Link between Phychosis and marijuana and alchol use

[Baddaz]

oj, i have to agree with you... i try not to get into the ganja debate with people in general... reason being, the proponents of ganja smoking are rarely honest in the discussions... they are usually too defensive to be objective... this discussion is a prime example...

rather than a discussion about possible marijuana / phychosis link we have criminality, punishment, war on marijuana and everything not about the possible link...

best to just leave 'the healing of the nation' to those who it has healed... lol... you will never get anywhere...

[Reggaedoc]

Well, I am fighting it's use. Without any apology, not even to the Bubo dreads in Bull Bay.

[OJ]

wha yu seh X is a bobo.....

[Sir X]

I respect reggaedoc stance , the scientific reference that i have provided from usa and canadian governmental officials means nothing ,his bias is unapologetic, unlike OJ & Baddaz where it is down to personal perjudicial bias.

Strange/Ironic baddaz can accuse me of dancing around the issue when I site political and economic reason data why it is labelled un justly a drug that leads to psychosis , OJs reference of seeing the institutionalising of youth to justify his claims of allergic reaction isnt questioned?

One more source a Jamaican Parlimentary source ,again all the claims I have put forth are rehashed ,specifically I put forth the mental.

As I used my refernce of my childhood friend he struggled to and from school with blood shot ganja eyes,It wasnt the ganja in our eyes that was his biggest hurdle in his struggle but social problems at home ,ganja was his refuge.

OJ sited source is open to question and would be dismissed by most academics,1st its a proposition open to question in its methodology and I have raised the obvious questions ,anyway Please read.

READ & DISMISS IT, REGGAE DOC RESPECT.

http://www.cannabis-med.org/science/Jamaica.htm


Cannabis dependence is seen as compulsive, habitual use and not a physiological dependence or addiction. Tolerance to most of the effects of cannabis has been reported in individuals who use cannabis chronically (Abel 2001). Studies conducted over many decades in a variety of settings have found that when high-dose marijuana users stop using the drug, withdrawal symptoms rarely occur and when they do, they tend to be mild and transitory (Zimmer and Morgan 1997). The presence of withdrawal symptoms is one of the markers for addiction. It is therefore felt that cannabis is a weakly addictive drug but does induce dependence in a significant minority.

However, in the WHO report, Cannabis: a health perspective and research agenda, it is stated that clinical and epidemiological research has clarified the status of the cannabis dependence syndrome. A reduced emphasis on the importance formerly attached to tolerance and withdrawal symptoms in diagnostic criteria for dependence has removed a major reason for scepticism about the existence of a cannabis dependence syndrome.

Research using standardised diagnostic criteria has produced good evidence of a cannabis dependence syndrome that is characterized by impairment, or loss of control over use of the substance, cognitive and motivational handicaps which interfere with occupational performance and are due to cannabis use, and other related problems such as lowered self-esteem and depression, particularly in long-term heavy users. As with other psychoactive substances, the risk of developing dependence is highest among those with a history of daily cannabis use. It is estimated that about half of those who use cannabis daily will become dependent (Anthony and Helzer 1991).

Since tolerance and withdrawal symptoms are still widely regarded as diagnostic criteria of substance dependence, it is worth noting that there is abundant experimental evidence of tolerance to many of the effects of cannabis. There is not yet universal agreement about the production of a withdrawal syndrome (WHO 1997).

Apart from the acute psychic effects noted previously, cannabis intoxication in some instances may lead to a longer lasting toxic psychosis involving delusions and hallucinations that can be misdiagnosed as schizophrenic illness. This is transient and clears up within a few days of termination of cannabis use.

It is well established that cannabis can exacerbate the symptoms of those already suffering from schizophrenic illness and may worsen the course of the illness (NCDA 1998; WHO 1997).

The occurrence of an "amotivational state" in long term heavy cannabis users with loss of energy and the will to work has been postulated. However some feel that this represents nothing more than an ongoing intoxication (NCDA 1998).

Studies of high school students show that heavy marijuana use is associated with academic failure. Heavy marijuana users have lower grades and lower career aspirations than occasional users or nonusers. Heavy marijuana users are also more likely than occasional users or nonusers to drop out of school before graduation. However, most high school students who use marijuana heavily were performing poorly in school before they began using marijuana. Most have a number of emotional, psychological, and behavioural problems, often dating back to early childhood (Zimmer and Morgan 1997). It is therefore possible that the underlying problems lead to the marijuana use rather than the marijuana being the cause of all the problems. When studies control for other factors marijuana use makes no significant contribution to high school student's academic performance (Zimmer and Morgan 1997).

[Sir X]

Baddaz & OJ from the bobo who overlooks the scientific.

A trained Counselling Psychologist, with many years experience working at the Bellevue Mental Hospital, and in managing a drug rehabilitation centre, spoke on his own behalf.

Carefully distinguishing between the legal status of cannabis and its effects, he presented a case that the legal status of the substance was not due to its effects. The same was true of the 1919 ban on cocaine under the Harrison Act in the United States, as well as the ban on alcohol and the lifting of the prohibition in 1933. The 1937 ban on marijuana was not guided by medical knowledge. What motives there were, he opined, could have been economic, but he was convinced from his historical research that medical motives were not the reason. Turning to the effects, the Psychologist pointed out that it was true that ganja had ill effects, in particular as a dis-inhibitor in young users. But, both those who supported and those who opposed the status quo, by being one-sided, were victims of a jaundiced view. "Those who support the legalisation sometimes speak as if the drug has absolutely no harmful effect. I think they are speaking maybe not out of ignorance but out of anger for the lies that have been told on the drug, to the extent that they ignore some of the truths in their defense of it. The harm that marijuana can cause cannot in any way justify it being illegal. If that were the case, we should maybe make ackee illegal, because by far ackee contains one of the most deadly substances that human beings can ever come in contact with."
He supports decriminalisation, pointing to the threat to the rule of law entailed in maintaining laws that cannot be enforced.

You would think a trained psychologist would advocate for a psychotic plant endemic to jamaica some might argue pandemic to remain illegal in jamaica.

[Sir X]

Under the National Council on Drug Abuse, scores of Community Development Action Committees (CODACs) operate at community level. The Commission heard from individual members in several areas of the country, all of them supporting decriminalisation. One of the most persuasive, however, was the Coordinator of a CODAC from a working-class community in Kingston.

"The community supports conditionally the decriminalisation of possession of ganja for personal use, not because it is harmless-all smoking is harmful, but under the present law otherwise law-abiding persons are treated as criminals. The smoking of ganja should be a health concern and not a criminal matter; not an act for punishment but a matter of medical instruction and help. In addition, for every individual arrested and charged, several are not apprehended. One youth is held at a corner and taken to the police lock-up, but hundreds of individuals blow ganja smoke in the face of other spectators at the National Stadium unchallenged. Feelings of partiality and injustice are harboured and people lose respect for the system of law."
The Coordinator addressed several critical issues. One was the gap created between the community and the police. Young men refrain from joining the well organised Police Youth Clubs because as ganja smokers the clubs bring them too close to the police, who they feel more easily frame a smoker than a non-smoker.
The women also-mothers, sisters, girlfriends-dislike the police for harassing their sons, brothers and spouses over a splif "while they, the police, are having dealings with the ganja men."
More critical is the need to look beyond the fact that young people are using cannabis, to why they are using it. Faced with deep emotional and psychological problems, some of them peculiar to their stage of development, others to their social and economic status, they turn to ganja.

"We have found that in our community six youngsters who were involved in firing guns-they say they were defending the area from others, in all these cases their fathers were gunmen, killed by gunmen. In two instances the fathers were thieves, killed by the police. Now, somehow they seemed able to go along with this, until they reach fifteen, sixteen, and then the anger starts to come out.
One young person says he hates every May and June. Why? We found out. Mother's Day is in May and Father's Day is in June, and he knows neither mother nor father. And this is somebody who has been to a Technical High School, and he is under so much stress sometimes. So when he said, `Do you know that I used to defend a gun?' I said, `Well, I am not surprised.' He said, `I used to hold up people, too, you know.' The emotional problems, what happens inside! They are having real problems, emotional problems. I think we tend to talk to them but we don't listen to them. We don't hear what they have to say.
I think it is established that most of the youngsters are regularly abusing ganja because of these other emotional and psychological problems and they all tell us that it is a comfort. It relaxes them. Nearly every single one whom we have spoken with tell us this, that, you know, when you are out there the weekend, [and] you don't have anything to eat and there is no work, nothing, and somehow these things come across to you. And then they sit down there and the pressure comes on, and then they take it [ganja].
Now, two boys are having similar problems, stressed out. One his mother takes to her doctor and the doctor prescribes a tranquilizer. The other on the street has no mother, no money-his tranquilizer is a splif. The trouble is that he keeps using it, because I suppose it is like you are having a headache, you take Panadol or Phensic. When this comes up for him, he just takes another splif and forgets what is happening. Now when you try to take that away from him, he becomes very angry and turns against the whole system, and says, `Look, all of you are against us!'"

The CODAC's answer is a strategy that focuses not on the evils of ganja but on demand reduction, in the context of attending to the root problems. In this way the respect of the youths is won and they are inclined to take advice. Such a strategy, however, necessarily demands decriminalisation as the first step, before being able to tackle the emotional and social problems. Hence, the CODAC's recommendations:

"(1) For private personal use as a cigarette splif and bush tea, a lineament, on private premises-no arrest.
Smoking it in public places, public gatherings, a misdemeanour, and that is for openly disrespecting the law, and putting non-smokers at the risk of intoxication. In that case-a ticket, as in a traffic offence. The person receives a ticket to appear in the Drug Court. Students eighteen years and under smoking it in public should be taken to the Principal for the school to decide if the school will undertake to provide counselling or other support for that student, or if the Principal feels that the case should go to the Drug Court."

The Coordinator drew attention to the canvassed opinion of Guidance Counsellors from fourteen schools, most of whom opposed decriminalisation, their major concern being that it would remove the one barrier preventing students from smoking ganja. But in his opinion, the Counsellors were ill-informed, "they do not fully understand what is involved".

(4) The National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA)

The Chairman of the NCDA presented to the Commission the position of the Council on the decriminalisation of ganja. Premised on its mission to reduce the supply and demand of illicit substances and the abuse of licit ones, the Council works with other agencies in implementing prevention projects.
The Council notes the important derivatives of ganja being marketed for medical use, but is aware of its acute effects, which have implications for learning and motor skills, and the possible negative effects of chronic use on production in both the private and public sectors. It is aware as well of the psychosis produced by excessive use and of marijuana-modified psychiatric states, which worsen certain psychiatric illnesses.
Notwithstanding all this, and in light of the worse effects produced by other substances that are legally available, the Council "support[s] the decriminalization of ganja, such as to allow the possession of small, specified quantities, by adults for use within private premises," with a number of measures aimed at primary prevention, protection of the general public, and rehabilitation of habituated users.
Decriminalisation would have to take into account Jamaica's obligations to the treaties and conventions it has signed and ratified, but the Council "is aware that many countries are considering the modification of their laws in respect to Ganja."
What led the Council to adopt such a position? "I can tell you," replied the Chairman of the Council. "One-the way it became a criminal act was totally unacceptable in this day and age. It should not have been there in the first place.
Two-when we examined the other substances now which are available and legal, we see that the damage that those things cause are much more potent than the evidence we have for ganja…. When you think of alcohol, the organ damage which results from alcohol you would be appalled-cancer of the throat, cancer of the stomach, cirrhosis of the liver, cancer of the liver, testicular atrophy, brain damage, pancreatitis, heart disease-can I stop there? Okay, let's talk about tobacco-lung cancer, throat cancer, cancers, emphysema, heart disease, hypertension. Those substances are legal and available. So, … even though it has psychological influence, to use a splif should not be a criminal act."
The Council's position is the result of seminars and workshops, which included scientific and legal presentations.

(5) Medical Association of Jamaica

The President of the Medical Association of Jamaica spoke on behalf of the Association. The Association is of the view that the present laws of criminalising people for small amounts "is probably having a worse effect than if it had been legalised," though the Association is not recommending legalisation. Possession of small amounts for personal use, within the confines of the home and not in public places, as long as this does not impinge on the rights of others to be at peace with themselves, could be decriminalised."

(6) The Chief Medical Officer

The Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr Peter Figueroa, spoke to the Commission in his own individual capacity as an epidemiologist. He began by reminding the Commission of the widespread cultural significance of ganja, substantiated by a 1993 lifestyle survey which found an "ever smoked" incidence of 37% among men of ages 15 to 49, and 10% among women of similar age. Forty percent of these men and 22% of these women were what he would define as heavy users, that is they smoked three or more times weekly. Listing some of the side-effects to both short-term and long-term use, he drew the conclusion that "the use of ganja is adverse to good health and needs to be discouraged," but proposed that a different approach ought to be adopted to those substances that are culturally endemic from those that are newly introduced into society. "I am of the view," he said, "that criminalising ganja use when the use is personal and private does not make any sense." It does not, because, if the objective is to reduce use, experience (certainly with cigarette smoking) shows that prevention is more effective than treatment and rehabilitation. "[F]or me decriminalisation is simply a platform in order to better control and prevent the use of ganja. My own view is that to try any kind of educational programme in a climate of criminalisation, you are not going to get anywhere, given the endemic use and the strongly-held confirmed views."
But even in a decriminalised context, education, though necessary, will not be enough to make prevention successful.
Again, drawing from his wide experience with tobacco use, the Chief Medical Officer said: "There are studies to show that where educational programmes are put in place with young people-serious programmes, starting from young age right through school, if you don't have the other measures in place, what happens is [that] the cigarettes are promoted." Other measures include limiting access through taxation and banning use in certain spaces, and serious health warnings with every purchase. In the case of ganja these must include measures that provide an environment supportive of the education, such as banning its use in public. "Decriminalisation," he emphasised, "is a platform for a strategic reduction of ganja use in the society, not for freeing up a lifestyle."

[Sir X]

The knock out punch :I think I made my point ,in no way does it lead to psychosis ,you would think the above references would unconditionally conclude that it does.Exhibiting psyhcotic symptoms is a part of its affect ,like i said ,if yuh mad ,yuh born suh or di ganja a pull it out.I could site litreature that says it inhibts it ,even some of the above litreature claim it as a mental inhibitor,brain relaxer.

That said it should be decriminalised and taxed ,put the money back into health care and education.

Arguement DUNNNN!

[OJ]

If you mad you born suh? Not sure what you mean. But thats the idea son. I can drink a bottle of scotch and go to sleep the next man may turn into a raging drunk and start a fight. Was he born drunk or is it possible alcohol has a bad effect on him. Similarly one guys made chain smoke form 8am till 8pm with no noticable side effect from canibas while another may just inhale the second hand smoke and end out in the psyc ward. I dont think you understand what we are truly talking about. You are talking about criminalization and this and that.. It is simple THC, which is the chemical in Marijuana can and does cause mental health issue in some people and it is frightening among adolescence. STOP playing the fool, you went to high school. I don't think any reasonable person can argue that.

[OJ]

X a question for you. Ever heard of Slim Smith or Don Drummound. If no look them up. When you do what do they have in common? and lastly how could they have been helped?

[Sir X]

OJ i see you are grasping at straws now,take a breath ,you will believe what you want to believe , Don drummond was a regular at bellvue, no doubt you believe ganja drove him there.i.e psychosis

The science would argue otherwise. What I would like done to Don D enforce all the recommendations of the national commission on ganja.

Stop playing the fool?now you have moved from psychosis to a mental health issue ?

You crack me up, defend yuh B.S ....STICK WITH IT LEADS TO PSYCHOSIS,SCHIZO ETC .


Mental health is more of a holistic approach ,enviroment ,social, genes stressors.I have always been consistent ,IT DOES NOT CAUSE PSYCHOSIS,THE BEST I CAN SAY IS ITS INCONCLUSIVE.THE SCIENCE SAYS SO!

Or just say you believe in my line of reasoning..LOL...

[OJ]

The more I talk about this the more I see the difficulty. Your question: "now you have moved from psychosis to a mental health issue?" Psychosis is a mental health issue! what did you think it was? Don Drummond had schizophrenia, it was treatable but then all people would say is the boy smoke too much ganja.. Same with slim Smith!..... any way I think you know better but just want to provide some banter.. surely you must..



http://heretohelp.bc.ca/publications...abis-psychosis





Cannabis and Psychosis

Can marijuana use trigger illnesses like schizophrenia?

What does marijuana do to the brain of someone vulnerable to psychosis?

Does using marijuana prevent me from recovering from psychosis?

Ways others have found useful to help them quit

How to Get Help

Marijuana use has been shown to trigger and worsen psychosis in young people who are vulnerable to psychosis and may even cause psychotic illnesses in people who would not otherwise suffer from them.
Can marijuana use trigger psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia?

Yes. There is increasing research evidence to show that, particularly when someone starts using marijuana in their teens and uses heavily, that marijuana can trigger early onset of psychotic illnesses. For those do become ill, approximately 15% will continue to have psychotic symptoms even after they stop using.

For people who are already vulnerable to psychosis, cannabis use has been shown to make people four times more likely to become ill with psychosis. They are also likely to experience their first symptoms at a younger age.

The younger a person is when they experience psychosis, the more severe damage will be, and the more difficult recovery is. The brain is still developing, and therefore much more vulnerable, until a person's mid-twenties.

According to experts on psychosis, heavy cannabis use past or present is involved in 70% of those cases of psychosis that are very severe or do not respond well to treatment.

Top
What does marijuana do to the brain of someone vulnerable to psychosis?

Marijuana stimulates the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter (chemical that moves information in the brain and body). Increased dopamine is thought to be part of the problem in brains affected by schizophrenia.

Brain scans comparing a person whose brain has been damaged by marijuana with one whose brain has been damaged by schizophrenia show that marijuana and schizophrenia both restrict blood flow in the brain.

Top
Does using marijuana prevent me from recovering from psychosis?

Yes. if you want to recover, you will need to stop. For someone with a psychotic illness, using marijuana:

Makes symptoms worse

Blocks the effects of medications, making it necessary to take higher doses, which leads to more side effects.

Causes more 'secondary symptoms' like anxiety, depression and memory problems

Is likely to trigger a relapse and prevent recovery.

We know that most people with schizophrenia who use marijuana have worse symptoms, a more difficult recovery and more hospitalizations than people who don't use at all. Of persons with psychotic illness which don't respond to treatment, 70% or more are using cannabis or other street drugs.

Top
Ways others have found useful to help them quit

Find substitutes for things the drug used to provide. For example plan other activities to deal with boredom or loneliness.

Come up with a script to use to turn down drugs if offered.

Avoid situations or activities where you know you will feel tempted to use.

Spend time with friends who don't use.

See friends who do use in places where using will be unlikely.

Top


How to Get Help

Ask your doctor or mental health service provider about 'dual diagnosis' programs in your area.

Ask specifically for services that are equipped to help people with mental illness. Not all alcohol and drug treatment services are knowledgeable about the needs of people with mental illness.

Keep your doctor informed about your drug and alcohol use. As you reduce or eliminate your street drug or alcohol use, your medication dosage may need to be reduced or changed.

As someone with a mental illness, it is important to be wary of drug and alcohol services or support groups that suggest or require going off your prescribed medication.

Always consult with your doctor before changing medication dosage or going off medication.

You don't have to deal with this alone. Help is available