SCI/TECH: Cannabis linked to mental illness risk

Originally posted by CindyfromFlorida
That's kind of silly Shots, what would be the purpose? It would certainly cut down on the profit margin. Just another myth.

why is it silly? It could get them hooked on a more expensive drug in the long run if they used enough that was laced with other drugs.

I have never used drugs myself and never plan to, but from what I understand most people get bored with marijuana and move on to the more costly drugs seeking a higher high if you will.

I am also willing to bet that some drug dealers might even hand out a sample bag or whatever they use of another drug when selling marijuana and tell the buyer try it you will like it more then marijuana. Do you think Drug dealers are dumb, what better way to get someone hooked on another drug?

Originally posted by curme
Today's pot isn't your parent's pot, it's ten times stronger, and who knows what chemicals they put into it.

"They" can't put anything in something one grows his or herself. Also, if it's 10 times stronger, then that's 10 times less one has to consume to get the same results.

Kramthenothing said:

really I didn't know that is there a reason other than thats just the way they do it over there?

Yeah, that's the way I've always seen it done (and *cough* uh...that's what I was "told", yeah. Uh huh). Same preparation as with hash (ie, crumbled over a tobacco-based cigarette).

Nasty on the lungs, and less effective. I have absolutely no idea why my countrymates (and to a great extent, even fellow Europeans. Least, they did when I was in Amsterdam) do this

It seems nearly everything we hear about cannabis these days has its risks outweighing its benefits. From what I've heard and read, it has very low toxicity and side effects, has been around forever, and has been extensively tested to great reported success, yet doesn't get nearly the benefit of the doubt of so called 'trial' drug offerings from the big drug companies.

I wonder if it is because of the natural, herbal, homeopathic component of most cannabis applications. You cannot patent and make multi-billions off a natural process that works without extensive refinement and manipulation. You can't get massive government subsidies to develop magic pills that way, either. It throws a wrench in the whole machine.

Besides the system depends on opiate derivatives for pain relief, thank you very much, and it is an understatement to say opiate suppliers have the market cornered and want to eliminate the competition.

Are they allied with big oil and textile companies that know full well cannabis comes from hemp, and hemp products could easily replace the textiles and plastics and other big oil by-product products, not to mention oils and lubricants and maybe even fuel?

Or is cannabis the evil gateway drug they fear will lead us down the road to ruin? If so, why have they tacitly legalized and make available by prescription only all the worse drugs they are afraid cannabis will lead us down the road to, yet discount all its reportedly proven benefits?

Cannabis is definitely on the blacklist these days, but I'm not sure its because it has no medicinal purpose, poses a threat to our youth, or can potentially cause 'Reefer Madness'.

Originally posted by shots


why is it silly? It could get them hooked on a more expensive drug in the long run if they used enough that was laced with other drugs.

I have never used drugs myself and never plan to, but from what I understand most people get bored with marijuana and move on to the more costly drugs seeking a higher high if you will.

I am also willing to bet that some drug dealers might even hand out a sample bag or whatever they use of another drug when selling marijuana and tell the buyer try it you will like it more then marijuana. Do you think Drug dealers are dumb, what better way to get someone hooked on another drug?

So your source of this info is............? You have no personal experience...., then I am willing to bet that you don't know any dealers. Do you know any people that actually smoke? Your information sounds like the company line, or something you saw on TV.

I was in college in the sixties....and have lived in the real world since. In most instances, it doesn't follow the script they have handed out.

Originally posted by shots
why is it silly? It could get them hooked on a more expensive drug in the long run if they used enough that was laced with other drugs.

LOL, if yer weed was laced with some unknown # (we are assuming you don't know it's laced right?) how would you know what you've become addicted too? That's why it's silly!

I mean is ya dealer gonna wait till yer hooked and then tell you? LOL...

You are giving pot sellers too much credit; they don't plan for the future.
They are kids making a quick buck, not corporate think tanks.

If you've ever tried to purchase weed on the street, you would know the chances of buying enough weed off the same guy for anything sprinkled on it to become addicting is almost impossible. And if you have a regular dealer you buy from, and you're not noticing if something is sprinkled on it then you have bigger problems than drugs....LOL

Myths perpetuated by the powers that be and spread by the blisfully ignorant.
And they say we're conditioned to think a certain way

Get educated, not indoctrinated!

Another thing is that all humans have a cannabanoid receptor in their brain that only becomes active when using cannabis.
Pigs have the same receptor as humans & there was a study done to see how the active canabinoid receptor in the pigs worked neurologically & it was found that when the pigs were under extreme stress then the receptor is activated to naturally calm the pig.
It seems that our receptor is dormant probably from under use which might explain why people are so stressed all the time.

On the topic of lacing cannabis there was a study done on the "Soapbar" hash that is all too common in the UK. The study found that there was all sorts of mixing of household products, ketamine & all sorts of things found in it. I used to smoke the stuff before because it was cheap but it has this horrible smell when it's burning etc. & after reading that I stopped buying soapbar & bought proper hashes like pollum although more expensive.

www.ukcia.org...

I forgot to add that it's also very hard to get anything but soapbar in certain places including Aberdeen where I live & often just have to go without until something turns up, so there's quite a lot of people in the UK smoking polluted crap.

[edit on 15-9-2005 by mclarenmp4]

Yeah, Hash is sometimes mixed with stuff by unscrupulous dealers. Not to make it addictive, but to just to increase the product size. Just like with crack and stuff.

But Hash is a processed drug, as apposed to smoking the actual buds.
When I lived in England it was all we could get and we mixed it with tobacco.
But Hash with tobacco is not what we mean by "medical marijuana".
I mean chocolate is relatively harmless, unless you mix it with Drano and then wrap it in larkspur before you eat it

Stay away from the hash unless you know its origin.
Stick to fresh GREEN unprocessed bud if you want the real medical benefits.
Take the BROWN if ya skint or there's nothing else
Oh, and use glass

Pot causes paranoia!

This is news?

Originally posted by bodebliss
Cannabis linked to mental illness risk!

I knew it!

I knew it all, along!

I heard it shrinks peoples brains and male testicles, also !

It also gives you manboobs

Originally posted by HowardRoark
Pot causes paranoia!
This is news?

Just like you howeird to dig up another long forgotten about myth.

Oooo reefer madness!!

I don't think pot has caused paranoia since the 60's

I used to live next door to the DA.

I can confirm that pot can give you major Noidus. So I was told.

(And so can living next door to the DA, though there is no empirical evidence, nor any clinical trial studying the direct causative value of this phenomena. Your mileage may vary)

Reefer Madness is the dumbest movie ever made. The joints they were smoking had to have something else in it.

"If half the world smokes cannabis, why aren't they all psychotic?"

I think they are...

You can get some very good, cheap hash if you are lucky enough to stumble upon or find a really good dealer in the UK.
Out of about 5 or 6 "Mr. X" has found, the correlation has been the higher the price, the more it would have a plasticy smell and a bad effect on your throat.

The worst is Bunk, which is basically about as usefull as a block of mud. If you don't know what your doing or who your dealing with, you could well end up with bunk instead of hash. However, if youve got a good dealer, there is some quality to be had in hash and at a cheaper price than the infected higher priced gunk.. It's great if you don't want to be out of it, just relaxed and willing to enjoy things that would normaly bore the #e out of you, for that purpose it is priceless.

And for a more trippy time, which Mr. X would undoubtley require from time to time, a bong is adequate replacement. When the skunk comes around about twice a year, it's a pleasent step up, but it's by no means ulitmately superior, just a different buzz if you will.

Mr. X knows all about it, and Mr. X has compared it to other drugs and found the difference astonoshing. With all the talk of psychosis, paranoia and seeing devils, there is NO bigger bastard than amphetamines. Truly the devils dandruff. How it can be seen in the same light as cannabis is a question Mr. X will never know the answer to.



[edit on 16-9-2005 by chebob]

Reefer Madness is the dumbest movie ever made. The joints they were smoking had to have something else in it.

Yes, they did. It's called "large amount of money in exchange for you to act crazy and say silly things".

I only skimmed through the thread so hopefully I have not missed anything, but I notice that no one brought attention to the fact that the age group of the study was 14-24. Is this not the final phase of puberty?

Of course any foreign substance ingested during the most formative years of a humans growth are going to have long term effects. Puberty is not just physical change as everyone knows, but severe chemical change as well, if not primarily. Mess up this delicate mix, and I would not be surprised to see long term results which could include mental illness.

Perhaps they should do a study of older people to see if the data correlates this studies findings. Of course you would need to find people that did not ingest cannabis during their younger years, if you wanted to be truly objective that is.

On a side note...One thing I noticed was mention of cannabis being stronger now, and what not. This is technically true. On average the potency has gone up, because in fact, the quality has gone up. Back in the day there were many types of cannabis available commercially, just like today. Honestly though westerners were always kind of ripped off and given lower quality. Anyone who does not believe me can look at films like refer madness and even old documentaries of the hippies and see that what they were rolling was completely different from what is commercially, and medicinally available today.

Oh and about the soapblock hash being filled with various chemicals, I do not believe it for a second. I would not be surprised in a few years to find out it's just another urban legend, or even government dis-info, similar to refer madness. I lived in London for a while and I never found anything particularly disturbing about the hash there. Think about it, if there are chemicals do you not think it would affect not only smell, but also flavour? If it is not enough to affect these aspects then it cannot possibly be enough to make a signifigant difference in weight no?

It reminds me of the old californian rumour that people would spray pounds with Simple Green (common "as seen on TV" houshold cleaner in the US) In order to make it weigh more. Anyone familiar with the drying process knows this was an uneducated guess at best, trying to describe the chemical laden smell of improperly dried cannabis that has been bagged up and sealed before it has had a chance to finish, not unlike a bag of grass after clipping a large lawn.

[edit on 16-9-2005 by phoenixhasrisin]

Let me point out...the only reason pot is considered a gateway drug is because it is illegal. It has been lumped together with the hard drugs because they are also illegal but for good reason. I like the signs in amsterdam that say "Just say no to HARD drugs". Pot is harmless. Heroin, Cocaine, Meth, Opium, etc, are hard drugs that do real damage, both physically and mentally. It was corporate interests that caused pot to originally be mis-categorized as a hard drug, and it seems to be the reason it is still illegal to this day. That, and the woeful ignorance of those who have never tried it.

peace,

StickyGreen

phoenixhasrisin,
In your experience this may not seem reality but i've had hash that you have to peel out bits of plastic & all sorts. I think a lot of the time it is mixed with a sand which makes the hash very hard & has a pungent smell when burning, it is also very harsh on your throat.
You've got to remember you live in the nations capital which has a wealth of supply whereas up here on the edge of civilisation our options are limited to what we can get.

Originally posted by StickyG
Pot is harmless.

ERRRRRRRR.

It was corporate interests that caused pot to originally be mis-categorized as a hard drug, and it seems to be the reason it is still illegal to this day.

ERRRRRRRR.

That, and the woeful ignorance of those who have never tried it.

ERRRRRRRR.

This thread is starting to look like a previous one of similar topic that got deleted (of which Im sure there have been many).

Recreational cannabis is illegal, as it should be, because:
1. It IS a drug.
2. It IS psychologically addictive.
3. It IS a significant source of mental problems for those who use it to self-medicate their issues.

How many potheads are there that smoke when they get stressed out? Almost all of them. This is bad. This is very very bad. This causes long term problems with this little thing our brain does called 'coping.' I wont bother going on with other reasons... I could fill my own thread page.

As far as ignorance... uhm... I used to smoke all day and all night. I dont smoke at all anymore. I like my brain. And now that I dont smoke anymore, it likes me too. It's nice being able to remember what I was doing 15minutes ago.
So much for ignorance.

Originally posted by phoenixhasrisin


Of course any foreign substance ingested during the most formative years of a humans growth are going to have long term effects. Puberty is not just physical change as everyone knows, but severe chemical change as well, if not primarily. Mess up this delicate mix, and I would not be surprised to see long term results which could include mental illness.


[edit on 16-9-2005 by phoenixhasrisin]

One problem with any true scientific testing would be finding a control group that had not ingested other chemical substances during this same time frame. Lord only knows what sort of toxic mix is in the average kids food supply. For instance I, and my 'peers' were practically DuPont guinea pigs when we were that age, what with artificial this and preservative that......a great deal of which has now been banned.

Considering that pot is a 'naturally occuring' substance, chemically it might be no more of a 'severe' addition than say refined sugar or flour, which we ingest in copious amounts in a 'not naturally occuring' form. ( Read up on food allergies, some reactions are semi psychotic.)

If there were longer lasting effects of exposure during the 'formative years', I would think it would relate more to the psychological aspect of using pot as an escape from unhappiness or boredom, and becoming dependant on it as the only way to enjoy life.