"There is strong evidence from a wide range of sources that long term and short-term use of cannabis can 'trigger' a psychotic episode of schizophrenia in people who are at high risk of developing schizophrenia --- for instance, people who have close family members who have schizophrenia," it said in a statement on Saturday.
Quotation from Rethink, the mental health charity representing Schitzophrenics, on the basis of their recent request for Parliament to investigate this question. Perhaps you could write to them Tim and tell them they are talking utter bollocks too...
See the article here (but of course you won't, because YOUR mind is made up):
In any case my argument is not that cannabis is a direct cause of mental illness, but that the increasing numbers of mentally ill people around are due to many of the admitted having relied too easily on cannabis and other drugs as crutches from not dealing with their day to day issues.. (and the reason why this is acceptable are cultural attitudes that these substances are low risk as has been espoused above and which I completely refute)
The cumulative effect of subverting the brains normal responses to real issues of low esteem, relationships, stress etc over a long period by substance abuse, prevents the brain, a contextual engine, from building strategies to cope with the increasing stresses and strains of modern life.
I say that the brain, left to its own devices and without intervention at crucial points in its development... primarily young people... has a pretty good chance of building mental strategies to overcome and cope eventually with whats been thrown at it and drugs at best delay, at worst destroy any of this from taking place.
I have no problem with the premise you set out, Andrew. Life is indeed tougher than it used to be; drugs are more readily available... the result to be seen down the years is increasing numbers of wasted dysfunctional people well into thair adulthood.... who started out by indulging in a 'harmless' release when younger because pressures were 'too great'.
Put another way, drug users and abusers are lifes cheats, and the language surounding this whole culture should be a strongly derogatory one... not the feeble libertanian one that many espouse here.
As for drugs and creativity, I beg to differ entirely. As far as I am concerened (and I know this is a hardline borderline view), I believe in principle, nothing of any value could come directly off the use of drugs that could not have come of by other means. I go to great lenghts (boringly I know) to explain why here:
I guess the point I was trying to make and what other people are trying to make is the greatest cause of mental illness is the way our world is. The trainers example is a classic, because it shows a whole market designed exclusively to work on desire, envy, competition, self worth. And these emotions play a lot in mental illness.
our system isn't designed to have room for those who dont fit into it's rigid structure of conformity; a lot of people who are mentally ill, were ill before they took drugs, and probably aren't even ill, but were branded and made to feel ill by this civilization.
The fact is a whole load of emotional hurt, psychological confusion, unrealistic expectations, lack of options in life, the competitive dog eat dog vibe, greed, advertising (which is a whole system invented by capitilism to engineer desire and want, and feeling like you never have enough) - is gonna fuck up a lot of peoples heads, it is a fact, drugs or no drugs.
if there were no drugs on the planet to abuse; our mental health institutions would still be filled with messed up people, and they'd probably be blaming it on the internet or something. Cause there always has to be something to blame for our problems, some external thing, but our problems in society have been getting steadily worse over the past 50 years, and to blame drugs for this is foolish, drug abuse is just a symptom of the underlying problem...
in old tribal cultures, although harsh and tough going - people with mental health problems weren't thought of as having mental health problems, they were revered as being shaman, witch doctors, counsellors, people who had insight into things other people didn't... saints were quite often people who suffered from schizophrenia.
Yet in our culture they're branded as ill.
Any society that places so many demands, desires, images of war and suffering, conformity, the feeling of never having enough, feelings of us and them, competition, envy, fashion, selfishness, cyniscism, rejection, apathy (like my example of the people on the bus watching my friend getting beaten up like it was something on the telly.) Is gonna have a lot of fucked up people on it's hands, with confused feelings of self-worth.
and if you think there's nothing wrong with the world, think again, look at how much the forests have been depleted, how those that stick up for the environment are mocked and treated roughly, even branded as terrorists now ; I mean that shows me there's a serious problem, that greed is becoming our self-destruction. The rich and poor divide, the engineers of need, make it almost impossible to fight back, and so is it any wonder that as slowly nature is ripped apart our society also falls apart.
Cannabis has been used/abused for a long time. People have been having a toke since the stone age, they found traces of cannabis resin in old sacred places where people gathered for ceremonies. It was quite commonly used just about everywhere until the prohibition paranoia. It's as old as we are.
And whatever anybody does, it will always be here. I'm not saying it is good, and I'm not saying it is bad. But the desire to control others by saying they can't smoke a substance if they want to, is wrong and strange. People should have the freedom to do this if they so wish. It's their choice at the end of the day, and to say cannabis causes mental illness and advertising doesn't is daft. People on drugs probably wouldn't be so messed up, if our society wasn't so messed up as well - offering very little options, except to don your identity and become a robot, in the great machination of greed.
and the fundamental thing is, no matter how much we argue about it, people will do it, whether it's legal or illegal, so making it a class c drug or class b or class a makes no difference... so anti-drugs campaigners can whine all they want, brandish their banners; whilst walking down the street, pretending that homeless person freezing in a blanket doesn't exist, and that people commit suicide because they're on drugs.
so excuse me while I light my spliff...
It would seem to me that softening the law has led to a rise in the capture rate. Make it perfectly legal and everybody will be storing it in their living room. Won't be hard to find at all then.
You know, I'm prepared to change my stance on this, should I see any compelling evidence, but I havent yet. (I am reading the articles with as little bias as i can muster). It's interesting Gerry that you say to Rokkit - "but of course you won't, because YOUR mind is made up"... because all through this debate you come across as so so SO rigid and unwilling to ... not listen, listen is not the right word. Hrmm...so unwilling to consider that there might be any other way?
I havent smoked since September... not because I believe it is detrimental to my health, simply because I am a great deal happier these days. Should I feel in need of a pick me up however, I will indulge. I prefer smokers to drinkers, anyday of the week.
Sorry Radio, I meant 1leg. Ricicles (not sure if I spelt it right) are frosted Rice Krispies. Curry's a kind of hot thing. As for Maltesers... no one knows. *wooooooooooooooooo!*
I really think I'm failing to understand you Gerry. I can accept points of views different to my own (that's one of the many pitfalls of being liberal, you have to accept that other people have freedom of thought), so if you are anti-drugs and want them to be banned, you're entitled to think that. And it is certainly true that there's a lack of honest, unbiased information about drugs - there are two camps; the long-established 'drugs are bad, addictive and fuck you up' camp and the newcomers who say 'drugs are harmless, open up your mind and at worst provide momentary escapism'.
I just can't understand in your argument when you say things like this :-
"If you are pro freedom. pro choice... you cannot possibly be pro drugs, a case I have made out over and over again and which seems to have bypassed you. "
I just don't get it at all. I can see that you are suggesting that people who use drugs are robbed of their freedom of choice, and for a minority that may be horribly true; but once you start saying that people should be stopped from doing things that harm themselves you've abandoned the ideas of freedom and choice and gone into the State and society deciding what's right. (Not that this is necessarily a wrong thing - liberalism as against social responsibility - Rosseau and Hobbes, is a very well-established argument and both camps have their benefits and flaws). But I just don't see that you can argue that restricting people's freedom of choice is done in the name of preserving their freedom of choice.
The State, at present, says that certain drugs are illegal because they cause harm. The State has a right to set laws (whether or not people disagree with them), but any individual living in the State has a right to exercise their own freedom and contravene those laws PROVIDED they are prepared to take the consequences of their action.
Drugs good or bad, and drugs regulated or decriminalised are two interesting arguments, and although I suspect we fall down on different sides, I can respect your views and opinions. But on an issue of whether you can be pro-freedom of choice by saying that people are not free to choose whether to take drugs is a position that I think is untenable.
I may be descending into semantics here; but that sentence just irked me. I think you can make a case for saying that drugs are so damaging that it justifies a curtailment of freedom of choice, but your sentence seems to be akin to the Vietnam thing of 'we destroyed the village in order to save it'.
For me, it is far too simplistic to say either drugs are dreadful or drugs are wonderful. I think cannabis is less harmful than the anti-brigade would make out, but not as consequence-free as the pro-smokers would have us believe. I have seen heavy users alter their personalities as a consequence, equally I have seen many people use it recreationally with no more ill-effects than having the occasional couple of pints of Stella to relax.
I know about munchies....I just don't know these "foreign" names for them. Hershey's, I'll admit too....twinkies...don't think so. I prefer BBQ Shrimp and a nice glass of Shiraz to wash the smoke down. Okay, M&M's from time to time.
it's okay Rok, I didn't care who you were talking to, I was curious about the food. I keep hearing about "Curry" and I think I had that once but it made me want to stick my finger in my throat afterwards. Is it anything like a taco or boiled opossum fat and turnip greens?
A Twinkie HAHA.....
A twinkie is a light yellow fluffy sponge cake thing filled with sugar flavored white cooking grease. (cream filling) You can buy them two in a pack or a whole box of about 1 dozen singles. They are about as healthy to eat as dog poop.
Most of my friends tried it and grew out of it...a couple got messed up.
I agree with Emily, "For me, it is far too simplistic to say either drugs are dreadful or drugs are wonderful. I think cannabis is less harmful than the anti-brigade would make out, but not as consequence-free as the pro-smokers would have us believe. "
Tis so true - sit as far as you want on either side of the wood, most of us are in the middle somewhere..
j
"By your argument, we should be expecting whole swathes of Indian ocean to be turning to Cannabis (remember it is commonly grown as muck) because life is 'shit'..."
No, once again, a few different arguments have got confused. Some people may turn to drugs because they're lives are unpleasant but my argument was that people's lives being unpleasant and stressful is the primary external cause of mental health problems and therefore, making people's lives better is a more pressing concern than persuading people not to use recreational drugs.
In the case of cannabis, I think the majority of people who people who use it in Britain use it for fun and not as a perceived answer to deep rooted emotional problems or as a regular escape for an unpleasant existence.
But people who do have deep rooted emotional problems and a generally unpleasant existence are more likely to have mental health problems.
If they then start using cannabis (or other drugs), there's a high chance these drugs will make things worse. The point is that if you remove the cannabis from the equation, you're still left with the problems.
"Of course it is right to demonise things... now answer this directly, don't you demonise thieving, violence, racism, drug taking in sports... sex with children etc or don't you? Perhaps you just think "Everybody should have the right to make their own experiences and mistakes in order to grow up. Who am I to deny them that?""
Here we're at a point of philosophical divergence.
I do believe that we should oppose thieving, violence (against others), racism, drug taking in sports and sex with children because all of these involve victims other than the perpetrator.
I believe in protecting people from the actions of other people, I don't believe in protecting people from themselves. You do and I respect that as honest opinion but I think it's wrong.
I think people should be given the opportunity to make informed decisions but if they then take what I, like you, would regard as the wrong decisions then I accept it and get on with my life.
Although I think it is currently illegal, I also support people having the right to cut off their own leg if they want to. I would support the provision of information pointing out that walking is more difficult with a leg missing but I wouldn't support a propaganda campaign demonising recreational self-amputees.
llegspider wrote:
"As for you Funky, It would be churlish of me to blame society for the manner in which your parents broke up. I can blame society for the fact that you were presented with drugs at such a tender age and in an environment where you were completely unaware of the real consequences of meddling these powerful substances. If I were you Funky, I'd change your psychiatrist, you will make greater progress when you come to accept that there was a high price to pay for your drug habits. I am glad to hear that you are off the dope, It does not surprise me that it takes years to recover all that lost time... many people give up on the realisation of how much they lost. You are one of the lucky ones... you have a new life/lives to celebrate."
I can't believe the self-righteousness and glibness of this paragraph, lleg! Here's someone giving you an open and honest glimpse about a very personal relation between cause and effect, and what do you do? You turn it round in the most patronising way to suit your own ends. The cannabis isn't the problem here, it's the parental breakdown. Geddit?!
Ironically, I can't help the feeling that Funky's, as well as some other occasional herbalist's, analysis are considerably more honest - not to mention thorough, logical and sussed - compared with llegspider's self-serving emotional and paranoid rants.
Since you obviously thought it was your place to make glib recommendations, lleg, let me make one as well: Instead of projecting whatever it was you felt in connection with whatever happened to your brother on other people and telling them what to think/do, why don't you seek some help from a good therapist/psychologist in order to face up to the real problems and give yourself a chance to come to terms with it. It could be much more constructive!
[%sig%]
Hunter S was on your side,
>> ..He was said regularly to fax advice to Democrats seeking office, and was distraught when Bill Clinton announced he had not inhaled a marijuana cigarette once handed to him.
"It's just a disgrace to an entire generation," he exclaimed. ...<<
You know, I read the abstract of a study into calorie consumption that said stoners consume on average 30% more calories than non-stoners, but are no heavier on average. It seems the 'munchies' is accompanied by an increased metabolism. Sweet!
I'm all about the cereal, to be honest. It just works when combined with a couple of zoots. Maybe some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food. Sour Cream and Onion Pringles.
I used to *love* Harribo Tangfastics, but over Christmas I got severe food poisoning, and they were the last thing I ate before my stomach emptied itself. I haven't touched them since.
I stopped smoking cannabis when I was 17, because it made me paranoid. I much prefer alcohol for my kicks :) depends what yer bag is baby.
your arguments are extremely exaggerated, nospiders - chill dude
"'Education' is value-neutral."
No, it isn't.
Everyone is coming from somewhere in terms of their position on the drugs debate.
Most drugs ed people I've met who work for councils or drugs charities have realised that 'just say no' or wacking kids over the head with worst case scenario stories about drugs doesn't work because, as Rokkit says, this simply isn't reflected by their real life experiences.
The problem I found when I used to work in the yoof media business and often worked on projects with the council's drug education team was that they tended to end up in an ambiguous position.
Drugs ed people would try and say to kids - we're going to give you 'the facts' so you can make an informed choice about drugs.
The problem with that is, under present laws, they're actually lying to (or at least misleading) kids because illegal drugs are, of course, illegal and part of the job of government drugs workers is to get less people to take drugs - I think they even have % targets.
So what you tend to end up with is: yes - there are some good things about taking drugs, yes - we can understand why you might take drugs but in the long run their very bad for you so, please, just say no.
Even when the presentation is non-patronising and even when the factual messages are genuinely factual, the underlying message remains the same.
I'm most highly amused by 1Leg's apparent complete ignorance of the drug use in 'whole swathes of the indian ocean'. All indigenous peoples that I have spent time with (yes - I have been there and been with these people on many occasions, sometimes living as they live) use some drug or other. Small children smoke cigarettes or 'pipes' containing locally available substances. Have you not heard of the beetle nut? Almost every tribal person in Thailand's mouth is reddened with it. Wake up 1Leg!
I have some very fond memories of my teenage years. It was mid-summer. There were about 10 of us. We pitched a tent next to a wood in 'a farmers field' and dropped some acid. we spent the evening next to the brook in the wood, talking, smoking and relaxing along the enbankment. When dawn broke, the woods were shimmering in dew and I could swear I was sitting in the page of a book of fairy tales. I went home and had a fried breakfast, it was the best fried breaky I ever had. My friend mike rang me at 10am and told me that he was sitting in his bedroom and had just had a convo with his poster of bob marley. We laughed and then I went to bed. I woke up late afternoon, and I never forget my dad telling me about the 'shit' that had gone on 'down town' the night before. I look back now and I remember all those people and how we helped and supported each other during those summers evenings. All the confessions, the emotional outbursts and the fun. magical days. :)))
the truma of mental health is dishearting mabye people think there thick or stupid but i for one have studyed mental health and they are far from "thick" there is a disfuntion of conmuication they can not do it physicaly but mentaly they under stand what you are saying .
and as a had a break down when i had my first child i can say you can recover from some of it but it is still there for the rest of your life
I agree there has been a lot of ambiguity about the messages presented to young people on drug taking... I suppose that is the main thrust of my arguments here - there should NOT be.
An objective 'presentation of the facts' approach will never be enough against what in practice is a highly intensive subjective experience. It is why no matter how many times you go over diagrams of the human reproduction system, pointing out in a matter of fact way what happens here then there, you will never get young (or even older) people to behave sexually responsibly... the figures on teenage pregnancy bear that out. Why should drugs education be any different?
Increasing numbers of young people across Europe (in the news today) are taking up Cannabis and it just does not bode well for themselves in particular and society in general.
Can 'emotional intelligence' be taught... I believe it can to an extent, but in our day, this left too much to chance as an afterthought in our educational system... there being too much emphasis on 'facts'. 'Facts' are good but only in their place. Emotionally immature people will ignore 'facts' however many and carefully you present it to them... we see that here everyday.
Emotional faculities within the brain should be tackled primarily with learning geared towards that aspect of the brain, with experential methods such as empathy, drama, scenario projection etc and not only reason, logic and 'facts'...
We do not need religion or God here either, for many people that is rightly too simplistic and unconvincing in our age.
I just believe that a moral case against drugs is possible... in the same way that we have no problems saying that drugs in sport is cheating and ought to be ridiculed, that thieving is wrong, that premeditated violence is wrong and counterproductive... a convincing case could made against the taking of drugs in general by equating it to a cheating of oneself/ones brain functions (which if you really think about, it it really is)
Look we all may do it from time to time... but it should not be something we are told is of little or no consequence... it is cheating, and if you do it a little, you are cheating your brain a little... and if you do it lots, the proper response from everyone else should be the unambiguous language of ridicule and derision... young people understand that.
pschmitt, perhaps you are baulking because of the seering sincerity and honesty in which that I wrote that... Choose to agree or disagree if you wish, but to suggest I would go to these lenghts ro argue for 'effect' is silly. You know what, these are my sincerely held views at the moment, and if I choose to, I can and will drop them like a stone... if I hear something convincing that is, and thus far you have contributed the least..
Where have I doubted Funky's piece in my reply? It is an honest and touching and eloquent portrayal of how he was introduced to drugs and how they became a real part of his life and the ramifications to this day. It is absolutely true for him, I agree. Is it the only truth out there?... absolutely not. There are as many personal case histories as there are people, even given very similar circumstances....
What can you take from Funky's history that is universal and could be usefully applied to others in a similar situation?
That parents relationships, breaking down in a way and that children should be protected as far as possible from being use their emotional crutches... OK
That children, particularly the vulnerable should prefferably not be exposed to powerful psychoactive drugs? OK
That we must keep on looking for better ways to educate children (and adults) of the damage that drug abuse can inflict on their lives? OK
OR are you seriously suggesting that it is an inescaple fact that if your parents relationship breaks down in the manner that Funky described the natural laws of 'cause and effect' - your words - will dictate that there is only ONE possible outcome, and that shall be truth for everyone, evermore. Do you believe in zero free will and responsibility?..
My suggestion to Funky was that the physical act of taking drugs at that point of someone in his position ... would directly interfere with the brains own natural mechanims of coming to terms and working around the serious predicament he found himself in (agreed through little choice of his own)...
Is that something astounding to be saying? Perhaps it too obvious a truth for you.
"LSD - I admit that this rather fucked me up. But that was down to extreme bad luck rather than the drug per se - once I accidently got a "spiked" joint, with liquid LSD in it. Cue frazzled brain circuits: severely unpleasant. Fun to try once or twice though, but BE CARFUL."
The very brain that you admittedly fucked up (give you a little credit for that awareness at least) above leads you to now make a statement like this:
"But the point is, drugs give an insight into different modes of consciousness and thus EXISTENCE. This is of profound, I would say even spritual, importance. "
Leftboy, I have really nothing left to say to you.
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