Son taking drugs - How would I know?

Stephb1986_2

My brother smokes it and since he has done has gone off the rails he's abusive and just damn right rude. So yeah it does cause paranoia and mental issues.

Steph xx

Inkedkitten

astonsmummy wrote: »

With all due respect, I have plenty of experience of weed smokers and drinkers, I know who I'd rather sit and have a chat with.
My uncle died from alcohol abuse, never have I known anyone to die from weed abuse.
I have not said it's safe, nothing is safe, but it is relatively harmless compared to alcohol abuse, and I'm not just talking about effects on the body.
Since when do people that smoke draw go out, have fights, throw up all over the street, destroy property, get arrested for being lairy, etc.

I'd rather sit with people who are planted firmly in reality, who aren't trying to "escape" or run away from things, then a load of addicts. And I'm not saying the people you share your company with are addicts. Each to their own eh.

And perhaps you just haven't seen that side of weed smoking, they might seem calm and chilled on the outside, but the majority of people who I know smoke or have smoked have done pretty screwed up things, your experiences seem rather pleasant compared to others on this site

Soubrette

Naturally, I'm afraid you are wrong - unless you discount addiction as a mental health issue I suppose.

Here is a graph of drugs and their harm relative to each other.

http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6474053.stm

I completely agree with astonsmummy regarding the relative dangers of smoking weed (although it's not called dope for nothing imo) and drinking alcohol.

We completely underestimate the effects of alcohol in our culture and have no respect for it as a drug. It is physically addicted unlike many of our illegal drugs, this means that if you choose to go cold turkey and you are heavily addicted then you may actually cause damage to yourself. Continual overuse is likely to cause death. These are personal costs to an alcoholic, as a society we pay a hell of a lot more paying for both alcoholics and binge drinking.

With regards to marijuana, in my experience people who use a lot of it tend to lose interest in other aspects of their life, they have little focus or application (and I personally don't like the over excited being shouted at by someone who is high as a kite and has no idea how loud they're being :mad: ). As an aside I have anecdotal evidence of an smoker who has lots of focus (gets really good qualifications) but seems a bit of a butterfly - a few years doing this, a few years doing that etc, apart from him everyone else I know just comes across as pretty much passive and lazy.

I do neither of the above drugs (alcohol tastes horrible to me and illegal puts me off the latter as well as the lifestyles of friends who imo do either to excess). However I believe that both can introduce a similar 'fun' element into person's life and the cannabis is far less dangerous to a person or a society than alcohol - that is not to say that either is without a deal of risk and the more either substance is used (or abused) then the greater the risk.

As astonsmummy says - not one person is known to have died from ingestion of cannabis, studies show a small percentage of users develop mental issues possibly from their cannabis use. The figures for alcoholism are much worse and much more frightening.

Sorry OP for the derail.

Sou

Soubrette

I also wanted to mention (but forgot ) I have many more friends who are either occasional smokers or occasional drinkers, I would be willing to bet that no one could pick them out in a crowd as people who indulge themselves in this habit compared to those who don't.

Sou

Inkedkitten

Just because someone doesn't take their life doesn't mean it's not dangerous

Soubrette

Skintmama wrote: »

I am another 'rare' person who has lost someone very dear to me through suicide, following the severe mental health problems he developed from the cannabis smoking.

I'm sorry for your loss Skintmama

However, there are two schools of thought on mental illness and cannabis use, one is that the cannabis is the causal effect of the mental illness and the other is that people with a tendency for mental illnesses use cannabis (or other drugs) to self medicate.

As far as I know there are no deaths directly attributed to cannabis use (although I have little doubt that there will be indirect deaths such as that type that Skintmama describes and/or cancer such as lung cancer). However we have government statistics showing 8,750 alcohol related deaths in 2006 alone.

Inkedkitten (cool name btw ) I don't think anyone is saying that cannabis is without risk - just that we are unable to assess the risk in relation to alcohol properly, partly because our society is steeped in the stuff.

Alcohol imo is more dangerous than cannabis - that does not mean that I am arguing that cannabis is not dangerous at all.

However, I feel sorry for the OP on my continuing to lead this thread off topic - perhaps I'll start a discussion about it in discussion time in the next few days

Sou

naturally_2

I'm sorry I am continuing this derail for just one more post, and that is because following soubrette's post I did a quick search on the internet and found this timely comment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/25/drugsandalcohol

So it does indeed seem that the impact on society and cases of health problems is far greater from alcohol than it is cannabis. I still maintain that I have seen and experienced far more problems in people doing weed than alcohol, but it would seam the overal sociological impact of alcohol is greater by a considerable margin.

Inkedkitten

Sou, I understand no that people are saying there is a risk to cannabis use, however it doesn't seem to be taken seriously enough. There might not deaths linked directly to cannabis, but we cannot rule out it has aided in the deaths of some.

Ah dear what a palaver! I just wouldn't want anyone to experience what I have in relation to drugs, be it heroine, coke, acid or pot etc! Worlds a strange place eh