Long term study reveals harm in cannabis use

Unfortunately the article does not explain how the study establishes causation.

>"Compared to non-users, regular cannabis users were more likely to engage in high-risk alcohol consumption, smoke tobacco, use other illicit drugs and not be in a relationship at age 35," Dr. Chan said.

That there is some correlation seems obvious and unsurprising. After all, if cannabis use is presented as somewhat risky in the media and by laws then only people who are comfortable with that risk, either by temperament or because they have little to lose, will use it.

The actual data don't really support the claims of the authors, and certainly not the hype of the press brief:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dar.13239

If it's a topic you are interested in, I would definitely recommend checking out the original article to decide for yourself.

Basically though, the authors looked at a bunch of different measures relating to "poor outcome" at age 35: Alcohol use, smoking, illicit drug use, relationship status, financial hardship, depression, anxiety and employment status.

Of those, the only significant associations they found were with high-risk alcohol use, likelihood to have used other illicit drugs (with the implicit assumption that this is a bad thing), daily cigarette smoking, and lack of relationship.

From the abstract:

"By the mid‐30s, both young‐adult and adolescent‐onset regular users were more likely than minimal/non‐users (63.5%) to have used other illicit drugs (odds ratio [OR] > 20.4), be a high‐risk alcohol drinker (OR > 3.7), smoked daily (OR > 7.2) and less likely to be in relationships (OR < 0.4)."

Excessive drinking and daily smoking are both pretty negative things, imo, but they are only showing a correlation, and that not surprising at all. People use all three substances to cope. The (small-ish) relationship association found is also interesting and could be viewed as a negative, but this too is just a correlation.

Relating to the other negative outcomes like depression and anxiety, the authors find:

"The distribution of having a paid job, anxiety, depression and financial hardship were similar to the percentage of each class in the population."

Cool.

It would be nice if in 2021 we could start being a bit more objective about how we approach studying substance use.

There are real risks and harms associated with cannabis use, some of which we understand, and others we likely don't fully appreciate due to a lack of studies.

Overstating things to further some agenda or to support one's subjective preconceptions helps no one and only serves to further dilute our actual understanding of the science, and is ultimately going to do more harm than good.

I don't know what evidence i'd need to stop, but when I hear findings like this, I immediately think-- "yes, people with more problems (esp w self control) will smoke more."

But how to tell whether it is causing their problems?

And, what can we learn from outliers -- those who smoke and do very well?

This study doesn’t tell me anything.

Couldn’t it be the other way around? That depressed people, people consuming alcohol and smoking are more likely to consume cannabis?

Is it the cause of the problems or just a reaction to those problems?

FYI. Cannabis psychosis is also symptomatically identical to schizophrenia.