[| I, CWAS |]

What a sad occurence. It has also been pointed out, years ago, that they use Alcohol and Tobacco to self medicate, so it shows they pretty much use anything.

The link between mental illness and marijuana is well explored now, but a new study from the University of Melbourne has found a further link - that marijuana users often self-medicate with the drug to offset the effects of mental illness.

Researchers says it's a 'vicious cycle' that many users find impossible to break.

Michael Edwards has this report.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Normally, a diagnosis of mental illness will require pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors to treat.

But a new study from the University of Melbourne has tracked an alarming trend - that many cannabis users who've developed mental problems still rely on marijuana to help them cope with their condition.

LEANNE HIDES: We found that young people who were using cannabis were more likely to have another episode or a psychotic relapse, and that those whose psychotic symptoms increased were more likely to have a relapse in cannabis use.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Dr Leanne Hides conducted the study, which has been published in the latest British Journal of Psychiatry.

It tracked 81 people, mostly single unemployed men in their early 20s, who were heavy users of marijuana and had developed a mental illness.

She says the relationship between marijuana use and mental illness, particularly schizophrenia, is a vicious cycle.

LEANNE HIDES: It's a chicken and egg thing. We're not really sure which comes first. There's pretty good evidence that people will start smoking cannabis before they develop psychosis, but people who've already got a psychotic disorder pretty much report that cannabis use makes them feel better, so it makes them less depressed and anxious, but there's a trade-off there in terms of they're more likely to have more positive psychotic symptoms like delusions and hallucinations if they do smoke the drug.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Dr Iain McGregor is a Professor of Psycho-Pharmacology at the University of Sydney. He says self-medication drives a lot of drug abuse.

IAIN MCGREGOR: I think there's still an element out there for our drug use as seen as some kind of moral weakness, and I think we do lead very stressful lives, and it's very common in Australia to end the week with a beer and start the week with a big jolt of caffeine.

So I think we're all regulating our moods to a large extent by the use of pharmacological substances both legal and illegal.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: But the real problem Dr Leanne Hides found in her study is that it doesn't take much 'self medication' with marijuana to trip off real psychotic relapses.

LEANNE HIDES: We found that for each extra day of cannabis use in a one-week period, the risk of that young person having another psychotic episode went up by 6.4 per cent. But we also found that within a one-week period, if the young person's severity of their psychotic symptoms like delusions and hallucinations went up, their risk of having a relapse in cannabis use also went up 2.5 per cent.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Professor McGregor says links between marijuana use and mental illness have been the subject of research for the past two decades.

IAIN MCGREGOR: In terms of where we're at now, I guess we would say most definitely that if you have a family history of schizophrenia, or if you're already psychotic, it's a very bad idea to smoke cannabis, cause that will exacerbate the condition.

But for people who don't have a history of psychosis, it's still very uncertain whether even heavy cannabis use will precipitate a psychotic state.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Dr Hides says young people can't afford to take risks when it comes to marijuana use.

LEANNE HIDES: I think there's an important public health message for young people out there who are using cannabis. I mean, it starts in your early teens, about, if perhaps you have a family history of psychosis, you need to be careful about the impact it has on you, and that young people who've had a psychotic episode, we could do some early intervention around their cannabis use to ensure they don't have another episode.

PAUL LOCKYER: Dr Leanne Hides in that report from Michael Edwards

Source

[Avatan]

The link between mental illness and marijuana is well explored now, but a new study from the University of Melbourne has found a further link - that marijuana users often self-medicate with the drug to offset the effects of mental illness.

LEANNE HIDES: We found that young people who were using cannabis were more likely to have another episode or a psychotic relapse, and that those whose psychotic symptoms increased were more likely to have a relapse in cannabis use.

It's Reefer Madness all over again!

And let me tell you, 10 years of sustained use has turned me into a depressed, psychotic, unstable individual...

Who has 2 kids, a $30 / hour job and enjoys flying kites.

This evidence is all meaningless I,CWAS, becuase you're using these findings out of context. Alcohol is completely legal and causes substantially more mental and physical damage to the user, and alters your mental state to the point where violence is a very common final effect. You seem bent on tacking this social ill while ignoring the mass proliferation of cigarettes and alcohol, both of which create dependance and cause death far more easily than marijuana.

Your arguments are from the warped perspective of a conservative authoritarian who promotes the regulation of this specific human behavior, while completely ignoring the real enemies of human health and well being.

Your goal, by consolidating this evidence in this manner, is clearly to enforce the old white American doctrine of "Outlaw drugs and control the minorities by proxy". You're buying into an authoritarian mechanism that lies in order to sustain it's own lies. But... that's probably becuase you've never actually smoked pot. And you likely never will... becuase the fear of the unknown is what rules your conciousness.

Quite sad really... to constantly judge something you know nothing about in order to promote the government's standing system... which sends potheads to prison for the same amount of time as sex offenders in some states while drunk drivers who can potentially (and do) kill hundreds of people every year have their licenses revoked and must attend a class which teaches them nothing unless they want to listen.

You should use your intellect to enforce good laws and rational enforcement of regulatory behavioral traditions rather than attacking what is possible the most benign of all consumed intoxicants.

[chearn73]

"they"?

I suffer mental illness. I don't smoke marijuana. I take prescription pills. Those pills have alot of horrid side effects. I take them because I need to. Others do self medicate. Marijuana has less side effects so I don't blame people for using at ALL. The problem is not so much the drug itself, it's the times that it is taken, the dosages, etc. The inconsistency.