Reefer Madness

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by Mattyk72

c'mon schneed, I know you're a strong anti-weed guy but I would think even you could see the complete BS of this. It's total propoganda. It reminds me of the old myth that 7 acid trips will make you insane. If you're already predisposed to mental illness I agree this could possibly trigger something, but then again there are probably plenty of other chemicals that could also be a trigger, but to make the claim that 1 joint causes mental illness is just well, insane.

Well to be technical, they didn't say one joint CAUSES mental illness, they said it increases the risk by 40%. Now if we do some careful analysis on that, we might find that the reason the risk goes up 40% may not be due to the weed; it may be because people who are prone to smoke weed are just by nature 40% more likely to be mentally ill. Therefore, weed may not be the cause of the full 40% increase in risk. And just from a gut feel, you can kind of sense that one joint can't possibly CAUSE schizophrenia; rather simply that schizophrenia shows up 40% more often in people who have had at least one joint in their life.

But reading the full article, rather than just this sensational headline, you see that the more alarming stat is that repeated use of weed doubles your risk for Schizophrenia. And that makes sense to me, from a gut feel point of view. Schizophrenia is caused by chemical imbalances. Smoking weed puts chemicals in your brain. Therefore, if you smoke enough weed, you might cause a chemical imbalance.

Of course, what does it mean to "double the risk" of schizophrenia? That means they're saying the average person has something like a 0.01% chance of developing schizophrenia. Then they're saying that if that person smokes weed a lot over the course of his life, he becomes 0.02% likely to develop schizophrenia. It doubled the risk. Of course, the risk is still low, even after smoking weed.

That's what a little analysis can say. I do agree that they're trying to scare people with these sensational headlines. But I also agree with the validity of the science. Try to cut through both, and you get to the truth: they're probably right that weed doubles your chance of being a Schizo, but even after doubling the chances, it's still not that likely that you'll be a Schizo.