Posted by linkadge on July 29, 2006, at 21:29:08
In reply to Re: Effexor - A personal experience (long read), posted by SLS on July 29, 2006, at 5:40:58
>Well, I have read in medical literature that >smoking marijuana can produce psychotic events
This is a potential side effect of smoking marajuanna. Most people who do smoke it however, do not report this as a long term effect. For most people it is transient. I have had *much* more destinct psychotic like events from use of tricyclic antidepressants. I am under the impression that the anticholinergic effect of both agents is what can precipitate this effect in certan individuals.
>and precipitate or accelerate the course of >schizophrenia.
It is very hard to say too, that a drug that produces psychotic like symptoms actually produces schizophrenia. A drug may cause the symptoms without producing any of the structural abnormalities seen in true schizohprenia.
This proposition too is highly debatable. A very high percentage of people with schizoprenia smoke marajuanna, so the natural assumption is that one causes the other. People with schizophrenia are also highly likely to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee, which has lead to an altranate explaination: the idea that all of these agents are an attempt to combat the negative symptoms of the disease like anhedonia, prefrontal hypofunction etc.
Another thing that is inherently very difficult to tease sense from, is that while a person with a predisposition to schizophrenia may worsen his or her case by smoking marajuanna, it may not be a direct effect from the drug. It could be, for instance, the fact that the drug might make one more antisocial, or the drug lifestyle itself.
There is a growing belief too that compounds in marajuanna might acually have antipsychotic qualities, and therefore theraptutic to this subgroup in a different way. Certain cannabanoids block the production of dopamine in certain areas of the brain.
http://www.ndsn.org/summer99/marij3.html
In many ways the cannabis/schizoprenia link was used to a high degree as part of anti drug propeganda.
I havn't come across any convincing evidence that suggests marajuanna actually causes schizophrenia.
>It might also produce a dimunition in memory >function. All in all, smoking marijuana might >not be completely innocuous.There is litte evidence that the substance actually damamges the brain. Most of these side effects are due to the fact that the drug has strong anticholinergic effects, which can create memory problems. There is research to show that these effects go away after a period of abstainaince. The long half-life of the drug will also create problems in the asessment of memory complaints. Another issue to, is that the drug withdrawl (like withdrawl from caffine) may present with cognitive problems, untill the brain resets itself.
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:670781
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060724/msgs/671873.html