Joe Rogan - Does Marijuana Cause Psychosis, Violent Crime | JRE Pot Debate

But what what Dr. Hart is talking about is in the first chapter of the book Which I guess you haven't read and I really should have a copy for you stupid of me. I got a copy my bag But so this is fascinates me the the British, you know They colonized India and they set up what they call lunatic asylum It's really psychiatric hospital sort of very primitive psychiatric hospitals And they were really initially for soldiers in the Indian Army and they were run by British doctors And what these doctors really as early as like the late 1850s 1860s noticed was that a lot of the people who showed up in These hospitals were showing up with canop what they called ganja actually in India is called ganja or bong Which is a very weak preparation of basically Indian hemp just sort of low-grade cannabis and so and so they started counting and they realized that 20 to 30 percent of the people who were coming to Asylums were heavy cannabis users and that was way more than alcohol was more than opium and it's really fascinating doctor named George Francis William Ewins wrote a book in 1908 and he looked at the evidence and and it is amazing to hear how he Described schizophrenia how he describes cannabis how he describes the cases of violence around cannabis It's like it's like any psychiatrist today certainly any forensic psychiatrist like my wife would would Like everything in the book would ring completely true And it was so fascinating to me to stumble on this and realize this is something people been talking about for more than a hundred years hmm, so Could we agree that there are some people where cannabis is not a good idea? Absolutely. Yeah, right. We could agree that I think I think we all agree We're also agree that some people can't eat peanuts Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, right and Yeah, you know why peanuts kill you that's yeah, it's more dangerous So these like seven six hundred a year. Yeah, people die from peanuts So and I think more people die from canvas as a result of the homicide in the suicide, okay Well, there's no correlation. There's no stuff. I know somebody's got to do the work But why are you saying that then because I've looked at enough data to tell me you think marijuana is causing homicides Oh, yeah This is what the book is about but in house Oh What was it causes paranoia and psychosis in people and paranoia and psychosis are huge risks for homicide and schizophrenia? Is a huge number of studies that refute that there's multiple studies that refute that paranoia and psychosis are huge risks for homicide Schizophrenia is a 20x 20 times Joe. Well, Jamie, I sent you a document Yesterday, I mean there's there's multiple studies that that show that you know marijuana laws are not associated with with any Drug yes, so the use of the drug which could possibly trigger psychosis psychosis and schizophrenia Which are correlated with murder? So we're saying they're not correlated their triggers. That's an absolute fact. Yes triggers Because of the paranoia and delusions and you think that someone's out to get you and they're not absolutely I mean the the other the numbers that okay So the numbers are if you're if you have a diagnosis of schizophrenia You are 20 times as likely to commit homicide as somebody who's healthy now. It's actually worse than that for cannabis Okay, and here's why what so the National Alliance for mental illness and the mental illness Advocacy groups hate talking about this why they hate talking about it, obviously because it stigmatizes people with mental illness So what they say and this is true is if you have a diagnosis But you're taking your antipsychotics even though the side effects might be unpleasant. You're in treatment You're you're you're not using recreational drugs. Your risk for violence isn't that high It's not that much higher than a healthy person. Okay, and you know, fortunately healthy people don't commit murder that often The problem is if you if you think about the math for half a second If there's this one group of people who don't have a very high risk for murder or serious violence Who because they're not using because they're on antipsychotics It means that the excess risk in the people who are using and whose untrue psychosis is untreated It must be spectacularly high and the numbers bear that out So so there's a really good study from last year 2018 a small group of patients in in Switzerland Switzerland is a safe country is a low base crime rate But 50% of the people who were using cannabis and had psychosis over a three-year period Committed violence in that group of people that's mostly 20 something men Well, you know, there's there's a study here and I just sent it to you Jamie and it's it's titled risk factors for violence and psychosis a systemic review and meta analysis of 110 studies So, you know, that's it's quite a few studies. Okay, so You know, let me just just read part of it out to you So violence was strongly associated with the history of poly substance abuse strongly associate with diagnosis of co-related Substance use disorder and recent substance misuse and moderately associate with a history of alcohol misuse a history of substance misuse Recent alcohol misuse recent drug misuse and a history of drug misuse It was unclear if there was an association between violence and a history of cannabis misuse So again, this is a hundred and ten studies They very carefully looked at all of the different risk factors as to what could trigger violence Just let me finish Alex and what they said again It was unclear if there was an association between violence and a history of cannabis misuse, right? So that's a hundred and ten studies So cannabis use in there is gonna get locked in with poly substance use Like because a lot of people use are gonna be using other drugs Poly substance means multiple substances alcohol cannabis exactly So everything else was found to have Significant statistical without and I have not not just my study that dr. Herd is talking about I'd like to look at it Without looking at it. I can't push back as hard as I would like what I can tell you is that I have Many studies in the book that show that cannabis use is associated with violence in people with psychosis Okay, and more broadly It's associated with violence in the general population in large studies in studies of high school students and bullying in studies of people who were vacationing in Ibiza in in in studies of Young men in China and the UK. There are big studies out there that show cannabis use is associated with violence Ibiza Ibiza I got grilled over there for that. They get mad at you. Yeah, I suppose to Give you just said it. Yeah, so some dignitary or royal person had a lisp, right? Isn't that how it all started? True. Yeah. Yeah, I believe so noted. Yeah the way the people in Spain pronounce words was directly affected by this one person apparently but So this this this correlation Between people that have schizophrenia and using cannabis How do you is is schizophrenia a diagnosis? It's purely based on behavior basically? Yes. Yeah, it's a clinic There's no blood test right into a brain scan It's basically how you behave and and what you tell the doctor about how you write right in the world about MRIs or it's very subjective Because you're asking someone basically a series of questions. I mean, it's no different than you know Depression really I mean you just just asking someone a series of questions and then you know based upon that Which is very subjective then you're gonna make you know a clinical decision Whereas when it's like a blood test like if someone you know passes, you know A certain amount of hemoglobin a1c, you know depending on which chart you're looking at then you're gonna call that person pre diabetic or diabetic But you know, unfortunately just don't have those objective measurements. And again, that's why you know, Alex was saying earlier that That you know the they couldn't really figure out, you know How many people in the United States had had schizophrenia and I understand that but at the same time too I mean it's okay to to adjust You know the way that you diagnose someone over the course of the years and you learn things because you know You could easily say that almost everyone has some type of mental illness And I mean people should understand that, you know, there's seven different basic human emotions. You know, I've talked to sports There's there's anger there's contempt There's there's disgust there's fear sadness surprise and happiness at seven So, you know depending on which way surprise goes I mean six out of those seven are Negative right because we're wired to basically detect threats. So, you know We're making you know the all these diagnosis I think we have to be careful because you know Some people are calling themselves depressed and some people are calling themselves anxious when really, you know They're just not dealing with basic human emotions that they need to understand and need to deal with like people are getting Angry about being angry or like depressed about being depressed Like if you feel one of these emotions just kind of sit with it and just kind of reflect on it And I think you know that's a much much better way to kind of kind of tea to tease things out But you know to come back to to my original point. I think that you know more people are understanding that You know, we don't just need to give out a pill for everything and that you know Everyone shouldn't just be labeled as having a mental health diagnosis because if things just keep you know Going the way they are, you know, what's by 2040? It's gonna be like 50% of people are gonna have like a mental health disorder So I people just need to understand that life is hard. You got to deal with these emotions sometimes It's not that big of a deal and that's why for some folks and that's why I'm such a big fan of Jordan Peterson Because yeah, you know, he's he's he's kind of tough on people and he said let me stop Jordan Peterson was on SSR eyes for years. Yeah Yeah, for a long long time. I mean it like for a long long time as was his family And what's crazy about him is what got him off as a carnivore diet? I know Elimination diet where he only eats meat with salt and drinks water and the healthier than he's ever been in his life And that is another massively controversial subject. Yeah, so let me Push back a little bit because I think people you know as controversial as the book has been about about Cannabis and psychosis this violence issue is even more controversial and obviously for a fair number of people It doesn't really doesn't sink with the stereotype doesn't say and it doesn't say with how they've experienced cannabis use, right? So I think I think alcohol is a really interesting comparison Name the Canadian Why do you have to go national We were talking about my wife's actually from Newfoundland. Oh, I'm sorry Newfoundland Newfoundland Marijuana Newfoundland is how you say you can't say Newfoundland I've trained myself to say that way you're telling wrong. Look what Jamie just pulled up While marijuana use increases violent behavior 50-year study finds casual link between Cannabis and subsequent violent behavior new research published online in advance of print of the journal psych Psychological medicine concludes a continued use of cannabis causes violent behavior as a direct result of changes in brain function that are caused by smoking weed over many years Researchers have long debated a possible link between the use of marijuana and violent crime in contrast to alcohol Meth and many other illegal drugs the mellowing effects of cannabis seemed unsuited to promoting violent behavior However, ample ample previous research has linked marijuana use to increased violent behavior the sticky problem in such studies Are that many confounding factors co-founding factors? involved in interpreting this correlation So Okay, it is very difficult to determine whether or not any statistical correlation between marijuana use and violent behavior are casual causally linked or instead the two associated or Instead the two are associated through some other factors such as socioeconomic status personality traits or many other variables that are related to the propensity to use marijuana So I think that's a fairly good summary of the issues to add the study came from 411 boys who were born in 1953 in London 97 percent of which were Caucasian and all of them are raised in two-parent households So so, you know, so those people are relatively Stable if they're a two family two-parent houses to hand parents beat the shit. That's also no it's possible But so let me so so so I think the alcohol comparison is again a good one because anybody who's ever been in a bar At 9 p.m. And gone back at 2 a.m. Knows that alcohol disinhibits people, right? It causes fights, right? It it makes people loud. It makes a lot of fucking to it does Alcohol and sex are a terrible idea Right, I mean it certainly causes some sexual violence So, okay, but at the same time everybody knows that you can have a drink, you know You can have a beer at the back of your barbecue. You can have glass of wine dinner That's right. It doesn't mean that you're gonna get in a fight and actually might enhance your conversation Social lubricants all that good stuff all that good stuff and you might even know people I mean, I do know people who I would say have a problem with drinking Okay, but it's mostly they're sitting at home drinking scotch watching baseball until they fall asleep that night Now that's obviously not a healthy way to use alcohol, but it doesn't make them violent But we know on a population basis that alcohol causes violence. It causes drunk driving It causes problems and it said that in the study that that I quoted earlier, but it's it said that alcohol again They they didn't their story cannabis. They weren't sure right? So okay, but so this is again I would like to read the paper that you're quoting from because I have so much other research But here's here's what I'm saying about cannabis. Okay Cannabis for a lot of people. Yeah, they can just smoke it and as people you know As many people have tweeted at me. The only thing I attacked was a bowl of nachos, right? Mm-hmm, like and so and so that's true for some people but that could be sent with an alcohol as well That's exactly logical variability. There's so many studies that say that that the cannabis laws have actually decreased crime So so Even though for many people cannabis isn't going to cause violence That doesn't mean it can't cause violence in some people especially or at least could be a fact or at least could be a factor Especially with the kind of violence that I am talking about and then I write about in the book, which is again, so alcohol It maybe makes a argument into a brawl. It makes a brawl into something where somebody picks up a stick It makes that into something where somebody pulls out a knife. It escalates right cannabis is different Cannabis causes paranoia and psychosis and it certainly causes those things temporarily even if it doesn't cause them permanently So a distortion in reality that could lead to you doing something terrible and it's usually to somebody you're not actually fighting with It's a family member the the worst cases that i've and i've really seen a lot of these cases are basically innocent family members who are just in the way when somebody loses touch with a reality and Literally thinks like this my 85 year old grandmother is going to kill me. So I better stab her to death first That happens it happens a lot And if you look at the amount of violence that people with psychosis commit on a population level basis It looks like people with schizophrenia commit about six to ten percent of all the murders in this country And it looks like people with sort of broader more broadly defined psychosis again bipolar with psychosis other psychotic conditions temporary psychosis They might be responsible for as much as 20 percent of the violent crime in the united states That's a lot of violent crime And what i'm saying is that it is quite clear that drug use mediates that violent crime In other words if you're not using you can keep your impulses in check But when you do use you become dangerous So when we're talking about biological variability if we factor in schizophrenia Essentially what you're saying is that there are people that have schizophrenia that don't commit violence But that they're much more likely to commit violence if you add Some sort of psych medication whether it's marijuana whether it's something else it perturbs reality for them and particularly psychotic spring down the use but you said medication. Yes, so recreational drugs the worst the worst cases of all are cannabis and a stimulant because To the they both like cocaine or math exactly. Yeah, so when you get that you get paranoid from two sources And you get the only good thing about cannabis from this point of view is it kind of knocks people down a little bit But meth brings them right back up So is it fair to say that what we don't know is that? We don't know whether or not these people like this young man with this terrible story from connecticut. Yes We don't know whether or not he would have become A schizophrenic and and exhibited those symptoms without the marijuana. We really don't know what we do know He did with it. That's that's correct And and what I would also say is that for somebody like that and this is quite clear On a population level basis with people with schizophrenia is you've got to discourage them from using They really have to be discouraged because it brings out the worst right and and you know Somebody said this a friend of mine an old friend of mine from the new york times said So every time there's a hurricane people some people on the right say well You can't prove that global warming caused that one hurricane that would have happened Anyway, and he and they're right. You can't prove it and you can't prove that any one case of psychosis Was caused by marijuana, but when you look at the big studies at the population level data the association is really clear And everything points the same way and the synthetic cannabinoids k2 and spice those can clearly produce psychosis in people and people with psychosis Tend to slip back into it if they use at some point you got to start to say to yourself Why does everything go the same way? Yeah, I I also have a personal friend and I really didn't think about this guy But there's another personal friend that I know that is a martial arts instructor that had a psychotic break He became schizophrenic and he's a regular marijuana user and the people around him associated that with that and in fact people that are Regular cannabis users were trying to get him to stop using marijuana If you're close to being on the edge and you use a little bit of cannabis for sure This guy was not on the edge when I knew him Uh when I knew him he was very rational very rational, but something happened somewhere along the line Was he did he become a pretty heavy smoker over time? I do not know because we don't live in the same area anymore, but he got really heavily Really heavily medicated and did some really crazy shit and want to be hospitalized And this was not the case before. I mean whatever it was that triggered him I mean When I was around him when he was younger, I would have said he's a total normal guy And I would have never saw that coming. He was a heavy marijuana user heavy heavy. I don't I don't know how he's doing now I hope he's okay, but we're you know, we have mutual friends. Yeah, and uh, he Became a schizophrenic and and you know, you will see, you know cases like that But you know when you do look at a lot of the larger data on on cannabis and violence I mean it's just it's just not there like there's lots of data That suggests that you know medical marijuana laws For example can actually have a decrease in overall I mean that I think there's a study that says that gives no comfort to the people who lose their children because of these Psychotic breaks that's right. And those studies are really bad So the place that you can criticize why are they bad though? Because they're because state level data is not great the place the book has been criticized the randra There was a rand review though in 2013. I mean that that's again that's stated State level data marijuana use does not induce violent crime and the links between marijuana use and property crime are thin Stop right there. I think we all agree that marijuana use by itself with people that aren't schizophrenic probably doesn't induce violent crime But with people that are schizophrenic or people where it triggers schizophrenia, it could potentially induce violent crime My friend did not get violent. Although he did do a violent thing. It wasn't to a person Yeah, um, I think I think we have to be really careful because there's no Just like with diet just like with the food and you know, like uh allergies all these different Variabilities when it comes to human beings. I think we have to be really really careful about Lumping all people together when it comes to how they get affected by various compounds So so the state level thing if you want i'll i'll so the place the book has been criticized In my mind sort of the most fairly is it points out that in the four states that legalized first which is alaska? Washington oregon colorado Um, if you look at 2013 and then you compare that to 2017 murders and ag assaults violent crime Are up substantially in those states and substantially more than in the u.s Can I stop you there? But is there a possibility there's a correlation between organized crime? Because one of the things about selling marijuana is the people that have always been selling marijuana have been criminals When you make things legal in a state the people that were selling it illegal flocked to that state and that's been proven to be true That there's there's a direct correlation between people being robbed that there was also a significant problem with credit cards and banks Where everyone was having to do all their transactions with cash There was a lot of violence that was associated with marijuana in regards to that and also Massive increase in population. Yeah, so so and that's the reason why trump is actually not really against Cannabis in some ways is because he feels that if we have medical marijuana laws That especially the states that are that that are border states that the crime's gonna drop drops out tremendously and it has dropped They they did a study last year and it dropped over 15 percent in tall around It dropped seven percent in arizona. So and then again, you know benjamin. Uh hanson who's who's an economist Data So he he said that the murder rate did not demonstrate that marijuana legalization Increases bonds and then it may have actually demonstrated that legalization slightly decreased funds And he thinks that the reason that there was an increase in the murder rate particularly in washington Is because there is a large income gap. They say that washington has the 10th largest income gap Uh in the united states, but how did that change though that corresponds to the murder rate? Good question. Um, so I haven't you know, I didn't get to speak with benjamin About this sounds like confirmation bias Well, he I mean if that that is one thing that has been shown to you know Um increase mental illness like we talked about and can definitely increase violence is when you have um an income gap Right, but how but how's the income gap shifted that directly correlates to the legalization of marijuana? Because during the same because during the same period the income gap particularly in washington increased So he feels that you know the corresponding number right so he feels that that it's it's likely more to that I mean he I mean I understand but I mean you have to respect this guy I mean, I don't respect him because I know what he did with his data and tell me what he did with his data So so joe this this is maddening to me. Okay, okay, okay Violent crime in those four states increased more rapidly than in the u.s. period between 2013 and 2017 Jamie just posted this up here Conjecture aside no credible data exists. It supports a significant association between the increased violent crime and marijuana legalization Furthermore studies suggest that so far violent crime decreases in states with legalized medical marijuana Until new research credibly suggests otherwise the claim that a demonstratable link between the two exists will remain classified as false Okay, so that's just not true. Okay. I know it's snopes. Okay, and I know we trust snopes. I don't trust them that much Okay, there's a lot. I was gonna say that too, but they're they give all of their their source right here if you'd like to So again, so my what are these? Do you are you a lot of those? Where are these sources? Yeah? Yeah I've read this stuff. And what's wrong with them here. Let me just go back to what I'm saying. Yeah, please do it 2013 Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Alaska. There are 450 murders in those four states. There are 30,000 ag assault period. Okay 2017 Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Alaska. There are 620 murders in those four states. That's an almost 40 percent increase There are 38,000 ag assaults. That's a 25 percent increase if you adjust for population you still get big increases in Denver 2018 almost 70 murders there were about 35 in 2013 Seattle 27 2018 there were 34 35 murders. There were I think 19 in 2013 these increases are real. Okay, they now now now Can we say that marijuana legalization caused those increases? We cannot yet. There are other possibilities Andrew, what are those? Well one possible first of all population did increase it's also possible that these states quote-unquote imported violent crime In other words that you got a population of transients coming in in part because marijuana was legal and those people are likely to commit Violent crime and on top of that organized crime people that are selling absolutely. There may have been some people who are Exporting to Nebraska to Minnesota to other states. There's crime associated with that But what I am saying is that unequivocally? unequivocally the people who said Legalization is gonna decrease violent crime and people did say that and Cory Booker in 2017 said it he said that it actually had decreased violent crime in states that legalized and he didn't say it randomly He said it when he was introducing legislation to legalize marijuana on the federal level Those people are wrong and they need to stop saying it. I know and by the way that Oregon economist used He used the wrong data set for his charts. Okay, he used I used the real numbers. Okay, the FBI Homicide numbers he used numbers that include justifiable homicides. No police Because the FBI reported that the murder rate went up 1% from 2015 to 2016 as compared to the nationwide Percent and then it dropped by 11.6 percent between 2016 and 20 second with Numbers you do not know what you're talking about. Okay, those are FBI numbers. I'm reading not know what you're talking about The numbers are clear. Okay, I used I'm reading them right now 2016 release of FBI uniform crime reports from Oregon. Okay. Yes, Oregon You're not reading the reports from the United States. You're picking one state for Jamie show on something reported Medical cannabis over the entire country from that time period too So yes, I picked those four states where marijuana was legalized is sort of cherry picking No, it's not it's picking every state where they were legalized Country a raise but the whole country is similar. Is it a similar? That's what I'm trying to show us if I'm trying to show something wrong We'll pull back so we can see the whole still the whole so first of all, that's a that's violent crime orders and Crime be in there. Oh violent crime and that assaults aren't they no So so so the four categories of violent crime are murder, ag assault robbery and rape Rape has sort of gone sideways the last few years robberies actually have gone down. It's murders and ag assaults that are Interpersonal violent crime. Okay, just to go back to this Oregon economist because this maddens me He used a data set that is not the standard data set to report murder rate What is the difference he used the data set that includes justifiable homicides meaning? I'm in my house you come in I shoot you and kill you the police don't charge me with anything and police homicides Let's not let me finish the those two categories of crime are not likely to be impacted by cannabis use Cops are not smoking when they're on patrol I hope and if you are using you're very unlikely to have your murder viewed as justifiable homicide the fair Comparison is the base murder rate in the US and that's the number that I used and I am telling you I mean, I know these numbers I sleep, you know, I wake up with these numbers Cannabis the four cannabis legal states on a per capita basis crime murders rose 31% on a per capita basis in those four states over the 2013 2017 period Maybe I'm sorry. I said 31. Maybe it's 29% So maybe I say I woke up with anyway the for the US it's 18% 29% versus 18% That's the gap and I am NOT saying that I know that cannabis legalization caused that gap What I'm saying is people need to stop Claiming that cannabis legalization reduces violent crime it in it has increased in those can I ask you in those states? Was it universal the increase was it almost? Yes identical. Yes, Alaska was the most Then I think MERS went up more in color in Washington And and what's also interesting Joe if you're if you really want to break go into the numbers is the gap actually widened year by year So that's sort of what you would expect if this is the result of a psychomimetic effect In other words a psychosis causing effect because cannabis doesn't cause psychosis right away people break down But if it's causing heavy use and some of those people are sliding into you know Paranoid and psychosis you'd sort of expect the gap to increase over time and that's what's happened Okay, so, you know, I'm gonna go back again to the Netherlands Okay, because they've had you know cannabis legalized forever and they have one fifth of the homicide rate that the United States does Right, but they also have a lower cannabis use. That's true But still you know one one kick boxers One one fifth, I mean it's still it's pretty drastic overall and and again, you know Alex, you know You know, I appreciate some of the we're talking about the correlation between cannabis use one of the things that we have to accept in America is that When you're in a place like the Netherlands that has a long and accepted history of use people are accustomed to it So I think things kind of even out I think one of the things that we're dealing with with the United States is people that have Just they don't they don't have a long history of experience and it becomes legal and then they use it and maybe some of them like we're talking about don't have a tolerance for it have too much and Like I was talking about with my friend who's like this really common The one who had an edible and became suicidal and yes fucked up for weeks guys very confident very articulate very Intelligent he's not a not a weirdo not a not a transient extreme extremely successful You know, I think there are there are variables that we need to take into consideration There's certain human beings that exhibit a pattern of behavior that's directly correlated to cannabis use that I don't experience So if I could say from my own personal biases that that's bullshit. That's nothing. It doesn't do anything I've been smoking for years done new shit. Well, you probably don't have one of those three genes that we were talking about And you probably also to You know don't overuse or you have some type of you know Legitimacy as to why you are you are using it and you know one I want to keep going with this But you know at the end of the show I think that we should make some type of like Recommendations for people just because I hate when you know, you have this big, you know Three-hour podcast and then at the end of it, it's just like hey guys just be safe Some type of like Recommendations like I love the podcast with with with Cresser and Joel right but At the end of it was just sort of like hey guys Anything there can die I think most people realize that one person was going on data and the other person was yeah Yeah, Joe. I mean, I'm sure I find it so fascinating that now when you think back through your you know through your life You've thought of somebody who was affected. I have several people I'll bet I'll bet if you think about it, you'll think of more people Maybe but those are the big ones and like I said my friend who is a martial arts instructor was a pretty significant issue with A lot of our friends. We were trying to figure out what was wrong with him beforehand He was sending me these videos that didn't make any sense and I was like what in the fuck is this like? I'll explain you more off-air because I don't have to out this guy But you will the all lot a lot of people that were close to him were really seriously concerned now Is it something that would have happened anyway? I don't know How was he since 20s? How old exactly 20s 20, you know, that's right around the age so Little a little bit late ish like because like I said a lot of the studies even when you look at the ones on Adolescents like for sure. It's it's below like they have done studies like below 18 is worse Yes, and say below 25 below 15 is worse You say 18 like the younger you go the worse and he seems to be fine now. That's good. That's good Using I don't know after and now and it's you know, I'm not an expert on the subject but it's because of this Of something called pruning that we go through. So everyone Goes through this and basically if you're adolescents You're gonna drop off some some weak neural connections to kind of pick up some stronger ones You know, it's the best way to kind of explain it When you use cannabis you can potentially accelerate that process and then because you accelerate that process You don't get those good neural connections and then you know people unfortunately, you know develop things like like psychosis and In schizophrenia, so, you know, that's kind of where the issue lies So, you know one thing that I am, you know, very happy that we're talking about and I know Alex will be too Is that you know, we want to discuss the benefits in this podcast make sure that people understand that, you know I believe that marijuana is medicine. It's an excellent medicine But the other thing though too is we do want to Mitigate the risks because there are real risks out there So, you know, I do appreciate, you know us talking about adolescents and making sure that they do stay away from cannabis Yeah, and I mean especially that's like I read these, you know these cases is a case file sometimes You know the kids started using when he was 11 and you know, it's like that kid never had a chance Right and obviously oftentimes these are kids coming from Disadvantaged backgrounds anyway, but you know, they're using by 11 and at 16 They put a you know, put a gun to somebody's head and pull the trigger. I mean The pre-adolescent and early teen use we got to do everything we can to stop the problem is yeah Like if you if you smoke pot in junior high like say 7 8 9 like you're probably gonna smoke pot in high Yeah, like that's like, you know, I mean that's what I saw when I was growing up and you know Even when I was home for Christmas for a few days like yeah a couple my friends even talked about you know Some people that we knew, you know smoked a ton of pot in high school and like now like they're they're they're crazy They're not really doing too too much, you know, so but there's you do have to be careful with that I think we're dealing with a lot of ignorance. We're dealing with a lot of ignorance in a current when it comes to Biological variability, right? We don't really understand how a lot of these different things affect people including like just diet and what what what causes depression like how much how much of what we Constitute or what we just decide is depression is inflammation Poor gut health. There's a lot of variables. There's a lot of them marijuana is absolutely one of those variables and Again, I don't have an issue with it. I liked it I love the stuff but it does it doesn't fuck with me, but I'm but I'm also honest And so I see these people where it's pretty obvious to me that something's going on and that Marijuana is not a good idea for them. And I just think you know, like I said in the past I might myself have been guilty of using this this sort of Blanket description of it as being a positive influence and that it's a good thing for people I don't think it's a good thing for everybody No, it's definitely not a good thing for everybody and it's definitely not a good thing for the people who have That those genetics that I discussed earlier and you know also to like, you know If you you need to have some type of like self-awareness like the people who you know Don't do well with cannabis, you know You shouldn't have to have your friends tell you that you came in like you're not going to write All right, you should be able to figure out yourself like but that's hard for people Yeah, it's one of the most difficult things for people to do is a self of self-assess Yeah, you know to be objective, you know And it's a really I've obviously I've heard from a lot of people who used heavily and seen other people who've used heavily in last month and I think it's very interesting why people continue to use when they're getting paranoid and and You know the the most cogent argument and again, I'm I'm not it You know, I've smoked a handful of times in college in Africa I actually don't think I'd be comfortable using high THC cannabis now knowing what I know But anyway, so the people the most I got some right here I'm gonna get hotboxed I'll give you the shit to put Eli on the moon But the most the most cogent argument I thought was so interesting this guy said well, you know my friends I've talked to them They say I'm paranoid now, but I'm gonna smoke through it I'm gonna smoke so much that I'm almost comfortable being paranoid and I think that's a dangerous thing to do to your mind Because you're you're sort of counting on being able to step back from that and stop using you know That's a that's a silly way of looking at it