Posted by sukarno on August 10, 2009, at 12:05:22
In reply to Re: Marijuana for depression/anxiety,good or bad idea?, posted by Dima on August 1, 2009, at 2:16:04
The only danger I see with cannabis is - if smoked - carbon monoxide.
That said, carbon monoxide is what kills most cigarette smokers (heart disease and stroke can be caused in the long term by CO), so if you smoke cannabis, you can expect the same cardiopulmonary diseases as those who smoke tobacco.
If smoked lightly, perhaps not, but if it was me and I was going to use cannabis on a long term basis to treat depression (treatment-resistant depression), I would use a tincture under the tongue (to bypass the liver so it reaches the brain as delta-9 THC) or Sativex. You can get Sativex in Canada.
I might try it. I'm tired of antidepressants "pooping out" (tolerance) and horrid withdrawal syndromes.
At least you can quit cannabis and have little or no withdrawal reactions. I used a fair amount of cannabis back in the 1980s and just gave it up. I didn't have any withdrawal or cravings. Everyone is different though.
SSRIs tend to poop out after 5 to 10 years from what I've seen in the hundreds of postings (yeah, I know they are anecdotes, but that many anecdotes surely cannot simply be dismissed) and produce horrible withdrawal symptoms which include seizures. (Oops! Sorry Eli Lilly/GSK, I actually _meant_ to say "discontinuation reaction".. the sugar-coated term for "withdrawal syndrome") Not to forget the sexual dysfunction (loss of ability to orgasm, impotence and loss of libido) that occurs in 70% of patients on SSRIs and that this loss of libido can be permanent (the case reports keep mounting and mounting). SSRIs are addictive and habit-forming, especially the short-acting ones such as paroxetine (Paxil/Seroxat).
Basically, if you can't just quit taking a drug without significant discomfort, then for all practical purposes it is addictive. I used to distinguish between physical and psychological dependence and "medical dependence", but it's just easier to tell it like it is. That's exactly what a board-certified psychiatrist and neurologist told me: SSRIs are addictive drugs, yet useful for some people.
Then there is the ugly:
Bleeding abnormalities, including life-threatening hemorrhages in the stomach and elsewhere. Serotonin toxicity. Serum sickness syndrome (especially with fluoxetine). Severe panic attacks brought on by SSRIs. Blood dyscrasias, bone marrow damage, liver toxicity.
Most people do fine, except in the sexual department, but do you want to risk those side effects (e.g. upper GI bleeding, purpura, etc)?
It's up to you.Does cannabis do this? No. Not at all.
Cannabis just has that taboo "illegal" word attached to it.SSRIs don't cause brain damage? Sure they do. What else do you call it when SSRIs don't work anymore and permanently destroy your libido? They seem to alter, in some cases permanently, gene expression in the brain.
What about violence caused by some folks on SSRIs?
School shootings, murder-suicides.. those were rare in the pre-SSRI era and I think we all know why. There's so many of those these days, and not just in the US anymore. Strongly correlated with the introduction of SSRIs to the market.How about cannabis? I've never seen two 'stoned' people fight. Ask any law enforcement officer which drug he fears or loathes the most and you'll hear him say meth or alcohol and a long list of other illegal and prescription drugs, but cannabis? Hardly. Lots of police these days don't care much about cannabis and wouldn't care if it was fully legalized.
Much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco.
My $0.02
poster:sukarno
thread:909301
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090810/msgs/911319.html