Fair enough
But even taking into account the different levels of usage, the number of people seriously damaged by alcohol abuse is a hell of a lot greater than those damaged by cannabis.
Plus it's very hard to distinguish cause and effect in these things - many people with mental disorders find that cannabis helps to calm them, and I don't think there have been any really decent double-blind studies because of the ethical issues. Maybe those people who go crazy on weed would have gone more crazy without it and were self-medicating. Without extensive (and unbiased) research, it's very hard to be sure.
Final point: as you say, it's mostly about exascerbating existing conditions. Whether drug use can *induce* schizophrenia is a different question from whether it makes it worse (or better).
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flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 13:44,
Reply)
The obvious point here
is that pumping you body full of psychotropic narcotics is never going to do you any good.
And as for the alcohol/weed argument - alcohol only causes lasting damage after years of abuse, and the effects are more gradual, more visible and more easily reversible.
Yes, people can get pissed up and get violent, but they wake up with a hangover and they're back to normal. Bringing on full blown paranoid schizophrenia isn't something a couple of paracetamol can cure.
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HoratioFellatio Taking the the out of psychotherapist, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 13:51,
Reply)
While mental illness should not be encouraged,
"alcohol only causes lasting damage after years of abuse"
try arguing that point with the medics in A&E departments
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no_funny_name heart of gold, nerves of steel, knob of butter, Thu 16 Oct 2008, 13:56,
Reply)