Psychiatric Effects

[britjojo]

There is talk in the UK now of previously unknown psychiatric effects of MJ. The regular use of this drug is believed to cause an increase in mental illness in the decades that follow. Disorders such as schizoeffective disorder are said to increase.

I have yet to see other research that suggests this however, but this is pretty new.

[mtajim]

I am sure this will happen and since more number of people have used it so , you will see too many diffrent cases of such illness

[britjojo]

As a regular user of this in the past I find it a little scary that there is the prospect of increasing mental illness. I have been bipolar since I was about 15-long before I ever smoked MJ and so the prospect of it adding to my problems does not exactly thrill me.

[mtajim]

If you have left it long before than its not going to harm you , but there are people who have taken it all their life long , it surely harms them

[britjojo]

No, that is not what the research is suggesting. They are saying that people who used it in the past, not current users, have an increased risk of mental illness in the future. Which is why I am a little disheartened by it.

[Ricardo]

That is a disturbing thought.

If that's the case, then there will be very large sections of the population dealing with the issue.

We had a border living with us who had drank a lot and used various drugs in her teens. She had problems with organization and memory that could have been associated with a case of "adolescent/teen underachievement" but I still wonder if some of that was symptoms of substance abuse.

[QuietLunatic]

There are more long-term consequences to a lot of things that we're only finding out about now because in the early years, no one had gone decades with or without the drugs. My ex died of liver failure this year, due to Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis which might have been related to three months of using heroin in his youth.