Psychosis:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=cannabis-may-influence-onset-of-psy-11-02-07
Daniel Sz.: Speaking from personal experience, I became floridly and acutely psychotic immediately after the last time I smoked it, which was about four years ago. I had smoked it about a dozen times prior to that over the previous few years with no ill effect. The last time, however, landed me in the hospital. I have been hospitalized for psychotic episodes five times since then–including recently. I will never know to what extent it was the cannabis I smoked that caused it, or to what extent it was the Abilify I had taken for OCD and the Adderall I had taken for ADD. My stance on this is that yes, cannabis is bad for some people. But banning it makes about as much sense as banning sugar because it is harmful for diabetics. (And I am also a diabetic.) Those are me two cents’ worth.
Madeline F.: I think it would be a good idea to limit pot, sugar and fast foods in this country, especially to certain populations. Obesity and diabetes are becoming epidemics in this country and bankrupting our health care system. In many cases diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, cardiac and other health problems are preventable and reversible by living a healthy lifestyle. People waste food stamps on junk food and cigarettes, and there is proposed legislation which may restrict peoples’ access to these items who use food stamps. I hope it goes through because this country is having a health care crisis with younger and younger populations suffering from preventable diseases. As far as cannabis goes, my view is that its use should be medical only. Who knows if smoking it may have triggered your epigenetic tendency to psychosis. Mightn’t you have been better off if you’d never found out, or had a few more years before your first episode?
Rayn: If you read the content of this article carefully, you will notice that cannabis is only linked with early psychosis among those individuals who WILL suffer from psychosis in life, NOT among those who will not. This places the title of this article completely at odds with the information contained within. On its own, the title appears to push the fear-mongering pseudo-science of Voodoo Pharmacology, as if cannabis use CAUSES or leads to psychosis. And, since only two words (“among psychotics”) by the article-writer would have prevented such confusion, and yet, were not added, I’m inclined to believe that it was done intentionally. Also, there is no indication in this article as to whether those in the studies were taking medication, and what those medicines were. Without a prescription-drug-free “control group” to work with, all results mentioned in this article could just as easily be the result of interaction between cannabis and anti-psychotic drugs. Whether this is true or not, good studies don’t even leave room for such interpretations. There is also no mention about whether there was a control group that was NOT using casual stimulants, such as coffee or tobacco, which have been known to increase psychosis in some… You would think that this study’s researchers, or the article’s author, (whoever is responsible for the lack of full info on the study) would be much more thorough than this on a topic so controversial… Sad, really, what passes for journalism these days! I will save this article in the same folder that I keep all of my “WMDs in Iraq” articles!
