Correlation between cannabis users and mental health

[KrazeUK]

Has anyone else found a correlation between cannabis users in Amsterdam and mental health?

On more than one occasion I’ve been sat in coffeeshops and in walks someone with what appears to be serious mental health issues.

Some examples can be:

- A guy who felt the need to scratch his private area and smell his hand afterwards (in Siberie).

- A guy who was having a two way conversation with himself and staring at a group of teens making them feel rather uncomfortable (in Betty Too).

- A lady practically starting arguments with anyone she could, and screaming in Dutch at the bar staff (in Amnesia).

On my last trip I saw what appeared to be an older German gentleman walk in to Kandinsky and order a hash pre roll. After choosing to sit next to my girlfriend and I (even though the whole Coffeeshop was empty), he proceeded to start smoking the pre-roll, but ended up opening the joint whilst it was lit. He then started taking pictures of the budtender whilst practically dribbling. The lady behind the till quickly asked the gentleman to leave, he gathered his possessions that were all in a laundry bag kind of thing and he went on his way. Just before he left he spat inside the Coffeeshop.

Maybe I’m wording this badly but it’s just an observation I’ve made from my 10+ years (15+ trips) of frequenting Amsterdam. I’m not saying it’s a regular occurrence by any means, but it‘s something that has been on my mind for the last couple of years.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences?

[puffpuffgive]

amsterdam is chock full of crazy people. That's part of it's charm

[Rafiki]

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[Dark-side-of-moon]

Amsterdam probably has a couple of Psychiatric hospitals. Annecy in France has a few mental health patients in residence as well. I've done psychiatric time - the town where I was hospitalised had a couple of pubs, it was an old Victorian hospital and the locals were used to it (the hospital, with grounds was sold as redevelopment and probably made someone a lot of money - say goodbye to the concept of asylum).
If the psychiatric services are good, the professionals are probably well aware of who's doing what. It's very difficult to stop people - if not weed, then booze, then glue, then petrol.
When I was in Amsterdam I watched a bloke laughing, lying in a soggy pile of cardboard boxes next to a canal. He wasn't having a good time. If I were a budtender I wouldn't serve him.
For what it's worth, my opinion is that weed certainly does not cause mental illness. Any more than alcohol causes violence. As William Burroughs pointed out, cannabis is an intensifier - it makes your head spin - if you're already in a spooky, bad place it might make it worse.

[Rafiki]

.

[KeyMonCha]

Has anyone else found a correlation between cannabis users in Amsterdam and mental health?

On more than one occasion I’ve been sat in coffeeshops and in walks someone with what appears to be serious mental health issues.

Some examples can be:

- A guy who felt the need to scratch his private area and smell his hand afterwards (in Siberie).

- A guy who was having a two way conversation with himself and staring at a group of teens making them feel rather uncomfortable (in Betty Too).

- A lady practically starting arguments with anyone she could, and screaming in Dutch at the bar staff (in Amnesia).

On my last trip I saw what appeared to be an older German gentleman walk in to Kandinsky and order a hash pre roll. After choosing to sit next to my girlfriend and I (even though the whole Coffeeshop was empty), he proceeded to start smoking the pre-roll, but ended up opening the joint whilst it was lit. He then started taking pictures of the budtender whilst practically dribbling. The lady behind the till quickly asked the gentleman to leave, he gathered his possessions that were all in a laundry bag kind of thing and he went on his way. Just before he left he spat inside the Coffeeshop.

Maybe I’m wording this badly but it’s just an observation I’ve made from my 10+ years (15+ trips) of frequenting Amsterdam. I’m not saying it’s a regular occurrence by any means, but it‘s something that has been on my mind for the last couple of years.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences?

Do I have any similar experience, which is seeing a patient in dire need of medication? Why yes, I do.

Every human being is different and the budtenders that serve the Amsterdam market are barely qualified to serve a drug in the pharmaceutical sense; meaning having [at least] a Bachelor in Science, cf. https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheker.

Further the average tourist has not sought any prelimeraly councel of a [local] physician; the patient itself has no way to medicate itself properly:

• Smelling your private parts, analyzing the odor, sweating a lot - debatingly with these temperatures - might be a sign of over-awareness or paranoia due to consumption. Perhaps something more with high myrcene, sedates him, takes the paranoia and stress away.
• Those 'teens' have the age to enter a coffeeshop legally. They can voice up themselves and chat with the staff [, which could assist with the local police, should the need arise].

  Aren't people who talk to themselves crazy?
  Nope. We all talk to ourselves under our breath. Sometimes we even talk to ourselves out loud, such as when we stub a toe and scream obscenities to ourselves and anyone else within earshot. In most circumstances, however, self-talk remains internal, private speech. We may perceive our self-talk to be a kind of faint whisper we hear in the recesses of our mind, words said under our breath, or silent thoughts.

  https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog ... k-yourself
• The German opening the pre-roll was maybe inexperienced, maybe unhappy with a product that had too much tobacco in it / was scammed and then thought he could collect 'evidence' to then legally pursue this. When they yelled at him he flipped and spat. Maybe?
• The lady... myrcene.... any heavy indica with that....

In the end most of us do not have a degree in psychology, nor medicine, and do not know the other fellow human. It is so easy to just point the finger at someone and have a preconveiced opinion. Most people do not perceive me as a charming person and would dump me in the first five minutes. See it evey single day. But those with patience get rewarded, the other ones are - obviously - allowed to sodomize themselves with a retractable batton.

Wow!!!

...That was like the end of an episode of 'Murder She Wrote'!

I have a friend with some psychological issues, and he can stare a little too long at people, also... He has no idea he's doing it... We just poke him!

Nice to see an objective and also rational perspective, other that an initial knee-jerk 'Nutter-Alert' responses that seem to be a prevalent ignorance encountered by most people with mental health issues... Unfortunately, the current political climate, along with fear-mongering media, has meant that, 'giving people the benefit of the doubt' is almost unthinkable, and one must always be on guard, thinking the worst of everyone you encounter, just in case they're out to get you... Manifest mental heath issues magnify that effect tremendously, even in those with a more understanding outlook, so add that to being in an unfamiliar setting, in a possibly unfamiliar country, with a possible language barrier, and a psychoactive substance, and i'm surprised this shit isn't a far bigger issue than it appears...

...But, it seems to be relatively rare... Especially when you consider how often it used to happen pre 2004... Pretty much every building in the RLD had it's share of 'characters', but since they pro-actively tried to clean up the area, these instances have become less frequent.

In all honesty, i see more 'suspect' behaviour in the middle of Manchester than in Amsterdam, and in my opinion, i think Amsterdam actually has a much better understanding of these issues, and deals with them accordingly; whereas, in Manchester, the need for mental health funding and treatment is on show every day in the city centre...

I realise that's a little off topic, but i think what i meant to say was;

Yes, coffeeshops are not ideal places for people with 'issues' to interact with the GP, but neither are pubs, and a myriad other places, yet Amsterdam seems, to me at least, to have fewer apparent instances, especially within the last 15 years, so they must be doing something right, right?