#honestly tho my parents tried to control my behaviour with sleep deprivation and that left a freakin mark

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Reefer Madness Lives

This is not such a hot paper, and the peer review process where it was published is not so hot either. Peer review in general is... Let's be charitable and say it's more for money and prestige than scientific rigor. But, just for basic integrity, you need to operate with a double-blind. CMAJ is single-blind, so their reviewers know if they're up against anyone famous or well-connected who might bring them a lot of attention. And their primary criteria is "importance and novelty." Less delicately, if it looks like it will get a lot of clicks and cites, they'll be pleased to publish it. This is not all that out-of-the-ordinary for science journals, and that's kinda bad.

But a paper saying that pot is gonna poison your children and give people schizophrenia will get a shitton of clicks and cites. It's the number one trending story on CBC right now! And there are live comments!

I need CBD and THC to deal with my PTSD and sleep problems. It's possible that, after being under-treated for decades, I will eventually deal with my underlying health issues enough to sleep unassisted, but I ain't there yet. And ya know what makes it really hard to make it to go to doctor's appointments and get care? Not being able to sleep!

I had a medical marijuana card before, and I could probably qualify for one again if I had to. But A) Do you really want me taking up a doctor's time for this when there aren't enough doctors for everyone right now? and B) Legalized recreational use keeps availability convenient, variety and quality-control reasonable, and prices low. If you are going to inflict capitalism on me, don't kneecap what little benefit a free market is able to provide.

Now, we don't want to get people high without their consent, and children cannot consent to getting high (although some of them do need cannabis products for medical reasons), so for fuck's sake store your shit carefully if you've got kids. But "cannabis poisoning" as they put it, means, "I feel awful and maybe I threw up but I won't die, even if I'm super paranoid and feel like I might." Most people who wind up in the hospital are adults screwing around with edibles who don't know what to expect, and all they need is a nice, patient friend who'll tell them they're fine. This "poison" doesn't kill people. Unlike, say, antifreeze, or children's Tylenol. (Although, I hear Willie Nelson's friend had a bale of pot fall on him one time, so it's not as safe as they say!)

And the schizophrenia thing... People with mental health issues self-select for these studies by choosing to self-medicate. You might also say cannabis use has a strong correlation with PTSD flashbacks - because people with PTSD know it helps and they freaking well try it, and sometimes they still have flashbacks. A psychedelic is not the best choice for schizophrenia, god no, but if you're having associated depression and sleep issues and you haven't been diagnosed yet, you might give it a try. Better mental healthcare and better, earlier diagnoses and treatment will address this issue more effectively than yet another moral panic.

But a certain portion of the population is really invested in "drugs are bad" and "drug users are addicts and addicts are bad" narrative. Like, literally invested. It keeps them in political power and gets money for studies like this and "public health" campaigns that are really thinly-veiled, outdated DARE propaganda.

Even this study, which specifically excluded medical marijuana use, found social benefits to not criminalizing drug use and drug users. No shit. People don't get addicted to something because addiction is fun; they have severe, unaddressed problems and they're doing whatever they can to cope with them, whether that's staying stoned all the time or blowing their retirement fund on Funko Pops. And most people who use drugs don't get addicted. (Also most people who buy Funko Pops, one assumes.) Removing them from society and giving them all criminal records doesn't help anyone.

Harm reduction should be the goal here, as in most things. You will never get it perfect, but you need to take steps towards improving the general situation as much as possible. Sending the War on Drugs (really, the War on Your Own Population) into extra innings after decades of failure is... Ha-ha, well, it's self-destructive addict behaviour, y'all. Maybe you could use some social services to help you deal with your problems in a better way.