Quote by VanGogh
As we all know, google can find the opposite to one's hopeful search. Google, although amazing, does not have definitive and absolute answers.
Here's a well respected (I guess? dontknow ) site/mag that says that Cannabis may not be such a fucking no-no for those with schizophrenia. But, fuck, what do I know? Apparently, fuck all.
Psychology Today
To date, all of the positive evidence supporting the use of medical marijuana in humans has come from studies of the entire plant or experimental investigations of THC. A recent study published in the Journal of Neuroscience (4 May 2016, 36(18): 5160-5169) has shown CBD has significant therapeutic efficacy for the treatment of schizophrenia. These scientists have also identified where CBD likely acts in the brains of schizophrenics, the nucleus accumbens (the brain’s primary pleasure center), and how it is able to produce effects similar to standard antipsychotic medications.
This discovery stands in stark contrast to previous claims that marijuana induces psychosis. Overall, today’s scientists are being more open-minded about the benefits of marijuana and are trying to bring less bias to their investigations. One recent study asked whether marijuana use was associated with an earlier age of onset for the first episode of schizophrenia. The researchers concluded that there was no significant relationship between the onset of illness and marijuana use that could not be accounted for by other demographic and clinical variables. Meaning, once again it is important to take notice of all of the other variables that contribute to developing psychosis.
That's all I got.
On a personal note, with my ordeal with PMR, when "standard RA meds" did nothing but make me sicker and in considerable more pain, I thank god I found a lovely lady that bakes bud 2bite brownies for a few us that have to live a life with considerable pain. I can't smoke bud because I get a terrible cough and it doesn't produce the same relief from my intense muscle fatigue and pain.
On that note, I'm off for a cuppa and a half of a bud brownie.
Van
This is so erroneous that I don't even know where to begin...
Let's first address how you presented your whole rhetoric. Google isn't my source of information, research institutes hosting rigorous studies are. Click on the links I provided in my quote, they all lead directly to said research institutes without an exception. No vulgarized article merely citing random studies, no dubious pro or anti-cannabis website, no rubbish aimed at entertaining the masses: just the sheer researches themselves. How I gained access to such sources is utterly irrelevant.
And yes, you can find almost anything on the internet, but that doesn't make anything a reliable scientific source. 4/5 of the links I presented actually are systemic reviews, which each encompassed/examined around 50 independent studies (look at the bottom of my links, they're all cited explicitly, some with clickable links). That's over 200 studies that were closely examined by 4 unrelated teams of highly qualified researchers, and they all reached the exact same conclusions.
By comparison your own source is Psychology Today, which absolutely no psychologist/psychiatrist will ever read to form an opinion about anything: it's a popular magazine aimed at the masses. It's about as relevant to psychiatrists as the Reader's Digest is to doctors, quite literally. It's not that Psychology Today is utter nonsense per se, it's simply that they really don't hold any obligations to show the same scientific rigor as proper scientific journals do. It's mostly inconsequential entertainment, the kind of stuff that you read while waiting at the hair-salon, and the content is treated/supervised as such; the majority of what you can find in Psychology Today isn't even peer-reviewed before publication. The rigor of each article is pretty much left at the discretion of each individual columnist (you'll see in a short while how very little rigor some of these articles can have).
Only two studies are ever referred to in your article: one is properly identified yet no link is made available (because it blatantly contradicts what the author is trying to convey, more on that later), the other is simply mentioned as 'one recent study' (such scientific transparency!). The only external link contained in that article is at the bottom of it: it's a direct Amazon link prompting you to buy the author's book (which isn't related to cannabis or schizophrenia in any way, shape or form).
And who's the author exactly? Gary L. Wenk, recently hired by the Ohio Medical Marijuana Control Program (look for his name at the very bottom of the page). That guy currently receives a salary to make sure that the aforementioned program is correctly implemented and well received by the general public. That isn't a bad thing in and of itself, far from it, but one seriously has to question his motivations whenever he's writing about the effects that cannabis can have on schizophrenia. To me, he seems immensely more interested in selling the benefits of cannabis (or his book), than to uncover an effective treatment to treat/prevent schizophrenia. Think about it for a second: that article is addressed to the general public, he really isn't sharing any scientific findings with his peers here.
Finally moving on to the crux of your argument. Marijuana can be composed of more than 100 cannabinoids, the two most notable ones being THC and CBD (ie. tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol). THC is the main psychoactive constituent; the one that's most desired by recreative users and the one that's negatively linked to schizophrenia. CBD isn't psychoactive at all and has actually been shown to block the effect of THC in the nervous system; the one brought to attention in the article. Oddly enough, THC and CBD practically have opposite effects on the nervous system. In short, CBD counteracts the high that THC provides: the more CBD content in your weed, the less stoned you'll be.
Here's a short excerpt from the one-and-only study that's properly cited in that article. The author didn't bother to include a link, but I managed to find it myself in a mere 30 seconds (I guess I already have more scientific integrity than he has):
Quote by ]The phytochemical complexity of marijuana is revealed by both clinical and preclinical evidence demonstrating that THC and CBD can produce opposing effects on both mesolimbic neuronal function, and neuropsychiatric phenomena. However, little is currently known about how CBD modulates the mesolimbic system, particularly in the context of DAergic function. Whereas THC is primarily associated with propsychotic effects (D’Souza et al., 2004;Kuepper et al., 2010;Tan et al., 2014), CBD has been shown to counteract the psychotomimetic properties of THC and significantly improve psychosis symptoms in schizophrenia patients (Leweke et al., 2012;Englund et al., 2013).
Oops. Did you read that correctly? The one study that this article is based upon actually states black-on-white that THC is susceptible to induce psychotic episodes in people at risk (ie. propsychotic), supported by 3 different studies. Sure, CBD has recently been shown to have a completely opposite effect (ie. antipsychotic), but the net propsychotic/antipsychotic potential of marijuana is still largely dependent upon the THC/CBD ratio. And here's the one fact that the author of this article completely failed to address: the enormous majority of cannabis strains have a much higher content of THC than CBD.
If your cannabis even remotely gets you high, it's already hinting at higher THC than CBD, and it's significantly more propsychotic than antipsychotic. Remember, CBD inhibits the psychotropic effects of THC, so for years drug dealers have been striving to provide weed with an insanely high content of THC and a minimal content of CBD. A lot of recently seized street-marijuana even fails to show trace amounts of CBD. Even the medicinal strain that Dancing_Doll presented in an earlier post has a crazy ratio of 100-to-1 (20% against 0.2%).
The feeble logic that this article is trying to impose on the public is: CBD is showing promising benefits toward schizophrenia, CBD occurs naturally in cannabis, therefore cannabis products are mostly beneficial for schizophrenia. This is irresponsible at best. The author knowingly manipulated his words/statements to support that logic. The most obvious proof is that this is exactly what you yourself read into that article (and I'm sure plenty of others did).
His line "This discovery stands in stark contrast to previous claims that marijuana induces psychosis" is particularly alarming. He's essentially suggesting that the newly discovered effects of CBD completely undermine the vast scientific literature showing a link between cannabis and schizophrenia. No one ever concluded that but his own utterly biased self; not even the sole study that he based his article upon. THC itself is still considered a propsychotic by the enormous majority of mental health experts, with good reason. He knew all too damn well every single fact that I'm presenting myself, but never dared to mention a single fucking word about it or to offer some sort of sensible nuance in an unambiguous manner.
He strongly implies that toking marijuana could potentially be a viable way to administer CBD in schizophrenic patients; the reality is that if CBD is ever made into a proper treatment for schizophrenia, it will most likely be a highly refined medication that looks nothing like a bud of pot (most probably to be taken orally as any other antipsychotic to strictly control dosage). At that point, the treatment will virtually have absolutely nothing to do with cannabis in the popular/traditional sense; it will just be about swallowing a boring medication like any other. To the point where even bothering to include said treatment into the 'marijuana' spectrum is highly disputable.
Oh, and I mistakenly mentioned that Psychology Today isn't peer-reviewed previously. My bad, a fellow columnist/psychiatrist was actually kind enough to leave a comment on that article:
Quote by [url=https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/david-rettew-md
David Rettew MD]I find this post to be quite misleading.
A study that demonstrates cannabidiol might be useful in treating psychosis is in no way a "stark contrast" to the ever increasing numbers of studies linking overall cannabis use to schizophrenia.
What this post cleverly does not discuss is that the evidence shows that it is likely THC content that is linked to psychosis, based on several studies. Over time, the THC content of cannabis has been increasing while the cannabidiol concentration has been falling. It looks quite possible at this point that THC and cannabidiol exert different effects on the brain. Smoking the whole plant, especially the newer strains with higher THC content, means that someone is sabotaging any positive effects of cannabidiol by inhaling THC.
Sorry if this fact is inconvenient to people but people need to know the risks, just like knowing the risks of drinking alcohol. Nobody claims that cannabis is the driving force behind schizophrenia but these kinds of attempts to whitewash and cherry pick the medical literature do not help people make informed adult choices.
