Cannabis - a balanced view.

"... LSD-assisted psychotherapy to treat anxiety associated with advanced-stage illness" ... I'd go tripping too if that was me. I'm aware of the Kew Gardens series.

I shouldn't get into these discussions. I'm too straight when it comes to drugs! I've never seen or heard anything to make me change my mind about drugs. I've seen plenty to the contrary!

Grannyknot I agree with you, nothing is simple, the costs of alcohol addiction both on a personal and societal level are horrendous, but prohibition in America just didn't work. Legal highs frighten me, at least with the more usual illegal substances hospitals knew what they were dealing with.

However, I do believe that some drugs which are illegal at the moment have great potential medically, especially cannabis and the psychedelics.
Kew Gardens has been running a series of weekends called the Intoxication Season, I heard from someone who works at Kew that the one on Cannabis was very good.

You mentioned LSD, yes it was harmful if taken in the wrong circumstances, and I wouldn't want it to be freely available on the street (although of course it is!) but it did lead to great creativity and other benefits, (two Nobel Prize winners said that it had helped their discoveries) banning it put an end to all research.

The first trial in 40 years has just been published, there is a very good video talking about it on Huff Post Live.

HuffPost Live interviews MAPS Founder Rick Doblin, PhD, David Nichols, PhD, and John Halpern, MD, about the recently published results from MAPS’ study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy to treat anxiety associated with advanced-stage illness. The experts speak about the variety of conditions that can potentially benefit from psychedelic-assisted therapy and share their perspectives on the past, present, and future of research in this area.

alternativegran all of that is true. But it is not that simple. For example, I think I'm correct in saying that LSD was extensively used for research and then banned when it was found to drive some people bonkers.

Alcohol is legal and yet despite all the research and best intentions by the medical profession, this country is sitting on a liver disease time bomb. And the people with liver disease are getting younger and younger. I'm not saying that alcohol should be prohibited, I'm just making the point that if only it were that simple as regulating and decriminalising substances.

I have a friend whose teenage grandson discovered 'legal highs' this year. Bang went his GCSEs. Oh, what fun.

I don't believe that prohibition works, to quote Tom Chivers in the Spectator 13th October.

The World Health Organisation ran a major study and found that countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones: that is, you can crack down on drugs, but it doesn't tend to make fewer people take them.

What it does instead, is drive the production and sale of drugs into the hands of criminal gangs; push otherwise law-abiding people into contact with criminals; make the quality, purity and safety of drug supplies impossible to regulate; and render it more difficult to get those suffering from addiction and drug related disease the medical attention they need.

The other thing that prohibition does, is to make it more difficult for researchers to explore the possible medical uses of drugs our governments have made illegal.

Although according to the research, ten percent of cannabis smokers become dependant compared with fifteen percent of alcohol drinkers.

Many alcoholics do wreak havoc though. Certainly there were problems with some close members of my family who drank far too much and then became aggressive on a regular basis.

I never did blame the alcohol though. I was pissed off with the drinkers.

Maybe the difference is, that with alcohol the drinker is held partly responsible for their actions.

Petallus if your DH' s niece had wreaked havoc in your life (instead of having been a secret drinker) you may well hate alcohol.

Oh yeah. That'll be it.

A few years ago, DH's niece, a woman in her late forties, a lovely person, suddenly became ill and was taken into hospital. A few weeks later she died.

We then discovered that she had been a secret heavy drinker for years, getting through several bottles of wine a night. She had died of liver failure. By the time she felt ill, it was too late.

This was very upsetting but I can't say it has left me 'hating' alcohol!

Back to cannabis, I would not wish to comment on the personal experience of posters on this thread. However, I believe the link between cannabis use and psychosis is not a proven causal one.

This means that we cannot be sure that it is not the case that people who are beginning to experience symptoms of, say, schizophrenia, don't then turn to cannabis in an attempt to self medicate.

pogs a very good post. I worked in the drug treatment sector and when there was discussion about how someone was doing in treatment, my response was always "Ask their nearest and dearest".

I'm only going to say this on the subject.

Until you have known somebody who will lie, cheat, steal and yes sell their body to feed their drug habit and move on to become so unbalanced they want to commit suicide then you don't know what your talking about.

It's b----y hideous and just because some can smoke cannabis and think they can control their usage sadly others have an adverse reaction. You don't know which category you would fall into and thereby lies the danger.

Some people can drink 10 pints of beer or a bottle of Bicardi but other fall down after 4 pints.

I concede cannabis, under controlled usage, does have a value for pain relief but let's face it that's not really what's the problem.

So I don't particularly care what the Guardian, the Daily Mail or Uncle Tom Cobley says, if you only know what you read then you are very lucky because the reality of cannabis and it's potential to turn a lovely, kind, decent human being into a paranoid schizophrenic is something you certainly do not want to witness, either whilst they are 'using' or 'withdrawing', it would break your heart.

So I guess I am in the camp of I hate cannabis, I hate drug abuse and I don't defend it .

Many people with MS find it very helpful and those who don't want to smoke, eat it in chocolate or cookies.

Tegan is right - cannabis today is adulterated with many unpleasant substances which didn't used to be the case. It can be those substances which cause the most damage.

Er, no one should be smoking anything, remember? It's bad for your respiratory system. I wonder whether cannabis would be popular if people had to fiddle with vaporisers.

I'm sure they do that in some states of America.

They do but I think it's only available for war veterans (but I could be wrong about that last bit).

I think I've put this on here before but just in case I didn't, the UK Government has funded research into medicinal marijuana but the research facility is based in Canada (not sure why that was) and the research was supposed to be over a few years ago. I have a feeling that the tax-payer has paid for the research and it will be private pharma that benefit from any results of supplying it.

It's such a shame because from what I've heard, it is very good for people with MS in particular and for people who asprin-intolerant.

bit of balance to the recent rather hysterical

There is always that reaction when cannabis is mentioned which, again, is a shame as it probably colours politicians views of if it is good to promote or not - that should always be left to the experts (uninfluenced by politicians such as with Professor Nutt news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8334774.stm and also in America with Dr. Sue Sisley edition.cnn.com/2014/07/12/health/marijuana-researcher-arizona/ )

so are the pain killing drugs jingle, dodgy that is.

Sounds pretty dodgy stuff to me.

Alas, the cannabis now isn't the same as the wacky baccy of our youth. But I do wish they'd do something about using it for pain relief; I'm sure they do that in some states of America.

" ...only less harmful than other things people take to become sociable."

I do not believe that's why people smoke it!

I could fancy a bit at the moment - it's good for pain.

However, I have a family member who had a bad reaction to it and has paid a high price - he will be on anti-psychotics for life. The trouble is you do not know which individuals will have that reaction. Not worth the risk really.

I've never smoked cannabis but most of the younger people I know (and even people my own age) have told me that they have.

It seems to me that any mind-altering substance, such as alcohol, can damage the individual if they are used habitually. Most people appear to give up using cannabis as they grow older but a few become psychologically and/or physically dependent.

I think it is widely accepted that alcohol is probably a good deal more damaging to the individual - and to society as a whole - than cannabis. There is also a lot of hysteria about other recreational drugs which, again, are far less dangerous than alcohol. I tend to think that if a person has psychological problems or a mental illness, they will use whatever drug they can get hold of, and it is better to address the underlying issues rather than become hysterical about a specific substance.