Posted by SLS on July 29, 2006, at 23:13:16
In reply to Re: Effexor - A personal experience (long read), posted by linkadge on July 29, 2006, at 21:29:08
Hi Link.
> > Well, I have read in medical literature that smoking marijuana can produce psychotic events
> This is a potential side effect of smoking marajuanna. Most people who do smoke it however, do not report this as a long term effect. For most people it is transient.It might be significant that it occurs at all, though.
> > and precipitate or accelerate the course of >schizophrenia.
> It is very hard to say too, that a drug that produces psychotic like symptoms actually produces schizophrenia. A drug may cause the symptoms without producing any of the structural abnormalities seen in true schizohprenia.
I think it becomes important to view schizophrenia as a disease with a multifactorial etiology. Much of the disease process is programmed genetically and lies waiting for biological cues. Twin studies provide evidence that genetics alone do not determine its evolution. Epigenetic factors are at work, which include psychosocial and physiological aspects. Marijuana use can produce alterations in both of these components of psychobiological function, and perhaps acts to trigger the advancement of the disease process. Marijuana itself might not act directly on cellular structure to change the morphology of the brain and enlarge the ventricals, but its placing stress on the system as a whole might produce a cascade of events that leads to this.> This proposition too is highly debatable. A very high percentage of people with schizoprenia smoke marajuanna, so the natural assumption is that one causes the other.
The number of studies demonstrating a positive association between the two is scary. I would begin to contemplate the possibility of an inconveniently untoward scenario.
> People with schizophrenia are also highly likely to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, which has lead to an altranate explaination: the idea that all of these agents are an attempt to combat the negative symptoms of the disease like anhedonia, prefrontal hypofunction etc.
I think this is a very likely motivation for people with schizophrenia to smoke marijuana once they become sick. However, this does not preclude the possibility that smoking pot helped them get them sick in the first place.
> Another thing that is inherently very difficult to tease sense from, is that while a person with a predisposition to schizophrenia may worsen his or her case by smoking marajuanna, it may not be a direct effect from the drug. It could be, for instance, the fact that the drug might make one more antisocial, or the drug lifestyle itself.
That's one part of the psychosocial stuff I mentioned. The other part is represented by the psychotropic effects of the drug. The scope of the psychobiological alterations produced by smoking marijuana goes beyond stimulating a few more CB1 receptors.
> There is a growing belief too that compounds in marajuanna might acually have antipsychotic qualities,
I would like to see more material on this subject. This is fascinating stuff.
> and therefore theraptutic to this subgroup in a different way. Certain cannabanoids block the production of dopamine in certain areas of the brain.
Even if there were some compounds in there with these properties, what is the net effect of all the compounds taken together?
I'll need to investigate this stuff a lot further to be of any use to anyone, but I thought most of what THC did to dopaminergic pathways was stimulatory, not inhibitory. I guess it must depend on what circuits are involved.
> In many ways the cannabis/schizoprenia link was used to a high degree as part of anti drug propeganda.
Perhaps. On the other hand, perhaps it is simply being used as a fact. I am not convinced one way or the other. I am really very new to all of this. Keep in mind that there are substances out there that can produce a lifetime of psychedelic flashbacks that are unwanted and refractory to remediation.
> >It might also produce a dimunition in memory >function. All in all, smoking marijuana might >not be completely innocuous.
> There is litte evidence that the substance actually damamges the brain.Unfortunately, I think the case for marijuana exacerbating schizophrenia looks stronger than does the case for its impairing memory function.
> There is research to show that these effects go away after a period of abstainaince.
Yes. I've seen them.
- Scott
poster:SLS
thread:670781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060724/msgs/671900.html