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To: george76
Berenson cited a new study published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal that found people who use cannabis daily are three times more likely than non-users to eventually have a psychotic episode. Those who use high-potency pot are four times more likely, and those who starting getting high before age 15 carry even more risk, the study found.

And people who inject insulin are far more likely to one day suffer and even die of diabetes-related issues.

And people with driver's licenses are far more likely to die in automobile accidents.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Regards,

38 posted on 03/20/2019 9:59:43 PM PDT by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: alexander_busek

“Correlation does not equal causation.”


Correct.

For example, mental illness does not cause self-medication with illegal drugs.

Instead, use of illegal drugs causes mental illness.

Progressives get the whole causation thing bass ackwards, with predictable results.

if you want to stop mental illness, stop drug use.


41 posted on 03/20/2019 10:11:25 PM PDT by kaehurowing
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To: alexander_busek

I will concede that it is not proven. There are other factors to consider, other variables that may be a factor. For example, are pot users more likely to be reclusive? And are reclusive people more likely to have a psychotic break? Are they more likely to play video games watching flashing images for longer periods of time than others? There are too many variables to control.

So indeed the pot itself is not necessarily the direct link. But it is a piece of evidence. These kinds of statistics are misused all the time. At best we can say that people who use high potency pot are 4 times more likely to have a psychotic break than not pot users. It doesn’t mean much, especially when we don’t know the rate of psychotic breaks in the general population.

That said, this is not the only thing we know about pot. We know THC alters the mind and passed the blood brain barrier. So the one piece of evidence proves very little. A lot more data needs to be read into the picture. It still may not prove the link, just help increase the confidence in the hypothesis by ruling out and ruling in other variables.


47 posted on 03/20/2019 10:51:22 PM PDT by monkeyshine
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