> However, another brain region saw lower volumes – suggesting the impact cannabis has on the brain is complex and nuanced, requiring further investigation.
> there was a single brain region where we saw that higher cannabis use was actually associated with lower brain volume – the posterior cingulate, which is part of the limbic system and is implicated in processes like memory, learning, and emotion. That said, some research suggests smaller posterior cingulate volume is actually associated with better working memory, so it’s a little unclear what this means.
Anecodtal evidence I know but all the long term daily cannabis user I know seem to have memory issues.
Long-term memory issues or short-term? I'm also a daily cannabis user, for longer part of my life than I haven't, and I definitely have worse short-term memory issues, which goes away quickly when I take ~2 weeks breaks, and quickly gets worse again as I resume my habit. But never had issues with my long-term memory.
You didn't read the article but instead rely on your bias alone.
Life long moderate cannabis use improves memory function. That's the main takeaway from the research.
Life long moderate cannabis use improves memory function. That's the main takeaway from the research.
I think a very important part is:
> For example, I’m interested in the effects of THC versus CBD. We don't have any of that information in the UK Biobank. Most people in this study were using cannabis quite a while ago, and cannabis at that time looked very different from what’s available today. That context really matters. It’s a complex picture.
It's like having a bottle of beer vs bottle of whiskey. I don't exactly imbibe them in the same way, do I?
"Longitudinal and twin studies report larger declines in IQ among cannabis users than their non-using peers but it is unclear whether these findings can be attributed to cannabis use or to genetic, mental health and environmental factors."
Drinking too much coffee and getting over-caffeinated has bad effects.
> In the UK Biobank, people were asked to estimate how many times they’d used cannabis over their lifetime, choosing from a set of ranges. We ended up grouping people into no use, moderate use, and high use, based on the number of times they'd used cannabis. And of course that's an imperfect way to group people, but it did allow us to approximate dose-dependent effects.
Ah ok, so completely BS as expected.
It really should be legalised so that we can earn a bit of tax from its sale and reduce the amount of cash that criminals make from it (not so much the seller to the public, but all the criminal organisations that grow and smuggle it).
Apart from that a better medication would be Ketamine which is also a NMDA receptor antagonist like alcohol but not as destructive to every cell in the body. Except your bladder.
Obviously the effects of different substances for different individuals can vary profoundly, and alcohol for me is far superior in almost every way imaginable.
Which sucks, because the long-term and next-day side effects of cannabis seem so much less bad.
Anyway, it's legal where I live, I avoided it for a long time because of reasons but it tends to give similar relaxing / depresant effects to alcohol, minus the downsides.
I'm confident Big Alcohol is pushing hard against legalizing and developing cannabis. As is the government, because alcohol is heavily taxed and therefore a big source of income.
That said, when I walked through the main street of my city after dark, I thought replacing all the drunks with stoned would have been a major improvement.
Without accounting for that this is just bad science. It adds too many variables to make meaningful conclusions outside of feel good nonsense.
Off the top of my head I can think of many socio-economic confounding variables, and also survivorship-bias.