More than 200 million people use marijuana.
It’s the most widely used drug worldwide, after alcohol, caffeine, and YouTube. In
contrast to those three, marijuana is illegal in most of the world. But an increasing number
of countries have begun legalizing cannabis, first for medical use, and now also for
recreational use. Several US States, including Washington and Colorado, began
legalizing recreational use starting in 2012. Canada legalized in 2018. And Germany,
as the first country in the European Union, is about legalize it. Is this a good idea? And
if they move ahead, should I try it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.
First things first, cannabis is a plant genus. That’s
genus, not genius, and it means that there’s more than one of those. Hemp, for example,
is a type of cannabis plant that you can make T-shirts of. But today we’re not interested
in T-shirts, we’re interested in chemistry. Cannabis contains two chemical substances
of interest, that’s tetrahydrocannabinol, THC for short, and cannabidiol, CBD for short.
THC is the main psychoactive compound of cannabis. It affects perception, cognition,
and behaviour, and is responsible for the “high”. CBD is believed to have medical
uses – we’ll talk more about that later. Cannabis with a low concentration
of THC is legal in most countries, though the limits differ somewhat from one place
to the next. Hemp, for example, is low in THC, so your T-shirt is probably legal, and
there’s little use in trying to smoke it. Cannabis plants are dioecious, which means
male and female plants are different. The highest THC concentration is in the
dried flowers of the female plant, so breeders will usually weed out the male
ones, regardless of their chosen pronouns. Marijuana refers to the
dried flowers, leaves, stems, and seeds of the cannabis plant. The stuff can
be smoked, vaporized, or used to make edibles, usually that’s something sweet to mask the taste,
like cookies, gummies, or candy. Hashish, or hash, is a concentrated form of marijuana that’s made
from certain parts of the cannabis plant. Making hash is rather labour-intensive, which is why
it’s usually more expensive than marijuana. The word “marijuana” probably originated
from an old Mexican word which means “prisoner” or “slave,” likely because cannabis
plants were associated with Mexican workers who produced ropes and textiles from them. The
spelling “marihuana” with “h” was used in the United States in the early 20th century to
associate the drug with Mexican immigrants. It’s rarely used today and actually seeing the origin
of the word I’m somewhat surprised no one’s yet tried to cancel it. Other common terms used
for marijuana are dope, pot, grass, or weed. There are more than 700 strains of recreational
cannabis with fancy names such as Green Crack, Gorilla Glue, Death Star, or Laughing
Buddha. Breeding of cannabis plants has much increased the THC content and it’ll
almost certainly continue to increase some more. The THC content of marijuana
sold in the US has increased by more than a factor 3 in the past 30 years,
and in Europe by about a factor two, so the marijuana your kids buy today is much
more potent than the one you used to smoke. Marijuana use is incredibly common. According to
the 2022 World Drug Report by the United Nations, it’s used in virtually every country in
the world. Twenty years ago, men were twice as likely to use cannabis than women,
but by now the gender gap has almost closed. In the USA almost 50 million people used it
in 2019. It’s most widely used among young adults in the age group 18 to 25 where more
than one in three uses marijuana. In the US, Marijuana use is increasing in all age
groups except for the youngest. North America is also the region of the world with the
presently highest prevalence of cannabis users, about 17 percent of adults, followed by
Australia with about 12 percent. Australia legalized access to cannabis products
for medical purposes in 2016. Since then, the number of applications has increased
exponentially: While in 2016, only 15 applications were submitted; In 2018 it was
already more than two thousand and in 2021 more than a million. If we extrapolate this trend,
by 2030, Australia will turn into a big bong. Usage in Europe is much lower, but it’s also
increasing. A 2021 paper published in The Lancet Regional Health. found that between 2010 and
2019, past-month cannabis use increased among European adults from 3.1 to 3.9%. The highest
number of cannabis users in Europe are in Spain, followed by France, and the percentage
of users has been increasing in the past decades in all European countries, except Poland.
Cannabis use is by no means news. Cannabis was one of the first plants that humans have cultivated.
It was mentioned already more than four thousand years ago, engraved in stone in some of the
pyramids. Molecular analysis has found residues in ancient pottery and suggests that the Greeks
and Romans put it into wine. Almost all the old languages have a word for cannabis. Historians
say the Egyptians administered it by mouth, rectum, and vagina, which will hopefully give
Gwyneth Paltrow some better ideas than jade eggs. Depending on whether you smoke, inhale, or
chew gummies, THC and CBD enter the blood stream either through the lungs or the digestive
system. It takes much longer for the compounds to be released from edibles, which is why that
ways it’s easier to accidentally overdose. THC is able to cross the blood-brain barrier
and occupies cannabinoid receptors in the brain. This affects the release of some
neurotransmitters which the brain uses for regulation and leads to changes in
perception, mood, and cognitive function. This was the simple story. The more complicated
story is that there isn’t just one type of THC, and it doesn’t just occupy one receptor.
The molecule THC comes in slightly different arrangements of atoms which are called “isomers”.
The most relevant ones you need to know of are Delta-8 and Delta-9 THC. Since they bind
to receptors with different strengths, they have somewhat different effects.
Most of the THC in cannabis is of the type Delta-9 THC and it’s responsible for the drug’s
characteristic psychoactive effects. Since it affects many different parts of the brain and
people’s brains are all somewhat different, experiences differ, but the effects
include euphoria, increased appetite, an altered sense of time and reality, changes in
pain perception, and relaxation. Some people find it to decrease anxiety, but some report increased
anxiety and paranoia, especially at high doses. THC also affects the functioning of the
hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex, which are the brain areas that we use to form
new memories and shift attentional focus. This is why marijuana use impairs thinking in
general and memory formation in particular, but don’t worry, you can rewatch
this video as often as you want. THC also disrupts the function of brain areas
that regulate balance, posture, coordination, and reaction time. That’s why people who have
used marijuana may not be able to drive safely and may have problems playing sports or
engaging in other physical activities. Cannabis also contains small amounts of Delta-8
THC, which you may have seen advertised in some products. It’s difficult to directly extract from
the plant, but the more common Delta-9 THC can be chemically converted to Delta-8 THC.
Delta-8 THC is still psychoactive, but it has a milder effect. Users report
it to be less intense, more relaxing, and less likely to be anxiety-inducing than Delta-9
THC. If Joe Rogan is Delta-9, then I’m Delta-8. That’s THC. CBD now does not bind the same way
to cannabinoid receptors in the brain. Exactly how it works is still subject of research, which
is the academic way of saying “God only knows”, but scientists believe it interacts with other
receptors, including serotonin receptors. The marijuana that you might buy in the street
normally contains all of those chemical which is why most of the available data on
long-time use is on cannabis in general and not on one of its specific compounds. So
what do we know about the long-term risks? First of all, smoking is
generally not good for the lungs, pretty much regardless of what you smoke.
Second, cannabis can become addictive. This means that some users begin to develop a tolerance
to the drug and must use it in higher doses to get the desired effect. They might find that the
regular use of cannabis negatively affects their daily life, and they might experience withdrawal
symptoms if they stop using it. Just what the withdrawal symptoms are differs from one person to
the next, but it typically includes irritability, insomnia, and loss of appetite.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the US, about 9 percent
of people who use cannabis will eventually become addicted to it. The risk of addiction
increases to about 17 percent for those who start using cannabis in their teens, and
25-50 percent for those who use it daily. For reference, according to the world health
organization, in the United States about 14 percent of people age 15 and up had an
alcohol use problem in 2016. About 10 percent are lifelong abstainers, which means
the fraction of people who try alcohol and get a problem with it is about 15 percent.
In the UK about 8 point 7 percent have an alcohol problem which is about 10
percent of those who drink. And in Russia, about 29 percent of those who
drink have an alcohol problem. This might make it seem like the risk of
developing an alcohol problem is somewhat higher than the risk for cannabis, but these
numbers are difficult to interpret because they conflate the effect of the drug
with its use being socially accepted. And then there are the long-term consequences.
When Canada was preparing for legalizing cannabis for recreational use, its government commissioned
a study of the drug’s potential harmful effects. In the 2018 paper that followed the study
they presented an analysis of 68 reviews on cannabis. Of these, 62 showed associations
between the drug and various adverse outcomes, including impaired driving, increased risk of
stroke and testicular cancer, brain changes that can affect learning and memory, and a particularly
consistent link between cannabis use and mental illnesses involving psychosis, especially
in people already at risk of mental illness. A paper published a few months ago in The
Lancet used the data of a cohort of about 1000 people in New Zealand. The study found that,
after correcting for other sociological and medical factors, long-term cannabis users showed
statistically significant accelerated biological ageing. There were less able to manage health,
financial, and social demands than non-users. And multiple studies have found
that the risk for detrimental effects on mental health and addiction
is substantially higher for adolescents. Another good number to gauge the risk of cannabis
is to look at the number of people who are hospitalized because of cannabis consumption.
In Germany the percentage of cannabis users has fluctuated around roughly 6 percent in the past
decade, that’s about 5 million people. The number of hospitalizations meanwhile has increased
to roughly 19,000 per year. Almost half of the hospitalizations are for dependence syndrome,
followed by psychosis and acute intoxication If you just divide the number of hospitalizations
by the number of users you get about zero point 3 percent. But this isn’t the fraction of users who
end up in the hospital because it might be that the same people end up in the hospital repeatedly,
so be careful with interpreting this number. In the US, the number of
users has slightly increased, but the number of cannabis-related
visits to the emergency department has increased much faster. If you just
divide those numbers by each other, you get a ratio about ten times as high as
that in Germany. But those numbers should not be compared because not everyone who goes to the
emergency department also ends up in the hospital, and “cannabis associated” might mean something
different in the US than in Germany. In any case, in both countries the number of hospitalizations
has been steeply rising. Why this happens is currently unclear, might have to do with legal
changes or with the increasing THC content. The most common uses of cannabis
and cannabis-derived substances is to treat insomnia and pain. The
evidence that it works for either is, to make a long story short,
moderate to insubstantial. A review paper from 2021 found that, in the
short-term, THC improves sleep but when used regularly it impairs it. A review from February
last year found that cannabis products led to a moderate improvement in sleep quality for
people with chronic non-cancer pain. However, they also found a statistically more significant
increase in side effects that included dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and a dry mouth.
In 2019 a group of Canadian researchers published a systematic review in the Journal Systematic
Reviews which reviewed 72 other systematic reviews. It sounds to me like the time’s come
for a Ponzi scheme of systematic reviews. They found that about half of the reviews had
very low quality. When they limit the analysis to papers that the authors consider to be of
moderate or high quality, then the effect of cannabis on pain relief was small but better
than a placebo. The authors also found that more than half of the reviews reported minor
adverse effects, the most common being psychosis, but also drowsiness and dizziness.
However, the effects of cannabis are very individual, since the stuff affects so many
different parts of the brain in ways that aren’t entirely understood. This means that the variation
in results is large and it’s quite possible that if the stuff works for you then that’s not your
imagination, you’re just a statistical outlier. Okay so we have seen that
cannabis isn’t exactly harmless, then let’s look at the talking
points for and against legalization. First of all, that cannabis use is illegal
doesn’t always mean much because in some countries, including Germany and several
US states, possessing and using it isn’t persecuted. In these cases, most of
the changes that legalization brings concern the production and sale. But of
course, this has further consequences. The first and obvious argument against legalizing
recreational marijuana is that it’s unhealthy. The obvious counter argument is that lots
of things that unhealthy are also legal, like watching 20 of my videos in a row,
after which you’ll walk around for a day cracking dumb jokes with a German lisp.
Definitely not healthy. But totally legal. A variant of this argument has it that
decriminalizing cannabis will lead more people to use it, and thereby increase the damage to
public health. And indeed, following legalization in Canada, they saw a mild increase in cannabis
use, overall from about 22 to 26 percent. Interestingly enough most of that increase
comes from women. There was little increase among adolescents, it mostly came from adults.
In the USA, it was similar. What this means is another question though because as we saw earlier,
cannabis use is increasing pretty much everywhere, whether or not it’s been legalized. There
is also some evidence to suggest that legalization decreases opioid use
and alcohol abuse among teenagers. The next argument is that cannabis is a
gateway drug to worse addiction. Indeed, multiple studies have found that cannabis
use, especially when begun at young age, is positively correlated with later abuse
of other drugs. But correlation doesn’t mean causation. The issue is that some people might
be predisposed to substance abuse for multiple reasons including social factors and mental
problems, and they’d have ended up with harder drugs with or without first taking cannabis. A
clear causal link has so far not been established. Another worry is that cannabis use increases
crime, though there is little evidence to support this claim. A 2019 paper by a group of
American researchers found that legalization in Washington and Colorado had no
noticeable effect on the crime rate. Then there is the worry that more cannabis use
increases the risk of traffic accidents caused by people driving under the influence. Data from the
United States and Canada does not support this. But somewhat worryingly Canada reports a large
percentage of cannabis users who do drive after consumption, almost a third, but this fraction
has consistently declined in all groups since legislation which suggests that it takes some
time for people to adjust to the new laws. What lesson other countries should draw from
this isn’t all that clear. The consequences of legalization on use, traffic, and crime depend
very much on just exactly what the law says, and how it’s enforced, and also on what
the social norms are. So just because it turned out one way in one place doesn’t
mean the same would happen elsewhere. Finally, there is the argument from
economics that if it’s legal you can tax it, and then you can use the money to
fill potholes, no pun intended. The German government wants to legalize the use
and sale of cannabis. But the European Union has a law that makes the production illegal. Which is
why the growth of marijuana plants, at least for now, will be limited to three plants per adult.
That’s three female plants. You can grow male ones as much as you like, no one cares about them.
Should I try it? Having read all these papers, I think I’ll hold off until I’m retired because
for the time being I still need my brain. But since the Germans will soon be able to sell and
buy cannabis, yet be prevented from producing it, maybe it’s a good time to find some cannabis
producers overseas and buy their stocks. Every once in a while an adult wants to
order some things online without being followed around by trackers who sniff out your
IP address and then target you for the next few weeks. If you value your privacy, our sponsor
NordVPN has just the right solution for you. NordVPN is an app that you install on your
phone or laptop. You use it to create a safe connection to one of their servers,
then you browse the web from there. This keeps your data private, even on
a public wireless. NordVPN also comes with a threat protection that keeps you safe
from malware, trackers, and malicious ads. If you’re still not sure what you need an app like
this for, let me mention that they have more than 5000 servers all over the world, and
you can choose one. This allows you to access websites in other countries
by using a server located there. So, if a website or video is blocked where you
are, that’s an easy way to solve the problem. You can make use of our special offer if you
use the link nordvpn dot com slash sabine or the coupon code Sabine. NordVPN is super easy
to use, runs on pretty much all platforms, and installs in a minute. You can combine
it with a password keeper called NordPass and a secure platform to store and share files
called NordLocker. If you get them all together, you’ll get a better price, and they
all have a 30-day money back guarantee. Once again, that’s nordvpn dot
com slash sabine or the coupon code Sabine for our special offer. Link’s
in the info below, so go check this out. Thanks for watching, see you next week.
It’s the most widely used drug worldwide, after alcohol, caffeine, and YouTube. In
contrast to those three, marijuana is illegal in most of the world. But an increasing number
of countries have begun legalizing cannabis, first for medical use, and now also for
recreational use. Several US States, including Washington and Colorado, began
legalizing recreational use starting in 2012. Canada legalized in 2018. And Germany,
as the first country in the European Union, is about legalize it. Is this a good idea? And
if they move ahead, should I try it? That’s what we’ll talk about today.
First things first, cannabis is a plant genus. That’s
genus, not genius, and it means that there’s more than one of those. Hemp, for example,
is a type of cannabis plant that you can make T-shirts of. But today we’re not interested
in T-shirts, we’re interested in chemistry. Cannabis contains two chemical substances
of interest, that’s tetrahydrocannabinol, THC for short, and cannabidiol, CBD for short.
THC is the main psychoactive compound of cannabis. It affects perception, cognition,
and behaviour, and is responsible for the “high”. CBD is believed to have medical
uses – we’ll talk more about that later. Cannabis with a low concentration
of THC is legal in most countries, though the limits differ somewhat from one place
to the next. Hemp, for example, is low in THC, so your T-shirt is probably legal, and
there’s little use in trying to smoke it. Cannabis plants are dioecious, which means
male and female plants are different. The highest THC concentration is in the
dried flowers of the female plant, so breeders will usually weed out the male
ones, regardless of their chosen pronouns. Marijuana refers to the
dried flowers, leaves, stems, and seeds of the cannabis plant. The stuff can
be smoked, vaporized, or used to make edibles, usually that’s something sweet to mask the taste,
like cookies, gummies, or candy. Hashish, or hash, is a concentrated form of marijuana that’s made
from certain parts of the cannabis plant. Making hash is rather labour-intensive, which is why
it’s usually more expensive than marijuana. The word “marijuana” probably originated
from an old Mexican word which means “prisoner” or “slave,” likely because cannabis
plants were associated with Mexican workers who produced ropes and textiles from them. The
spelling “marihuana” with “h” was used in the United States in the early 20th century to
associate the drug with Mexican immigrants. It’s rarely used today and actually seeing the origin
of the word I’m somewhat surprised no one’s yet tried to cancel it. Other common terms used
for marijuana are dope, pot, grass, or weed. There are more than 700 strains of recreational
cannabis with fancy names such as Green Crack, Gorilla Glue, Death Star, or Laughing
Buddha. Breeding of cannabis plants has much increased the THC content and it’ll
almost certainly continue to increase some more. The THC content of marijuana
sold in the US has increased by more than a factor 3 in the past 30 years,
and in Europe by about a factor two, so the marijuana your kids buy today is much
more potent than the one you used to smoke. Marijuana use is incredibly common. According to
the 2022 World Drug Report by the United Nations, it’s used in virtually every country in
the world. Twenty years ago, men were twice as likely to use cannabis than women,
but by now the gender gap has almost closed. In the USA almost 50 million people used it
in 2019. It’s most widely used among young adults in the age group 18 to 25 where more
than one in three uses marijuana. In the US, Marijuana use is increasing in all age
groups except for the youngest. North America is also the region of the world with the
presently highest prevalence of cannabis users, about 17 percent of adults, followed by
Australia with about 12 percent. Australia legalized access to cannabis products
for medical purposes in 2016. Since then, the number of applications has increased
exponentially: While in 2016, only 15 applications were submitted; In 2018 it was
already more than two thousand and in 2021 more than a million. If we extrapolate this trend,
by 2030, Australia will turn into a big bong. Usage in Europe is much lower, but it’s also
increasing. A 2021 paper published in The Lancet Regional Health. found that between 2010 and
2019, past-month cannabis use increased among European adults from 3.1 to 3.9%. The highest
number of cannabis users in Europe are in Spain, followed by France, and the percentage
of users has been increasing in the past decades in all European countries, except Poland.
Cannabis use is by no means news. Cannabis was one of the first plants that humans have cultivated.
It was mentioned already more than four thousand years ago, engraved in stone in some of the
pyramids. Molecular analysis has found residues in ancient pottery and suggests that the Greeks
and Romans put it into wine. Almost all the old languages have a word for cannabis. Historians
say the Egyptians administered it by mouth, rectum, and vagina, which will hopefully give
Gwyneth Paltrow some better ideas than jade eggs. Depending on whether you smoke, inhale, or
chew gummies, THC and CBD enter the blood stream either through the lungs or the digestive
system. It takes much longer for the compounds to be released from edibles, which is why that
ways it’s easier to accidentally overdose. THC is able to cross the blood-brain barrier
and occupies cannabinoid receptors in the brain. This affects the release of some
neurotransmitters which the brain uses for regulation and leads to changes in
perception, mood, and cognitive function. This was the simple story. The more complicated
story is that there isn’t just one type of THC, and it doesn’t just occupy one receptor.
The molecule THC comes in slightly different arrangements of atoms which are called “isomers”.
The most relevant ones you need to know of are Delta-8 and Delta-9 THC. Since they bind
to receptors with different strengths, they have somewhat different effects.
Most of the THC in cannabis is of the type Delta-9 THC and it’s responsible for the drug’s
characteristic psychoactive effects. Since it affects many different parts of the brain and
people’s brains are all somewhat different, experiences differ, but the effects
include euphoria, increased appetite, an altered sense of time and reality, changes in
pain perception, and relaxation. Some people find it to decrease anxiety, but some report increased
anxiety and paranoia, especially at high doses. THC also affects the functioning of the
hippocampus and orbitofrontal cortex, which are the brain areas that we use to form
new memories and shift attentional focus. This is why marijuana use impairs thinking in
general and memory formation in particular, but don’t worry, you can rewatch
this video as often as you want. THC also disrupts the function of brain areas
that regulate balance, posture, coordination, and reaction time. That’s why people who have
used marijuana may not be able to drive safely and may have problems playing sports or
engaging in other physical activities. Cannabis also contains small amounts of Delta-8
THC, which you may have seen advertised in some products. It’s difficult to directly extract from
the plant, but the more common Delta-9 THC can be chemically converted to Delta-8 THC.
Delta-8 THC is still psychoactive, but it has a milder effect. Users report
it to be less intense, more relaxing, and less likely to be anxiety-inducing than Delta-9
THC. If Joe Rogan is Delta-9, then I’m Delta-8. That’s THC. CBD now does not bind the same way
to cannabinoid receptors in the brain. Exactly how it works is still subject of research, which
is the academic way of saying “God only knows”, but scientists believe it interacts with other
receptors, including serotonin receptors. The marijuana that you might buy in the street
normally contains all of those chemical which is why most of the available data on
long-time use is on cannabis in general and not on one of its specific compounds. So
what do we know about the long-term risks? First of all, smoking is
generally not good for the lungs, pretty much regardless of what you smoke.
Second, cannabis can become addictive. This means that some users begin to develop a tolerance
to the drug and must use it in higher doses to get the desired effect. They might find that the
regular use of cannabis negatively affects their daily life, and they might experience withdrawal
symptoms if they stop using it. Just what the withdrawal symptoms are differs from one person to
the next, but it typically includes irritability, insomnia, and loss of appetite.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the US, about 9 percent
of people who use cannabis will eventually become addicted to it. The risk of addiction
increases to about 17 percent for those who start using cannabis in their teens, and
25-50 percent for those who use it daily. For reference, according to the world health
organization, in the United States about 14 percent of people age 15 and up had an
alcohol use problem in 2016. About 10 percent are lifelong abstainers, which means
the fraction of people who try alcohol and get a problem with it is about 15 percent.
In the UK about 8 point 7 percent have an alcohol problem which is about 10
percent of those who drink. And in Russia, about 29 percent of those who
drink have an alcohol problem. This might make it seem like the risk of
developing an alcohol problem is somewhat higher than the risk for cannabis, but these
numbers are difficult to interpret because they conflate the effect of the drug
with its use being socially accepted. And then there are the long-term consequences.
When Canada was preparing for legalizing cannabis for recreational use, its government commissioned
a study of the drug’s potential harmful effects. In the 2018 paper that followed the study
they presented an analysis of 68 reviews on cannabis. Of these, 62 showed associations
between the drug and various adverse outcomes, including impaired driving, increased risk of
stroke and testicular cancer, brain changes that can affect learning and memory, and a particularly
consistent link between cannabis use and mental illnesses involving psychosis, especially
in people already at risk of mental illness. A paper published a few months ago in The
Lancet used the data of a cohort of about 1000 people in New Zealand. The study found that,
after correcting for other sociological and medical factors, long-term cannabis users showed
statistically significant accelerated biological ageing. There were less able to manage health,
financial, and social demands than non-users. And multiple studies have found
that the risk for detrimental effects on mental health and addiction
is substantially higher for adolescents. Another good number to gauge the risk of cannabis
is to look at the number of people who are hospitalized because of cannabis consumption.
In Germany the percentage of cannabis users has fluctuated around roughly 6 percent in the past
decade, that’s about 5 million people. The number of hospitalizations meanwhile has increased
to roughly 19,000 per year. Almost half of the hospitalizations are for dependence syndrome,
followed by psychosis and acute intoxication If you just divide the number of hospitalizations
by the number of users you get about zero point 3 percent. But this isn’t the fraction of users who
end up in the hospital because it might be that the same people end up in the hospital repeatedly,
so be careful with interpreting this number. In the US, the number of
users has slightly increased, but the number of cannabis-related
visits to the emergency department has increased much faster. If you just
divide those numbers by each other, you get a ratio about ten times as high as
that in Germany. But those numbers should not be compared because not everyone who goes to the
emergency department also ends up in the hospital, and “cannabis associated” might mean something
different in the US than in Germany. In any case, in both countries the number of hospitalizations
has been steeply rising. Why this happens is currently unclear, might have to do with legal
changes or with the increasing THC content. The most common uses of cannabis
and cannabis-derived substances is to treat insomnia and pain. The
evidence that it works for either is, to make a long story short,
moderate to insubstantial. A review paper from 2021 found that, in the
short-term, THC improves sleep but when used regularly it impairs it. A review from February
last year found that cannabis products led to a moderate improvement in sleep quality for
people with chronic non-cancer pain. However, they also found a statistically more significant
increase in side effects that included dizziness, fatigue, nausea, and a dry mouth.
In 2019 a group of Canadian researchers published a systematic review in the Journal Systematic
Reviews which reviewed 72 other systematic reviews. It sounds to me like the time’s come
for a Ponzi scheme of systematic reviews. They found that about half of the reviews had
very low quality. When they limit the analysis to papers that the authors consider to be of
moderate or high quality, then the effect of cannabis on pain relief was small but better
than a placebo. The authors also found that more than half of the reviews reported minor
adverse effects, the most common being psychosis, but also drowsiness and dizziness.
However, the effects of cannabis are very individual, since the stuff affects so many
different parts of the brain in ways that aren’t entirely understood. This means that the variation
in results is large and it’s quite possible that if the stuff works for you then that’s not your
imagination, you’re just a statistical outlier. Okay so we have seen that
cannabis isn’t exactly harmless, then let’s look at the talking
points for and against legalization. First of all, that cannabis use is illegal
doesn’t always mean much because in some countries, including Germany and several
US states, possessing and using it isn’t persecuted. In these cases, most of
the changes that legalization brings concern the production and sale. But of
course, this has further consequences. The first and obvious argument against legalizing
recreational marijuana is that it’s unhealthy. The obvious counter argument is that lots
of things that unhealthy are also legal, like watching 20 of my videos in a row,
after which you’ll walk around for a day cracking dumb jokes with a German lisp.
Definitely not healthy. But totally legal. A variant of this argument has it that
decriminalizing cannabis will lead more people to use it, and thereby increase the damage to
public health. And indeed, following legalization in Canada, they saw a mild increase in cannabis
use, overall from about 22 to 26 percent. Interestingly enough most of that increase
comes from women. There was little increase among adolescents, it mostly came from adults.
In the USA, it was similar. What this means is another question though because as we saw earlier,
cannabis use is increasing pretty much everywhere, whether or not it’s been legalized. There
is also some evidence to suggest that legalization decreases opioid use
and alcohol abuse among teenagers. The next argument is that cannabis is a
gateway drug to worse addiction. Indeed, multiple studies have found that cannabis
use, especially when begun at young age, is positively correlated with later abuse
of other drugs. But correlation doesn’t mean causation. The issue is that some people might
be predisposed to substance abuse for multiple reasons including social factors and mental
problems, and they’d have ended up with harder drugs with or without first taking cannabis. A
clear causal link has so far not been established. Another worry is that cannabis use increases
crime, though there is little evidence to support this claim. A 2019 paper by a group of
American researchers found that legalization in Washington and Colorado had no
noticeable effect on the crime rate. Then there is the worry that more cannabis use
increases the risk of traffic accidents caused by people driving under the influence. Data from the
United States and Canada does not support this. But somewhat worryingly Canada reports a large
percentage of cannabis users who do drive after consumption, almost a third, but this fraction
has consistently declined in all groups since legislation which suggests that it takes some
time for people to adjust to the new laws. What lesson other countries should draw from
this isn’t all that clear. The consequences of legalization on use, traffic, and crime depend
very much on just exactly what the law says, and how it’s enforced, and also on what
the social norms are. So just because it turned out one way in one place doesn’t
mean the same would happen elsewhere. Finally, there is the argument from
economics that if it’s legal you can tax it, and then you can use the money to
fill potholes, no pun intended. The German government wants to legalize the use
and sale of cannabis. But the European Union has a law that makes the production illegal. Which is
why the growth of marijuana plants, at least for now, will be limited to three plants per adult.
That’s three female plants. You can grow male ones as much as you like, no one cares about them.
Should I try it? Having read all these papers, I think I’ll hold off until I’m retired because
for the time being I still need my brain. But since the Germans will soon be able to sell and
buy cannabis, yet be prevented from producing it, maybe it’s a good time to find some cannabis
producers overseas and buy their stocks. Every once in a while an adult wants to
order some things online without being followed around by trackers who sniff out your
IP address and then target you for the next few weeks. If you value your privacy, our sponsor
NordVPN has just the right solution for you. NordVPN is an app that you install on your
phone or laptop. You use it to create a safe connection to one of their servers,
then you browse the web from there. This keeps your data private, even on
a public wireless. NordVPN also comes with a threat protection that keeps you safe
from malware, trackers, and malicious ads. If you’re still not sure what you need an app like
this for, let me mention that they have more than 5000 servers all over the world, and
you can choose one. This allows you to access websites in other countries
by using a server located there. So, if a website or video is blocked where you
are, that’s an easy way to solve the problem. You can make use of our special offer if you
use the link nordvpn dot com slash sabine or the coupon code Sabine. NordVPN is super easy
to use, runs on pretty much all platforms, and installs in a minute. You can combine
it with a password keeper called NordPass and a secure platform to store and share files
called NordLocker. If you get them all together, you’ll get a better price, and they
all have a 30-day money back guarantee. Once again, that’s nordvpn dot
com slash sabine or the coupon code Sabine for our special offer. Link’s
in the info below, so go check this out. Thanks for watching, see you next week.
Video Tags: marijuana,cannabis,is marijuana bad for you,marijuana health,marijuana health problems,is marijuana bad for your brain,is marijuana save,marijuana side effects,is marijuana unhealthy,is cannabis unhealthy,marijuana legalization,should marijuana be legalized,marijuana pros and cons,cannabis legalisierung,cannabis legalisieren,hossenfelder,science without the gobbledygook,THC,cannabidiol,CBD,cannabis legalization
Video Duration: 00:21:14
