Propaganda Misinformed reporters spread disinformation

[Strykar]

And I quote:

"For long-term users, the harm goes beyond this. Cannabis gets deposited in our body’s fatty issue. Its effects are very similar to that of schizophrenia — the user is in a state of acute intoxication, s/he tends to lose motivation, suffers from delusions and mood swings, hallucinates and loses touch with reality,” explains Malhotra. Experts are unanimous that this ‘cool’ drug can leave its users scarred in the long term, and they find it difficult to adjust to their surroundings."

timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/City_Supplements/Pune_Times/Cannabis_can_lead_to_schizophrenia/articleshow/2242348.cms

[Pondlife]

Your link is busted (there's an extra "http" in it). I think it should be:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/C...ow/2242348.cms

This newspaper article uses an article from The Lancet as the basis for its argument. The full article is not available from a free subscription account, but the summary is and it reads:

The Lancet 2007; 370:319-328
DOI:10.1016/S0140-6736(07)61162-3

Cannabis use and risk of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes: a systematic review

Theresa HM Moore MSc, Dr Stanley Zammit PhD, Anne Lingford-Hughes PhD, Thomas RE Barnes DSc
Peter B Jones PhD, Margaret Burke MSc and Glyn Lewis PhD

Summary
Background

Whether cannabis can cause psychotic or affective symptoms that persist beyond transient intoxication is unclear. We systematically reviewed the evidence pertaining to cannabis use and occurrence of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes.

Methods

We searched Medline, Embase, CINAHL, PsycINFO, ISI Web of Knowledge, ISI Proceedings, ZETOC, BIOSIS, LILACS, and MEDCARIB from their inception to September, 2006, searched reference lists of studies selected for inclusion, and contacted experts. Studies were included if longitudinal and population based. 35 studies from 4804 references were included. Data extraction and quality assessment were done independently and in duplicate.

Findings

There was an increased risk of any psychotic outcome in individuals who had ever used cannabis (pooled adjusted odds ratio=1·41, 95% CI 1·20–1·65). Findings were consistent with a dose-response effect, with greater risk in people who used cannabis most frequently (2·09, 1·54–2·84). Results of analyses restricted to studies of more clinically relevant psychotic disorders were similar. Depression, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety outcomes were examined separately. Findings for these outcomes were less consistent, and fewer attempts were made to address non-causal explanations, than for psychosis. A substantial confounding effect was present for both psychotic and affective outcomes.

Interpretation

The evidence is consistent with the view that cannabis increases risk of psychotic outcomes independently of confounding and transient intoxication effects, although evidence for affective outcomes is less strong. The uncertainty about whether cannabis causes psychosis is unlikely to be resolved by further longitudinal studies such as those reviewed here. However, we conclude that there is now sufficient evidence to warn young people that using cannabis could increase their risk of developing a psychotic illness later in life.

Affiliations

a. Academic Unit of Psychiatry, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
b. Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
c. Department of Psychological Medicine, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK
d. Department of Psychological Medicine, Imperial College, London, UK
e. Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University, Cambridge, UK

As expected, this article is much less certain of the dangers than the newspaper article is. I'd like to read the full article, and I'd also like to know where the funding for the research came from.

[Strykar]

Odd, had fixed it because it didn't like the .cms extension.
Re-fixed again.

Can someone get the entire article?
SWIM will request in the Medline section too.

This is news to SWIM: "Cannabis gets deposited in our body’s fatty issue."

[Heretic.Ape.]

the study can be found in the archive: here

Reputation Comments on this post:

Thanks for uploading the Lancet article on cannabis and psychosis. This is being widely quoted, and it's good to know w...

[Pondlife]

Thanks for uploading the article and posting the link. It's a very interesting article, which deserves careful reading.

On first glance, two things strike me: firstly, on the topic of funding it states:

This work was funded by the Department of Health, UK.

It does seem a bit of a coincidence that a report that was funded by the UK government finds a positive link between cannabis and psychosis and comes out at exactly the time that the government announce that they are planning to revisit the classification with a view to moving it back to Class B.

The second thing is that this is a longitudinal study. In other words it takes its input from previous observations over a long timescale. It did not perform any experiments. One major weakness of longitudinal study is that they cannot detect causal relationships; they can only detect correlation. And, as all good statisticians know: correlation does not imply causation.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Excellent review.

[Strykar]

Originally Posted by pondlife

Thanks for uploading the article and posting the link. It's a very interesting article, which deserves careful reading.

On first glance, two things strike me: firstly, on the topic of funding it states:

It does seem a bit of a coincidence that a report that was funded by the UK government finds a positive link between cannabis and psychosis and comes out at exactly the time that the government announce that they are planning to revisit the classification with a view to moving it back to Class B.

The second thing is that this is a longitudinal study. In other words it takes its input from previous observations over a long timescale. It did not perform any experiments. One major weakness of longitudinal study is that they cannot detect causal relationships; they can only detect correlation. And, as all good statisticians know: correlation does not imply causation.

A true and excellent observation and my feelings exactly, and more succinctly put.
I'm far from a good statistician, but anyone with more than a passing interest in statistics, knows the same.

My original issue with the newspaper article was this, "Cannabis gets deposited in our body’s fatty issue"

Thanks for the article heretic.ape.

[Pondlife]

Originally Posted by Strykar

My original issue with the newspaper article was this, "Cannabis gets deposited in our body’s fatty issue."

This seems to be just a throwaway line in the article, and the point is not developed.

It's true that THC (the active ingredient in cannabis) is fat soluble, and enters fat cells. The same is true of many drugs. THC also takes a while to leave completely - on the order of days - I believe that's why drug tests can pick up MJ use a few days afterwards.

However, it's not true that it stays in the fat cells indefinitely. I don't know what the maximum retention time is though.

[Strykar]

That's my point.
Hell, food is metabolized and stored as fat, that can be construed as stored "in" the fat but I digress.

There is no Delta 9 THC stored in the fat as it has been metabolized, the traces that are present are other compounds from the leaf/trichomes/stem or whatever it is that was smoked.

What they do detect in tests are these compounds which are known to exist in the cannabis leaf/trichome and I believe hair testing can be accurately done 21 days after your last spliff.

All of the Delta 9 THC, is metabolized and broken down by the body and hence the “high” drops after a while, else we’d all still be slowly getting stoned from smoking our first drag of weed and it would be a wonderfully peaceful society to live in.

The article seems misleading and amounts to disinformation IMO.
A casual uninformed reader who breezes through it as most readers do, will walk away with the impression that smokers are walking around with layers of THC under subcutaneous tissue.

Throw in some 'concerned' parents into that mix and you have a community with incorrect notions ready to support stricter laws against cannabis consumption.