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Should Weed Be Legal?


Should weed in the UK be...  

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On 2/3/2019 at 09:14, Honest_Man#1 said:

Imagine writing that same article about alcohol. The list of killers who had ever ‘used’ alcohol would be about a million pages long.

It's some article.

Sub out cannabis for cake or Snickers or Dr Pepper and it makes an amusing read without losing any credibility. Makes as much sense as well.

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What is the latest research on the links between cannabis and severe mental illness?  Would people still be as keen to legalise it if there was a clear link between the two?

ETA - I believe in legalising cannabis but I do think that the harm it can cause users does make me think twice.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

Edited by ICTChris
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14 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

What is the latest research on the links between cannabis and severe mental illness?  Would people still be as keen to legalise it if there was a clear link between the two?

ETA - I believe in legalising cannabis but I do think that the harm it can cause users does make me think twice.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

I can't see their being any more of a link than there is with alcohol, I know plenty of people that have pickled their brain, don't know any that have done the same with weed.

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Just now, Tommy Nooka said:

I can't see their being any more of a link than there is with alcohol, I know plenty of people that have pickled their brain, don't know any that have done the same with weed.

Far more people will drink alcohol than smoke cannabis - if it was legalised then usage of it would increase.  

I'm in favour of legalisation personally but I do think the dangers are perhaps underplayed or dismissed. 

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12 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

What is the latest research on the links between cannabis and severe mental illness?  Would people still be as keen to legalise it if there was a clear link between the two?

ETA - I believe in legalising cannabis but I do think that the harm it can cause users does make me think twice.  Maybe I'm just getting old.

Whilst I can see where you're coming from here, I'm not sure keeping it illegal is the solution anyway. The harm it causes is always going to be there because people will always use cannabis, so surely our aim should be to acknowledge that and help them? Making it or keeping it illegal doesn't help a user come off it, nor does it control the strength of cannabis they do use. I think people who smoke a lot of it (and I mean a lot) every day will inevitably have an effect on their brain. As the poster above says though, it probably doesn't harm as many brains as drink and making that illegal would be a complete disaster, I think we all agree.

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What is the latest research on the links between cannabis and severe mental illness?  Would people still be as keen to legalise it if there was a clear link between the two?
ETA - I believe in legalising cannabis but I do think that the harm it can cause users does make me think twice.  Maybe I'm just getting old.


I actually watched something about this not so long ago. The programme I watched suggested much of the research being carried out is still too ‘recent’ but was prompted by an increase in persons suffering from ‘cannabis psychosis’ in recent times. However, a lot of the studies being carried out are centred around super strong skunk weed and it’s users, which in itself is very misleading in terms of making a proven direct link between mental illness and cannabis as a whole, as there are thousands of strains of varying strengths. It’s much like blaming alcohol in general for someone’s health issues, but missing out the fact that they were hammering through silly amounts of whisky, vodka or other strong spirits.
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14 hours ago, 8MileBU said:

I actually watched something about this not so long ago. The programme I watched suggested much of the research being carried out is still too ‘recent’ but was prompted by an increase in persons suffering from ‘cannabis psychosis’ in recent times. However, a lot of the studies being carried out are centred around super strong skunk weed and it’s users, which in itself is very misleading in terms of making a proven direct link between mental illness and cannabis as a whole, as there are thousands of strains of varying strengths. It’s much like blaming alcohol in general for someone’s health issues, but missing out the fact that they were hammering through silly amounts of whisky, vodka or other strong spirits.

 

The sort of research that would be required to conclusively prove links would need to be very involved and would take years.  

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Here's a video of the director of Neuroscience at the Center for Addiction Medicine talking about the effects of cannabis on the brains of young people

 

It's important to note that she caveats almost everything she says with the need for more research.

 

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11 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Here's a video of the director of Neuroscience at the Center for Addiction Medicine talking about the effects of cannabis on the brains of young people

 

It's important to note that she caveats almost everything she says with the need for more research.

 

You'll see much more and better research coming out now that it's been made legal in a number of places.  For years we've just said "it's bad for you, don't do it" and ignored any research (cause why would you need research for something that nobody should be doing?).  Again though, if a link IS proven between mental health and cannabis, do you think keeping it illegal is the solution?

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The war on drugs (good band btw) is only a failure if you assume its purpose was to wipe out drug usage and not just a convenient way to criminalise large swathes of undesirables. Even in the USA where it’s rapidly being legalised you still have scores of black men serving time for possession.

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4 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

The war on drugs (good band btw) is only a failure if you assume its purpose was to wipe out drug usage and not just a convenient way to criminalise large swathes of undesirables. Even in the USA where it’s rapidly being legalised you still have scores of black men serving time for possession.

Making policy to lock up black people is a failure in itself. It might not be a failure to those who want blacks locked up, but to anyone with a brain cell it's been a complete failure.

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  • 2 weeks later...
11 minutes ago, mathematics said:

So is this proof?

No. The researchers were unable to prove cannabis use was definitively causing depression

 

Correlation is not causation.

Despite this here are tomorrow's papers headlines, without the last bit.

Quote

Meanwhile, those who used cannabis in their teenage years were three times more likely to try to kill themselves - although the data on that trend was not considered robust enough to draw a firm conclusion.

 

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2 minutes ago, 8MileBU said:

What a lot of pish that article is.

Summarised:

‘There might be a link and there might not be a link but we can’t prove it...’

 

The only way they could prove it would be to undertake randomised, controlled trials on human subjects which, as the article notes, is unethical.

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On 05/02/2019 at 12:15, NotThePars said:

The war on drugs (good band btw) is only a failure if you assume its purpose was to wipe out drug usage and not just a convenient way to criminalise large swathes of undesirables. Even in the USA where it’s rapidly being legalised you still have scores of black men serving time for possession.

Can't argue with that unfortunately.  

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