“Dr Barry [head of the department of public health in Trinity College Dublin] said the study appeared to confirm earlier findings about the harm associated with cannabis use and its role as a gateway drug. “
Teen Cannabis UsersLess Likely To Finish School, Get A Degree (Irish Times)
Kevin C writes:
“The report is about very heavy use during puberty and of course does nothing to prove that marijuana is a ‘gateway drug’ but don’t let that get in the way of the ‘Reefer Madness’….” Interesting to see this strange and inconclusive report made the FRONT page of the Irish Times today – under the U2 and Apple love in. Drugs bad Bono/Apple good kids. Mmkay.”
The Potential Toll Of Heavy Cannabis Use (The Lancet)
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Apathy is a proven side effect.
Who cares, man?
Like, why bother.
What are you guys talkin’ about?
I fukcing love smoking weed. I started when I was in school, didn´t go to college, worked shitty jobs (probably because of smoking loads of weed) and now I run a successful business abroad in a foreign language (learned when I left school) and make more money than I have ever done in my life and that a lot of people wouldn´t stick their nose up at.
I think Dr. Barry and the Irish Times need to pull their heads out of the sand. I do like how an unfounded study made the front page and started the ongoing, rarely changing debate on Ireland and cannabis once again.
Here here! I have smoked daily since the age of 14, actually did well in the LC, have an honours degree, and am a qualified professional working at the height of a very competitive profession. Next year I expect to make more money than any other person in my year at school. And I still smoke daily. It has not prevented me sounding like smug prick though (but I think I was like that before I started smoking too :-) ). I have plenty of friends who have smoked similarly for years and are doing bloody great! Once again Ireland shows it’s little backwater mentality when the rest of the world is waking up to the realities on drugs in general but cannabis specifically.
While you are obviously your own hero, smoking weed has different effects on different people. I smoked certainly every week for about 10 years up until a couple of years ago. Various personal reasons led me to giving up. Point being I can relate to a long term smoker who can get on with life. I am not hear to pontificate, but l, from my own experience, two people close to me in particular and several I have known over the years have experienced mental health issues, two verging on psychosis and had to go to John of Gods, others unable to find work as constantly stoned, addicted to the numbness, can’t get out if bed, struggle to engage with society, don’t exercise and cannot set short term goals. The study isn’t saying ALL users have these issues, it is saying they are more likely to struggle in a number of areas in life. The ‘backwater Irish’ comment is complete bullsh1t.
I gave up while in college, even though I had smoked a lot as a teenager. I realised I wanted to do well and I can’t motivate myself when I smoke regularly. I also copped on that for the most I was supporting complete scumbags by buying weed off them.
I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with this study but it’s pretty laughable that you turn your nose up at what appears to be a pretty rigorous scientific piece of work, accusing it of being “unfounded” (whatever that means), while offering nothing but an anecdote to refute it.
Its a bit like saying that your granddad lived to 95 while smoking 20 major everyday so therefore cigarettes are not bad for you regardless of what scientific studies say.
everything in moderation is my rule.. teenagers not renowned for sensible choices on many issues, seems a bit ott to vilify a joint over choices related drink, sex etc.. usual sensational bs
bullshite not broadsheet :)
I was also a regular token for a long time, i did stop though. But i have two degrees and work in a very competitive field while being considered as a leader in my industry. Now i do think a ban on the sale of marijuana to under 18’s when we legalise is a good idea but i also think a pointless study telling us that disenfranchised kids grow to be disenfranchised adults is not surprising, i also wonder did they take education factors inn while doing this study as a lot of fellow tokens i know don’t learn in the way the irish system is set up by just memorising fact but are more open to applied learning id have a funny feeling that if this research was more conclusive they would find a lot of teen smokers go back to collage as a mature student. In short legalise don’t criminalise.
Tokers not tokens – stupid autocorrect.
You have two degrees but you don’t know what full stops or capital letters are?
I was typing a comment, from work on an anonymous thread, grammar and punctuation can suffer.
If theres a thread about Alcohol there’s all sorts of handwringing.
Thread about Cannabis? It’s a queue for the type of head in the sand idiocy seen above.
I used to smoke a lot, I turned out ok. I think weed should be legalised but I don’t for one second think that it’s not harmful and that it has no negative effects on people, let alone kids.
There’s studies world wide along these lines and the comments of ‘im ok, its fine’ and ‘typical ireland’ are ridiculous in the extreme.
So do you think the ban on weed has helped make the problem any better?
btw it’s free to register and read the paper.
Haven’t been able to look in to it in detail but it appears they put in sufficient controls for confounding factors. In fact
“Depression and welfare dependence were not significantly associated with adolescent cannabis use after adjustment.”
The paper seems reasonable. It’s a statistical analysis that explores patterns and not mechanisms. The error bars for the increased frequency of Suicide Attempts ranges from 2 to around 32 making it probably the most tenous finding within the study.
I’d say that daily use of alcohol before 17 is probably a lot less common but probably far more devestating.
Here’s the problem – this (and I haven’t read it) seems to be an observational study that establishes a link between cannabis use and later social issues such as not going to college or taking harder drugs. It cannot say that cannabis is the cause for this. There are other factors at play here, such as socioeconomic status and attitude to drugs. Poor, unscientific and scaremongering reporting highly likely and unsurprising.
To summarise, is cannabis a cause or a symptom?
Nevermind, read the study, data treatment seems consistent. I’m confounded that this is the case. Could it be that the drugs are bad mantra causes kids to lose their fear of drugs when they use cannabis and nothing appreciably bad happens to them and then they say maybe it is true for other harder drugs?
“These effects were found even after researchers controlled for factors such as age, gender, ethnic background, socio-economic status, use of other drugs and mental illness.”
Just in case you were after suggesting it was some new “reefer madness”.
Our scientists are world class serious s***.
Kids shouldn’t take any mind altering substances because their brains are still developing. This is common sense.
Daily use of substances is likely to be even more problematic. Also common sense.
Why it is being reported in the press as major news is baffling.
years of use made me completely allergic to idiots.