You have probably read newspaper reports of this latest study, but the news@nature version linked to above (which, annoyingly, will likely disappear soon) makes this point which I have not seen elsewhere:
The finding, which comes from a new study that combines results from 35 previous surveys, represents a significant U-turn from previous suggestions that cannabis is harmless to mental health. The analysis is published in medical journal The Lancet, which in 1995 began one of its issues with the sentence: "The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health."Now their tune has changed, with the latest study having this dire conclusion :
This suggests that 14% of all psychotic illness in Britain is caused by cannabis use.Yes, how dare one question the Lancet on anything, hey.
Perhaps the original Lancet writer should have said that he had no evidence that it was harmful, which was almost certainly true at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe link between mental illness and cannibis use is obvious to any clinician but it was hard to know if being depressed or schizophrenic led to self medication with cannibis or the other way round. Because of the criminal aspects research appears to have been somewhat delayed. The research you linked to tallies with other work I've seen (I think it was on Melbourne schoolgirls) that showed a causative link with mental illness.
I'm not sure this means it should be criminalised, however. Tobacco remains a far greater threat to health and yet remains on the market and is dealt with at an educational level. Is this not appropriate for cannibis?
Cheers
Geoff