[exothermic]

So you believe that smoking is beneficial?

The great thing is, Cannabis nor it's chemical constituents need to be combusted to obtain the medicinal/psychological benefits.

So how bout that "collective body of peer-reviewed clinical evidence"?

~

[jeffreyH]

Of course you know that, since there is a "war on drugs", there is likely to be sparse research on this subject. A good place to start is here https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5260817/

This discusses use in American stares that have decriminalised recreational use. It discusses edibles. It also highlights the sparseness of current research. This is exactly what the proponents of drug use rely on. "Where is the peer reviewed research?", they wail. Kind of dishonest if you ask me.

[exothermic]

Kind of dishonest if you ask me.

Speaking of dishonest.... the "significant psychological damage" you claim is nothing short of a fallacy, acquiring no merit whatsoever.

Thousands of years worth of cultural/medicinal use and the ever-expanding scientific/clinical interest in Cannabis clearly suggests the opposite of what you claim..

The old alarmist approach to "the dangers of Cannabis use" just doesn't apply anymore.

~

[jeffreyH]

So you would be perfectly fine giving daily doses of cannabis to all children over 5 years of age then? It should be beneficial to their psychological development according to your way of thinking.

[exothermic]

So you would be perfectly fine giving daily doses of cannabis to all children over 5 years of age then? It should be beneficial to their psychological development according to your way of thinking.

Once again, speaking of dishonest.... What part of "My comments are specific to the precise dosing of Cannabis in responsible adults" .... did you not comprehend?

~

[jeffreyH]

Well you obviously didn't read all the page that I linked to. There they discuss how children are ingesting their parents 'medicine'. I don't include them in the category of responsible adults, do you?

Also the page discusses how often people are overdosing themselves on store bought goodies. Decriminalisation is great for the sellers of 'edibles'. Not so much for the ordinary guy. They obviously have failed to meet your high ideals.

The problem is when you spend 28 years hiding from the real world you can lose the ability to think rationally.

[Petrochemicals]

According to the nhs it increaces anxiety and paranoia

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/cannabis-the-facts/

[exothermic]

they discuss how children are ingesting their parents 'medicine'. I don't include them in the category of responsible adults, do you?

Is this your example of the "significant psychological damage" from Cannabis use? Any parent that leaves their medicine accessible to children inherently falls into the category of an IRResponsible adult, and your implication that Cannabis use in general elicits "significant psychological damage" is nothing short of nonsense.

[jeffreyH]

Did I mention significant psychological damage in that post? It's you who keeps bringing that up. Sounds rather defensive to me. I could be wrong.

[jeffreyH]

Actually, thinking about it, discussing any downside might hinder your ability to evangelise on cannabis use.

[exothermic]

Also the page discusses how often people are overdosing themselves on store bought goodies.

Wow, sounds like an epidemic lol. Here's the adverse effects listed in the very article you cited; "nausea, dizziness, headache".

Still waiting for the body of peer-reviewed clinical evidence indicating "significant psychological damage" from general Cannabis use in responsible adults.

~

[exothermic]

The problem is when you spend 28 years hiding from the real world you can lose the ability to think rationally.

Oh I must be hiding from the real world and lost my ability to think rationally because I use Cannabis?

Oh lawdy.

~

[exothermic]

According to the nhs it increaces anxiety and paranoia

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/cannabis-the-facts/

No, not in the overwhelming amount of adults who use it regularly it doesn't.

Once again....

"A small subset of susceptible individuals who may present with acute THC-induced psychosis or transient anxiogenic episodes. But in general, it does acquire a significant degree of anxiolytic efficacy."

~

[jeffreyH]

BTW anxiolytic refers to a drug that is used to relieve anxiety. But since you like to cloak everything in penetrable jargon I think the explanation was warranted. Not everyone attends med school or swallows a medical dictionary whole.

[chiralSPO]

Hey guys... chill out. 

Cannabis has unfortunately not been studied very well under rigorous scientific conditions. Much of this is because it has historically been very difficult to get permission to study in human subjects, and approval often comes with stipulations that limit the sample sizes, or what the source of the test materials is (for a long time, in the US, studies needed to get their cannabis from the DEA... not exactly an uninterested party--there are actually instances in which researchers acquired official permission from their university, hospital, IRB, and local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies, only to be told that there was no cannabis for them to conduct their studies with (oh well). Many of the organizations in the USA, that researchers must satisfy in order to get permission or funding to run controlled tests involving cannabis have specific directives not to facilitate research that shows anything other than harm. It remains schedule 1 here because there is "no proof of medical utility" while researchers are banned from conducting studies looking specifically for benefits. (see more here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK425757/ and here: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/why-is-it-so-hard-to-study-pot-124767/)

This means that most studies done in the US are specifically looking for harm, are often looking at longitudinal or epidemiological studies (which have sooo many confounding factors), and it is difficult to publish null results, so altogether, we are left with a significant bias in the literature.

Luckily, there has been some research done in Israel (https://cannabinoids.huji.ac.il/), among other places, with some promising results. I am skeptical of many of the medicinal cannabis claims (also often made by interested parties, and then hyped by those who wish to believe and those who profit by having others believe). But it would seem that there is serious research that is getting underway.

As far as recreational use goes, cannabis poses some very real, but relatively mild health risks.

For instance, many users (especially those who started using early in life) do use it habitually. It is not physically addictive (unlike drugs like alcohol and benzodiazepines, which have potentially lethal withdrawal symptoms, or drugs like opioids, nicotine, and amphetamines which can have significant physiological distress caused by withdrawal. Even drugs like caffeine have a greater physiological withdrawal effect.)

Smoked cannabis carries with it many of the dangers of inhaling any burning plant matter. And apparently vaporized extracts may be even more dangerous (it may be that this has more to do with lack of regulation, and greedy @$$holes willing to dilute their products to make a buck without any care for the consumers, or there could be some as-yet unknown reason why vapors are more harmful than smoke...)

The connection to psychosis is somewhat troubling, but I have yet to see studies showing a causative link conclusively, or providing any sort of insight into how this could happen mechanistically. High dosages of THC (in the absence of CBD, or with only traces of it) can certainly precipitate acute psychosis. But this is temporary. I'm sure there are cases of people frequently who get so high that they have episodes routinely, but I don't see this accounting for the supposed long-term risks.

My opinion is that the risks and benefits both need to be studies much more rigorously. But that in the meantime, cannabis be allowed as a legal product for both medical and recreation use, so long as the industry is heavily regulated, taxed enough to pay for costs to society (as should be done with alcohol and tobacco), and is kept away from children. So much more harm has been done to society by the war on cannabis than by the drug itself.

(wow, that turned into quite the rant! sorry)