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Child Item

Chump!!

chicorytip

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/spotlight/arid-40926812.html

This eegit. Smoking the sh--e on a regular basis and over a prolonged period of time is the most effective method possible of giving yourself lung cancer and possibly triggering severe mental health issues such as Psychosis and Schizophrenia. If this fellah thinks it's so great he ought to have no reluctance revealing both his identity and "profession".

I can't believe a national daily newspaper is publishing this tripe.

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[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119424962#Comment_119424962

It is hard to "see" it if you do not provide it. If you are aware of "hard evidence" of "massive harm" then by all means cite it and we can discuss it.

Even the quote you did offer in the previous post to this one is iffy. The quote is talking about the risks of specifically "long-term" and "heavy" use. Which is a bit like informing us that water is wet. Long term and heavy use of alcohol is also a huge risk. Long term and heavy use of tobacco too.

But the vast majority of people using - for example - alcohol is not in the category of "Long term and heavy use".

So one should ask one self - why is it when the subject of cannabis comes up - the people against it only want to discuss what happens if "teens" use it or "long term heavy users" use it? Why do they not want to ever look at - cite - or include data on moderate average use of consenting adults?

Finally you dismiss "correlation-causation" too easily. Like many drugs - it is too easy to simply assume a drug user with mental issues must have gotten those issues from that drug. This is simplistic nonsense which you should avoid. Very often people with - or developing - mental issues will turn to drugs like cannabis and alcohol to self medicate. And in the initial short term those drugs may even help. But in the end they will fail to help or even exacerbate the problem. The drugs in question did not cause their mental issues however. The initially hid the issues - and then later worsened them.

growleaves

@[Deleted User] 'So one should ask one self - why is it when the subject of cannabis comes up - the people against it only want to discuss what happens if "teens" use it or "long term heavy users" use it? Why do they not want to ever look at - cite - or include data on moderate average use of consenting adults?'

The piece, which is only a short one, does briefly mention the danger of moderate use.

There's much greater danger for teens and long term users so that is emphasised.

There's a difference between evidence and proof. People knew how harmful smoking was in the 18th and 19th century - Goethe and Balzac wrote about it - just by observation. But in the second half of the 20th century tobacco companies could still honestly say 'There's no proof!'

Given all the evidence of massive harm caused by cannabis, I think people must be desperate to use the kind of arguments you're using.

If anything, people should desist from smoking it until they KNOW that the correlation between cannabis and psychosis then schizophrenia is entirely incidental. That would be rational. The *possibility* that it isn't causal is not a reason to go ahead and imbibe imo.

That said, I'm not telling people how to live their lives. I just find the intellectual smokescreen thrown up unconvincing.

At least more people now have hard evidence that they ought to plump for short-term use over long-term use.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119425047#Comment_119425047

No it isn't. That's just silly.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427201#Comment_119427201

I was being faceteous - my point was that you can take any decision or activity and twist it into something that causes societal harm and from there use it as an excuse to get it banned.

growleaves

British colonialists got to observe the widespread effects of cannabis use in India and Egypt in the 19th century. That's how it came to be originally banned as dangerous.

In the 21st century people always claim that they don't / can't know things and are holding out for 100% scientific proof (reliably reproduced under laboratory conditions?) even if it's something that people have known for centuries.

Other kinds of knowledge (personal observation, historical observation, intuition etc.) are rubbished as lacking scientific legitimacy. This allows a lot of scope for doing whatever you want since absolute proof can be difficult to obtain.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119426915#Comment_119426915

Which kinda proves the point of the question I asked. When this conversation comes up why do the "anti" side rush to discussing teenage use or heavy and prolonged use? You yourself cited an article and pulled out the comment about heavy use for example. You particularly focused on that part of the article. Making my point for me. Their mention of "moderate" use is paltry bordering on non-existent of course. It's always the way with these opinion pieces from the anti side.

If any kind of honest conversation is going to happen about this drug - then it should incorporate all users but most especially how most people using it are using it most of the time. Just like alcohol. If we have an honest discussion about alcohol we should look at the moderate users - not set up shop down the docks at the nearest "Early House" and consider only the patrons of those. But that is analogous to what your article is actually doing. Which is not honest.

There is indeed a difference between evidence and proof. You are walking into my wheelhouse there. There are reasons we have meta analysis and the processes of epidemiology. And if anyone is going to cite actual evidence here - which you have still yet to do despite me asking you for it - that is the source it should come from.

But generally all we ever get on threads like this one are people saying "Well I knew these lads once in college and they used it and they are all mental now". And anecdote is not evidence. Or proof. Or even interesting.

Worse though - not only does the "anti" side rush to teens and heavy users - they also focus in on very particular forms of the drug. So to go back to your article again - they specifically discuss "Skunk" use. This is exactly the point the "pro" side for the drug keep making. We already know street forms of the drug are getting worse. We already know the consumer base does not have a selection to choose from or knowledge of what is in their products. The whole point of wanting a legal regulated product is to counter act that very thing.

But of course the "anti" side benefit. When the product is underground and illegal the product gets worse. When the product gets worse it results in worse outcomes. And then the "anti" side get to jump up and down in glee pointing at those outcomes and saying "See? We told you it was harmful!!!!". Almost the definition of having their cake and eating it too. The areas of society against the drug may be causing the very arguments it uses to be against the drug! It would be funny if it was not tragic.

And finally your article relies on mere assumption at times too. They noticed an increase in reported mental issues in one location. Which is bad for a start as it means they were trawling the result set to find - south london in this case - statistics that confirm their already held biases.

The increase is unexplained. So they simply declare and I quote "There are probably several factors contributing to this but abuse of drugs is likely to be one.". That's their assumption. No evidence. No study. They just made it up. I could make up explanations too and simply say my explanation is "likely". I could blame social media for example. Or the reduction in independent beer breweries.

Or I could declare that use of the drug has not increased either in the number of users or the quantity they use the drug - but the increase in mental issues correlates with a degradation in the quality of the street product. That too is a likely explanation for the figures.

Or - any increase in the figures might have nothing to do with drugs at all. But in an increased awareness - and hence diagnosis - of mental issues. Just like if you increase awareness about rape or normalise reporting rape - you will get an increase in the statistics on rapes. Not because more rapes are happening - but more rapes are being reported.

And on it goes. Statistics are complex and studies have to be well done for evidence to be valid. And your news paper opinion piece does none of that. Not even a little. It just assumes and declares and makes it up. So it seems after all you do find the "intellectual smokescreen thrown up convincing". You appear to have fallen for it quite heavily in fact.

growleaves

@[Deleted User] "You yourself cited an article and pulled out the comment about heavy use for example"

The two-paragraph quote I pulled out discusses moderate use and heavy use. Read it again, carefully, if you don't believe me.

No I haven't dug up Robin Murray's actual research papers but you now know they're out there if you're interested. A short newspaper summary is for casual readers.

Although in your last paragraph you're now saying that because the newspaper article doesn't include Murray's studies what he's saying is "made up" on the fly? Okay cool.

You can bring to bear every statistical analysis caveat you like, have at it.

A six-fold increase in schizophrenia among long-term cannabis users compared to non-users might have nothing to do with cannabis it's true. Like I said the lack of proof affords a lot of leeway.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427405#Comment_119427405

Must say I am not personally aware of anyone claiming they need "100% proof" of anything related to this topic. Which makes your claim that "people always claim" this somewhat surprising to me. If they are "always" doing it why can I not recall a single one? Even if you claimed a loud vocal minority were claiming this I would have been rather surprised - but you didn't - you went with "Always". Could you cite some significant number of relevant people in the field or in the social eye I could consider? Or would you be trawling little known obscure opinion blogs to find this?

And the fact you say "laboratory conditions" suggests you are probably not all that heavily informed on how studies about things like this can be - should be - and often are performed. We study many things without the use of a "lab". Food. Drugs. Medicines. Vitamins. Alternative Medicines. And much more.

Things like personal observation are not "rubbished" lightly. There are very good reasons that anecdote is not evidence. Just as there are very good reasons why we do things like "Double Blinds" in controlled studies on topics like this - so as to reduce the effects of personal bias, personality, authority, and many more thing that can skew the results.

It might please you to pretend that we rubbish such sources of "knowledge" or "evidence" because it gives us scope to claim what we want. But in fact the very exact opposite is true. And in science we rarely, if ever, seek "absolute proof" of anything. That is simply not how science works.

growleaves

@[Deleted User] "There are very good reasons that anecdote is not evidence."

To a person who considers things from a scientific perspective only. As many 21st people do (not literally 'always', but often in contemporary public discourse).

Whereas one person may use experience as their guide, another person may dismiss that as "anecdata".

A person's basic assumptions will decide what counts as evidence for them.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427817#Comment_119427817

I think you need to re-read it yourself. It simply does not "discuss" what you claim it does. Perhaps you have a different concept of what it means to "discuss" than I do. But it might help if you point out exactly which sentence(s) you think you are referring to. I somewhat expect you might be misinterpreting a particular word (casual) here.

Further you are misrepresenting what I said and why I said it. I am saying that an article that says X was observed - X is unexplained - but X is most likely related to Y - is simply making it up and assuming.

I am happy to read any paper you want to cite. You will not find my lacking in willingness - nor the capability or training related - to read and interpret a study. But I am not interested in doing it for you. So this "You know a paper is there so go find it yourself" approach is not one I am going to pander to.

If "A six-fold increase in schizophrenia among long-term cannabis users" is an observed correlation then that is interesting. I am not pretending otherwise. The issue comes when anyone jumps to conclusions or assumptions there. As your own link points out - such a correlation could be explained merely by the fact that people with schizophrenia or it's early onsets are more likely to be drawn to cannabis use.

Or - if such a correlation is recent - then it could be explained by the ongoing degredation in the quality of "Skunk" street variants of the product.

Or - there might be no causal link between the correlation at all.

So "lack of proof" does indeed "afford a lot of leeway". Leeway to simply assume things - make things up - declare something dangerous without any actual evidence it is dangerous - or when all that fails merely to scare monger with "Well if you are not sure then avoid it just to be safe" thinking.

But none of that is evidence of anything but biases and fear really.

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119427874#Comment_119427874

Which is fine with me. I have absolutely no issue with that - nor have I ever expressed having such an issue. If people want to be influenced in their decisions by personal experience and anecdote that is on them and nothing to do with me. I am not interested. That is their personality and private faith.

But when people choose to go onto a discussion forum - a forum which is specifically designed for discussion and debate and conversation - and start declaring "X is risky or dangerous because I knew these lads and they used X and they turned out bad" - the fact that personal anecdote and personal testimony are awful forms of evidence - perhaps one of if not the worst form - is very valid to point out.

Humans never see the full picture in such anecdotes. The assumption that someone who used drugs and had poor outcomes - must mean the drugs caused those poor outcomes - is simply an intellectually bankrupt and lazy assumption. And this should be pointed out.

Worse - there are anecdotes that go the opposite direction too. So even if we were going to grant credence to anecdotes - the fact is the anecdotes would only serve to cancel each other out.

Not possibly made up anecdotes either by the way of the form "Well I used to knew these lads in college I swear it's true". But anecdotes I can actually cite. For example if you go to the podcast by "The Two Norries" and listen to their journey into drugs - or that of their other recovering addict guests - you will find that in not most but pretty much every single case - the issues started before the drug use started. The drugs temporarily covered up or even treated the issues. But in the long term the "fix" was only temporary. So their outcomes were not caused by the drugs. The drugs were caused by the ongoing poor outcomes.

In fact more than a couple of them point out that while the drugs ended up in the long term to be a bad thing - in the short term they gave them an escape during a period they otherwise would have chosen suicide. It is quite interesting to hear their stories and views of drugs as both their devil and their saviour. Claiming the drugs saved them from their mental issues - literally saved their lives - but ultimately were a false friend all the same.

Amazingly informative podcasts overall that I can not recommend often enough. And very much more informative than the biased - third hand - possibly even whole sale invented - anecdotes we get on here!

growleaves

What you're saying is fair enough in a way.

As I said though, tobacco companies could make similar arguments even though observers from the 18th century could have told them that smoking destroys people's health.

If those correlations don't give you pause in terms of how you live your life I don't know what to say.

There is now legal cannabis free from street taint so it should be easy enough to do studies and determine if that is the actual reason.

I am biased against drugs and see them as a pitfall to be carefully walked around, as with gambling and drinking to excess.

JupiterKid

Another day of browsing boards, another day seeing deeply ignorant, biased and poorly informed posters spew their ignorance and total intolerance on what others get up to.

OP does it really bother you that others do things you don't like?

So many here really need to just get a life...

Grayson

Just one thing to point out, in the article the guy says he used a vaporiser. That reduces the risk of cancer etc because it heats the herb to a temp where the THC vaporises but the tar etc doesn't.

[Deleted User]

Yes we have much to learn from what happened with Tobacco. And we have learned a lot. Unfortunately neither science nor epidemiology is perfect. And even where it is close to perfect - it is not implemented perfectly. But what industries like tobacco have done is undermine that process with bribes and worse. So we have to learn how to prevent such things happening again.

However I think you would have your work cut out for you to show that the same level of insidious major industrial complex is undermining the scientific process to act like Cannabis is safe. So trying to equate the two is probably not a move you should be making.

Meta Analysis and other processes of epidemiology is still the best we have regardless. Anecdote and personal experience is still the worst form of evidence we have.

The reason the correlations do not give me pause is because the correlations are linked to "long term" and "heavy" use. There is pretty much nothing - and certainly nothing in the opinion piece you linked to - suggesting moderate use is risky at all.

An analogy is to processed red meat. If you believe the hype this is something that is definitely going to cause you cancer. If you push aside the hype and read the actual science however you see that long term and quite heavy use of processed red meat is required to impact your potential for cancer.

I am a moderate user of certain drugs. You are talking at most 10 times a year I would use some drug - either a cannabis type product - Psilocybin type - or something of that general direction. There is simply no data on offer to give me any pause in moderate use of that level. There is more data (still very little, but more) suggesting I should be more hesitant to use moderate alcohol than moderate cannabis.

But yes there are areas with legal and regulated cannabis. Some areas of the US for example where you can walk into a store - manned by informed experts - who can moderate and tailor things like THC level to your requirements. So yes I agree with you - we can easily start to do studies and see what comes of this!

For me drugs and gambling and such are not pitfalls to walk around. Nor are fast food or computer gaming or any of that. The final word of your post is the key for me. "Excess". That is something I walk widely around and far away from. Moderation in all things is my approach to most things in life. Not just drugs. But my training. My sports. My work. My hobbies. My food. And much more.

I do not share your bias against drugs - but I share your bias strongly against excess.

On a lighter note - your username is comical in this threads context :)

growleaves

So if someone strongly suspects that street forms of cannabis are what leads to greater risk of psychosis and schizophrenia then presumably they will swear off street forms of cannabis and wait patiently for legalisation to be brought in?

After all it's a valid concern and not just a hedge against claims that cannabis itself is harmful, right?

[Deleted User]

It is certainly a decision at the individual level. So you will have to discuss it with people who obtain their product off street traders. I am not one of those people so I can not really tell you.

Again though the correlation seems to be to ongoing heavy use of the product. I am not seeing any evidence that if you buy street product once a season for example - that there is any correlation to any issues.

Certainly if I was going to become a regular user I would probably rethink buying it from a dodgy source.

However if people are developing mental issues first - and resulting in drug use second - then I doubt such people are going to consider the merits or demerits of street cannabis. They are seeking an escape - they are seeking self medication - and they are in pain. They are likely to simply obtain whatever it is they can get.

So I ask myself what kind of society would I like them - and moderate users - to live in. One where they get a relatively very safe regulated industry standard product - or one where such vulnerable people are going to illegal and immoral traders on street corners.

The answer to that is a no brainer to me.

growleaves

"On a lighter note - your username is comical in this threads context :)"

Haha

That is meant to be a reference to ordinary gardening, though I did have someone on boards ask if I was a drug user before based on my username

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119428309#Comment_119428309

Is it wrong to consider whether something is potentially harmful though?

chicorytip

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119428309#Comment_119428309

I thought it appropriate to highlight what I believe - others are entitled to disagree - to be the gross stupidity of the individual featured in the article and that a national newspaper wants to write about it. No names or addresses are published in the piece. Why not? Because the smoker fears the risk of a conviction for possession and the reputational damage he and his business or profession might suffer. If he were to waive his anonymity he might lend a little more credence to his stance. Does he seriously believe he can conceal his usage of Cannabis from those he comes into contact with on a daily basis? If you're smoking or vaping weed, everybody standing in close proximity you will know about it.

[Deleted User]

Cannabis is illegal anyway so I don't know what the hypothetical authoritarianism talk is about. It should be decriminalised imo though.

Count Dracula

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119423282#Comment_119423282

Which came first, the mental health issues or the conspiracy theory ( s ) ?

Are you saying that their mental health "issues" is a direct result of them getting stoned when they were teenagers? How long does it take for symptoms to develop?

Cards on the table here, I smoked a lot more when I was younger and often got far too binned.... whereby I felt so paranoid, that in my mind ..the whole room thought I was foooking spa who dreamt up incredulous tripe and had no issue with undermining the catharsis and malign of mental health, if it felt I could get some sort of blatant irrelevant fear off my mind before everyone else in the room got to that realisation first.... then I would feel uncomfortable in my own clothes and get red eyes and end up nodding my head incessantly to whatever was coming out of the stereo and saying really bland crap to compliment the music, like ," yeah man ". or " that's deadly" ,with a stupid grin on my face.

Cannabis will and does alter your mind, it will make you think at much different levels than your normal routine mind. That is why it gets associated with mental disorders such as Schizophrenia. But the truth is that a lot more cannabis users simply don't develop such mental afflictions. It will probably not do any benefit to some one who has multiple personalities or experiences auditory hallucinations, this goes without saying?

I think the mental health slurrs are derived through fear, some of it generated by professionals, who should know better, but can't control themselves from throwing their unsubstantiated shight into the mix.

In a world of many opinions it can't be said there aren't enough arseholes to discuss them with?