• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

MJ Smoking in teens definitively linked to later life depression, mental health issues, suicide.

Renae

Banned
Suspended
DP Veteran
Joined
Aug 26, 2007
Messages
50,241
Reaction score
19,243
Location
San Antonio Texas
Gender
Female
Political Leaning
Conservative
[h=2]Smoking cannabis in your teens IS linked to depression in later life: Major study reveals drug 'damages children's brains' and 60,000 adults in UK could have avoided mental health disorder if they had turned down marijuana[/h]
  • Largest study of its kind found that 7% of adult depression could be prevented
  • Drug has also been linked to suicidal thoughts and attempts
  • Researchers say tackling the use of millions of under 18s should be a priority
Smoking cannabis in your teens IS linked to depression in later life as it 'damages brain' | Daily Mail Online

In the largest research of its kind, experts from Oxford University and McGill University estimated that over half a million adults in the UK and US could be saved from mental health disorders by avoiding the drug as a teenager.
The teams have now warned that cannabis, legal in several US states and used by millions of young people is a significant public health risk with 'devastating consequences'. They have urgently called for officials to make tackling use of the drug a priority.

I'm telling you, in 20 years Big Marijuana will be the next "Big Tobacco" lawsuits, we'll see MTV running "Just say no ads" and billions in payouts to lawyers...
 
All the more reason to legalize it or at the very least decriminalize it, to make it harder for young people to get their hands on it, when I was in high school it was easier to get MJ than alcohol.

It also opens up the ability for us to study the affects more as right now US drug policy prevents good, comprehensive study.

So while you sometimes drive-by post these things whilst maintaining a facade of “small government conservative leave it to beaver, life has consequences and you should be free to make your own choices” moniker, when it comes to drugs you appear to be all encompassing, massive government proponent.
 
All the more reason to legalize it or at the very least decriminalize it, to make it harder for young people to get their hands on it, when I was in high school it was easier to get MJ than alcohol.

It also opens up the ability for us to study the affects more as right now US drug policy prevents good, comprehensive study.

So while you sometimes drive-by post these things whilst maintaining a facade of “small government conservative leave it to beaver, life has consequences and you should be free to make your own choices” moniker, when it comes to drugs you appear to be all encompassing, massive government proponent.

So you're for damaging the brains of as many people as possible?????
 
So you're for damaging the brains of as many people as possible?????

I’m arguing with an alleged “small government conservative” that people should make their own choices?

At the very least decriminalized and money that would have gone to incarcerating people, be used for addiction treatment instead.
 
LOL the Daily Mail is your source? :lol:
 
Nah, just common sense.

Okay, agreed. Common sense says teenagers shouldn't use pot, but it also says that's no reason to make it illegal for adults to use it.
 
I’m arguing with an alleged “small government conservative” that people should make their own choices?

At the very least decriminalized and money that would have gone to incarcerating people, be used for addiction treatment instead.

Small government conservative only means pass the laws we like. Bet he has no problem with bible study in public school passed with legislation. How about banning abortion with legislation? That's what the smaller government folks mean.
 
reefer_madness-580x846.jpg


Spare us the fearmongering -- and find a better source.

The study is not remotely definitive, as the authors themselves acknowledge. It's a metastudy, meaning they didn't have the ability to set up any sort of controls, or rule out other substance use (notably alcohol). The authors themselves state "...we still don't know if cannabis is the cause, as it is possible that young people who are predisposed or begin to experience depression are more likely to use cannabis as a way of alleviating the symptoms of depression to improve the way they feel or think.”

It's also pretty routine, even among marijuana legalization advocates, to say that adolescents shouldn't smoke marijuana.

We need to do more research on marijuana. What we don't need is willful misinterpretations of research for political reasons.
 
More cannabis doom and gloom written by folks who are probably already against the plant in the first place. There's lots of things teens shouldn't do as most of us who are adults can attest. When are we going to stop inflating this plant to monstrous size that eats our children and drives adults insane? When people around me can't remember something, I always say the same thing, ask the stoner.

At thirteen I was doing LSD and smoking weed. At fifteen I was a heroin addict. I screwed myself good with my choices when I was young. However, to blame drugs for everything is unreasonable. It's people's choices. I used too much heroin, became addicted. That didn't happen with lsd or weed. To this day I tell younger folks, stay away from chemicals, stick to weed if you're going to experiment.

Not a single overdose has ever been recorded from cannabis. Studies are starting to suggest it has a positive effect on cancer cells. We know for sure some folks with seizures it helps bunches. It helps with pain, nausea, chemo and many other things. Isn't it time we stop with the propaganda and try to find out what this plant might hold medically?
 
So you're for damaging the brains of as many people as possible?????

How is it some folks like to say, painting with a broad brush. For some folks on here smoking pot might help their mental state? Does ever teen who smokes weed get brain damaged and can you tell us the severity? Are they instant vegetables or do they work themselves up through different stages of brain damage?
 
Smoking cannabis in your teens IS linked to depression in later life as it 'damages brain' | Daily Mail Online



I'm telling you, in 20 years Big Marijuana will be the next "Big Tobacco" lawsuits, we'll see MTV running "Just say no ads" and billions in payouts to lawyers...

that's stupid, because people have been smoking marijuana on a vast scale for decades and decades. And since it was banned, not enough research was done.

And the author of the article exaggerates, which is so typical of journalism, particually blogs.

here are just some snippits of the BS of this article

" Largest study of its kind found that 7% of adult depression could be prevented" - that's a ridiculous statement, that 7% of depression cases must be becuase of marijuana use. No way to know what would happen without marijuana use in those people.

I'll read the study, but I guaranteed it doesn't support a lot of what is being pushed in this. And most people aren't scientsits or care to actually look at the study and will just buy it

And 7% increase in risk of depression isn't that bad.

Another example, the bullet point in the blog states a definitive conclusion, meanwhile, what came from the study itself is

"About seven per cent of cases of adult depression may possibly not occur if teenagers stopped smoking cannabis, according to the study published in journal JAMA Psychiatry."
 
Last edited:
So you're for damaging the brains of as many people as possible?????

Are conservatives heavy pot smokers? Then why all the dumb comments from so many of them? What's causing their brains to be damaged? Maybe they need to smoke more, helps get the creative and thinking juices going
 
When we said a free society needs a reason to make something illegal, we meant a real reason. As has already been pointed out, making pot legal means we keep it out of the hands of minors. There has never been a real study showing long term damage from pot. I can say this because no real study is legal at this point.

Currently pot is listed as a schedule 1 narcotic. Meaning it supposedly has no medicinal value (widely refuted) and high potential for abuse/damage. If you don't realize how absurd this is, you aren't paying attention.

I've been off pot for years. It's not worth it to me, but there is no valid reason whatsoever to have it be illegal. The states that have shed this idiocy of a prohibition have seen revenue increases and no downside. Let's test it on a national level.
 
Brain damage, suicide, mental health problems society has to deal with...

Not good reasons to ban MJ... I'm so silly, who wouldn't want to see people with such conditions?
 
Brain damage, suicide, mental health problems society has to deal with...

Not good reasons to ban MJ... I'm so silly, who wouldn't want to see people with such conditions?

So alcohol too then, yes?
 
Brain damage, suicide, mental health problems society has to deal with...

Not good reasons to ban MJ... I'm so silly, who wouldn't want to see people with such conditions?

This is what I don't get, every few weeks, you start a thread like this and you can never, ever effectively argue your point, we go over the same things every single time and you never actually address the counter points in any meaningful way, if at all.

All whilst you go on these tangents about how small government should be, but one of its worst big government manifestations in the War on Drugs, which has caused far more harm than good, seems to be A-OK with you.

Because here's the facts.

Prohibition hasn't done anything to stop:

Drug Addiction
Trafficking
Cartels
Crime associated with drugs

In fact use rates went up, it drove up the price of narcotics which made a lot of really bad people super rich and destabilized many Central and South American countries after mega supranational crime syndicates rose to cater to that market and caused a wave of crime and a massive prison population that ballooned into the worlds largest in the alleged land of the free and which costs taxpayers untold billions each year, not even counting what it costs to prosecute these cases.

I don't have all the answers, but here's what I do know, your massive government program of Prohibition has failed, miserably and not only did it not achieve what it set out to do, but by every metric it made the problem 10 times worse.

You keep making the same broken arguments time after time, completely ignoring how they have already failed.
 
Brain damage, suicide, mental health problems society has to deal with...

Not good reasons to ban MJ... I'm so silly, who wouldn't want to see people with such conditions?
Alcohol causes addiction, brain damage, liver disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, nerve damage, pancreatitis, is associated with anemia, cancer, dementia, depression and other mental health issues, and violent crime. Alcohol is a toxin, and and overdose can easily kill you. Plus, there's that pesky habit of driving while intoxicated.

Rates of addiction are low. It doesn't destroy your organs. It's not a carcinogen. It's not a toxin. You can't overdose on pot. And again, this study does not in fact show that it is a causal factor in depression. Even the study's authors acknowledge that limitations.

Last but not least....

Alcohol kills around 88,000 Americans per year.
Marijuana kills 0.

Which drug should we be worried about again...?
 
Alcohol causes addiction, brain damage, liver disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, nerve damage, pancreatitis, is associated with anemia, cancer, dementia, depression and other mental health issues, and violent crime. Alcohol is a toxin, and and overdose can easily kill you. Plus, there's that pesky habit of driving while intoxicated.

Rates of addiction are low. It doesn't destroy your organs. It's not a carcinogen. It's not a toxin. You can't overdose on pot. And again, this study does not in fact show that it is a causal factor in depression. Even the study's authors acknowledge that limitations.

Last but not least....

Alcohol kills around 88,000 Americans per year.
Marijuana kills 0.

Which drug should we be worried about again...?

I'm gonna say tobacco as I smoke my third cig reading this thread. At least its dangerous.
 
Nah, just common sense.

^
Proving common sense is far from common.



It's just another silly fear-mongering thread designed to support the idiotic and insane suggestion that even if the 105th year of prohibition didn't get rid of drugs, the 106th might. The War on Drugs - especially pot - is a stupid, horrid, self-defeating waste of time, money, and morality. No wonder you like it.

And if you actually meant what you said, you'd be pushing for alcohol prohibition not dishonestly whinging on about pot. But you like alcohol, so you don't. That's hypocrisy, to boot.
 
Back
Top Bottom