Marijuana hospital visits linked to dementia diagnosis within 5 years – a study
cnn.com
cnn.com
> “However, this is not a study that anyone should look at and say, ‘Jury’s in, and cannabis use causes dementia,’” Myran said. “This is a study that brings up a concerning association that fits within a growing body of research.”
From the study:
> Individuals with acute care due to cannabis use were at lower risk than those with acute care due to alcohol use.
I wonder if doing cognitive tests at various levels of intoxication might be a better indicator than under normal conditions.
I remember when there was a huge push on reddit and everywhere to decriminalize and later legalize marijuana and I was a supporter of the movement and still support it but only as a liberty principle. After getting into smoking it regularly in college I had the chance to meet long time users and without exception all of them had cognitive issues. One day I was late for a party and everyone was high when I arrived and I realized that I simply can't stand them because everything they said was the lowest IQ stuff I ever heard and they were pretending that its creative. Quit the thing and never looked back.
Stick to the alcohol and drink within the culture of it and you will be fine. It is bad for your body even at small quantities but at least you keep your mind intact and alcohol actually enhances the creativity by lowering your guard and not interfering with your intelligence. The culture part is important, binge drinking can be fun at college at times but the culture I'm referring is the culture where alcohol is being consumed socially together with some food or at event. Avoid drinking alone and other high risk activities associated with drinking.
I keep reading about how alcohol consumption is dropping, pubs are closing and this makes me sad because I see how young people lock themselves into apartments and smoke weed all day. I don't believe that anything good comes out of it, no wonder the loneliness epidemic is destroying the world.
It's a very unpopular opinion and in some countries drinking only means getting smashed but trust me, there's another way. With weed, there's no another way.
Anyway, here's something fun to watch on the topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTSCppeFzX4
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7488355/
Alcohol use disorder (AUD) has been associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Prolonged excessive alcohol intake contributes to increased production of reactive oxygen species that triggers neuroimmune response and cellular apoptosis and necrosis via lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial, protein or DNA damage. Long term binge alcohol consumption also upregulates glutamate receptors, glucocorticoids and reduces reuptake of glutamate in the central nervous system, resulting in glutamate excitotoxicity, and eventually mitochondrial injury and cell death. In this review, we delineate the following principles in alcohol-induced neurodegeneration: (1) alcohol-induced oxidative stress, (2) neuroimmune response toward increased oxidants and lipopolysaccharide, (3) glutamate excitotoxicity and cell injury, and (4) interplay between oxidative stress, neuroimmune response and excitotoxicity leading to neurodegeneration and (5) potential chronic alcohol intake-induced development of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.
https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/04-01-2023-no-level-of-...
Decriminalising would make it (more) possible to grow and sell lower THC weed, and weed with different cannabinoid profiles. We still know very little about the differential effects of THC/CBD etc in weed as-smoked.
In short, I think your advice is probably premature. Let's try legalising and developing a stoner culture which isn't the equivalent of hardcore alcoholism, then try comparing. Plus, drunk people (> 2 pints) are also seriously boring if you are sober.
Maybe I will change my mind about weed once I start observing such situations.
Alcohol is a potent substance and beyond the ocasional use in moderate quantities it’s terrible both physically and psychologically, but it’s a “social lubricant” and has been for thousands of years because it works.
The truth is most weed people use it like they are alcoholics and there’s the inevitable group who use it as an identity and they are just unbearable to be around.
Whose idea is that? Certainly not the person you're responding to, who said nothing of the sort.
And that never happened with alcohol?
The nice thing about alcohol is the dynamic range of its effects. The bad stuff start after the "tipsy" stage and even after that there's quite a bit of way to go until things become a problem.
~10% of the population simply cannot.
I'd argue it's a lot higher of a percentage in places like here in Wisconsin.
When you say that you've never seen one do you mean that you've seen many weed cultures but never a healthy one?
What makes the ones that you've seen unhealthy?
Stoned people might be lethargic and dull, but at least they're more reliably amiable than drunk people. Some people start becoming nasty after only a couple drinks - no fists being thrown, just casually cruel things that they'd never dream of saying while sober, trivial disagreements escalated into petty and personal shouting matches. You don't have to be particularly intoxicated to start saying things that your sober self would be utterly ashamed of; your saving grace is the fact that most of the people around you aren't really parsing or retaining what you're saying.
I think it's one of the reason people "like" alcohol, it gives them both the courage and an excuse to say whatever they want/feel.
But you seem to be making excuses/explanation for this, I don't agree, what people become under the influence of alcohol is who they truly are, without the mask and restraints. If someone becomes petty/cruel/violent or whatever, you just learned that they cannot be trusted and are a bad person, no needs to explain away with alcohol influence.
In general, drugs amplify or make obvious who peoples are, they don't radically change them contrary to what some like to pretend.
I have never heard about cocaine making people paranoid but it is just something that every drug user displays at some point (because of the fear of being found out, judged and maybe having trouble with the police). Even though I am an extremely chill person, I have found myself to be a bit paranoid under the influence of cannabis at times.
And I have a question for you: is it the drug that makes people paranoid or is it that people who are inclined to paranoid behavior are more likely to use drugs, which amplify the behavior.
People regularly using drugs have issues that push them to this abuse, it's not really the drug that are the problem, the root of the issue is really in the people and their personnality/character.
All we know is that people who visit the ER or who are hospitalized "for cannabis use" (not defined in the abstract; full text is behind a paywall) end up with dementia at a higher rate.
That does not mean cannabis caused it. They've accounted for many confounding factors, but you can't account for all of them. Off the top of my head, perhaps people who are in the very early stages of dementia do not tolerate THC as well? Maybe their emotional regulatory ability declines before diagnosis, and they're therefore less able to bring themselves down if they experience anxiety.
The median marijuana user is probably also fine in similar circumstances. This study is talking about "someone who has an emergency room visit or hospitalization due to cannabis" - which I assume isn't the normal experience. And heavy users probably do have a raft of problems but unless we have statistics to break out its probably comparable to the horrors of the serious alcoholics (I had a neighbour once who was vegetabalised after a drunken pub fight - nobody will talk me out of blaming the grog for that one).
Although I would echo the general theme of your post which is that if someone is worried about their health and wellbeing, maybe avoid the drugs. Although I'd go further and say avoid the alcohol too.
Humans have been dealing in drugs and alcohol for millennia at this point. They're not good for you in large doses and the benefits in small doses are questionable (which, given the millennia thing, suggests they may not be there). There is a tactical "benefit" in convincing people to do silly things and they make individuals feel good for a while.
Scientifically, apparently alcohol is worse for your brain. From the study[0]:
> Individuals with acute care due to cannabis use were at lower risk than those with acute care due to alcohol use (aHR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.62-0.76).
Personally, someone very close to me had an acute emergency room visit about 5 years ago due to what we can only assume was a poorly dosed edible, and/or a newly developed severe allergy. Fingers crossed they do not develop dementia. (Per the study, looks like odds are 1 in 20 for those that hit the ER.)
Based on what, your personal experience talking to stoners in college? Plenty of people smoke socially, and among people who smoke cannabis, only a small fraction "lock themselves into apartments and smoke weed all day". In fact, that fraction is much smaller than the fraction of people who drink alcohol who lock themselves in their apartments drinking all day. And I don't know if you've spent any time with those people, but they all have cognitive issues too. As do people who do speed all day. As do people who do heroin all day.
Cannabis can be a wonderful social drug, as can amphetamine or cocaine, and I'm sure even opioids, though I don't touch those because I have significant genetic risk for opioid addiction.
I don't think judging a drug by its most addicted users is fair. Especially since you're doing that for weed, and then comparing that to the most reasonable alcohol users.
All that being said, I absolutely agree that cannabis is not good for you in large quantities. It's absolutely bad for cognitive ability, working memory, and long term memory when used chronically. But the only people I've met who would disagree with that are cannabis addicts, and usually young ones at that(the older ones tend to figure it out unless they stay stoned for their entire lives, which does happen). Most people I talk to are well aware of these things. And at least from my own experience, these effects will generally pass once you cut down.
Yep. And plenty smoke privately, too. People see the public spectacles and incorrectly conclude it as wholly representative.
Many professionals use cannabis but choose to not advertise it since misinformation is still so rampant, originating from the "Reefer Madness" propaganda days. The tradeoff of potential career damage just isn't worth it.
Carl Sagan understood this, among many others:
https://bigthink.com/health/carl-sagan-on-smoking-marijuana/
With alcohol stages are something like this:
1) First it makes you relaxed. With the help of the music and the company you start feeling integrated. Thats usually within the first hour of social drinking.
2) Later you usually feel liberated, at this stage your personality and emotional state becomes exposed. You can become more friendly, more talkative or if you are not well you can start opening up about it and even cry a bit. You feel a bit tipsy but this is not the dominant feeling. It depends, but the gist is that you lower your guard. This is the stage where most benefits of drinking is. Usually can be maintained for a few hours by keep drinking slowly.
3) Next the effect of alcohol start becoming a bit more pronounced, you feel funny and you might start having motor skill issues. This is the stage you better stop. There's nothing good beyond this. Ideally this is at the end of the night and you are headed home.
4) Then you actually become drunk, you start slurring when talking. Your motor skills are severely impacted and emotional issues may arise and you can do things you will regret later. This usually happens very late at the hight of drinking.
5) The last stage is when you are blackout level drunk and don't remember much tomorrow. At this stage you need to have someone to look after you. You can be a danger to yourself and people around you. It happens when you push it.
How does the weed smoking look like? Where the social smoking fits in this?
The thing about weed is that, if you are getting it legally at a dispensary in a state with strict and enforced testing laws (so not CA), you can get yourself a nice low strength sativa/hybrid while avoiding anything with high CBN (that's the couching chem). You will be buzzed off a hit or two, and you just take another hit every 30-60 minutes or so (everyone's mileage WILL vary). It is just like staying buzzed on alcohol is approximately 1 beer/hr (according to the ancient wisdom of older brother's since the dawn of time).
All drugs have their tolerances and and all drugs have people who abuse them and people who are "allergic" to them and should avoid them at all cost.
Now, that doesn't cover every case, I run in to people who vape cannabis all the time, and they seem to have some emotional effects from that, but if someone is going to abuse a substance, I'd much prefer that was cannabis. Alcohol is a poison, look at the biology at work when your body processes. Re: cannabis, smoking anything is unhealthy, so maybe don't smoke.
Even moderate consumption of alcohol leads to structural and volumetric brain changes: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28735-5
I'll change the strain from indica to sativa just for a check. Occasionally I do enjoy silliness it brings that makes me wanna play with my kids. Or have some superficially deep thinking while riding bike. Otherwise I'll likely stop too.
Marijuana has never made me sleepy though, it has quite the opposite effect and keeps me awake. Perhaps it was just easier to rebound from staying up all night in my 20s.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/marijuana-wee...
In most cases withdrawal is as simple as a few restless nights and after 3-4 weeks you're completely yourself again.
It's still a lot milder compared to cigarette smokers who can dream of dancing cigarettes years after they quit.
The least favorite withdrawal symptom I’ve seen is REM rebound, which causes intense and vivid dreaming, which causes you to wake up in the morning feeling like you haven’t slept at all.
The return of mental clarity also causes some rebound anxiety as you regain mental clarity (especially if anxiety was the reason for smoking in the first place)
I think it does a major disservice to the general population to paint weed in an only-positive light. Yea, I get people unfairly demonized weed for years. But that doesn’t mean we should all go on the complete opposite end of the spectrum and pretend there’s no withdrawal, no side effects, etc.
(Maybe the people downvoting are just occasional once a week users? I could imagine once weekly having zero negative effects. But once you get to daily use, the negative effects are pretty obvious)
But yeah weed is totally harmless and adderall has no negative effects for individuals diagnosed with adhd. Sure.
Really, it depends on your life situation and why you use drugs. The root cause for using drugs is always the toughest thing to tackle. After that, quitting is easy. Fixing your life is the HARD part.
I’ve quit cold turkey several times with little problems - quit for several months or over a year, then used again for x months, then quit again, etc. (This went hand in hand with a certain seasonal job.) Apart from very slight ”I wouldn’t mind a smoke” kind of feelings it doesn’t have much of an effect of me.
My SO was miserable, depressed, craved cigarettes for months and months. For the longest time she was convinced that it isn’t possible for her to quit, since they cravings didn’t go away. (Until they did.)
Anecdotally, I can tell you with absolute certainty I could never become an alcoholic, I have no interest in drinking on any two consecutive days and it's usually several month between any alcohol consumption. Yet there have been alcoholics in my family. But when it comes to weed I will be continually stoned out of my mind as long as any weed is available.
It's a terrible side effect of the legal status of most drugs that we have neglected to study most of them to the extend that would be necessary to actually make progress (with the notable exception of tobacco)
I’m 50% of Allen Carr’s book [0] and it feels very promising.
0 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Easy_Way_to_Stop_Smoking
Cigarettes for me combined many aspects that are psychological and social rather than physical:
- the sucking reflex. Same calming mechanism as the babies with the pacifier
- the comfort of routine, where they support the familiar (the first cig with a coffee, a morning or evening cigarette)
- the social interactions (smokers areas are a great place for a conversation and there is no hierarchy)
- last but not least - physical effect of calming
- the very strong associative effect caused by movies with smoking scenes
- the nice feeling of appetite reduction caused by cigarettes/nicotine
What helped me was:
0) for the routines - replacing with a different ones that do not need cigarettes.
1) to not set the goal to quit outright, but rather to reduce, and then when it went to zero it was “temporarily stop, I can always restart if I consciously find it worth it”.
2) make every cigarette subject of a conscious decision after a discussion with yourself. Do not prohibit it outright - it only heats up the impatience for it. Make it a conscious decision.
3) Look at adjacent habits, like alcohol. My last infrequent routine, which persisted irregularly for some years after I stopped, was to have a cigarette sometimes socially when I had a drink. After I reduced the drinking to almost zero, I once had tried social smoking and didn’t like how it tasted at all, and had a headache the next day. Which was remarkable as I never had this before. No social impulse felt anymore.
4) take up some sport for half an hour a day, preferably aerobic (I do cycling on a stationary bike). If you manage to go for a streak without cigarettes/alcohol, the difference in performance and feeling will be very apparent which will help at (2).
5) watch out for potential weight gain after stopping smoking. Was hard for me (I gained more than 20 kilos), eventually I lost weight because I moved for half a year to another city where I led a much more active lifestyle.
6) the company of smokers at work. This may be hard but super important if you can tackle it. Eventually I started going for the “breath breaks” but just having a chat rather than smoke, but since this strongly triggers the “routine” programming, this is something I could do only 2 years into stopping.
It is a different journey for everyone, but hopefully some of the above may ring true for you and be useful in your journey. Good luck!
Just linking the study is strictly less informative since TFA already links to it but adds a lot more context.
> Yet research shows that regular users of marijuana are at risk for serious conditions, including strokes, heart attacks, cardiac arrhythmias, heart failure and myocarditis, which is an inflammation of the heart muscle.
I was under the impression that there was a relationship between cardiovascular disease and dementia too.
Probably best to keep it in moderation for most folks and occasionally benefit from the introspective or entheogenic effects, which I'd argue outweigh most dangers.
The analgesic effects really do work for some people, it seems via detachment rather than direct anesthetics. If it worked for me, I'd struggle with moderation. While it does shift perspective enough to reinterpret some discomfort in an alleviating manner, it's a bit much for me in exchange.
Recreational use mystifies me, but I'd rather be judged than judge, and regarding these supposed associations with dementia, I find the chronic consumers that I know more mentally fit than most others. I've also, for the hordes of stoners I've known, never observed nor heard of a hospitalization. I have however, observed that the plant and its extracts instill a focused awareness on one's self and previously hidden ailments can be both revealed and sometimes appear exaggerated. I think there's a sensitizing effect, but it's often lost with chronic use.
I consider it a medicine, and given the choice between ineffective legal analgesics, would fear marijuana less than, eg acetaminophen [0] or ibuprofen, which annihilates my stomach.
0. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01638...
Anyways, I take gummies about once a week these days. Using them every day is fun for a while but your paying for a new state of mind when you have one for free. IMO, drugs like weed, acid, etc are best used sparingly so they can change your perspective and not to become your only perspective.
Personally I like reading code and studying UI's when I'm high. If you can figure out someone else's code or ui while your high, you know it's good.
I also fuck better. High sex = best sex.
...surely, a lot must rest on what the other mammal(¿) thinks, especially er....before, during, and after.
Which came first, the cannabis consumption, or the mental health issues?
I totally agree with some of the other comments: I've seen alcohol consumption lead to MUCH more frequent, and serious, behavioral issues and long term mental and physical health issues.
(Disclaimer: I didn't say they are bad at all of those)
PS. Read the original paper if you don't like the article.