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The hidden mental health danger in today’s high-THC cannabis
(www.sciencedaily.com)
General discussions about "science" itself
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Some of us are more prone to mental health issues. Cannabis is a strong trigger. It is possible to go through life without triggers. THC is not something you need in your life unless prescribed for specific conditions.
I’m all for full legalisation but legal age for most substances should be simply higher because it’s way too risky and damaging before your brain fully develops, as evidenced by the this paper.
There is no age where the brain stops developing. The idea that the brain stops developing at age 25 is a myth. This myth comes brain studies that studied brain development...up to an age of 25. Pediatric studies of brain development don't extend into far adulthood.
https://www.sciencefocus.com/comment/brain-myth-25-development
This is a misrepresentation. Development or maturation of the brain finishes around 25 years old. In this context, "development" refers to the completion of the adult form of the organ. The ongoing "development" that this blog post refers to is more accurately described as neuroplasticity. There is an ongoing potential for the brain to create new connections and reinforce existing ones throughout life, but the actual mature form of the frontal cortex is not complete until your mid-twenties.
Another way to explain this would be to use breasts as an example. As a biologically female girl goes through puberty, her breasts grow as her body develops mammary tissue and the surrounding/supporting structures. This is called secondary sexual development. If you used the word "development" the same way that blog post does, then the changes to the breast throughout adulthood (such as milk production, skin sagging, loss of adipose) would also be called "development", but that doesn't make sense when we're talking about development of sexual characteristics. Those are ongoing changes to the breast, but it is not the same thing as the initial development stage that is equivalent to the initial development and maturation of the brain that finishes in a person's mid-twenties.
Please stop using blog posts pretending to be scientific research.
Please stop posting comments offering nothing of value.
I’d rather add meta-comment in an effort to preserve quality of discussion. I’m seeing this everywhere - making a point by linking to a blog pretending to be a scientific paper. It has about as much value as a comment by anyone here. If I understand correctly it’s an attempt to add some kind of authority to your opinion but it’s just harmful to the way establishing truth works.
We're talking on a casual forum. This isn't an academic discussion. Blog posts are a lot more approachable than most journal articles. And blogs often contain references.
Not everything is a formal academic debate. Most things aren't. Note, you didn't reply to the parent commenter demanding that they provide journal articles for their point. You just saw something you didn't like about my comment and decided to demand a journal article as a citation. Usually when people who aren't participating come into a discussion to demand peer-reviewed sources, it's done in bad faith. They demand high quality sources from one side while not extending the same requirement to the other.
Here's another blog posts that address the original topic. You can look up the primary sources if you are so inclined.
https://www.newhopecg.net/post/so-your-brain-actually-isn-t-fully-formed-at-25
Or if you want to improve the quality of discussion, perhaps add your own sources instead of demanding others provide them.
And note, even you don't provide academic sources for your claims. You claim you're seeing blog posts linked everywhere, but where is your journal article defending this claim? Where is your paper performing a statistical analysis to prove that people are citing blog posts more frequently than in the past?
And I would argue that linking to a blog post is far from pointless. Blogs are less rigorous but far more approachable and digestible than journal articles. The real purpose of linking to them is so that a commenter doesn't need to spend the time greatly elaborating a point that could be made simply by linking to a larger outside discussion. That has value. And a blog post certainly has more value than a random short Lemmy comment. At least if someone is taking the time to write a blog post dedicated to a single topic, it shows that they've put the time in to consider the subject.
Truth isn’t different between serious and casual discussion and this is a serious topic.
If you want to cite a scientific paper then do it yourself and don’t ask others to fish them out of blogs you link to because too many times I’ve seen none included and nobody got time for that on a casual forum.
As to actual sources, I assumed I wouldn’t have to make as much of a strong point when talking about something that’s pretty much a scientific consensus. Where I live doctors won’t prescribe you medicinal weed if you’re under 25 usually too.
Going by casual wisdom, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence so I would expect the burden to be on the ones claiming that what I’m saying is bs but I guess it’s on me to bring back some reason here.
So to be clear: because some unknown small sliver of the population may have an issue with it, you want to bubble wrap all of society?
That sounds pretty conservative to me. Too much, even
Where are you getting your numbers on % of population at risk of psychosis and schizophrenia to call them unknown small sliver? Cannabis being harmful to people under 25 is well studied. Most neurodivergent folk are at risk and both things compound enough so that having this kind of legal age just make sense.
I consume plenty of weed myself but I’m for responsible and controlled use. I’m glad to piss off liberals and conservatives alike since I’m a leftie.