Posted on 07/02/2021 5:54:15 PM PDT by nickcarraway
A dietary supplement — NAC — is showing promise in helping pot addicts overcome the urge to smoke.
When it comes to substance use disorders, alcohol use takes the greatest toll, both in dollars and health problems.
But marijuana addiction is a growing concern, for a couple of reasons. There may be more users. Pot is now legal in three American states and Canada’s new Liberal government plans to legalize and regulate it.
And the level of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is now so high, experts worry pot smoking will have worse consequences in the future, especially for young people, whose brains are still developing. Pot smokers who start in their teens and now smoke daily, have a 25-50 per cent chance of developing addiction.*
Now a popular dietary supplement is being investigated for its ability to curb pot addiction. It’s called NAC — N-acetyl-cysteine. Mike Pond and Maureen Palmer discovered it while making their film, Wasted. Maureen explains how it works.
*Source: Is marijuana addictive?
This was from 5 years ago.
They are Canadian, given them a break.
If the brain chems are off, THC can exacerbate the psychosis. Many don’t get diagnosed until later in life after the self-medicting kicks in (before the intervention) many cases are uncovered in behaviour treatment facilities after a DUI or other relative incident forces confinement. BTW, it’s a revolving door and very temporarý in duration.
Did you read the conclusions?
“ CONCLUSION
We have examined the neurobiological changes due to cannabis to see if these changes are similar to those seen in schizophrenic patients the findings show strange similarities; however, none of these studies have been able to establish a possible long-term longitudinal course for these changes. These mere similarities cannot establish a ‘cause-effect’ relationship, since a number of people with similar changes do not develop schizophrenia. Therefore, the ‘transition-to-psychosis’ due to cannabis, despite it being a strong risk factor, remains uncertain based upon neurobiological changes. It appears that multiple other factors might be involved in these processes which are beyond neurobiological factors. Major advances have been made in understanding the underpinning of marijuana dependence and the role of the CNS cannabinoid system, which is a major area for targeting medications to treat marijuana withdrawal and dependence, as well as other addictions is of now, it is clear that some of the similarities in neurobiology of cannabis and schizophrenia may indicate a mechanism for development of psychosis but its trajectories are undetermined.”
So your definitive statement is absolute BS.
They’re the worst.
“In reality, accurately tracking psychosis cases is impossible in the United States...Nor do any of these studies prove that rising cannabis use has caused population-wide increases in psychosis or other mental illness. The most that can be said is that they offer intriguing evidence of a link.”
Everybody get that? Tracking is impossible…none of these studies prove…at most there is intriguing evidence of a link.
I don’t care how the worthy I thought the cause, I’d be ashamed to accept crap like this as science.
Before the use of the drug was widespread—say, the early sixties and before—there were plenty of schizophrenics and plenty of mental hospitals to hold them. Now suddenly pot causes schizophrenia? What caused schizophrenia before a lot of people used pot?
My cousin had it for almost 50 years.
I can show you 100 psychos walking around outside my office building who can show you otherwise.
Rates of mental illness were a small fraction of what they are today.
Bobby socks and white t-shirts.
I’m confused: There’s another post arguing that it was removed as a treatment for the virus. Never heard of this drug before.
Gonna have to do some homework...
EVERY recreational pot user I’ve ever met was a lib.
‘Splains everything :)
When I lived in Berkeley I regularly ran into people who argued tobacco should be banned as harmful but smoking dope was perfectly fine. You could buy any drugs you wanted in Berkeley. Large percentage of inhabitants were nut cases.
Color me shocked. /s
No, you cited an article you did not read.
That is quite disingenuous. Why should we believe anything you write on this subject? It’s OK to have an opinion. But why would you cite a research paper without reading the damned thing. Or at least scroll down to the conclusion?
There is a wealth of studies out there saying the same thing. It’s settled science.
You guys knock this off. You're going to hurt FR's resident dope addicts/libertarians cause they've infested FR totally pushing their pro drug agenda.
They're actually "pro" many more unAmerican things but wouldn't be allowed to stay here if they were honest.
You’re gonna make FR’s libertarians all upset since that’s their only purpose for infesting this place. They’re like cockroaches, spreading their pro drug filth everywhere they go.
Settled science?
What, like global warming?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.