Maybe that should have been a clue that you should have stopped. What a circus freak !
Posted on 01/26/2004 2:36:49 PM PST by quidnunc
As David Blunkett contemplates the chaos and fury triggered by his decision to downgrade the law on cannabis, he could do worse than consider the case of Dominique Lansdowne.
Eleven years ago, when she was 18, the former care assistant from Swindon started smoking cannabis once a week. ‘After a couple of weeks, I found it was addictive’, she said. ‘As soon as you start you get the feeling you’re completely relaxed and calm, but then you crave it. I used it more and more until I was smoking it every day. Then I couldn’t work because I was too stoned all the time. I was so paranoid I couldn’t leave the house.
‘I haven’t worked for the past six years. I lost all my friends and nearly lost my family. I couldn’t afford to pay my mortgage, my house was repossessed, I had to live in a hostel. I was in hospital three times, and couldn’t cope at all in the community. I had no social skills left. My life was in tatters. I didn’t stop completely until two years ago.
‘I still take anti-psychotics, antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, and will probably have to take medication for the rest of my life. I’m positive cannabis was the cause; I became paranoid as soon as I started smoking it. I’ve known hundreds of people who smoke it; all of them have some kind of paranoia or a problem, whether they recognise it or not.’
All of which makes it truly extraordinary that this Thursday, cannabis will be downgraded from a class B to a class C drug.
The Home Secretary’s move has delighted the drug legalisers — but astonished and horrified those like Dominique, who know the truth about its effects.
Tory leader Michael Howard has boldly declared that a future Conservative government will reverse the policy. Yet Mr Blunkett’s so called ‘reform’ has already caused many people mistakenly to believe cannabis is now legal or safe to use.
Despite ministers’ desperate insistence that it remains illegal and dangerous, putting cannabis in the same category as slimming pills, painkillers, tranquillisers and anabolic steroids sends the inescapable signal that it is not very dangerous after all.
Dominique Lansdowne knows what nonsense this is. Before she used cannabis, she had not even smoked tobacco; afterwards she also tried speed, LSD and ecstasy. ‘I would never have touched hard drugs if I hadn’t taken cannabis. Reclassification is really dreadful and sad because the government is saying cannabis isn’t that bad and so people are going to take it thinking it’s not going to do them any harm.’
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at melaniephillips.com ...
Of the drugs correlated with schizophrenia alcohol is by far numero uno, but pot is right up there. I'd guess in both cases the fact that both are much more widely available than other drugs of abuse may skew the numbers. I worked for a brief time in the mental health treatment field, and I can testify that giving a disturbed person any recreational drug is likely to make them worse. Which shouldn't be a revelation to anybody...
I agree. The scientists interviewed for the article were pretty clear that the causal realtionship is specifically between cannibis and mental illness, as opposed to the broader catagory of substance abuse.
As far as direct references go I found this one with no problem An Interview with Dr Nadia Solowij , and there are plenty of others available.
Islam has a strong murderological base... ACT LIKE YOU BELIEVE IT OR DIE!... so most act, to do less is to be ostracized by your family and friends OR WORSE... Islam is organized chaos.
IN ISLAM--->> NO(bibical)SIN, NO responsiblty, NO real Law, No PITY, NO Mercy, NO Love, NO goodness, NO rightousness, NOthing HOLY.. basically just a gaggle of ruminations.. little wonder Islam and Sharia law are just a hyperbolic (mostly) con job by Mullahs puffing themselves up like scared cats.. proveing themselves by drinking camel piss( and worse) as Mohamaad demanded.. Islam is SO nasty most western minds can't even GRASP the whole of it all.. well, maybe Bill Clinton... Nah! its even beyond Klintoon..
Ayatollah Khomeini taught the proper way to have sex with babies and to perform beasitality CORRECTLY, a seriously sick individual, a TRUE BELIVER...
I think, to cut through all the wild claims on both sides, that pot is a mild psychoactive and a highly amusing diversion if playing with perception amuses you. For most people most of the time it's relatively harmless. For some people it seems to be habituating, for others it seems to precipitate conditions of real mental instability.
I used it for some time and no longer do because it became boring. Didn't find it difficult at all to give it up. That's a sample size of one, so it's entirely anecdotal. But it's the truth. Could it tip someone who's already unstable over the edge? My guess would be yes, it is a psychoactive. So it isn't either perfectly safe or a straight line to perdition, it, like practically anything else you put in your body, is somewhere in between. Just my $.02.
Actually it's not. I know of many people who were effected by pot EXACTLY as the article describes. And I smoked pot regularly for over 20 years.
In fact now that I am turning 50, my friends who are still smoking pot exhibit the symptoms described in this article more and more.
I don't see where occasionally smoking pot is any big deal, but regular use can and does screw up people mentally and emotionally.
"In Australia, around one third of schizophrenia patients are daily users of cannabis, and such usage is known to exacerbate psychotic symptoms and lead to more frequent relapse episodes.
Research has also shown that long term heavy use of cannabis in people not affected by schizophrenia produces problems in memory, attention and motivation. As these are some of the attributes affected by the 'negative' symptoms of schizophrenia, a direct link is indicated between the effects of the drug and the illness." -NISAD Schizophrenia Research March 2003
I found this at the BMJ website More evidence establishes clear link between use of cannabis and psychiatric illness
how hard were you looking?
did you read the article or just the first few pargraphs?
From the study you kindly linked:
Whether the use of cannabis triggers the onset of schizophrenia or depression in otherwise vulnerable people or whether it actually causes these conditions in non-predisposed people is not yet resolved.
Roughly the same about depression. It's pretty much what I suspected. Thanks!
Maybe that should have been a clue that you should have stopped. What a circus freak !
I found a bunch. I don't see how some of can find thousands and you can't find any.
I've seen about everything but heroin so I don't think you're right.
I'm implying that the same devastating effects can occur with alcohol... and much like many people can drink without ruining their lives, many people can smoke pot without ruining their lives.
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