Posted on 02/13/2019 8:55:29 AM PST by fishtank
Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence
January 2019 • Volume 48, Number 1 • Alex Berenson
Alex Berenson
"Seventy miles northwest of New York City is a hospital that looks like a prison, its drab brick buildings wrapped in layers of fencing and barbed wire. This grim facility is called the Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Institute. It’s one of three places the state of New York sends the criminally mentally ill—defendants judged not guilty by reason of insanity.
Until recently, my wife Jackie—Dr. Jacqueline Berenson—was a senior psychiatrist there. Many of Mid-Hudson’s 300 patients are killers and arsonists. At least one is a cannibal. Most have been diagnosed with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia that provoked them to violence against family members or strangers.
A couple of years ago, Jackie was telling me about a patient. In passing, she said something like, Of course he’d been smoking pot his whole life.
Of course? I said.
Yes, they all smoke.
So marijuana causes schizophrenia?
I was surprised, to say the least. I tended to be a libertarian on drugs."
(Excerpt) Read more at imprimis.hillsdale.edu ...
To all the Libertarians, on this board and elsewhere ...
Meet my Big Fat “I TOLD YOU SO!”
“Reefer Madness” is to marijuana use, what McCarthyism was to communism...
Since the collapse of the USSR we know that McCarthy was largely right about communism in the West, if slightly exaggerated.
With the piles of medical literature cited in the story, we can know historic warnings against marijuana use are largely right, if slightly exaggerated.
Once again, common sense shows itself correct.
You get the same reaction from the pro-booze crowd. What’s your point?
I would ask the same question.
Well said.
So marijuana causes schizophrenia?
No, that's correlation-is-causation junk science.
But its precise legal status is far less important than making sure that anyone who uses it is aware of its risks.
That I'm on board with - failure to disclose known risks is fraud.
So the pro pot argument is that crazy people shouldn’t smoke pot, but it’s ok for everyone else. So anyone just a bit off kilter, pot sends them off the deep end. But the perfectly sane, if that’s possible, are immune. Sounds a little hazy.
Much of the medical literature is dominated by goal-seeking fraud, sponsored by prohibitionists in government and competitors in the alcohol and pharmaceutical industries (and in the original, the paper industry). It can’t be believed any more than fake news, or “climate change” nonsense.
The fact that people who make it to the top of society are quite often pot smokers is conclusive proof that it is not anywhere near as dangerous as prohibitionists claim. Contrast to, say, heroin, where the only people who made it to the top who use it are now-elderly rock stars from a previous era.
"just a bit"? Who said that?
I read the article but it’s not clear on whether pot caused the crazy, or people with the crazy are trying to medicate it with the pot. Further studies will hopefully give a more clear picture.
I’d be curious to know if the number of people diagnosed with the crazy has increased as much as pot use has increased.
Of course? I said.
Yes, they all smoke.
So marijuana causes schizophrenia?
I actually have a cousin that has drug induced Schizophrenia.
He started abusing drugs before adolescence.
He started by stealing his mothers meds. Then in high school started smoking pot.
He started showing signs of mental illness in his mid teens.
He was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his mid twenties after trying to kill his live in girlfriend.
After an exhaustive review, the National Academy of Medicine found in 2017 that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Also that “regular cannabis use is likely to increase the risk for developing social anxiety disorder.”
But, does the teen or pre-teen developing mental illness have drug seeking behavior as a part of this developing mental illness? It is commonly accepted in the medical community that people with mental illness frequently self-medicate.
I think my cousin’s case is possibly indicative of this possibility.
Also, you can not compare the effects of cannabis on the developing brain of a teen to the effects on a mature adult brain. The teen brain is still undergoing physical structural changes. Cannabis use may be impacting that change where an already mature brain would not be changed.
According to this latter study, 7.5 percent of adults age 18-25 met the criteria for serious mental illness in 2017, double the rate in 2008. What’s especially striking is that adolescents age 12-17 don’t show these increases in cannabis use and severe mental illness.
Just so happens that 18-25 is the prime age for the onset of schizophrenia. As NobleFree almost said correlation does not equal causation. The use of cannabis may or may not have caused Schizophrenia in the teens. The use of cannabis may have been a trigger to an underlying propensity for Schizophrenia. We can not know.
Spot on.
They do if they have the level of "diversity" that the US does, forcing incompatible groups into close association. Real science shows that "diversity" causes unrest and violence, precisely the opposite of what is claimed by those pushing hardest for it.
If you’re one of the people who wouldn’t have minded destroying my brain in high school -
no thank you.
With 200 trillion solder points the human brain is the most complex mechanism in the known universe. Everyone knows playing around with its complex communication chemistry will almost certainly cause permanent damage of some kind, as will publicly defending doing so.
I never heard of a pro-booze crowd. No one hops up and down hysterically when the subject of alcohol comes up. Never seen it, never read it, never heard of it. It is a particular druggie thing. I remember a talk-radio show on the subject and an obvious stoner called in and started yelling he had smoked pot every day for the past 20 years and he KNOWS you can’t get addicted. I don’t think drunks are that stupid. And no, they guy wasn’t being sarcastic. And yes, I know it’s a single incident but it typifies the typical “you’re just mimicking reefer madness” post from druggies.
Rational conversations with prohibitionists are impossible because prohibition is extremely irrational.
Rational people react poorly to anti-cannabis propaganda because people just don’t like being lied to or being slandered as “druggies” for not buying into it. The ad hominem serves to solidify the impression that prohibitionists are every bit as dishonest as any other leftist.
—
There you go again, with your druggie hysteria. “Reefer madness! Reefer madness! Reefer madness!”
I’ve been in FR since just after 9/11 and never once, not a single time, advocated drug laws or making any drug illegal.
You see what you do? I try to talk about the dangers of pot to the brain, especially to the adolescent brain, and it’s instantly “Reefer madness! Reefer madness! Reefer madness!”
Just like a leftist.
It’s impossible for us to have a rational conversation with an addict. We all have known an addict. Alcoholic. Drugs. Maybe gambling.
They’re devoted to their addiction. That’s all that matter to them.
—
Are you implying that pot can be addictive.
Boy, you are really opening yourself up to some hysterical reactions.
“Reefer madness! Reefer madness! Reefer madness!”
Pretty well said.
Between the alcoholics and drug users, this society is going down the drain fast. I’m not even including leftists in my point either.
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