To think cannabis isn't harmless?

[freedom26]

Cannabis seems to be normalised and many people don't even consider it a drug. My brother-in-law is a psychiatrist and he says that he fears legalization in the UK as it would increase

In his 20 years of work, he says that the patients who only used, alcohol, or prescription drugs had a far better outcome for their mental health than those who smoked cannabis regularly (apart from the addiction) who regularly visited after suffering a psychotic break.

Cannabis is obviously far safer in terms of physical health than other drugs and not everyone gets the bad effects, but people seem to downplay the potential harm it can cause if you're predisposed to psychosis/schizophrenia.

If I think back my childhood, I went to a high achieving private school were many people I knew dabble in all sorts of drugs and it seemed that even among the excessive users, those who used cannabis and didn't develop psychosis still fared worse in terms of academic achievement than those dependent on alcohol who usually reduced their drinking as they age.

Sorry meant to say legalised and regulated for medical use

I don't think you can draw any reasonable comparison between cannabis and heroin.

A judge friend of mine told me recently that she'll sentence people more heavily for drugs she considers to contribute the most harm to society i.e. crack and heroin. She rarely sees criminals who are committing crimes to get hold of MDMA, ketamine, LSD, and cannabis, so she will sentence more lightly for any of those dealers coming before her.

She also mentioned that the dealers who don't sell crack and heroin would have much more to lose from a custodial sentence, as they don't tend to have previous convictions. She doesn't feel it's just that someone might lose their job and their home when they're not the ones contributing to the downfall of society.

Plus I stand by my original point; if you believe cannabis is harmful, allow it to be cultivated properly to reduce the harm. I'm sure you're familiar with the term 'super strength skunk'. I wouldn't want my teenager smoking that shit, but on and on it goes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-43224899

Here's a BBC article about the amount of THC in some of the plants sold in the UK. This is why banning it is even more dangerous. If it was allowed to be cultivated sensibly, we could have a much more balanced plant.

Oh please do post. I am really interested in this.

I do agree with what you are saying I just think most substance have consequences, alcohol, tobacco etc. I feel like we need a bit more education around this rather than the narrative that drugs = bad because it’s more nuanced than this. That’s not to say it’s a positive thing to do (except if medically justified)

There were a couple that I remember. Most of the others were "parked" on methadone.

Is this on the NHS? Genuinely curious, I have CPTSD

Yeah, I have ADHD and that claim...surprised me.

To compare damage caused by alcohol and canabis, you’d need to scale for the amounts consumed. I’d be reasonably confident that if cannabis was consumed at the scale of alcohol, cannabis would be considerably worse.

My understanding is that it also depends on how much you smoke - many of my friends smoked cannabis occasionally when we were at Uni, and they were all absolutely fine academically socially etc

One friend smoked it ALL THE TIME and he was not fine.

What do you think would happen if cannabis was legalised?

From the lecture I attended this is the link to the research on adolescent brain development. I don't think its a free article unfortunately but you can read the abstract and looks like some links to other journal articles. If I can find the articles linking to mental health, I will post later (but going out now!).

Filbey, F.M. et al (2016). Preliminary findings demonstrating latent effects of early adolescent marijuana use onset on cortical
architecture. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 16: 16 doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2015.10.001
The effects of cannabis use on adolescent brain development.

Preliminary findings demonstrating latent effects of early adolescent marijuana use onset on cortical architecture - PubMed

Many public and outdoor spaces would absolutely reek, for one. There would probably be an increase in weed-associated mental health issues.

But why are we making an exception for deregulation of cannabis when everything else we know to have adverse health effects is moving in the opposite direction?

There would be a decrease in mentally vulnerable teenagers getting hold of dangerously strong super skunk, so that needs to be taken into account when we consider the mental health impact.

If your only other point is smell, I really can't see that as equivalent in harm to the totality of the effect of alcohol on society.

Besides, alcohol leads to smelly environments too.

@SilviaDaisyPouncer
I don't think you can draw any reasonable comparison between cannabis and heroin.

I'm not. But I am drawing a reasonable comparison between the medical use of two drugs that are illegal.

My brother smoked cannabis daily and became a nasty,delusional arsehole who ruined the last twenty years of my Mums life ,my daughters friend is on antipsychotic meds now ,after being sectioned due to cannabis induced psychosis …so no cannabis is potentially a very dangerous drug and also leads on to further drug use .

Not sure why you quoted me. Your post doesn't seem to relate to mine - the point of which was nuance and the problem of over-reaching. Ironic. It really does render conversation pointless.

That’s such a shitty ablest thing to say. Some of us have life-limiting disabilities or illnesses I can tell you’ve never experienced, and I hope you never do. Imagine waking up in pain, going to bed in pain, and every minute of every day you are in pain. It wears you down and genuinely makes it feel life isn’t worth living anymore. Those of us who take medication regularly aren’t doing it to get high, we’re doing it because it makes our lives bearable. If some people get that relief from cannabis, I don’t really think it’s right to compare them to a heroin addict, I mean, FFS.

my brother drinks daily and much the same happened.

@Orland0

InAnotherUniverse
Surely it's the same as being a heroin mainliner? Medicine uses drugs like morphine intravenously for surgical procedures and it is thoroughly appropriate for short-term pain relief but not okay to take home and shoot up every weekend for fun.

That’s such a shitty ablest thing to say. Some of us have life-limiting disabilities or illnesses I can tell you’ve never experienced, and I hope you never do. Imagine waking up in pain, going to bed in pain, and every minute of every day you are in pain. It wears you down and genuinely makes it feel life isn’t worth living anymore. Those of us who take medication regularly aren’t doing it to get high, we’re doing it because it makes our lives bearable. If some people get that relief from cannabis, I don’t really think it’s right to compare them to a heroin addict, I mean, FFS.

You haven't read my post properly. I am saying it is APPROPRIATE for medical use of opiates. It doesn't make people heroin addicts which is NOT appropriate use. Medical use is vastly different to recreational use.

Now, if you reread what I wrote, with that in mind, how do you feel now? It legitimises someone like you having it for your medical benefit. As it happens, I have MS which is something people find cannabis helps tremendously. I also have nursing experience of giving people intravenous opiates which terrified a lot of people because they didn't want to feel like heroin mainliners. My point is, it's completely different.

Where does that leave me then? I've got rheumatoid arthritis and the NHS's answer is to give me enough codeine to sink a small battleship on a monthly basis. OK, I'm not maintaining heroin but not that far away from it.
Cannabis is a damn sight safer than prescription opiates yet can only be accessed (legally) by those who can afford to spend £100 per month at the Curaleaf clinic. I'd like to see.permission for people to grow 3 or so plants for their own use.

Commiserations, pain is exhausting.

But a prescription for cannabis is potentially just as good as codeine or maybe even more beneficial, but I wouldn't expect you to go though sourcing opiate based anything instead of going through the medical route.

They used to say that with heroin, when a person takes it, and doesn't need it for pain relief, it works entirely in a different way. The fact a drug-user is not in (medical) pain but take opiates 'recreationally' (or to dull emotional pain - but that's a whole other topic), then it creates the euphoria that counter-drugs like naloxone would block, but if it's to stop your broken left hurting after surgery then it's used up on the pain receptors. Maybe cannabis is the same? It's reasonable to think it might be. So for recreational use it's a no-no but for medicinal use for epilepsy, MS and Parkinson's etc, then it's possible the same picture as an opiate.

@InAnotherUniverse good name you have there, very literal.
No, it is not line "mainlining heroin". I am not Zammo. Codeine is a horrific drug imo and it makes me very ill.

What people do not understand about cannabis is that it relieves the pain to a large extent, but also makes me not give a fuck about the pain, which is the real bliss.

I'm also given enough codeine to sink an army. Codeine metabolises into morphine in the liver (in most people), so it's socially acceptable for me to be piling morphine down my beak!

I'd love to be like my Canadian friend who can just buy a packet in the shop if she feels like it. She's a normal functioning member of society, so it evidently does her no harm.

I really need to be using it every day, but that's too expensive when I already can't work. I have to pay a fortune if I want anything like the quality she gets. I paid £70 for an eighth (not a lot) of imported cannabis recently. Or I can pay through the nose for private treatment. Or I can take my chances with whatever has been bred by the dealers. People don't always seem to acknowledge this is a plant that can and has been modified underground for excessive THC strength.

Society certainly hasn't broken down where it is available for purchase, certainly not to such a devastating effect that I'm hearing about it. To be honest, I see a lot of people in those countries say they have really seen the benefits.

There's no need to start getting personal about either me, or my username.

I'm sorry you are in pain and I didn't say medical use is like mainlining. My point is, for the third time, if it is used medicinally then it's probably like the difference between mainlining heroin and having post op surgical IV morphine.

Please! Read what I actually say and don't jump to incorrect interpretations!

Absolutely yanbu. In my personal life I've never known anyone who smokes it to be successful in any which way. I had an ex who got drug induced psychosis from it in his mid 20s. You never know the impact it's going to have on the individual so best to steer clear