Did Pot Trigger Giffords Shooting?

[lostinblue 1,989]

http://www.frumforum.com/did-pot-trigger-giffords-shooting

After horrific shootings, we hear calls for stricter regulation of guns. The Tucson shooting should remind us why we regulate marijuana.

Jared Lee Loughner, the man held as the Tucson shooter, has been described by those who know as a “pot smoking loner.”

He had two encounters with the law, one for possession of drug paraphanalia.

We are also learning that Loughner exhibited signs of severe mental illness, very likely schizophrenia.

The connection between marijuana and schizophrenia is both controversial and complicated. The raw association is strong:

Schizophrenics are twice as likely to smoke marijuana as non-schizophrenics.

People who smoke marijuana are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia as those who do not smoke.

But is correlation causation?

Increasingly experts seem to be saying: “Yes.”

Time had a good summary of the expert view in an article published in July 2010.

Marie-Odile Krebs, professor of psychiatry at the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) laboratory in France, and her colleagues published a study in June that identified two broad groups of people with schizophrenia who used cannabis: those whose disease was profoundly affected by their drug use and those who were not.

Within Krebs’s study population of 190 patients (121 of whom had used cannabis), researchers found a subgroup of 44 whose disease was powerfully affected by the drug. These patients either developed schizophrenia within a month of beginning to smoke pot or saw their existing psychosis severely exacerbated with each successive exposure to the drug. Schizophrenia appeared in these patients nearly three years earlier than in other marijuana-users with the disease.

After the Tucson shooting, there may be renewed pressure to control the weapons that committed the crime. But what about the drugs that may have aggravated the killer’s mental disease? The trend these days seems toward a more casual attitude and easier access to those drugs. Among the things we should be discussing in the aftermath of this horror is the accumulating evidence of those drugs’ potential contribution to making some dangerous people even more dangerous than they might otherwise have been.

"He was a Pot Head." "As I knew him he was left wing, quite liberal and oddly obsessed with the 2012 prophecy." Former High School friend

[Danno 1,228]

Wonder if they tested him upon arrest?

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

The Tucson shooting should remind us why we regulate marijuana.

It is an evil, mentally debilitating drug, more carcinogenic than tobacco. Most people when they leave school put aside their childhood toys and finally can get laid on a regular basis.

[웃 910]

It is an evil, mentally debilitating drug, more carcinogenic than tobacco.

If you feel that way about one of the safest drugs known to mankind then how do you feel about alcohol?

[mawilson 2,133]

What a bunch of #######.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

If you feel that way about one of the safest drugs known to mankind then how do you feel about alcohol?

Q: What are the long-term effects of marijuana use?

A: Findings so far show that regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems.

Cancer

It’s hard to know for sure whether marijuana use alone causes cancer, because many people who smoke marijuana also smoke cigarettes and use other drugs. But it is known that marijuana smoke contains some of the same, and sometimes even more, of the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per day may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day (15) .

Lungs and airways

People who smoke marijuana often develop the same kinds of breathing problems that cigarette smokers have: coughing and wheezing. They tend to have more chest colds than nonusers. They are also at greater risk of getting lung infections like pneumonia.

Immune system

Our immune system protects the body from many agents that cause disease. It is not certain whether marijuana damages the immune system of people, but both animal and human studies have shown that marijuana impairs the ability of T-cells in the lungs' immune systemm to fight off some infections.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/marijbroch/Marijteenstxt.html#longterm

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

Q: What are the long-term effects of marijuana use?

A: Findings so far show that regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems.

Cancer

It’s hard to know for sure whether marijuana use alone causes cancer, because many people who smoke marijuana also smoke cigarettes and use other drugs. But it is known that marijuana smoke contains some of the same, and sometimes even more, of the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per day may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day (15) .

Lungs and airways

People who smoke marijuana often develop the same kinds of breathing problems that cigarette smokers have: coughing and wheezing. They tend to have more chest colds than nonusers. They are also at greater risk of getting lung infections like pneumonia.

Immune system

Our immune system protects the body from many agents that cause disease. It is not certain whether marijuana damages the immune system of people, but both animal and human studies have shown that marijuana impairs the ability of T-cells in the lungs' immune systemm to fight off some infections.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/marijbroch/Marijteenstxt.html#longterm

You can multiply those effects for alcohol. I don't use the drug, but 5 joints a day seems like more than "moderate use".

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

If you feel that way about one of the safest drugs known to mankind then how do you feel about alcohol?

Alcohol leads to liver disease, and pregnancy.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

You can multiply those effects for alcohol. I don't use the drug, but 5 joints a day seems like more than "moderate use".

It's all bad. Many of my lifelong friends smoke that marijuana pipe all day long. The doctors call it "self-medicating". Besides the health concerns, it does seem to affect self motivation and concentration levels.

[mawilson 2,133]

Q: What are the long-term effects of marijuana use?

A: Findings so far show that regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems.

Cancer

It’s hard to know for sure whether marijuana use alone causes cancer, because many people who smoke marijuana also smoke cigarettes and use other drugs. But it is known that marijuana smoke contains some of the same, and sometimes even more, of the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per day may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day (15) .

Lungs and airways

People who smoke marijuana often develop the same kinds of breathing problems that cigarette smokers have: coughing and wheezing. They tend to have more chest colds than nonusers. They are also at greater risk of getting lung infections like pneumonia.

Immune system

Our immune system protects the body from many agents that cause disease. It is not certain whether marijuana damages the immune system of people, but both animal and human studies have shown that marijuana impairs the ability of T-cells in the lungs' immune systemm to fight off some infections.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/marijbroch/Marijteenstxt.html#longterm

You don't have to "smoke" marijuana - there are other, less harmful ways to inhale.

Edited January 10, 2011 by mawilson

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

You don't have to "smoke" marijuana - there are other, less harmful ways to inhale.

You are still getting the carcinogens into the lungs, otherwise you wouldn't get "high". Perhaps making brownies might be healthier.

[mawilson 2,133]

You are still getting the carcinogens into the lungs, otherwise you wouldn't get "high". Perhaps making brownies might be healthier.

THC is not a carcinogen. In fact, THC is a carcinogen inhibitor, which is one of the reasons

why marijuana use has not been linked to lung cancer as cigarette smoking has.

[lostinblue 1,989]

Within Krebs’s study population of 190 patients (121 of whom had used cannabis), researchers found a subgroup of 44 whose disease was powerfully affected by the drug. These patients either developed schizophrenia within a month of beginning to smoke pot or saw their existing psychosis severely exacerbated with each successive exposure to the drug. Schizophrenia appeared in these patients nearly three years earlier than in other marijuana-users with the disease

back on topic

[mawilson 2,133]

I've never seen a "dangerous" stoner.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I've never seen a "dangerous" stoner.

Charles Manson? Ted Kaczynski? Bill Ayers?