How much would you be willing to try if you were overdue?

[Ballerina]

And thanks Niliac for being sweet - group hugs people!

For sure Marcellus - concoctions of drugs can be a dangerous thing.

Without being too intimate I can give you two examples of people - exclusive cannabis users - that were institutionalized before they hit their 20's. Very sad indeed, and you know what? They weren't alone. This appeared to be the psych units largest demographic.

Now I'm not being preachy - this is something I know from seeing with my own eyes unfortunately. It's not meant to be a scare campaign, though my articulation may appear that way!!

We can all have a bit of a Cheech-and-Chong-esque giggle about how we handle illicits, but we need to know that some people can't and there is still a lot we don't know about how this translates to a baby at the height of their brain development.

Arimeh and Lulu have a key point here. There was nothing abnormal to report about a study group of Rastafarian women and their children. I surmise this could be because what they smoke is purer with a THC component that is milder.

My gut instinct has always been that it's THC we need to be concerned about. I haven't absorbed a whole lot of facts on this theory, but the first page of Google (which is as far as I got ) held an interesting study that may support this claim.

It does look like THC has benefits also. Hopefully future studies will isolate the good stuff so we don't have to have this conversation in 50+ years!

[Ballerina]

Oh woops - and here's the doc I was referring to (sorry I'm new to BB! lol):

More Evidence Of Cannabis-induced Psychosis

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2005) ? Volunteers taking cannabis-based therapeutic drugs as part of a controlled trial, which had been approved by an ethics board as safe for the subjects, experienced psychotic effects just as strong as if they had smoked cannabis. These findings, highly unexpected in such a controlled environment, are published today in the peer-reviewed, Open Access journal BMC Psychiatry.

Dr Bernard Favrat and colleagues, from the Institut Universitaire de Medecine Legale in Switzerland, were conducting a clinical trial into the effects of orally administered delta-9-tetrahydrocannibol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis, when two of their male subjects experienced impaired psychomotor functions and severe anxiety typical of cannabis-induced psychosis.

When smoking cannabis, the effects of THC on psychomotor functions usually start once the concentration in the blood has reached 10ng/ml plasma. The trial should have been safe as the subjects were given low doses of THC and had much lower concentrations in their blood. However the two male subjects experienced their reactions with blood concentrations of 4.7ng/ml and 6.2 ng/ml, respectively.

Favrat and colleagues found that both subjects reported severe anxiety and impaired psychomotor functions. Other effects included transient symptoms of derealisation and depersonalisation, and paranoid delusions. They were described by one subject as worse than those experienced after smoking cannabis. One subject was given dronabinol, a synthetic THC that has been in medical use in the USA since 1985. The other subject was asked to drink a decoction of natural THC. The authors hypothesise that the effect may have been because the THC had been ingested, rather than inhaled; digesting THC may produce potent THC metabolites, which induce psychotic effects.

Research into designing THC-based medications has boomed in the last few years, due to the many therapeutic effects of THC. These drugs could be used to alleviate muscle spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients, restore appetite in AIDS patients and alleviate pain and nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Such research has to be approved to ensure that it is treating patients ethically and safely. Dr Favrat's research had been approved, which makes the findings even more unexpected.

Favrat and colleagues' report adds to the body of evidence that cannabis might be more harmful than previously thought. In the UK, cannabis was downgraded to class C early last year, but government officials have called for a review of the decision following a series of studies revealing that cannabis dramatically increases the risk of developing mental illnesses.

###

This press release is based on the article:

Two cases of "cannabis acute psychosis" following the administration of oral cannabis. Bernard Favrat, Annick M?n?trey, Marc Augsburger, Laura E. Rothuizen, Monique Appenzeller, Thierry Buclin, Marie Pin, Patrice Mangin, Christian Giroud. BMC Psychiatry 2005, 5:17 (1st April 2005)