Prenatal cannabis exposure associated with mental disorders in children
nih.gov
nih.gov
Or even worse, "it's nothing but beneficial!". And yes, I'm a semi-regular "user"
For cannabis I find the attitude pretty scary, having been a daily user myself several times (including now) and dealing with the side effects. It does have negatives. I would hate for everyone to have to learn that the hard way or for them to misidentify the causes, though even those side effects are pretty mild - some are acutely bad like CHS but it’s more the mild anhedonia as you sober up that I think is the worst.
For psychedelics, having dabbled myself, I can confidently say the worst case scenario is very bad and often not talked about. A bad trip can be an intensely traumatic experience. I think it would be possible to get PTSD from such an experience. Ironically my own bad trip was precipitated by lighting up a bowl about 5 hours after taking LSD.
I won’t go so far as to say it’s addictive for everyone but it’s is incredibly addictive for me.
Daily symptoms include:
* wake up more tired
* wake up with mild morning sickness
* wake up a bit foggy
* higher tolerance to caffeine
* less general stamina
* memory a notch worse in general
* less energy for physical activities
* increased anxiety while sober
* slightly higher sense of paranoia/conspiracy
—-
Notably I consume only edibles and tinctures, which I think is the driving factor for the mild morning sickness.
At my peak of consumption I also had it mildly with morning nausea. Though at the time I wasn’t using edibles or tinctures at all, almost exclusively oil cartridges.
I currently only use legal D8, D0, and broad spectrum hemp CBD/CBG/etc. tinctures and edibles. Not daily, maybe 2-3 times a week, after work or on weekends. I mix the three, with a small amount of D0, maybe 5-10mg, maybe 35mg D8, and the broad spectrum to near excess. My experience of your symptom list:
* wake up more tired - If I'm up too late (like I am now) the grogginess can be worse.
* wake up with mild morning sickness - Not the stomach thing that people tend to talk about. I even have to take some pretty nausea inducing medications each morning and even those don't give me nausea. Strong stomach, I guess.
* wake up a bit foggy - Sometimes, especially if I take too much tincture, I have a bit of fog and things "glow". A bit like the afterglow of a psychedelic trip in terms of the way everything seems kind of bright and fuzzy and pleasant and I feel a bit dull.
* higher tolerance to caffeine - Hadn't noticed this one explicitly, but I think I have been having two coffees or energy drinks more often since I started using again in the past couple of years.
* less general stamina - I don't get this one, though I think I'm less apt to use the stamina. Physically or mentally it is no problem compared to not using I think.
* memory a notch worse in general - Definitely true. Most noticeable when watching Jeopardy. I totally failed tonight's Knighted Actors category, only getting Sean Connery, when I absolutely knew and could see the faces of the other 4 answers, but just could not come up with their names. It doesn't seem to affect me much in my work - I definitely think the perspective shift and enabling of more creative and abstract and unusual thinking is a net positive despite the minor memory drawbacks.
* less energy for physical activities - I actually find it enhances my desire to do physical activities. Lifting and cycling are both greatly enhanced experiences for me when under the influence, I find.
* increased anxiety while sober - Don't really get this, except perhaps when I drink too much caffeine.
* slightly higher sense of paranoia/conspiracy - Well, my baseline (see intro paragraph...think "holy shit the government is going to assassinate me and is talking about it openly on television") for this is so abjectly high that I don't notice it at all, or I do notice it briefly while pursuing some random stoned line of thought and laugh at the absurdity.
I have definitely come to a point where I can see myself in others usage and it’s clearer to me that while all it’s ‘benefits’ are something great the key is to finding how to bring that into reality without having to invest it.
There's been some interesting research that for most drugs, effects are heavily mediated by expectation - if you don't expect to enjoy it, you almost certainly won't, and the effect it has on you is likewise very learned - there are many cultures where they don't believe alcohol makes you more social, for instance, and where consequently, it doesn't.
But psychedelics are the big exception. They really do "work". But the flip side of that while you may get a wonderful experience despite not expecting one, you may also get a very bad one. And "guidance" isn't reliable in avoiding it, precisely because it's not expectation driven like other drugs.
Given the (bonkers IMHO) profit motive of the US medical industry, I suspect the latter, though I'd be interested to hear from those with experience.
[1] Given some of the stuff I've read online, I'm pretty sure they would prescribe cannabis for an ingrowing toenail if you asked.
It required a prescription, so doctors were saying to take it, so it gives it more of a vener of safety.
Plus it’s not like it wasn’t readily available for people to try before.
People are actively marketing it as a pseudo-medical treatment (like OTC drugs, or vitamins), beyond the medicinal designation. I searched for a random dispensary in Watertown MA, and clicked the first edible on their site [1]. The description of the item is below…
> Go plant-based pills use an optimal blend of plant medicines, caffeine, and cannabis to create an all-natural performance enhancer for your brain and body. Go’s key ingredients increase blood flow to the brain and body in order to boost mental and physical energy and stamina.
This is not at all uncommon to find at various dispensaries and products. Even for products that don’t have additives (as the above one appears to). If you google “cannabis cure cancer” or “cannabis cure X” you;lol find countless thought pieces about how theres new evidence from one random trial that may blow open the door to curing whatever with cannabis. It’s got a very eastern-medicine meets wives-tales meets snake oil vibe.
[1] https://watertown-adult.ethoscannabis.com/stores/Ethos-Water...
Beyond that when the idiocy of such claims are laid bare and it is evident that it was an insane, designed to scare, mountain of evidence-free lies "for the greater good - if we save even one child...", people stop believing what is said by "authority" on a kind of wholesale basis. Can you blame them? "Weed is a healthfood" isn't really much worse than the just say no truth disaster. People made money out of both sets of lies as well.
The pandemic really laid it in stark relief the amount of "authority propagated claims" that were actually wholly evidence-free and the lack of critical assessment of evidence by such authority (remember the "masks don't work, can't be transmitted through the air" line sprouted by people in white coats with PhD after their name claiming "the science"? Be they WHO, Fauci, NHS and all the rest of them?) We all actually had to go and do all that assessment of evidence and probability for ourselves because the authority was both lying and incompetent. No doubt many of us got our assessment "wrong" in avoidable ways if the highly trained had not also decided to "lie for the greater good" and merely stated what was known with the appropriate estimate of its certainty. [1]
It's always a mistake to knowingly tell lies leaning on the podium of authority, the interest always comes due and the rate is more than just unreasonably steep.
How bad is this one going to be? The incarceration level is bad enough by itself.
"What's the evidence for that?" When this provokes anger rather than being directed to published results, it's time to be /very/ suspicious. There hasn't ever been a reckoning for those who claimed authority to repeat lies, demanding their resignation at the minimum seems appropriate.
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...
Decades of trained and qualified anointed robe wearing doctors and scientific researchers believing and repeating something in a textbook, copied from another textbook which got it from a grandparent textbook and never actually asked "what is the evidence in support of that? Where are the studies and replications?" It's really sobering. Do you think the places where you go indoors have updated their airflow accordingly yet? Do we have government minimum standards in building codes yet or even "in the pipeline?" Will you believe "authority" next crisis?
This is something I've seen too. There are people that are pro-medical cannabis because of it's miraculous uses to the point of only using different forms of cannabis in lieu of any other medication. While I believe there's some things cannabis is great for, but I'm not convinced it's that magical. Since we've been prevented from studying it properly because of bullshit laws, we've got some things to look into still.
Of course, it took decades to get people to acknowledge that the harms of some drugs were far less than the harm caused by policing them, and that the harms had been wildly exaggerated for political reasons, so it's not really surprising that people will jump to deny any harm in case it gets banned again.
I suggest this binary positioning is a very American phenomenon; the cultural reasons for which I'm unable to suggest a reason for.
It is possible to observe behaviour without knowing what causes it.
"I suggest drinking heavily is a very British phenomenon; the cultural reasons for which I'm unable to suggest a reason for either."
I really don't think so. Binary thinking is something I've personally noticed and thought about for a while, and I think it stems from the human brain just trying to simplify things. In most scenarios, it is far easier (and time efficient) to only consider the 2 extreme options rather than the entire spectrum of possible options, even if those two extremes are far worse than the alternatives.
Plus, I've seen Europeans do the same thing all the time [0]. Remember, polarization (which is really just an extension of tribalism imo) isn't an American condition, it's a human condition.
[0] I've lived in both the US and Europe
No I didn't type that. Your reading it that way is..... binary?
I think thought leaders know this which is why, for example, the woke cult doesn’t allow any disagreement with any piece of the transgender narrative.
It’s all or nothing because they’re afraid that allowing any disagreement will cause people’s binary thinking to switch to the other side.
sigh please don't use terms of abuse such as "woke cult" on HN.
And yes, people are being incredibly defensive because there are a number of misinformation campaigns circulating trying to get trans healthcare banned for everyone. The war on drugs, for testosterone and estrogen.
They are a cult. It’s a group of people who fervently worship an ideology filled with hatred, falsehoods, manipulation and deception. They even have original sin, and excommunication.
All under the guise of protecting oppressed people.
However if they actually cared about the causes they claim, then they would try to make their ideas as easy to digest for the average sane person as possible. But it’s not actually about helping people, it’s about moral superiority and pushing people away who aren’t “pure” enough.
But for starters how about the idea that a trans-man doesn’t just identify as a man, but is a man. In other words, embracing delusion and denying biology.
Or how about girls feeling uncomfortable in their own bathrooms and locker rooms because a biological male is allowed in their safe space?
Or how about the stuff that’s just plain silly. Like this recent Men’s Health article where a straight man is told that his preference for a real vagina is actually a vulva fetish and that he’s actually bisexual since “technically” a woman and a trans-man can both have vulvas.
https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a41018711/sexplain-it-v...
I could honestly go on and on and on.
Done! Was that really so nuanced? No. It was not.
Also as a side note, hydrogen isn't a noble gas
What foods do you buy that do?
If it comes in a tin or a box, it is probably not good for you. Not all cases, but it is a good rule of thumb.
Palm oils are some of the most common fats found in prepared foods, especially foods that need solid fats at room temperatures. The majority of peanut butter preparations on shelves in the US have had all of their peanut oils removed and then replaced with palm oil for "better" texture and to prevent separation.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_oil#Nutrition_and_health
Let’s add to it how good fats can become bad through releasing free radicals, which happens at approximately the same temperature that a lot of animal fats are cooked at.
It's high in monounsaturated fats and studies found that various compounds in EVOO prevent the formation of free radicals, volatile organic compounds, aldehydes like formaldehyde, etc compared to other cooking oils.
One study looked at the use of frying oils over time, since the longer the oils are heated, the more they decompose into harmful compounds. EVOO won out on that, too, and significantly inhibited the creation of harmful products. This would be relevant for restaurants, which tend to reuse oils over long periods of time, or anyone that cooks big meals for themselves or others. If you're going to be standing over a pan cooking for hours at a time, it's worth reducing the amount of harmful compounds you'll inevitably breathe in.
Typically refined oils are preferred for frying because they can be used at higher temperatures, but I've found cooking with EVOO to be just fine, just don't cook things at temperatures where it might start smoking.
https://www.organicvalley.coop/products/butter/ghee/clarifie...
Its not they are adding palm oil to butter and ghee, it's the because palmitic acid is not unique to palm oil (well some unscrupulous producer do adulterate ghee with palm oil but let's not go there yet what I'm saying apply to pure ghee)
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Fatty-acid-profiles-of-g... 16:0 is the acid you're looking for.
I went searching just now out of curiosity and did find this one [1] which indeed affirms what you're saying.
Personally, I reach for ghee when I want a neutral oil (e.g., for cooking scrambled eggs). And, like you, I reach for some fancy EVOO for everything else. I have to confess my approach to get here was a lot less scientific though; I mostly settled on these two using the metric of deliciousness.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12090031
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15291498/
https://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e363
Pretty sure they're all on SciHub.
Here's some about heat, frying and other methods of cooking when it comes to creating mutagenic compounds:
https://www.marksdailyapple.com/safe-cooking-temperatures/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29911312
https://www.fda.gov/food/foodborneillnesscontaminants/chemic...
Last one is about acrylamide, which I believe there is little evidence to believe it's harmful (it's been a while since I've actually looked at studies on it), but I assume the conditions that produce it also end up producing compounds that can be harmful.
Some good interviews with food scientists, etc. Interesting for anyone wanting to learn a bit more on this subject.
I've swapped to using EVOO for most anything where it won't be too overpowering of a taste.
> Excess carbohydrates in the body are converted to palmitic acid. Palmitic acid is the first fatty acid produced during fatty acid synthesis and is the precursor to longer fatty acids. As a consequence, palmitic acid is a major body component of animals. In humans, one analysis found it to make up 21–30% (molar) of human depot fat,[16] and it is a major, but highly variable, lipid component of human breast milk
https://www.peanutbutter.com/peanut-butter/creamy
https://www.jif.com/peanut-butter/creamy/creamy-peanut-butte...
https://www.peanutbutter.com/peanut-butter-spread/natural-cr...
https://www.jif.com/peanut-butter/natural/creamy
Seems like a good time to remind people that if the oil is not domestic, it most likely comes in chemical tankers:
https://www.agflow.com/commodity-trading-101/a-guide-to-chem...
Your previous cargo might have been benzene or acrylonitrile.
- Baseline cholesterol levels
- Inflammation
- Genetic predisposition to heart disease / diabetes
- Types of fat and quantities consumed
- What else does your diet consist of
Edit: and these are just some risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. There's plenty more nuance still if we want to talk about quality of life, energy levels, digestive function etc...
There is hardly a back and forth here. Fat is essential and a lot of is not harmful.
The best you could do is to point out that heavily processed vegetable oils are harmful and probably give you too much omega-6. The cure? Just switch to things like olive oil and animal fats.
Compare this to sugar (also mentioned by the poster).. Which is... not essential to anything. Your body does not need it. It is actively harmful. Carbohydrates however can be fine, and fiber is good, but the particular kind of carbohydrate known as sugar (like the two molecular compounds more or less) are no bueno.
Quite a bit of research is available on the effects of cannabis use — the problem is that people don't read it.
More likely, they probably can't wade thru the noise to find it - search cannabis and health and be prepared to search thru hundreds, if not ten's of thousands of pages of propaganda claiming that it is nothing but good for almost any health condition you have - real or imagined.
Can you please tell me why you think heart rate is more concerning than the psychological effects? Effects which the paper itself mentions and you seem to downplay for some unobvious reason to me.
For me, the difficulty is discerning causation from correlation. Anecdotally I know plenty of cannabis users, and many of them have obvious mental issues. I am interested in knowing the root cause of mental issues, because then we are given the opportunity to affect behaviours to improve people’s lives. A correlation is often little help to anyone but other researchers.
I didn’t read the paper but the abstract didn’t allude to any insight into causation versus correlation. If an abstract of a paper ignores that issue, then I often don’t bother reading, because there is not enough value from studies measuring correlation (for my personal use for any information).
If there’s a causal link, I wonder in which direction is more common? I know kids from my neighborhood who now smoke a lot of weed. I think most of them had issues long before trying weed and weed was more of an escape for them, much like booze is for many.
Do they have actual, diagnosed "mental issues", or are you judging that some of their behavior is out of the norm for your experience and thus it must be a mental issue?
Yes, I have acquaintances and friends with no psychological problems that smoke weed. Also the same but don’t smoke.
Yes, I have acquaintances and friends with “undiagnosed” psychological problems that smoke weed. Also the same but don’t smoke.
No, I am not a professional psychological specialist.
Yes, I have some experiences to be able to make intelligent “non-professional” judgements about psychological problems. My definition of a psychological problem is one where the problem is seriously negatively affecting ones life, and ones skills are not successfully mitigating or correcting the problem. Environmental issues have a part to play in that. My friends and acquaintances have a wide range of ages.
You seem to be fishing for something - perhaps you could have just made your point instead (with caveats).
Disclaimer: I don’t use any form of THC or CBD. No strong reasons against it, just not my thing. I certainly have nothing against those that want or need to take THC or CBD.
By the way, labeling an undesirable group with "mental issues" has been done many times in the past, sometimes even with "good" intentions.
A well-designed study may be more revealing, but the individual experiences are legitimate and should not be discarded solely because studies are possible.
A strong enough signal will show in a sample of one.
With a correct model, cause and effect can be predicted without any samples (scientific progress often occurs this way).
And some people’s intuitions are remarkably astute. Albeit there are a lot of people who have incorrect intuitions and don’t know it.
A cannabis example would be strong paranoia after one sesh. More ingrained paranoia (qanon?) that I have seen linked to regular heavy usage doesn’t feel to me to be a stretch of the imagination.
The most adverse (proven) effects of Cannabis are:
* Frequent bronchitis (for people that smoke it)
* Risk of vehicle crashes
* Low pregnancy weight, preterm birth, NICU
* Mental health (associated risk of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, Cannabis use disorder)
* Impaired learning, memory, attention
* Drug-drug interaction (mostly for CBD - liver toxicity)
That’s the complete slide. Not once in the whole lecture were heart rate issues mentioned or asked about by the attendees.
As you can see, there are plenty of adverse effects, but heart-related issues are not one of the main concerns.
Do you have any sources for the research you mention and how concerning it is?
Aryana A, Williams MA. Marijuana as trigger of cardiovascular events: speculation or scientific certainty? Int J Cardiol 2007;118:141-4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcard.2006.08.001
Bachs L, Morland H. Acute cardiovascular fatalities following cannabis use. Forensic Sci Int 2001;124:200-3.
Cappelli F, Lazzeri C, Gensini GF, Valente S. Cannabis: a trigger for acute myocardial infarction? A case report. J Cardiovasc Med 2008;9:725-728.
Jones RT. Cardiovascular system effects of marijuana. J Clin Pharmacol 2002; 42(11 Suppl.):58S-63.
Sidney S. Cardiovascular consequences of marijuana use. J Clin Pharmacol 2002;42(11 Suppl.):64S-70S. (Found no association.)
Tormey WP. Royal College of Pathologists’ autopsy guidelines on sudden cardiac death: roles for cannabis, cotinine, NSAIDs and psychology. J Clin Pathol 2012;65:187-188.
so there's a starting place to look into it.
maybe the intervening 9 years have demonstrated that it isn't an issue.
Yep breathing combustion products is pretty bad for you.
> Risk of vehicle crashes
I'm not aware of any proponents of driving while high.
> Low pregnancy weight, preterm birth, NICU
Again, who's advocating for pregnant women to consume cannabis?
> Mental health (associated risk of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, Cannabis use disorder)
I think this is only for those already genetically predisposed to developing schizophrenia.
> Impaired learning, memory, attention
I'm not sure anyone thinks you should smoke a bunch of drugs before studying for finals.
Just for an ounce of perspective here.
> Again, who's advocating for pregnant women to consume cannabis?
I thought the comment was making clear what was considered a risk, not what is being advocated? People certainly do drive while under the effects of cannabis, I've known a few. I don't know anyone who consumed it while pregnant but I'm sure they do exist.
> I'm not sure anyone thinks you should smoke a bunch of drugs before studying for finals.
Again, I know people who've done this.
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/04/marijuana-hea....
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2021/11/08/cannabis-use-disord...
>Mental health (associated risk of schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, Cannabis use disorder)
Small but >1 ORs for a rare disorder like schizophrenia (base rate ~0.02%) sound scarier than they really are. Many recreational activities are associated with a similar increase in the risk of concussion (base rate ~1%), and yet they are actually recommended for general health. Correlation of recreational drug use with depression/anxiety has a causal direction problem.
Others in this thread have linked studies about the effects on the heart. It remains to be seen what the long-term risk profile is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabinoid_hyperemesis_syndro...
https://jmedicalcasereports.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11... (Edit: graphic images warning)
If you search PubMed, you will find case reports of other similar incidents. Now, no denying this is an extremely rare adverse effect, but still a quite frightening one. (Also worth stating, many of these reported cases of cannabis-induced psychotic penile self-amputation involve no known history of gender dysphoria.)
Also, my mother is a doctor, and when I was a teenager (even tweenager) I used to love to read her medical journals and textbooks–it has made me rather immune to the unsightly images they sometimes contain–although, interestingly, images which I can view nonchalantly in a medical context will still freak me out if divorced from that context.
In the case you link the guy had smoked weed for two years prior with no apparent issues. Yes his psychosis resolved after he stopped using cannabis, but he was also treated from that point onward with anti-psychotics (the kind you would treat schizophrenia with). It was probably the anti-psychotics, not the cannabis cessation that made him not psychotic.
Bottom line is there is no way for any individual to really know if they have latent schizophrenia anyway, and I think it’s a conveniently non-disprovable explanation for why psychedelics and cannabis aren’t bad.
I do think some people can have that "latent" potential yet have the good fortune of never activating it – and cannabis definitely has the potential to do so (although most recreational drugs probably can given sufficiently heavy long-term use).
(I tried cannabis once, years ago, I could see why people like it but I didn't feel any great urge to repeat the experience – and worries like this also discourage me – which is probably for the best.)
In this specific case, the authors started him on a treatment for schizophrenia and he got better. Why continue him on this treatment if they thought it was simply the cannabis that caused it (as he would abstain from then on). Also, they increased his dose prior to discharge.
I'm not arguing that cannabis didn't cause his schizophrenia, just that this doesn't sound like cannabis induced psychosis, which is a different diagnosis with different prognosis.
See this paper – Veeder TA, Leo RJ. Male genital self-mutilation: a systematic review of psychiatric disorders and psychosocial factors. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2017 Jan-Feb;44:43-50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.genhosppsych.2016.09.003 Epub 2016 Sep 14. PMID: 28041576.
To quote its abstract:
> Data were obtained from 173 cases: genital mutilation (n=21), penile amputation (n=62), castration (n=56) and combined amputation/castration (n=34). Common psychiatric disorders included schizophrenia spectrum (49%), substance use (18.5%), personality (15.9%) and gender dysphoric disorders (15.3%)
So, while it is almost 50% schizophrenia spectrum, substance use is the second most common cause (although personality disorders and gender dysphoria are not far behind, and the difference between the three might not be statistically significant.)
Every weed smoker I know is a drunk and when I used to smoke I drank along with it every single time.
I always laugh when I see this. Alcohol turns me into an introvert.
I'm usually a good conversationalist but stop talking as soon as I've had a couple.
That's right.
Okay then.
Have a good night!
you too
Alcohol binds to the GABA receptor mimicking GABA, hence providing a calming feeling. It allows people to feel less anxious in situations they might normally feel awkward. That is definitely not cultural.
Drinking regularly may desensitize your GABA receptors and hence cause a person to end up with more anxiety as a result of drinking. I rarely drink because I found it was exasperating my mental health issues.
Even emotional states such as happy, calm, afraid etc. are higher level phenomena that don't map nicely onto hormones and neurotransmitters. The same low-level signal may even be interpreted in different ways depending on circumstance. There's a classic experiment with niacin demonstrating this, but like so many old behaviour experiments, it's ignored in favour of more "white coat" neuroscience these days.
So I in fact need alcohol chemically, like psychiatrically, under limited conditions. Limited. I payed for and received medical advice, that when I went out and partied, make sure to take my medication with me and take it then too, alcohol is too risky for and deficit too much downside. It's synergistic sometimes.
I’m not saying this to say no accidents has been caused by cannibis, but that there’s currently no way to tell current level of cannabis intoxication. Authorities will use the lack of nuance in their favor.
Perhaps a car embedded in the second floor of a house?
> Cannibis can be in your system for weeks or months
and the levels of active compounds[1] in somebody recently using, vs someone months away from use look very different, and their nature will generally work to the benefit of the defendant when reviewed by a competent forensic toxicologist.
[1] - not a yes/no from shitty screening methods; that kind of information comes off of quarter-million dollar mass spectrometers. they should be able to separate all of the inactive and active compounds from each other, enumerate them and list their exact concentrations in the blood.
No.
You are confusing the tests for cannabis metabolites (that can tell if you smoked weeks ago) to tests for THC, the substance that gets you stoned and leaves the bloodstream as you sober up.
A driving impairment test will test for THC, not metabolites. Nobody cares if you smoked last week, only if you are under the influence when driving.
In the UK, having 2ug / litre of THC in the blood is a drug-driving offence. At a minimum you will loose your licence for 1 year.
So I can have up to 8ug of THC in my blood? If I took 0.1mg (100ug) of THC (and would be very NOT high in this case, as it is 1/100th of a "normal" dose) I would probably be over the limit in that case, so sure they may be able to test for THC in the blood, but the limit is so laughably low as to effectively ban cannabis users from driving.
This smells like teetotaling more than evidence-based discourse.
Somewhat related, but I'm still curious how they test marijuana intoxication level in drivers. Is there an equivalent BAC-type test, especially considering how long weed stays in the system?
No, "equivalent" here is general-purpose intoxication, not something calibrated to driving. Since the effects are so different, we should expect significantly different levels of driving impairment to be likely.
For where I say we're looking at general purpose vs. driving-specific, that just seems to me like the most reasonable statement they would have been making.
Of course irresponsible fools are taking advantage in a gap in the law to make short term profits.
I think there's a deeper problem here with the relationship between patient and doctor being undermined by a dysfunctional medical system, such that doctors can't spend any time with patients, patients can't afford to see doctors, and even when the stars align patients can't always rely on doctors to believe them and take them seriously. I think there's a reason why the particular empathetic and loving rhetoric of new-age bullshit is so appealing; it counters the sterile and often kafkaesque experience people have navigating the medical system.
I can totally imagine how much nicer it might be to drop by a friend-of-a-friend's house, in my neighborhood, where they give me a tarot reading, listen to my problems and validate my perspective, sell me something at a price that won't bankrupt me and that feels safe and natural, and they have all the time in the world to explain their theory on how it all works.
Obviously it matters whether or not the medication works and whether or not the provider knows what they're doing. But I think the problem is that there's a dysfunctional relationship here, not that law enforcement aren't cracking down sufficiently. And also that the people likely to have their lives turned upside down are losing money on the whole proposition, and are themselves just probably well-meaning people who are trying to hustle for a better life, and don't understand the harm they're causing.
And in places where pot is legalized, the illegal trade continues.
You should look closer at the risks of caffeine. Someone was in the news dying from an accidental ingestion of a large dose just a few days ago. And there’s been some evidence for a while now that high doses of caffeine in energy drinks can lead to delusional behavior.
Surely in the case of nuclear war it would never be found in the urinalysis of the one that started it.
do tell us more what you see
We need to treat pot like we treat alcohol or tobacco. It’s dangerous. People shouldn’t be using it.
What if their psychosis was triggered by decades of drug war propaganda?
I’ve had a relationship with this most intriguing of plants and that is what I have concluded at 45 years on this planet.
Any time I had used cannabis I felt like my IQ dropped 20-30 points and I would lose hours of my day where it was difficult for me to learn. It made doing household chores not terrible, but brought out a lot of panic inducing moments and erratic behavior. I was thinking about a 100k other things while doing one thing. Later on I realized I wasn't even doing that one thing so well. Anything that drops cognitive abilities for a moment is going to be awful long term and especially for babies.
I know a lot of people think cannabis isn't bad, but it is intellectually dishonest to disregard the broader effects of effects on cognition. I say that as someone who used to smoke a ton of cannabis.
Not having to rely on drugs to find calmness has made a profound change in my life, and I can't believe that I used to turn to weed, alcohol, etc. when all I needed to be permanently (key word) happy was already present within me. Prior, when the effects went away I spent just as much time craving and suffering heavily.
That being said I don't think it should be criminalized or anything like that. It is up to adults to do whatever, but it is useful to be honest as well. Not everyone uses it for epilepsy, none of the dispensaries here sell CBD products. Its all high THC products meant to "fuck you up"
What I’ve come to understand though is that for many other people, marijuana makes them feel great - sharp, alert, at ease and in control. I can empathize with the idea that “this can’t be bad!” even while acknowledging you’d have to be very deluded to smoke anything or consume any psychoactive drug while pregnant just because definitive proof of harm is lacking.
Many recreational drugs, including alcohol, make people feel that way. But not actually make them be that way.
I think the greatest problem with marijuana discourse is that it ignores the large variability in effects. For me, and apparently for you and for many others, the description above is exact (which I found entire extremely enjoyable, of course). For others it’s very different, allowing them to function completely normally.
But would lots of highly intelligent people avoid drugs during pregnancy thus skewing the sample of who has kids while using drugs?
Always thought I was "treating my anxiety" with weed. Nope, it absolutely was just making it worse. I quit for a few months and the anxiety got worse. Dad then died of a congenital heart condition. Symptoms of the heart condition mimic anxiety.
Took 9 years of doctors telling me "it was a fluke" my dad died of it/ that there's no way I had that condition showing symptoms in my 20's. That it was weed and smoking cigarettes. Finally had a doctor take me seriously. EKG showed nothing (Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia symptoms aren't just gonna show up on command). Got a 30 day halter monitor. Proved I have it and would've died within a few years without meds.
Got on heart meds and 80% of my anxiety dried up. Didn't really feel the need to smoke weed anymore outside of for fun.
Not trying to say everyone that can empathize with this post has IST - but, self medicating is real, and you need to advocate for yourself in medicine to try and get true care.
Every other month I do a Twitter thread on being a young adult with heart symptoms and not being taken seriously because of young age or smoking cigarettes, etc. We have a little club of 12 now - 11 people I've helped walk through the bullshit Byzantine procedures a young adult needs to go through to get a heart condition diagnosis. Always happy to walk anyone through the process who might see this post.
Basically shoots and ladders and logic puzzles with medical professionals to get your 30 day halter monitor - but it's so worth it for a diagnosis.
I don't really understand your explanation. In what way was the weed making things worse?
Obivously no drugs at would be the ideal. But often this kind of health stuff is about compromises.
This is a direct safety issue. I used to moderator one of the bigger cannabis subreddits and one of the bigger questions that always came up was whether it was safe to smoke while pregnant. The answer I always gave was that we just don't know, and so it should be avoided. The lack of research though meant that people couldn't make informed decisions, and the stereotype around cannabis being safe meant that people did not always err on the side of caution. Now there is something concrete we can point to.
What data do we have that indicates, that high sperm is bad?
As far as I know, none.
(A pregnant mother smoking is a whole different story)
My friend (a bit crazy) once told me he wondered the same thing when governments and pharmaceutical companies would say the Covid jab was safe for pregnant women. Or at least, that there was “no data” suggesting it is harmful.
I guess it is safe though, we now know
[1] https://www.unicef.org/montenegro/en/stories/vaccines-and-si...
You are a dozen times more likely to get the smoking lecture and hundreds of times more likely to get the booze lecture at any given time.
So the size of the effect will be less than what is claimed, but in any case don't use cannabis during pregnancy.
Mothers who get high during their pregnancy are different from mothers who don't.
A more informed one would be looking at women with seizures that are treated with cannabis and comparing them to women with the same disorder who aren't. There are still differences but they'd be smaller.
This isn't always the case, of course, but it's hard to judge what someone is going through from the outside so I tend to just give the benefit of the doubt. What would be nice would be if we could figure out why cannabis helps with these issues and provide a more direct treatment.
All of the women I know who are bipolar absolutely do not want to become pregnant because they would need to stop taking all of their medication.
A lot of this comes down to balancing risks- which is absolutely something that should be done while consulting a doctor. If someone is so nauseous they can't even maintain weight, let alone gain that healthy baby weight, then it's possible a small amount of marijuana may be more healthy for them despite the risks.
To be clear though I'm just advocating a lot more research on the subject, and personally would err on the side of caution when it comes to things that aren't heavily researched.
I find if I have alcohol early in the day enough to get a buzz, after I sober up I still will feel tired and sluggish. Do a wake and bake - get stoned for an hour or two and then I feel totally normal the rest of the day. Weed isn't toxic (although inhalation of smoke may be).
I wish there was more of this, would be nice to have cleaner streets…
The other medications the hospital offered didn't work, and even those came with their own fetal risks.
So it was either abort the baby, try cannabis, or probably die. Our child is now older and performs well cognitively, e.g. speaks three languages fluently.
Maybe women should smoke more pot while pregnant. But seriously, glad everyone is ok
Look at what people eat/drink every day, probably less than 25% of the population cares about what enters their body
Edit: there is one aed drug I haven't tried, vimpat. Maybe that could stand in, but it overlaps with another I take already, and isn't really meant to be used together. I risk flopping around on the ground playing with those drugs, when after years I'm just now toning down other symptoms like temporary blindness and cluster headaches. Maybe you could call those quality of life things, but they are probably breaking my brain down a bit.
Holy cow, one in twenty woman are admitting to getting high when pregnant. I wouldn't have ever thought it that high. But then again, both my and my wife's moms smoked pot while pregnant.
Marijuana is a lot stronger nowadays and the effects could be amplified beyond a threshold that causes permanent damage
Also, I think the true cost of marijuana is the opportunity cost - it’s not just what it does to you, it’s what it takes from you - your motivation, potential etc. And it’s really quite toxic to your long term mental health, in devilishly insidious ways - and is usually accompanied by aggressively-defended self deceptions.
Sure, not a lot of pot users do, but there's the minority that seems to spend 80% of their free time smoking.
Cannabis might not be as obviously life ruining as hard drugs such as alcohol, meth and heroin - but it’s no less debilitating for society to have people re-orient themselves away from traditional goal-seeking behavior (such as finding a job or starting a family).
I think that they are both dependency-inducing and addictive as drugs.
I'm not saying there isn't a causal link here, there probably is. I'm just saying this isn't science, it's excel. So we should do some actual science and know rather than just creating an ever bigger list of "associated" risks that no one can remember or compare or make much use of.
I'd be more inclined to believe that parents who smoke cannabis during pregnancy are more likely to be bad parents or live in a bad environment, which result into issues with their kids 15 years later.
Or maybe they keep smoking around their kids over their lifespan and that prolonged exposure is causing problems in the adolescence.
I find it hard to believe cannabis crossing the placenta would be causing issues 15 years after exposure and not affecting the children before.
Plenty of young kids are diagnosed (even overdiagnosed if we want to talk about the subject) with behavioural issues. Why is this study not finding any evidence of that?
That would be way stronger evidence.
Are there effective painkillers that don't have risks for developing babies? Is good for a developing baby to be receiving constant stress hormones from a mother in intense pain?
Even caffeine has negative measurable effects.
weed can be a kind of thought dis-inhibitor, and can take any thought that crosses your mind and make it the most important thought you've ever had (see also: thinking your stoned ideas are revolutionary inventions, until you sober up and realize you've re-invented the tea kettle)
The child is a secondary absorber of unhealthy parental decisions, some less obvious than others.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
> Among these 6, none increased the odds of crossing the threshold for clinically significant symptoms by itself.
The linked article bizarrely focuses on cannabis, but they looked at "unplanned pregnancies", "maternal alcohol, marijuana and tobaccos use in early pregnancy", "pregnancy complications" and "birth complications". The only finding:
> Children exposed to multiple common, adverse prenatal events showed dose-dependent increases in broad, clinically significant psychopathology at age 9–10.
Where is the article lecturing us about the dangers of unplanned pregnancies so everyone can kneejerk react to it? (Also, why is this study mixing in alcohol use, which is of course already strongly proven to lead to all kinds of disorders..)
My own work in science was deeply quantitative and the bar for evidence was very high. Nearly every time I read a clinical paper (with the exception of professionally run clinical trials with a good statistical design and rigid adherence to protocols), it takes only a little time to find an "invalidating statement"- a description of methodology or a core assumption or a common mistake- for me to realize that investing further time is simply not worth it.
It doesn't mean that I necessarily believe the opposite of the paper, but rather fall back on my own prior assumptions/null hypothesis explanation.
Also, note that this article is a press release from the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Anxious, ADHD, depression, …
They were on a laundry list of SSRIs and mood stabilizers and they were only 15-17 y/o
This is salicylic acid, in a number of tree barks but most abundantly in white willow.
The medication form is aspirin or acetylsalicylic acid.
(I can't think of a way to steelman around the fact that there are many toxic plant and animal substances, and some highly processed ingredients are completely harmless)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/284135/percentage-americans-smo...
So probably about 20% of women who may become pregnant smoke marijuana, and 75% of them stop when pregnant, before adjusting for whether they are aware of the pregnancy. There are usually a few irresponsible individuals in any group.
That's a bad book.
Everything has risk. If you think you're not risking, you're deluding yourself. Trying to avoid "unnecessary" risks is only marginally better. You need to know how big the risks actually are, or your biases will mislead you.
I used to be sceptical about weed addiction, and then it happened to me. It was relatively difficult to quit even though the habit was severely impacting my work and social life. In the end not having any weed around helped a lot. If you have an easy endless supply, boy, you're in trouble.
If you enjoy weed, consider having a strict limit (eg. max 1 smoke per week). If you smoke every day, you might find yourself unable to quit when need arises (eg. pregnancy, yours or your partner's).
I smoke every day. It absolutely impacts my work and social life, as without it I'm a painful ball of irritation that would have to be on opiates to get anything done.
I guess some people may also have some exposure from before they realize they're pregnant. That probably also happens with things like alcohol. I think I've heard some say that's not a big issue, though.
Going out on a limb here but it might be in the same spirit as a similar response to "Strong encryption is for child abuse and terrorism" / "Bittorrent is for pirating movies" in that it's true in some cases but is used as a popular discourse wedge to promote governmental overreach
Most parents are not thinking ahead.
If people are going to smoke something I would rather them do it in their house. Even though cannabis is legal where I live I have never been into a public space where people where stinking up the place. The same cannot be said for tabacco. I'm glad at least most of the cannabis users seem to be doing it in their homes.