On marijuana legalization and Mental illness

A possible future legalization of cannabis (marijuana) would lead to wide commercial access of cannabis and an increase in the cannabis-using population, as found in other countries. As reported in many studies, increased cannabis use leads to a later increase in psychoses, especially schizophrenia. T.H. Moore and colleagues in the Lancet, 2007, concluded that there was “sufficient evidence to warn young people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life”. For example, cannabis use in the UK increased four-fold between 1970 and 2002, and increased 18-fold in the under-18s. They estimated that new cases of schizophrenia would increase by 29% in men between 1990 and 2010. In fact, it was later found that the annual new cases of schizophrenia and psychoses increased from 49 per 100,000 in 1996 up to 77 per 100,000 in 1999, an increase of 58% over three years. In the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, cannabis use in 15-16-year old boys went up from 15% in 1990 to 50% in 2002. This was followed by a doubling in hospital first admissions for psychosis and schizophrenia in those aged 15 to 24. A major study by Zammit and colleagues in 2008 found that 1.1% of 1,648 Swedish men conscripts for military service who had ever used cannabis prior to 1970 subsequently developed schizophrenia, two-fold higher than those who never used cannabis. This went up to six-fold higher in those who ever used cannabis 50 times or more.

In general, studies found that psychosis occurs 2 to 8 years after a significant amount of cannabis use, and that the risk of psychosis is higher when cannabis use starts at an earlier age. An Australian study of 83 reports found that cannabis users had an age of onset of psychosis that was 2.7 years younger than non-users. Alcohol use was not associated with an earlier age of psychosis onset. In The Netherlands men cannabis users had a first psychotic episode 7 years younger than non-users.

Any future increases in cannabis-associated new cases of schizophrenia would add to the current high rate in Canada and the USA. M.-J. Dealberto at Queen’s University in Ontario found that the rate of new cases of schizophrenia in Canada is about 26 per 100,000 per year, considerably higher than the countries outside Canada which average about 12 new cases per 100,000 per year. (Quebec is even higher at 40.)

In addition, such an increase in new schizophrenia cases would need to be matched by significant increases in psychiatric hospital budgets and in community-based housing and welfare. For example, Ontario’s two major psychiatric centers (Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences in Whitby, and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto) have a combined annual budget of about 400 million dollars, with approximately half assigned for schizophrenia. Across Canada, such budgets would need major increases. Considering that Ontario, for example, receives about 1,100 million dollars each year for tobacco taxes, a cannabis tax might cover the increased needs of the psychiatric hospitals and the community housing.

While the majority of cannabis users would not develop schizophrenia, the wider use of cannabis would lead not only to more hospitalizations of the new cases of schizophrenia, but also to an increased confrontation of psychotically disturbed young men with police.

Although there are valid medical uses for cannabis in cases of resistant epilepsy, and various painful chronic illnesses, wider use of cannabis may also be associated with drowsy driving and car accidents.

Almost all aspects of cannabis use and the related laws are contentious. Whatever laws are adopted by government may have to be a compromise between medical need and a reduced burden to all citizens.

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The author discovered the human brain’s dopamine receptor for psychosis and all antipsychotic drugs.  [email protected] Oct. 17, 2013.

\”A big role is played by the Vietnamese drug barons who, according to DrugScope, control two-thirds of Britain\’s cannabis trade. They use nail salons as brothels and places to launder money raised from the sale of cannabis grown on suburban UK farms. Farms run by slaves.\”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/monique-villa/they-walk-among-us—30-m_b_4120458.html

Blog Comment – Slavery is alive and well, in fact, doing better than ever before. It was the moral \’West\’ that fought hard to drive down slavery. Now it appears it is the insatiable demands of the immoral or (for the \’P.C Thugs\’ reading this) \’amoral  West\’ that now drives the predicates of this new slave market – Drugs, sex and fashion. Invariably illicit drugs are enmeshed in at least two of these arenas and drugs particularly are used to control and manipulate the most vulnerable.

The hedonistic and utterly self indulgent demands for \’rights\’ to use illicit drugs in such  countries as the USA, UK and Australia, are some of the greatest drivers for social injustice on the planet – Legalising drugs will only release another market to overlay the current illegal one.  A key component of the answer to  this heinous issue, is for the careless and egocentric substances users to actually give more of a damn about their \’fellow human beings\’ than for their own drug use! Ah, yes, but that\’s right, it\’s hard to make that \’justice call\’ when you\’re too busy trying to get \’high\’, yet again!

Cannabis causing strokes in young people, Irish medic says

Consultant has seen ‘five or six cases’ of young people having strokes after using herbal cannabis

The drug has been linked to strokes in young people but it is not known why. Photograph: Frank Miller/ Irish Times

High potency cannabis is putting young people who heavily use the drug at risk of stroke, a leading specialist told an inquest.

Consultant stroke physician professor Joseph Harbison told Dublin Coroner’s Court that doctors at St James’s Hospital have seen “five or six cases” of young people having strokes following the use of herbal cannabis in the past three years. The strokes may be linked to the increased potency of cannabis available in Ireland over that period, he said.

He was speaking at the inquest into the death of 33-year-old Noel Boylan of Oliver Bond House in Dublin 8 who collapsed on Thomas Street in the city centre on August 17th last year.

Mr Boylan was taken to St James’s Hospital where he was treated for a suspected seizure but later developed a stroke. He died in the hospital on September 2nd when a blood clot travelled to his lungs.

Following his death, prof Harbison requested that an autopsy be carried out because Mr Boylan had been a regular cannabis smoker.

The drug has been linked to strokes in young people but it is not known why.

Until Mr Boylan’s death it had not been possible to study the blood vessels in the brain affected because few young people die from stroke and brain biopsies are dangerous, the court heard.

When the blood vessel was examined by a neuropathologist, they found that the lining had “grossly thickened” and blocked off the artery resulting in the stroke. Prof Harbison said that this echoed findings in another of his patients, a heavy cannabis user who had had a blood vessel outside the brain biopsied after surviving a stroke. This raised concerns that the potency of cannabis available in Ireland is affecting heavy users by irritating the lining of blood vessels, he said.

“The cannabis available in and around Ireland at the moment is typically hydroponically [IN WATER]grown and has a very high potency… I now strongly suspect that we are seeing the consequences of younger people developing an arteriopathy [arterial disease] related to the direct irritant effects of this new potent cannabis,” he said.

Returning a narrative verdict outlining the facts coroner Dr Brian Farrell said that further research into the link between high potency cannabis and stroke is needed and that he hoped the case would generate debate in the medical community.

Speaking following the inquest, prof Harbison said that he did not believe that irregular users of the drug are at risk.

“There is a level of concern that there is an association with particularly heavy users. We are seeing people coming in with strokes where we cannot find any cause but their cannabis use. This case and the other case leads you to think that there is a direct organic effect to it,” he said.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/cannabis-causing-strokes-in-young-people-irish-medic-says-1.1557815 (c) Iris Times

Cocaine Use Can Make Otherwise Resistant Immune Cells Susceptible to HIV

Released: 10/1/2013 6:00 PM EDT
Source Newsroom: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Health Sciences

In many ways, the spread of HIV has been fueled by substance abuse. Shared needles and drug users’ high-risk sexual behaviors are just some of the ways that narcotics such as cocaine have played a key role in the AIDS epidemic in much of the world.

There is, however, relatively little research into how drugs can impact the body’s defenses against the virus. But a new UCLA study published in the October issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology examines how cocaine affects a unique population of immune cells called quiescent CD4 T cells, which are resistant to the virus that causes AIDS.

The results: cocaine makes the cells susceptible to infection with HIV, causing both significant infection and new production of the virus. Read more..   http://www.newswise.com/articles/cocaine-use-can-make-otherwise-resistant-immune-cells-susceptible-to-hiv#.UkuB3A0vhlo.reddit

Brazilian Association of Writers and Journalists, speaking about our new book: Drugs and Human Rights. The book, with the encouragement and support of the Stockholm Carnegie Institute, the Mariten Institute and BRAHA, was co-edited by me and my Argentinian colleague from Cordoba, Luis Viale, a specialist drug prevention with youth at risk.

The other co-authors, besides the two already mentioned, are very well known  people in their specific fields such as Manuel Pinto Coelho from Portugal (our colleague at DWI and the WFAD), Padre Pepe (a renown Catholic priest who works in the slums of Argentina with youth in danger), the daring and effective Rio de Janeiro State Security Secretary, the Head of the DARE Program in México, a specialist in Human Rights, Saúl Takahashi , Miguel Angel Dahbar, a member of the Córdoba Science Academy  who directed for many  years an excellent Institute at the University on Drug Prevention of addictions, etc.

The book (already the fifth of our informal collection), edited in Spanish is intended (as the others too) for the regular citizen, in simple language, and short chapters, shows some of the absurd  inconsistencies there are many times, when dealing with this subject, between what is said and what happens in practice.

Mina Seinfeld de Carakushansky
www.braha.com.br

It\’s an amazing story.
Since 2003, folks in Canada\’s most drug-infested neighbourhood have been buying heroin, cocaine and crystal meth on the street, strolling into InSite and shooting-up under the watchful eye of government nurses. All in the name of harm reduction, a philosophy of addiction treatment through enablement.
How\’d they do it?

For rest of story go to http://drugpreventionnetworkofcanada.blogspot.ca/

Students from Comet Bay College, Secret Harbour, have been busy film making and marketing  to educate other young people about the consequences of using illegal drugs. The new innovative project called Students Advising Youth (S.A.Y) was recently launched by the Peel Crime prevention and diversity unit in conjunction with established partners, Murdoch University, local drug action groups inc. (LDAG) and School Drug Education & Road Aware (SDERA).

Film making, guerrilla marketing and social media are all weapons of choice that Peel Youth are deploying in the quest to educate other young people in the State about the dangers and consequences of using illegal or synthetic drugs, as part of the new innovative Students Advising Youth (S.A.Y) project recently launched by the Peel crime prevention and diversity unit and partners.

The S.A.Y. project is curriculum based with a strong emphasis on research, marketing and communication by the participants.  All valuable skills the students will call upon during their future career paths. As part of the project students have to research their anti-drug topic, which is an anti-drug theme and then compile at short TV style advert highlighting why illegal and synthetic drugs have no place in our community. The student’s films are then uploaded onto YouTube and communicated through out social media. The participants and partner agencies play an active part in marketing their films to youth everywhere. The top 10 films with the most YouTube ‘hits’ over a predetermined  period then make it to the grand final. All finalists will be professionally judged by an expert in the media industry.  Several winners will then get the chance to win a work experience placement in the media sector.

Senior Constable Tam McKeown who created the S.A.Y. project said “Young people are often reluctant to take onboard the advice delivered to them by adults, whether it is about the use of illegal drugs, road safety or any other community safety topic.  Many young people perceive this type of educational medium to be ‘preaching’ in nature. The S.A.Y. project aims to harness the youth enthusiasm and creativity to empower them to be the educators of other youth. He also said “All participating students gained a strong anti-drug education during the research component of the project. The students will actively promote and market their anti-drug films through main stream media such as doing radio interviews etc, as well as utilising social media where they and their fellow youth do most of their social networking. We have high hopes that this project will benchmark itself and hopefully be open to all high schools students to participate in as a statewide project in the near future”.

See Short Films HERE   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHywrMyox0&list=PLKM6pfyI0drWn_u8HRFJFjS-X8hfu_VAL

Children are always the casualty of ever increasing liberal approaches to drugs.

UNODC has developed International Guidelines for Prevention that provide guidance matching current research of effectiveness across different age groups and in different sectors you can access it at the UNODC website or at this link – http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/prevention/prevention-standards.html

Trajecotory of Adolescent cannabis use on addiction vulneratility

Click here for article

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028390813003456