The risks of heavy cannabis for mental health are serious enough to warrant global public health campaigns, according to international drugs experts who said young people were particularly vulnerable.
The warning from scientists in the UK, US, Europe and Australia reflects a growing consensus that frequent use of the drug can increase the risk of psychosis in vulnerable people, and comes as the UN prepares to convene a special session on the global drugs problem for the first time since 1998. The meeting in New York next week aims to unify countries in their efforts to tackle issues around illicit drug use.
Science Weekly How harmful is cannabis? – podcast
What has convinced some researchers that the risks of heavy cannabis use now warrant public health campaigns to warn people of potential harm?
Listen
While the vast majority of people who smoke cannabis will not develop psychotic disorders, those who do can have their lives ruined. Psychosis is defined by hallucinations, delusions and irrational behaviour, and while most patients recover from the episodes, some go on to develop schizophrenia. The risk is higher among patients who continue with heavy cannabis use.
Public health warnings over cannabis have been extremely limited because the drug is illegal in most countries, and there are uncertainties over whether it really contributes to mental illness. But many researchers now believe the evidence for harm is strong enough to issue clear warnings.
monetary gain is the sole reason they’ve legalized it prior to its study. The majority of all pharmaceuticals are required to undergo years of clinical research
It’s still not as dangerous as alcohol, though I prefer alcohol over weed. Every year in the U.S. we have tens of thousands of deaths due to drunk driving on the highways. I think alcohol can play a role in the onset of mental illness and psychosis too. People who drink alcohollicaly really addle their brain when they drink like that. I know, because I used to drink like that. One time after a really hard drunk I, through my brilliant logic, decided that the U.S. and Russia had launched their nuclear missiles, and they would arrive withing 30 min. I was wondering if it would do any good to hide under the bed.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that there is another less spoken danger of alcohol: should a person who is alcohol dependent (not even necessarily alcoholic so far as the stereotype goes) present for surgery and fail to disclose their alcoholism, they could quite easily die from withdrawals during post-op recovery.
Emergency staff would not know the cause of the downward spiral and deaths of this nature are not really spoken about often, but are quite common. Alcohol and benzo’ dependency withdrawals are similar, only the use of the latter is formally documented and the former is socially acceptable and often slips by undisclosed, leading to these easily preventable deaths.
Not to downplay the potential of harm cannabis if it does lead to psychosis in an unsuspecting individual. It’s for this reason it’s important that research is properly funded; we need drugs that target the specific cannabinoid receptors that produce the desired positive effects. Eventually we ought to few raw cannabis use vs CBR targeting drugs etc. in the same light as we now view Codeine vs Heroin.
I’d heard that there’s a particular genotype that is susceptible to cannabis issues. Heard it on a Ted talk, anyone else hear of any research along this line?
Therefore normal risk for me. I have never done illegal drugs . The thing is my brother has done cannabis mainly(and other stuff) for decades . Maybe he’s AA
@firemonkey evidence like this really makes me wonder; if communicated effectively to the general public, would raising awareness of the impact of genetic mutations such as these that clearly demonstrate a statistically significant disparity of drug-abuse propensity, would reduce prejudice and pave way to a more liberal populace … I certainly hope that findings such as this help people understand that there is a lot more to addictions than just willpower/choice. AA vs CC certainly seems like a completely unfair comparison, given the AA is merely trying to feel like the CC does naturally (in layman terms).
Maybe a Doctorate of Philosophy is a worthwhile target for me. Been thinking about what to do with myself - beyond sulking about sucking at math too hard to pursue sciences.
I would certainly say it involves more than just willpower/choice. I come from a family with a moderate loading for addiction ie mother(alcoholic/problem drinker and smoker) brother(cannabis etc, smoker , tended to drink like my mum but toned it down) Sister(smoker , fond of a drink) . In my case(no illegal drugs,not a smoker, can go ages without alcohol but history of binging on alcohol in situations of acute stress/when confronted by aversive stimuli.
A case of crashing out to avoid the emotional intensity).
My great aunt’s husband was an alcoholic and his father before him ended up in hospital with alcoholic dementia.
I certainly think addictive tendencies run in families. Re genes for alcoholism
Yes, caffeine addiction actually is a health risk and a problem. Caffeine competes with adenosine, which is a nucleoside that is a inhibitory neurotransmitter, particularly important with sleep. I wonder if the role of caffeine addiction has been studied in perpetuating benzodiazepam addiction too. It would seem the two could be cyclic in nature.