4 ms·

Why does all the research on cannabis and psychosis always rely on correlation as if its causation? This isn't the first study to prove this correlation, and th

Why does all the research on cannabis and psychosis always rely on correlation as if its causation? This isn't the first study to prove this correlation, and then let the media imply causation. If truth was their goal why keep doing the same broken study with pitiful sample sizes. 2000 samples is too small to a/b test a site, but good enough for a medical study? If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. Obviously you would need to take into account population and other proven causes of psychosis such as alcohol[2]. Similar studies have been done[3] with much larger sample sizes than these clowns. [1] https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-patterns-and-statistics-and-patterns/ https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/schizophrenia-symptoms-p... [2] https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-number-of-new-cases-of-alcoholic-psychosis/ https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/indicators/hfa_390-2401-numb... [3] https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105 https://ebmh.bmj.com/content/15/4/105

DanBC 8y ago
> If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. Also, cannabis doesn't increase risk for all types of psychosis. There are different types. Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.
- dangerface 8y ago
  > You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. True but the countries I listed are first world countries where accurate diagnosis is common. The third reference I give is to a study on the prevalence of psychosis across 52 countries. It takes in to account that in developing countries diagnoses is uncommon and not accurate, any decent study would do this. The world health organisation study I linked used a sample size of 200,000 compared to the 2,000 sample size the cannabis study used. > Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis. Then the study should only target those types of psychosis. Yes other studies with larger sample sizes have proven this correlation before, but correlation in itself is meaningless. My argument was that if they really wanted the truth they could have done a study to show causation, but instead they showed correlation using quack sample sizes and then a bit of choice wording to scaremonger. The fact that people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis, doesn't mean cannabis will increase your risk of psychosis. It just means people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis.

DanBC 8y ago

> If high strength cannabis made you five times more likely to have psychosis, then it follows that countries like America, Spain and Netherlands should have psychosis rates five times higher than other countries, but it's about 1% world wide[1]. You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. Also, cannabis doesn't increase risk for all types of psychosis. There are different types. Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis.

dangerface 8y ago
> You're not counting actual prevalence of psychosis. You're counting prevalence of diagnosed psychosis. True but the countries I listed are first world countries where accurate diagnosis is common. The third reference I give is to a study on the prevalence of psychosis across 52 countries. It takes in to account that in developing countries diagnoses is uncommon and not accurate, any decent study would do this. The world health organisation study I linked used a sample size of 200,000 compared to the 2,000 sample size the cannabis study used. > Cannabis only increases risk for one or two types of psychosis. Then the study should only target those types of psychosis. Yes other studies with larger sample sizes have proven this correlation before, but correlation in itself is meaningless. My argument was that if they really wanted the truth they could have done a study to show causation, but instead they showed correlation using quack sample sizes and then a bit of choice wording to scaremonger. The fact that people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis, doesn't mean cannabis will increase your risk of psychosis. It just means people with psychosis are more likely to smoke cannabis.