Former Member posted:Marijuana; often referred to, and also know as Cannabis, can mess with your mind and with your mood. It can disturb your sleep and can make you depressed.
Some will become anxious, panicky, and even aggressive. You might see or hear things which are not there (known as hallucinations) which may be frightening.
For some people, cannabis causes hours or even days of anxiety, paranoia, delusions and hallucinations that usually only settles down after the cannabis is stopped.
Cannabis can freak you out - it can cause feelings of anxiety, suspicion, panic and paranoia.
For people with illnesses such as schizophrenia, cannabis can cause a serious relapse.
Regular cannabis use is known to be associated with an increase in the risk of later developing psychotic illnesses including schizophrenia; and if you have a family background of mental illness, you may also have an increased risk.
Cannabis can affect the way the brain works. Regular, heavy use makes it difficult to learn and concentrate and research has linked cannabis use to poor exam results. This is a potentially serious risk if you’re young, when the brain is still developing. People who take a lot of cannabis can also find they lack motivation.A recent review of cannabis research published in the British Medical Journal found those driving under the influence of cannabis had nearly double the risk of an accident.
Cannabis can mess with your body.
Tobacco and cannabis share some of the same chemical 'nasties', so, like smoking tobacco, smoking cannabis can make asthma worse, can cause wheezing in people without asthma and can even lead to lung cancer.
When people mix cannabis with tobacco they're also taking on all the risks associated with smoking tobacco, which can range from coughs and chest infections to cancer or heart disease.It can increase the heart rate and affect blood pressure, which can be especially harmful for those with heart disease.
It is reported that frequent use of cannabis may affect fertility. It can cut a man's sperm count and can suppress ovulation in women.
If you’re pregnant, smoking cannabis may increase the risk of your baby being born smaller than expected.
What is the effect of mixing cannabis and alcohol?
Mixing cannabis with alcohol can have particularly serious consequences - the accident rate is 16 times higher than for cannabis or alcohol alone.
It's also foul smelling, especially the strain often referred to as skunk.
After its use, your hair, breath, skin, clothes and home will reek of it, and everyone will know, especially your neighbours
Many (most) of these points are simplifications of the data, most of which are inconclusive. I can cite studies from reputable journals that contradict most of the above statements—it’s a matter of cherry picking. Others are just taken out of context and cannot be concluded from the published studies. For example the point about increasing heart rate and BP. So does exercise. This would be significant if it actually increased cardiovascular/stroke risk, and there was a study published a while back that suggested it might increase risk of MI. This study ultimately failed to demonstrate a meaningful relationship but had a cool study design so it made the rounds. There is no causal link between marijuana and schizophrenia. In one study, MJ has been shown to improve cognitive function in the aging brain. Maybe it makes young brains old and old brains young ;-) Unfortunately most of this work is done on mice or on humans in purely observational (biased) studies. As long as it remains a schedule 1 drug we will never have any good data.
Essentially, we don’t know if it works for condition A or B and at what risk. We do know from our own experiences (maybe in our youth, as an “ally” to stoner friends, or a seasoned professional) and decades of experience with Perdue pharma that it is a hell of a lot less likely to kill you than oxycodone.
One last point, if you want to avoid those “nasty chemicals” it shares with cigarettes, also known as products of combustion, just vape (at low temp) or eat it.
Just a couple of pennies to counteract the hysteria…