Comment on The hidden mental health danger in today’s high-THC cannabis
lIlIlIlIlIlIl@lemmy.world 7 months ago
This is fear mongering disguised as “science”
A population-based retrospective cohort study of 9.8 million people in Ontario, Canada, found that people with an emergency department visit for cannabis use or cannabis-induced psychosis were at a 14.3-fold and 241.6-fold higher risk of developing a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder within 3 years than the general population, respectively.4
So another way to state this: people who are prone to mental health disorder are likely to LEARN ABOUT IT with cannabis, but it’s not causing healthy people to go crazy
Some prohibitionist jumped on this to spin it as propaganda
Some of us are more prone to mental health issues. Cannabis is a strong trigger. It is possible to go through life without triggers.
I’m all for full legalisation but legal age for most substances should be simply higher because it’s way too risky and damaging before your brain fully develops, as evidenced by the this paper.
There is no age where the brain stops developing. The idea that the brain stops developing at age 25 is a myth. This myth comes brain studies that studied brain development…up to an age of 25. Pediatric studies of brain development don’t extend into far adulthood.
This is a misrepresentation. Development or maturation of the brain finishes around 25 years old. In this context, “development” refers to the completion of the adult form of the organ. The ongoing “development” that this blog post refers to is more accurately described as neuroplasticity. There is an ongoing potential for the brain to create new connections and reinforce existing ones throughout life, but the actual mature form of the frontal cortex is not complete until your mid-twenties.
Another way to explain this would be to use breasts as an example. As a biologically female girl goes through puberty, her breasts grow as her body develops mammary tissue and the surrounding/supporting structures. This is called secondary sexual development. If you used the word “development” the same way that blog post does, then the changes to the breast throughout adulthood (such as milk production, skin sagging, loss of adipose) would also be called “development”, but that doesn’t make sense when we’re talking about development of sexual characteristics. Those are ongoing changes to the breast, but it is not the same thing as the initial development stage that is equivalent to the initial development and maturation of the brain that finishes in a person’s mid-twenties.
Please stop using blog posts pretending to be scientific research.
Please stop posting comments offering nothing of value.
So to be clear: because some unknown small sliver of the population may have an issue with it, you want to bubble wrap all of society?
That sounds pretty conservative to me. Too much, even
Where are you getting your numbers on % of population at risk of psychosis and schizophrenia to call them unknown small sliver? Cannabis being harmful to people under 25 is well studied. Most neurodivergent folk are at risk and both things compound enough so that having this kind of legal age just make sense.
I consume plenty of weed myself but I’m for responsible and controlled use. I’m glad to piss off liberals and conservatives alike since I’m a leftie.
It sure sounds like they’re just saying that cannabis helped people detect schizophrenia earlier than they normally would have. Which would strike me as a good thing…
Schizophrenia is a mental health disorder that can be triggered by psychoactive substances, trauma, or other significant events/life changes. Not everyone who has schizophrenia was guaranteed to get it, it’s just that some people have the potential for it. A psychotic episode (whether substance-induced or organic) is a common trigger to cause schizophrenia in someone that had the potential to develop the disorder.
If you have a family history of mental illnesses (particularly Schizophrenia and Bipolar disorder), significant THC use and substance-induced psychotic episodes can be the grain that tips the scale towards developing the disorder that may have otherwise been avoided.
(TL;DR: if Schizophrenia runs in your family, be exceedingly careful about what psychoactive substances you use.)
Someone has to be the first so your descendants can say it runs in the family.
Given that, as a species, we have only just recently figured out how to diagnose any of these things, it is highly unlikely that these conditions are nowhere in your family lineage. There is always the possibility of de novo mutations that can shake things up, but people with schizophrenia used to just be called generically insane…or they were prophets or cult leaders if they rolled high on Charisma.
Yep. I had a close friend that accepted a grip of shrooms from some random chicks at a house party, only to find out the hard way that night that his estranged (since ~birth) father’s side of the family had a high risk for schizophrenia… Be careful, friends. Knowledge is power. Use your damn brains, please.
I work in medicine (mostly emergency medicine), and I have seen a lot of people end up with their lives completely torn apart because of permanent effects of psychotropic drugs. CBD has a lot of benefits and some real clinical evidence backing it up, but there really aren’t any non-recreational uses for THC and the people who want to use marijuana for calming effects can get CBD on its own these days.
Yall are sayin stuff like “learn about” and “detect” as if they got to just add that to their notes and continue on their day.
Going from “might develop schizophrenia some day” to “inpatient for an episode right now” is a big difference.
Every time you experience psychosis, it increases your chance of experiencing it again, independent of your previous risk. Each episode makes it more likely. Unfortunately drug induced can make it worse.
Schizophrenia is better treated the earlier it is diagnosed. We are not talking about people who “might develop schizophrenia one day” but those who found out they had it as a result of this process perhaps earlier than they would have otherwise.
The earlier its diagnosed, the more severe it tends to be. If someone has schizophrenia triggered under the age of 25, the massive shift in the balance of neurotransmitters has a significant effect on the continuing development of the brain. The frontal cortex (the executive function, intelligence/wisdom, and common sense part of the brain) is the last part to finish developing. That’s why you can have teenagers and college-aged kids that are extremely smart academically, but absolute morons when it comes to decision making and self-restraint.
Schizophrenia is characterized by massive overloading of dopamine to the point that the brain malfunctions, and the medications used to treat it (anti-psychotics) mostly work by dulling the effects of dopamine and limiting its production. Finding the right anti-psychotic and right dose of that drug can take a lot of trial and error, and that’s all time lost for ongoing development of that person’s brain. Dopamine is a very important neurotransmitter, so if someone has severe schizophrenia requiring strong dopamine inhibition, they can end up with a lot of nasty side effects.
The medications have long term effects too and there’s kind of a maximum amount of time you can be on an anti-psychotic before you start having a form of medication-induced Parkinsonism. If someone’s schizophrenia gets triggered then diagnosed and treated earlier, it means they are going to start having those Parkinson’s symptoms that much earlier.
I’m not sure that finding out by having an episode triggered that results in hospitalization is a good thing.
medgremlin@midwest.social 7 months ago
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