at an individual level it would seem justified to educate people at heightened risk of schizophrenia (eg, through having a family history of the disorder, or having experienced psychosis-like symptoms) of the potential additional risk of cannabis exposure.

100% agree with this. I don't think cannabis should be demonized but it does have serious risks to some people. It should be normalized with proper education and caution.

Heavy use can also be a sign of pain and is often an attempted remedy to such pain. Lets make a society that has better options to treat that pain.

And here I get to be schizophrenic without the heavy cannabis use

can't wait for the longitudinal meta-analysis study about mental health disorders among the heavily caffeinated.

nah, im sure that ubiquitous, widely-abused drug is totally a free lunch, productivity wise for the developed world.

Why don't studies define what "heavy" or "severe" use actually mean? I know this is a metaanalysis so it's probably in the bibliography somewhere - but I feel like i often see those terms presented without an actual metric. How is that useful for policy development outside of creating a boogeyman?

I only skimmed the article, but I couldn't find if it was a lifelong risk of any user or rather those who were already predisposed to psychosis could bring it on with cannabis use. Anyone can trigger psychosis with stimulants like cocaine or methamphetamine.

My questions is, is this a general risk for everyone, or only those with existing risk factors? It talks about use earlier in life making it more likely to trigger negative outcomes, but assuming you are already past the presentation stage of most psychiatric disorders, would it then be safe?

I think there's an obvious case to be made that developing brains should be shielded from substance use, regardless of it's safety in adult populations or not.

On a personal note, I swear it calms my brain down. It stops the obsessive thoughts and makes the world softer and less painful.

I’ve known they were out to get me ever since I quit, and this confirms it.

Clearly fake because it's uncool to not do drugs and stuff

lmao ive got family with shizophrenia and theres zero chance im stopping. its the only thing that helps my ptsd and back pain. it makes me much kinder to myself too and makes it possible for me to exercise regularly which is far more important for longevity. #yolo i'll let you know if i start collecting and talking to snails like my fam did

Worth it

I am sure there data set is strong but a 4x increase in a fairly small risk is still fairly small. espesically as a causal link isn't clear. i would imagine person with tendencies to schizophrenia would be more likely to beep beep lettuce than someone who does not.

Increases risk of cardiac issues pretty significantly too iirc and despite what people say about helping anxiety research so far shows it actually worsens anxiety long term. A function that’s probably similar to benzodiazepines; they certainly help anxiety in an acute sense but repeated long term use, even at therapeutic doses, overall lowers resilience to stressors

It shouldn’t be illegal and the hysteria about over the decades is objectively hugely overblown but for some the reaction to that is to portray it as completely harmless, which is false. Sporadic use is probably mostly harmless tbf, especially if not smoked or vaporized, but in my experience the ones really pushing the “it’s totally fine” narrative are the wake and bake crowd

I would smoke even more weed if I could

Why's this shit gotta grow so slowly

New weed study that’s just as conclusive as every other weed study:

Weed is cool and if you get panic attacks you lack mental fortitude

source: me

Ugh can't resolve google captcha to read this. I'm sure I could find it elsewhere but whatever

How do they engage with the causality problem that's so common with schizophrenia studies? People with schizophrenia being more likely to self medicate with weed, for example.

The "going wisdom" is that people with certain genetic markers should avoid weed and psychedelics because they may activate or exacerbate latent symptoms, and this has checked out anecdotally for me among friends with family histories of psychosis disorders (of course it's still difficult to confidently assign a causal relation to substance use, due to the naturally late onset of symptoms).

Ultimately it seems super difficult to properly study.

I had a one-time but total psychotic break from smoking weed, it was not fun and took a very long time to recover from. I had been a daily user for years, quit for about a month, and then smoked a small amount I had left over. I hadnt had an adverse reaction like that before or since. I became a daily user again for maybe 6-8 months, but I've since quit.

I'm not saying it will happen to you, and I'm not trying to preach about the dangers, but this was my experience, and it was very bad. I would not agree with someone trying to sell a line of "reefer madness" as it helped me through some pretty rough times. But when it didn't, I had some negative side effects too. I def don't think there is zero negative effects to using it.

flashback to how mad people got over that one contra tweet

maaan i only got chs. bummer