Earlier today, I wrote about a new study that, according to Daily Mail, suggests that a single joint might trigger schizophrenia. Now I read about the same study in the Los Angeles Times. But the tone of the article is quite different. I quote:
"It's not as if you smoke a joint and you're going to go crazy," said Richard Rawson, who directs the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at UCLA and was not involved in the study.But he cautioned: "It's definitely not a good idea to use heavy amounts of marijuana."
The researchers found that the risk for psychotic illnesses did appear to increase with dose, suggesting that stopping marijuana use would decrease risk, said coauthor Dr. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University and the University of Bristol in Britain.
Psychotic illnesses include schizophrenia and disorders with such symptoms as hallucinations or delusions.
Well, I think everyone who ever lived through a night of heavy drinking has experienced moments of delusion. This is something altogether different from the grave and life-long mental illnesses the Mail wanted to link to a few drags on a spliff.
I think it is good that they are studying this. As a person with a relative with schizophrenia, I have known that for a long time that researchers have theorized links between drug use and mental illness. With my relative, the schizophrenia happened soon after the drug use. And I knew a girl in college who developed a severe and long lasting mental illness immediately after she tried her first LSD. I don't know how long it lasted as she moved home, but for at least a year. Reseachers before didn't know, and probably still don't know, which comes first, the mental illness or the drug use. However, it is possible that with better study methods now they are starting to figure it out.
This constant joking in the media about marijuana and how good it is for you in recent years has always bothered me. After all it only makes common sense. Any drug that induces your brain to go into a hallucinating state has to have a powerful effect on your brain physically- and probably not in a good way. Your brain is a machine and an organ like any other body part and is not indestructible, especially to vulnerable people. Sure the risk is small, but how do you know if you are one of those vulnerable people until it is too late? My relative and my friend might want to go back and try a different course.
USAgal,
I agree. Absolutely. I’m not saying that taking drugs is a good thing and that people should try it. But we must remember that the reason people use drugs is that they want it to affect their mind. Not permanently, but for a while. The problem when media and politicians make too big a deal of the dangers is that people who use soft drugs normally don’t see them and therefore think they aren’t there. That’s why I think it’s important to opt for moderate drug legislation. We should treat cannabis the same way we treat alcohol and tobacco in the sense that we allow consumption but regulate use and production. I think a sensible middle-ground position must include opposition to prohibition as well as the hippie-style "it’s-all-good" attitude.
Yes I agree Chritopher. I am a moderate and a centrist, and I think you can never go wrong with the middle road. We should not exaggerate the harm of certain drugs, and not over-regulate the less harmful drugs, however, we should continue our studies of their effects, and use honest education to make people think about what they are doing before they do it.
By the way, glad to see you have comments now - although I admit I am a little torn about it because now I feel tempted to make comments now and spend more time on the computer than I should.
But I would suggest that you don't really need to pre-approve all comments. I had some problems myself once with someone on a blog before and their comments, and I appreciate what you are trying to do, but the problem in that other case was the blog-owner didn't remove them even after I called his attention many times to the abusive comments. So I think the best way is to let the comments appear instantly, but have everyone warned that if they take advantage of the open policy and post abusive comments, they will be deleted as soon as they are caught. I think that's the happy middle ground.
USAgal,
According to law, I am personally responsible for everything published on this domain. Unlike America, the constitutional freedom of expression has some limitations in Sweden. If anyone should post a racist comment (or similar), I could be fined for violating the law against hate speech. Most Swedish bloggers ignore this, but since I have had some problems with both hate mail and online stalking, I prefer to read comments before they are published.
Ahh, I see. I forgot about the differences in law. Ok, it makes sense now.