Or perhaps junk reporting. These studies find an association between cannabis use and schizophrenia and depression. The earlier one starts to use cannabis, the more likely one is to be diagnosed with depression or schizophrenia. The way this is reported, one is naturally led to assume that the cannabis is the cause behind these mental disorders. If you have even a basic understanding of statistics or experimental method, especially in psychology, it should be obvious that this is reported poorly and is thoroughly misleading. The studies that are being cited are observational studies, in which those who smoke weed are people who have chosen to smoke. This is different than an experiment in which randomly selected patients are given weed while some are given placebo. The important difference is that an experiment is needed to determine causation, while what is reported in the article is an observational study which CANNOT SHOW CAUSATION.

Most likely, those who elect to smoke the sweet leaf are those who are at greatest risk for depression and schizophrenia in the first place. It's a form of self medication. Those who smoke earlier are at greater risk for these diseases perhaps because those who need grass earlier will more serious symptoms of the diseases.

This is fucking junk science that doesn't prove anything. There is no causation in this study. Unfortunately, I promise all the anti-drug folks and the anti-decriminalization media will report this story all over the place and make cannabis look bad. I could produce the same damn results for alcohol, cigarettes, chocolate, or over-eating. Remember, the number of drowning deaths per month shows a very very strong correlation with amount of ice cream sold per month; We all know that ice cream doesn't cause people to drown. We need to realize the problems inherent to observational studies and the influences of confounding variables. Fucking media.

then again... what evidence do you need to call weed evil?

*hmm... howabout those shit commercials?*

well... i have actually got two freinds who both now suffer from quite substantial mental health problems, these problems occoured around the time both of them started getting quite heavily into smokeing and were doing no other additional drugs pharmicutical or recreational. i won't bore you with specifics but one of them is paraniod schizophrenic and the other is prone to heavy catatonic depresion, at certain times it was actually possible to see the transition from good to bad i.e. when one of them had just got up and was reasonablly sober and articulate, then had a joint and turned into a paranoid gittery mess that wouldn't come out of his room because he thaought police helicopters were after him. i myself while not getting serious mental health problems am left extremely paraniod after smokeing, thus the reason i haven't done it for 4-5 years. however i am no expert by any means but from what i have observed (which could be just coincedence) canibis has turned two of my freinds from being comfotable, well adjusted people to well.. not being.

i'm not anti drugs by any stretch, i enjoy clubbing and whatever recreational drugs i happen to come across while out and i'd like to think i've escaped the grasps of media indoctrination, but i do think that canibis while not detrimental to evryones mental health is at least not taken seriously enough and seen as the first drug anyone should take, this is mainly to do with its availability and how easy it is to grow IMO. i'm not saying its a bad thing, hell, i used to enjoy smokeing it. just if the wrong people smoke it, it can have some pretty serious side effects.

which is why we need to make people aware that if they have a family history of mental illness and they have not been treated for it, they may be taking a risk when smoking bud or taking any drug for that matter. i know people who i absolutely will not sell to because their mother is a schizophrenic or they're on the verge of major depression or they're obviously borderline or something. my cousin is an example. after much begging and such, i smoked him up once, and realizing that it was a bad idea, i wouldn't sell any to him. so he went off and found his own dealer and one thing leads to another and he just got out of juvy for assault and he's been in mental hospitals and... well you get the picture.