Posted by SLS on October 2, 2005, at 18:33:06 [reposted on October 5, 2005, at 13:50:36 | original URL]
In reply to Re: neurological effects of long term marijuana us, posted by iforgotmypassword on October 2, 2005, at 17:50:11
Hi.
There is some indication that long-term use of marijuana can have negative effects on memory. What you are talking about is a more global loss of interest, motivation, cognitive slowing, and anhedonia. These things seem to me to be better attributed to a mood disorder. That you sense that you were self-medicating indicates that there was something you were medicating yourself for. You might have been suffering from a mild depression in your teens that has since grown in severity.
Marijuana did not treat me well when I was in my teens. It was anxiogenic rather than anxiolytic. Perhaps this type of reaction to marijuana is a reflection of the presence of a mood disorder. I don't know.
If you haven't already done so, perhaps it would be in your best interests to abstain from using marijuana, at least temporarily. It couldn't hurt. You will then be able to better evaluate your baseline mental health.
I think it is depression that is the cause of those things you are presently experiencing and are concerned with.
- Scott
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> i'm 21. i don't know whether to attribute the effects to the pot or not... but when i started the effects were so wonderful inspirationally. now i truly don't see any colour to the world. i was taking it as a means to self-medicate. but the positive effects started to die with age. i would just be a babbling, clumsy, falling down, carried away idiot, not really enjoying anything, but for some reason seeming like it. i don't know why it took so long to stop.
>
> the thing that was really noticable was the year i started smoking pot heavily, i failed practically all of my classes, and it only got worse... i was bad to begin with but now i struggle to do anything. i'm incompetent no matter what i try to do. anything external, requiring concetration in the world, my brain just falls apart, i don't even see the world anymore. just simple a few simple concepts that for some strange reason manage to keep my pellet-sized mind entertained.
poster:SLS
thread:563213
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/subs/20050914/msgs/563218.html