Posted by SLS on May 1, 2013, at 7:57:41
In reply to Re: Marijuana Not Medicine Addiction Docs Say, posted by Meatwood_Flack on May 1, 2013, at 1:08:07
> But studies have also shown teens who use use antidepressants to be at greater risk for suicide than their older counterparts. Adolescent use of antidepressants
You are attempting to conjoin two separate issues. This not a real argument for either of them.
1. Marijuana lowers IQ and other measures of cognitive function, especially if used during adolescence.
> Should you or I be limited in our treatment options
You never answered the following question:
"Do you think that there is any place for government in the human experience?"
If you don't, then there is no purpose in continuing this conversation.
> because younger, less developed brains may be more vulnerable to negative effects
If the risks outweigh the benefits, then this can be justified.
2. The rate of adolescent suicide has declined since the introduction of Prozac. What's more, the suicide rates in adolescence have begun to drift upwards again beginning in 2005. This coincides in time with the appearance of the black-box warning in 2004 suggesting that antidepressants might produce suicide in younger people.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2799109/
Here, I think the benefits outweigh the risks.
> or should such knowledge simply be used to guide younger patients to more tried and true treatments, at least initially?
Are you implying that the use of antidepressants is not tried-and-true treatment? Which treatments are statistically superior in adolescents?
I am NOT advocating that antidepressants should be a first-line treatment for depression in this population. Generally, I think psychotherapeutic milieus should be explored first. However, I think that there would be a subset of cases for which antidepressansts should be tried initially in combination with psychoterapeutics.
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1042969
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130501/msgs/1043006.html