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A new research paper by Matt Hickman and other researchers from several English universities, highlights that, if cannabis use could trigger schizophrenia, in order to prevent a single such case, ten thousand male cannabis users and thirty thousand female ones would be needed to be taken out of the consumption routine. The figures are half that for the stronger transgenic varieties of cannabis, every day more common, but still totally disproportionate and statistically irrelevant.
Matt Hickman et al., If cannabis caused schizophrenia—how many cannabis users may need to be prevented in order to prevent one case of schizophrenia? England and Wales calculations. Journal for the Study of Addiction, 2009. (paywall)
A divulgative article can be found at Science Daily.
Cannabis consumption may hence very very slightly favor the trigger of such mental problems but it is obviously not any major cause but rather a scapegoat. In my opinion, research should focus on anti-natural birth giving practices instead, which are very likely to cause traumas for all life and may hinder normal development, as well as on exposure to industrial toxins and electromagnetic fields.
Also these kind of studies do not seem to consider the cross influence of other drugs, like LSD,, MDMA, cocaine or alcohol, which also seem to have some psychosis dangers, probably more intense.
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6 comments:
Schizophrenics tend to overdo the cannabis, and as cannabis intoxication can produce a condition indistinguishable from schizophrenia it's easy to see why people thought it could cause it.
"The neurodevelopmental theory "is not a theory about a specific cause; it's a theory about timing," counters Torrey. "We have fashions in schizophrenia research, and the neurodevelopmental theory is very fashionable right now." As he sees it, Weinberger needs to explain what exactly causes the schizophrenic brain to develop in the way it does. Attributing some of that process to obstetric complications or malnutrition during pregnancy, as some proponents of the neurodevelopmental hypothesis do, doesn't add up. Areas of the world that have the worst prenatal care, diet, and rates of obstetric complications do not have higher rates of schizophrenia; if anything, Torrey points out, the incidence of schizophrenia may be lower in such places".
The real cause is probably something to do with an infection
cannabis intoxication can produce a condition indistinguishable from schizophrenia
Sorry neither I nor anybody I know of who may have been smoking pot nearly all their life (more or less intermitently, I guess) have never experienced any intoxication or hallucination that includes hearing voices, the most common symptom of schizophrenia.
Also drugs such as alcohol and coffee have also been mentioned as triggering schizphrenia but they are essentially ignored. Caffeine is not even considered a drug at all (legally speaking).
All drugs, I imagine, can push certain personality types into problems, including severe psychological problems. But I don't see a single reason why cannabis should be demonized the way it is with such weak supporting data. It's a political decission that means to discriminate even further against the many users of the plant, making it even easier for the mafias to cash on it.
Areas of the world that have the worst prenatal care, diet, and rates of obstetric complications do not have higher rates of schizophrenia; if anything, Torrey points out, the incidence of schizophrenia may be lower in such places.
Exactly my point. My protest here is against that brutal medicalization of birth that too often ignores the best practices for mere physician's and nurses' convenience. Natural birth should be encouraged not systematically bypassed as it is now. Unnatural birth causes babies and mothers to become detached (no imprinting) and scares babies for their lives. Mothers can't even push effectively in such hospital facilities concieved for the medicine man and not the mother and the baby, often including drug administration that has been correlated with drug abuse later in life and other problems.
Cannabis intoxication requires you to smoke them one after the other for several hours, like chain smoking cigarettes. I have seen someone do that and believe me they became almost psychotic (they recovered once they stopped though). Even genuine schizophrenics don't experience hallucinations, schizophrenics don't see things they they hear voices. There is definitely a correlation between a difficult birth and mental problems later in life maybe due to fetal stress.
"Elaine Walker of Emory University investigates the relation between schizophrenia and prenatal complications, including infection. To show a link between schizophrenia and germs, she relies on two kinds of data: medical records and faces. Medical records tell her whether schizophrenia correlates with difficult births or prenatal complications. But she can get nearly the same information from a subject's face. An infection in the womb is such a traumatic event that it leaves signs on the body that are still legible in adulthood. It turns out that schizophrenics are more likely to have "minor physical anomalies"—irregularities in the shape and position of eyes, ears, and other features—than healthy adults, probably because they more often suffered from infections in the womb.
"It's a political decission that means to discriminate even further against the many users of the plant".
I have heard (from a user, so he may be biased) that marijuana was banned so that the artificial fibre industry (petrochemical in origin) would not have hemp to compete with. Makes sense. After all the word 'canvas' derives from the word 'cannabis'. With the growing opposition to tobacco it's also becoming more difficult to get smoking paraphenalia as well. Perhaps the outcry against tobacco is as much against cannabis.
As for political decisions. In this country there is a campaign against methamphetamine, called P (for pure). I remember from my student days that the word was don't take speed a second time before you've had a sleep. It's the lack of sleep that causes hallucinations, not the drug. If that fact was advertised problems with meth would largely dissappear. But no. The wowsers have to ban anything enjoyable.
I fear that's exactly the point.
According to M. Escohotado (something like the Spanish-language intellectual guru on drugs, a professor at Madrid too) animals in the wild use but do not abuse drugs. But in captivity they abuse them badly.
As we humans essentially live in captivity by our own society and exploitation economic system, we also tend to overdo, precisely to escape the bad feelings that such situation causes on us. The system in turn choses to ban them but this is pointless because either they will be availble at the black market or some other drug will take their place.
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