Cannabis and adverse health effects

[lamchopz]

When I participated in the discussion here (the subforum is hiden from guests so you need to register to see the thread), I was reminded of someone on FiestaFan who once said that cannabis wasn't harmful. Well, I've done some research and here's what I found (taken from a 2009 study):

Cannabis abuse can result in the following:

Panel 1

Acute adverse effects
• Anxiety and panic, especially in naive users
• Psychotic symptoms (at high doses)
• Road crashes if a person drives while intoxicated

Chronic adverse effects
• Cannabis dependence syndrome (in around one in ten users)
• Chronic bronchitis and impaired respiratory function in regular smokers
• Psychotic symptoms and disorders in heavy users, especially those with a history of psychotic symptoms or a family history of these disorders
• Impaired educational attainment in adolescents who are regular users
• Subtle cognitive impairment in those who are daily users for 10 years or more

Panel 2

Possible adverse effects of regular cannabis use with unknown causal relation
• Respiratory cancers
• Behavioural disorders in children whose mothers used cannabis while pregnant
• Depressive disorders, mania, and suicide
• Use of other illicit drugs by adolescents

source (You need a subscription to view the full article. If you're a uni student, you already have a free membership)

According to the review cited, cannabis use is associated with a lot of things including schizophrenia:

Cannabis use has been associated with increased risk of psychiatric disorders. A 15-year follow-up of
50 465 Swedish male conscripts reported that those who had tried cannabis by age 18 years were 2·4 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than those who had not. Risk increased with the frequency of cannabis use and remained signifi cant after statistical adjustment for a few confounding variables. Those who had used cannabis ten or more times by 18 years of age were 2·3 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia than those who had not.

Nonetheless, a lot of the reported effects may not be caused by cannabis abuse:

Some other adverse eff ects are associated with regular cannabis use (panel 2), but whether they are causal is not
known because of the possible confounding effects of other drugs (tobacco for respiratory cancers; tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs for behavioural disorders in children whose mothers smoked cannabis during pregnancy).