[Sociology] A Study on the Effects and Statistics Concerning Cannabis Abuse

[Tom Paine]

Author: Denny Crane!
Original Thread: A Study on the Effects and Statistics Concerning Cannabis Abuse

A Study on the Effects and Statistics Concerning Cannabis Abuse

I have noticed that the psychological effects of smoking cannabis has been brought up, as it frequently is by the media and I think it is worth examining.

The most common terms used when discussing the possible ramifications of smoking cannabis are psychosis, psychotic and skizophrenia. They are big scary words, but I felt compelled to investigate there eytomology as they are frequently used interchangably. What I discovered was this, the psychotic and psychosis effects can be a simple misinterpretation of reality while suffering hallucinogenic effects. If you percieve someone to be looking at you funny and they are not this is a psychotic effect. A psychosis is the accumalation of symptoms that causes you to lose touch with reality. Skizophrenia is the most serious form of psychosis one which is involved in with abnormalities of perception, emotion, thought, motivation, motor function, which devastates people's lives and has a terrible prognosis. There is a rather large seperation in the severity of symptoms that can occur.

The connotations given in the media about the effects of cannabis tend not to differentiate between transient psychosis (that passes when the drug is metabolised) and the psychosis with permanent effects. Now when people discuss the ramifications are they differentiating? Are the serious effects, the ones which concern us, likely? Lets consider the evidence for long term psychosis and short term psychosis:



The few words I picked up on with this report were the intimations that linked cannabis to psychosis offered no evidence or used the words "believed to be" or "anecdotal evidence".

Also

It is worth noting that drug users who develop a problem in particular cannabis users are poly-drug users not just cannabis users. A little bit of anecdotal evidence of my own there. However it does point out that using cannabis in conjunction with other drugs can cause a destabilising influence on the brain chemistry although a distinct lack of evidence is offered.

There is a severe form of cannabis psychosis which can last up to several days but does respond well to treatment.



The rebuttal pointed to this link which I have already found to be contradictory in nature (see first quote bold sentence)



So who do we believe? How do we tell if our cannabis smoking is sending our nation spiralling into the loony bin? The only solution I can think of is to examine schizophrenic trends from the 1960's through to the present day to see if the cannabis fogged '60's through to the present day has blighted our generations. Is this the true reason our society is going to pieces (<------ I must of read the mail today)


http://www.mentalhealth.com/mag1/scz/sb-time.html

There could be a number of different factors in the reason for the drop. Several experts have pointed to a rise in different diagnosis or the use of different criteria to classify them. Despite several conflicting ideas on the cause of the rise of schizophrenia in the industrial age it is safe to conclude that in the post industrial age it is falling (regardless of wether they disagree on by how much) we are certainly not seeing any rise despite a growing trend of cannabis use since the '60's.

I would also consider investigating wether cannabis rich cultures have higher incidence of psychosis in comparison to other cultures with a different drug culture.

So in conclusion yes it can cause temporary psychosis (as can alcohol) but its ability to inflict a severe permenant psychosis is minimal and its association with it is unjust.