3 ms·

The real kicker is that even the slim chance of "unwanted mental health effects" could be reduced without removing the substance's pain and inflammation-relievi

The real kicker is that even the slim chance of "unwanted mental health effects" could be reduced without removing the substance's pain and inflammation-relieving properties, if the US Gov't would simply allow the plant to be researched for pharmaceutical purposes.

hga 12y ago
Suspected "unwanted mental health effects" include full blow permanent schizophrenia. (Emphasis on suspected, for we know there's a lot of mental illness self-medication with psychoactive drugs starting with alcohol.) That strikes me as making it very hard to do ethical research of the sort you're positing.
- techmarketerguy 12y ago
  If you think regular usage of cannabis increases the general prevalence of schizophrenia sharply enough that it would prohibit further medical research, I don't really know what to tell you. I just don't see it.
  - hga 12y ago
    This is a question of ethical experiment design. You by definition start with a postulate that there is an "unwanted mental health effect" you want to reduce. We'll assume for the moment it isn't permanent schizophrenia. To see if you've reduced it, you need a control group getting the "wild type", who will be at risk of getting permanent schizophrenia to the best of our current knowledge. If that risk is real, there's also a real chance the causative agent(s) will be administered to the control group. BTW, two of the major active ingredients are already legal drugs or being tested in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#Marinol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#Marinol (Schedule III!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabilone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabilone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols (in US Phase III drug trials) So your initial premise that the US government hasn't been allowing medical research is not quite the case. However, unlike recreational use, pharmaceutical use has a much higher tolerance of side effects, there's medical gain to be balanced against risks, or so you believe and keep testing at each stage of the drug trials.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  That's a reasonable point, but marijuana use is already prevalent enough that you could probably recruit a statistically significant number of existing users with little difficulty and track the incidence of mental ill-health vs. a control population.
  - hga 12y ago
    Per my other comment in this sub-thread, my concern there is that the experimental group will still be getting whatever it is that's bad, and in the context of "unwanted permanent mental health effects" of recreational use the experiment would be unethical. On the other hand, with the recent state-wide decriminalizations we're "conducting" a rather while uncontrolled experiment right now that ought to be able to yield better data on the biggest concerns, although that sort of epidemiological research is really, really hard, and few are unbiased.

hga 12y ago

Suspected "unwanted mental health effects" include full blow permanent schizophrenia. (Emphasis on suspected, for we know there's a lot of mental illness self-medication with psychoactive drugs starting with alcohol.) That strikes me as making it very hard to do ethical research of the sort you're positing.

techmarketerguy 12y ago
If you think regular usage of cannabis increases the general prevalence of schizophrenia sharply enough that it would prohibit further medical research, I don't really know what to tell you. I just don't see it.
- hga 12y ago
  This is a question of ethical experiment design. You by definition start with a postulate that there is an "unwanted mental health effect" you want to reduce. We'll assume for the moment it isn't permanent schizophrenia. To see if you've reduced it, you need a control group getting the "wild type", who will be at risk of getting permanent schizophrenia to the best of our current knowledge. If that risk is real, there's also a real chance the causative agent(s) will be administered to the control group. BTW, two of the major active ingredients are already legal drugs or being tested in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#Marinol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol#Marinol (Schedule III!) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabilone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabilone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols (in US Phase III drug trials) So your initial premise that the US government hasn't been allowing medical research is not quite the case. However, unlike recreational use, pharmaceutical use has a much higher tolerance of side effects, there's medical gain to be balanced against risks, or so you believe and keep testing at each stage of the drug trials.
anigbrowl 12y ago
That's a reasonable point, but marijuana use is already prevalent enough that you could probably recruit a statistically significant number of existing users with little difficulty and track the incidence of mental ill-health vs. a control population.
- hga 12y ago
  Per my other comment in this sub-thread, my concern there is that the experimental group will still be getting whatever it is that's bad, and in the context of "unwanted permanent mental health effects" of recreational use the experiment would be unethical. On the other hand, with the recent state-wide decriminalizations we're "conducting" a rather while uncontrolled experiment right now that ought to be able to yield better data on the biggest concerns, although that sort of epidemiological research is really, really hard, and few are unbiased.