Latest anti-cannabis TV advert

[Sir Niall of Essex-sire]

Is it fair to say that with so many conflicting results from studies that nobody knows if cannabis can cause mental disorders? Also there's so many variables to consider, I think it will be a long time before a direct link between mental disorders and cannabis can be proven.

The governments advert is hammering home one side of the story.

They always will do man. They'll hammer the side which seems to promote their point of view. All im saying is be aware with cannabis and dont take it as a completely harmless substance.

[NYCBud]

Ingwey Gooblebogger for your sake i hope that you never have to watch your best friend have a physcotic episode from cannabis its quiet a disturbing exeperiance. Being stoned with a friend just like any normal time and suddenly they start freaking out because a voice in there head is telling them that they are a paedophile then attempting to throw themself out of an upstairs window because of the thoughts that they were thinking, if his dad hadn't run after him I dont want to think what would have happened.

So please think about what your saying before you say it instead of as Sir Niall pointed out just putting your fingers in your ears and screaming bullshit.
Ignorance is bliss

[USbongLord]

and im a blissful sob

[Ingwey Gooblebogger]

I called bullshit for a few reasons, as follows:

1) Cannabis does NOT cause psychosis. PERIOD END OF SENTENCE!!
On the other, if a person already has underlying mental illness, then ANY psycho-active substance should be avoided.(including tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and weed, to namer a few).

Now, they may claimed grass caused the pyschosis because they had no other sequelae, but this is poor science, and hence bogus. (See * below)

2) Assume for, one moment that, cannabis could cause psychosis!
This would still be an extremely rare event. Everyone on this board (who also happen to smoke much more than the average bear) has many other pot consuming friends who are not on this board, right?

The rest of you, save one, have never had any of your friends go kookoo over cocopuffs, and YET this one person has had two do so?

The balance of probabilities would make this an extremely unlikely event! Hence, I called bullshit!!

3) I always tackle "Reefer-madness" era propaganda head on.
I may be blunt, but I am consistent. I apologize for being blunt, but not for being honest.

4) I will never have to watch any of my friends go through a psychotic break due to cannabis, because cannabis does NOT cause psychosis. Thanks for your concern.

I have, however, had friends, who did develop mental illness, but none of them were tokers. It was indeed sad to seem them go through such a problem.

* These unfortunate people had psyhoses that seemed to occur "spontaneously", although the underlying illness had, likely, been there for sometime, and then some event triggered their first psychotic episode. This situation is, unfortunately, NOT uncommon.

If any of those folks would have had any illicit drug taking experience, then, (whcih they did not), then I would imagine that some wag blame the illicit drugs. Again, this would be a bogus conclusion.

Although my fortes are mainly in the quantitative sciences, I also have a degree in psychology, so please give me the references to studies purporting a CAUSAL link between cannabis and psychosis and I'll review them. (Note: Every one of such "studies", I have reviewed, have had serious methodology problems and poorly drawn conclusions. Of special note, the US NIH or NIMH studies, under the Bush administratiuon, are pretty much bogus, and I have read them, so only pass along links to other studies. )

[Twichaldinho]

I called bullshit for a few reasons, as follows:

1) Cannabis does NOT cause psychosis. PERIOD END OF SENTENCE!!
On the other, if a person already has underlying mental illness, then ANY psycho-active substance should be avoided.(including tobacco, alcohol, coffee, and weed, to namer a few).

Now, they may claimed grass caused the pyschosis because they had no other sequelae, but this is poor science, and hence bogus. (See * below)

2) Assume for, one moment that, cannabis could cause psychosis!
This would still be an extremely rare event. Everyone on this board (who also happen to smoke much more than the average bear) has many other pot consuming friends who are not on this board, right?

The rest of you, save one, have never had any of your friends go kookoo over cocopuffs, and YET this one person has had two do so?

The balance of probabilities would make this an extremely unlikely event! Hence, I called bullshit!!

3) I always tackle "Reefer-madness" era propaganda head on.
I may be blunt, but I am consistent. I apologize for being blunt, but not for being honest.

4) I will never have to watch any of my friends go through a psychotic break due to cannabis, because cannabis does NOT cause psychosis. Thanks for your concern.

I have, however, had friends, who did develop mental illness, but none of them were tokers. It was indeed sad to seem them go through such a problem.

* These unfortunate people had psyhoses that seemed to occur "spontaneously", although the underlying illness had, likely, been there for sometime, and then some event triggered their first psychotic episode. This situation is, unfortunately, NOT uncommon.

If any of those folks would have had any illicit drug taking experience, then, (whcih they did not), then I would imagine that some wag blame the illicit drugs. Again, this would be a bogus conclusion.

Although my fortes are mainly in the quantitative sciences, I also have a degree in psychology, so please give me the references to studies purporting a CAUSAL link between cannabis and psychosis and I'll review them. (Note: Every one of such "studies", I have reviewed, have had serious methodology problems and poorly drawn conclusions. Of special note, the US NIH or NIMH studies, under the Bush administratiuon, are pretty much bogus, and I have read them, so only pass along links to other studies. )

Excellent post
Do you happen to work for the UK drug advisory council?

[Sir Niall of Essex-sire]

MD you are most probably correct in what you say, im not about to agrue with a Pyschology Grad! All i was saying was that if your man says he has had friends suffer a pyscotic episode because of his toking, whether that is because it triggered it or caused it ( i personally believe that cannabis acts in a a way which triggers underlying mental disorders ) We are obliged to believe what he says without labelling it as bullshit.

I was wondering if you could explain any links between cannabis and Panic Attacks. This is something i personally have experience of and alot of my former buddies occansionly have the onset of anxiety when they smoke.

[Ingwey Gooblebogger]

I was wondering if you could explain any links between cannabis and Panic Attacks. This is something i personally have experience of and alot of my former buddies occansionly have the onset of anxiety when they smoke.

NOTE: If the panic attack did not subside after the intoxication did so, then I would seek help from a therapist.

As I have said, in other posts, my fortes, mainly, lie in the quantitative sciences (included in that lot, is research methodology, as that is something all researchers can not do without), and I am not necessarily an expert here (even given the pysch degree), but my view on panic attacks, while under the influence of any psycho-active substance, is that they could be due to many factors.

The "set and setting*" for any trip, can and sometimes does affect the quality of the trip. (*Some 1960's terminology ).

Some "set and setting" situations that might lead to a panic attacks might be something like the following:

1) Most of us live in an environment where cannabis is illegal (Even in Holland it is illegal, but tolerated), so we may, occasionally, harbour some unconscious fears about getting caught. Under the influence of drugs/alcohol these unconscious fears may, in times of stress and intoxication, come to light. (The end result might be a panic attack).

For example, if arrested, charged, and sentenced for any crime, including pot possession, some of my professional designations would be revoked!! For these particular designations, it took one undergraduate degree, one graduate degree, and 7 years of professional education and exams. Do I fear getting busted?... You BET!! As a consequence, I am very careful about where and when I consume grass.

2) Perhaps there are other things going on in one's life that are, usually, pushed into the background. (i.e. Rows with girlfriend/spouse, job stresses including potential redundancies, financial woes ("as in how the hell I am gonna get out of this debt/mortgage/etc", and many other worries/stressors might be at play.) After smoking a joint, or drinking a few pints, we then contemplate these worries and ruminate on them.
This rumination could lead to a panic attack.

3) Adulterants. Unless you grow your own, cannabis is bought and sold on the illicit market. Hence, some unscrupulous dealers could adulterate schwag to make it more appealing. So, while you thought you were only consuming cannabis, you might have also, unwittingly, consumed something else. This is one of the dangers of prohibition.

4) Mental illness is a fairly common disease and those with milder forms of it might have little insight that they do have it. For example, many folks with mild depression might just blow it off as "the blues". They might self medicate with booze and/or cannabis. The resulting intoxication and underlying mental illness could result in a panic attack.

That's just a few of them. There are probably a nearly infinite number of possibilities.

^&^&^&
RE:Calling "Bullshit"
I do apologize for being blunt. I should NOT have said bullshit.
On the other hand, I really do resent prohibitionist propaganda. His post smacked of it, so I called bullshit. In future, I'll try to ignore such threads.

[echc1]

saw the latest advert this week......hmmmmmm i think and this is the impression given to non tokers too...there were about 6 or 7 pros to pot but the advert could only show 3 yes THREE cons against cannabis.....another 2 million well spent by gordo's gang...NOT!......lets have more ads like that and it'll help our cause no end....and in ref to the just ask frank campaign (uk)...WTF were they smokin to come up with the pablo the drug courier dog....so funny to watch when stoned

[Sir Niall of Essex-sire]

Cheers IG, i used to have an issue with panic attacks setting in while i was high, it seems to have stopped now. I lowered my dosage and took a couple of months with no cannabis, and a month with no booze to try and sort it out and it seemed to of helped. Pior to this i had been smoking pretty much solid all day because i was a ' proper ' student and had time to. I think 3 yr of solid smoking would mess anyones head ( resulting in panic attacks.) It was my fault as i abused to herb rather than using it in a sensible way. These days i am fine with it.

[liquidSwords]

Do you know how much this advert annoys me!, I can feel the blood boiling everytime it comes on....i can truely say that i do not know a single soul who has mental issues after just being a weed smoker, people who do class A's maybe a different story.

As a weed smoker the advert seems 2 be a pisstake, i mean as stoned as anyone can be, the only character in that advert that i have ever come across is suprisengly the "Dr Chill" guy, and whats wrong with that? No one acts like any of the fast moving and "coked" up characters in the rest of the advert...... Hope every1 is understanding what i am trying to say.

And this advert co-incides with the timing of the reclassfication of our much loved plant. Clever government planning.

And finally, why are their not adverts of this nature for people who drink 2 much coffee, i mean the characters in the advert could easily be mistaken for people on a coffee "high" or people who become reliant on anti-depressients, there are so many more things our country could do 2 make it safer rather than single out cannabis smokers and motorists, im a smoker and motorist, have never harmed a soul but amazingly have been 2 court twice in my life as a result of smoking weed and driving (and i dont mean i've been caught drug driving), there are now so many rules and regulations regarding these 2 subjects and phantom offensives, im sure everybody would rather see our government crackdown on murder and other crimes that devestate lives.

Back 2 the old saying "who would you rather walk past in a dark alley??? A bunch of stoners or a bunch of drunks"

[Kingdoc]

Ive only seen it a couple of times! its aimed @ 18-30 year old aparently.

[NYCBud]

Tbh really Talk To Frank is a fucking joke.. Im going to refer to 2 incidents that i know of personally.
One of them being a friend who is very well read on drugs and knows alot thought he would ring them up to see if they could give him more information on DMT. When he got through to the call centre and asked they didnt even know what the drug was and thought he'd made it up!?
Another friend had taken ecstacy and he said it felt like his throat was closing up and was finding it hard to breathe so he rang frank for some advice and he didnt even manage to get all the question out before they hung up on him.. WTF!?

[Kingdoc]

Yea this frank rubbish gets tons of money from central govt each year & they then waste it with stupid comercials like that! really are they gona do an alcohol 1 where you wake up in your own piss & with someone elses blood on your clothes/hands? i thought not .

[Boner]

I laugh my ass off every time I see it, the Mrs said I remind her of the 'munchies' character!

[Kingdoc]

LOl! the paranoia guy looks like hes taken acid not weed ,& like the other guy says that "paublo" advert was a cracker also.