Age of Marijuana Use and Psychosis

[subzero]

This reminds me... Have the rates of schizophrenia risen in conjunction with the rise in marijuana use? Has this been discussed?

Half the country is in a state of emergency thanks to medicinal and recreational weed being sold in shops. They out there snatchin all your people up.

[Latrinsorm]

Population studies of schizophrenia over time are not as useful for several reasons.

1. The diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia have changed significantly over time. You can try to back out with one set of criteria but obviously that gets a little hazy, which is why you see some studies that say it's gone way up and others that say it's pretty much the same, and even a few that say it's gone down recently.

2. Marijuana use on the population level hasn't changed much in the past 30 years. If marijuana use does cause schizophrenia at 5 per 1000 and the base rate of schizophrenia is 10 per 1000, then we would expect schizophrenia rates to go from...
.33 * 15 + .67 * 10 = 11.65 per 1000 in 1985
...to...
.38 * 15 + .62 * 10 = 11.90 per 1000 in 2013
...and that .25 difference is about one-tenth the error bar in population studies even though (for America) that .25 difference means 75,000 schizophrenics. "How can that be statistically insignificant?", you might ask. Science is hard, that's why.

Longitudinal studies are more useful because you can control for a lot of the things population studies can't, and you can find cause and effect. Even if you believed the population studies that say schizophrenia has increased, there's no way of knowing from that whether the schizophrenia was caused by marijuana use, vice versa, or whether the two are totally unrelated. With a longitudinal study, you follow your people from time A to time B to time C, and you keep track of which person is which. Consider...

Person A and person B are born.
Fifteen years later, person A smokes marijuana.
Five years after that, person B develops schizophrenia.
Two years after that, person B begins smoking marijuana in a (mistaken) attempt to mitigate their symptoms.
Three years after that, both participate in a population study, which finds that in this sample there is 100% marijuana use and 50% schizophrenia incidence.
Had they each been participating in a longitudinal study, the authors would have instead recorded person A as user -> no schizophrenia and person B as non-user -> schizophrenia -> user.

You can hope these distinctions average out over a large enough sample in your population study, but I don't see why you'd bother when the longitudinal studies have already been done, and continue to be done many times over by many authors.

.

Thread: Age of Marijuana Use and Psychosis
You're a joke.

At least it doesn't take me a month to get a punchline.

[Warriorbird]

Population studies of schizophrenia over time are not as useful for several reasons.

1. The diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia have changed significantly over time. You can try to back out with one set of criteria but obviously that gets a little hazy, which is why you see some studies that say it's gone way up and others that say it's pretty much the same, and even a few that say it's gone down recently.

2. Marijuana use on the population level hasn't changed much in the past 30 years. If marijuana use does cause schizophrenia at 5 per 1000 and the base rate of schizophrenia is 10 per 1000, then we would expect schizophrenia rates to go from...
.33 * 15 + .67 * 10 = 11.65 per 1000 in 1985
...to...
.38 * 15 + .62 * 10 = 11.90 per 1000 in 2013
...and that .25 difference is about one-tenth the error bar in population studies even though (for America) that .25 difference means 75,000 schizophrenics. "How can that be statistically insignificant?", you might ask. Science is hard, that's why.

Longitudinal studies are more useful because you can control for a lot of the things population studies can't, and you can find cause and effect. Even if you believed the population studies that say schizophrenia has increased, there's no way of knowing from that whether the schizophrenia was caused by marijuana use, vice versa, or whether the two are totally unrelated. With a longitudinal study, you follow your people from time A to time B to time C, and you keep track of which person is which. Consider...

Person A and person B are born.
Fifteen years later, person A smokes marijuana.
Five years after that, person B develops schizophrenia.
Two years after that, person B begins smoking marijuana in a (mistaken) attempt to mitigate their symptoms.
Three years after that, both participate in a population study, which finds that in this sample there is 100% marijuana use and 50% schizophrenia incidence.
Had they each been participating in a longitudinal study, the authors would have instead recorded person A as user -> no schizophrenia and person B as non-user -> schizophrenia -> user.

You can hope these distinctions average out over a large enough sample in your population study, but I don't see why you'd bother when the longitudinal studies have already been done, and continue to be done many times over by many authors.

.

Thread: Age of Marijuana Use and Psychosis
You're a joke.

At least it doesn't take me a month to get a punchline.

Is it Latrin trying to shoot down science again? Why yes it is.

[Fallen]

There will be many more N's to work with come 2016 and beyond. Another 5 states or so should fully legalize within the next few years, along with the continued expansion the of medical marijuana and likely rescheduling of the drug itself. The only thing which could possibly lower those numbers is if we elect Christie or perhaps Bush to office.

[Latrinsorm]

Is it Latrin trying to shoot down science again?

No, that's not at all what-

Why yes it is.

...drat!

Seriously though, ask your department head person deal about it. Cohort is just better than population for these purposes. This goes back to the hammer vs. screwdriver thing. If I say your hammer can't drive in screws, I'm not disputing your hammer's worth as a hammer; I'm not addressing it in any way! I'm just pointing out its hammerness.

[Methais]

[Gelston]

Marijuana decriminalization bill passes the House, with all Dems for and 5 Republicans for. It also includes provisions to federally tax sales of Marijuana at 5% and to expunge records of offenders of the previous law. It isn't expected to make it through the Senate.

[Keller]

Too bad this won't make it out of the Senate, but hopefully Mitch's failure to legislate, especially on an issue so important to black families, will bite him in the ass in GA in January.

[Neveragain]

Marijuana decriminalization bill passes the House, with all Dems for and 5 Republicans for. It also includes provisions to federally tax sales of Marijuana at 5% and to expunge records of offenders of the previous law. It isn't expected to make it through the Senate.

Time to invest in cannabis stocks.

More than anything this about opening up the banking system (and taxes of course) to the legal states. The owner of the dispensary I used to frequent in WA was having to rent a separate building to keep his cash in. He couldn't even roll that cash over into property or anything of great value in fear of federal seizers.

This still isn't the legislation most of us are looking for but it should open up the door to bring states to federal court.

[Latrinsorm]

Colorado, which as many may recall legalized marijuana in 2014, has seen marijuana arrests increase in every year since, an epoch when national arrests have decreased (eat your heart out Jeff Sessions!) (...if you had one)

Folks who are legitimately concerned about the racist justice system, check the fine print.

Folks who want to get "high" with "Trevor" and "Chad" in the "dorm" "room" with impunity, feel free to celebrate.

.

Thread: Age of Marijuana Use and Psychosis
sorry I don't believe in gaylords and science bitches who hate fun

Surely we can agree that I have at least demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt my own existence, OKAYYYYYYY????????